passengers, as once when we were crossing the Sea of Marmora we found
the whole of the upper deck cut off from us by an awning and canvas
walls, and occupied by chattering women. We remonstrated, and were
told that it was unavoidable; the women were great ladies, the family
of the Governor of Brousa, with their attendants; they were going to
Constantinople, there to celebrate the marriage of one of his daughters
with the son of a wealthy pasha. Hence all the laughter and the subdued
clatter of tongues, and the air of festive expectation which penetrated
through cloaks and veils and canvas walls. But we, who had not the good
fortune to be related to pashas, were obliged to content ourselves with
the stairs which led on to the deck, on which we seated ourselves with
the bad grace of Europeans who feel that they have been cheated of
their rights.
Such comparative comfort is enjoyed only by the richer sort; for
the poor a sea-voyage is a matter of considerable hardship. They,
too, sleep on deck; down on the lower deck they spread their ragged
mattresses among ropes and casks and all the miscellaneous detritus of
a ship, with the smell and the rattle of the engines in the midst of
them, and their rest disturbed by the coming and going of sailors and
the bustle of lading and unlading. They cook their own food, for they
will not touch that which is prepared by Christian hands, and on chilly
nights they seek what shelter they may under the warm funnels. We used
to watch these fellow-travellers of ours upon the Caspian boat, setting
forth their evening meal as the dusk closed in--it needed little
preparation, but they devoured their onions and cheese and coarse
sandy cakes of bread with no less relish, and scooped out the pink
flesh of their water-melons until nothing but the thinnest paring of
rind remained. And as we watched the strange dinner-party of rags and
tatters, we fancied that we realized what the feelings of that hasty
personage in the Bible must have been after he had gathered in the
people from the highways and the byways to partake of his feast, and
we congratulated ourselves that we were not called upon to sit as host
among them.
Pilgrims from Mecca form a large proportion of the Oriental travellers
on the Black Sea. There were two such men on our boat. They were
Persians; they wore long Persian robes of dark hues, and on their
heads the Persian hat of astrakhan; but you might have guessed their
nationality by their faces--the pale, clear-cut Persian faces, with
high, narrow foreheads, deep-set eyes and arching brows. They were
always together, and held little or no converse with the other
passengers, than whom they were clearly of a much higher social status.
They stood in the ship’s bow gazing eastward, as though they were
already looking for the walls of their own Meshed on the far horizon,
and perhaps they pondered over the accomplishment of the holy journey,
and over the aspect of the sacred places which they, too, had seen
at last, but I think their minds were occupied with the prospect of
rejoining wife and children and Heimat out there in Meshed, and that
was why their silent gaze was turned persistently eastward.
We tried to picture what miseries these people must undergo when
storms sweep the crowded deck, and the wind blows through the tattered
blankets, and the snow is bedfellow on the hard mattresses; but for us
the pleasant summer weather lies for ever on those inland seas, sun
and clear starlight bathe coasts beautiful and desolate, sloping down
to green water, the playing-ground of porpoises, the evening meals are
eaten under the clear skies we knew, and morning breaks fresh and cool
through the soft mists to light mysterious lands and wonderful.
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
_J. D. & Co._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
--Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures, by Gertrude Bell