KERMANSHAH.
Kermanshah—Imād-u-dowlet—We visit him—Signs of his wealth—Man
nailed to a post—Injuring the wire—Serrum-u-dowlet—Visits—We
dine with the son of the Governor—His decorations
and nightingales—Dancing girls—Various dances—The
belly dance—Heavy dinner—Turf—_Wild_ geese—The
swamp—A ducking through obstinacy—Imādieh—Wealth of
the Imād-u-dowlet—The Shah loots him—Squeezing—Rock
sculptures—Astrologers—Astrolabes—Fortune-telling—Rammals—Detection
of thieves—Honesty of servants—Thefts through pique—My lost
pipe-head—Tragedy of two women.
Kermanshah is decidedly the cheapest place in all cheap Persia. Bread
was selling at seven pounds for twopence; mutton, seven pounds for
fourteenpence, or twopence a pound; and other things in proportion. It
costs here threepence a day to keep a horse (1867).
The day after our arrival Pierson went to visit the Imād-u-dowlet, uncle
(?) of the king, and Governor of the province. He is a man of very large
fortune, and is liked as a Governor, being stern, but generally just, his
wealth putting him above any wish to oppress the _little_ people. We rode
to the maidān, or public square, then in under an archway and up a steep
incline, which conducted us to the interior of the citadel, in which the
Imād lived.
As we entered we noticed a man nailed by the ear to a wooden telegraph
post.
The Imād-u-dowlet received Pierson very kindly, and laughed and
joked a great deal. His eldest son, the “Serrum-u-dowlet,” a man of
five-and-thirty, was present; he spoke a little French and was very
friendly and complimentary.
The wealth of the Governor was shown in his coffee-cup holders, of gold
enamelled, and decorated with rows of diamonds; his water-pipes (kalians)
all of gold; and his own special one, the bottle of which was of gold
so thickly encrusted with emeralds that it appeared like green glass;
all the stones were pale, and consequently of comparatively little value
separately.
The Governor in appearance was a man of five-and-forty, with a heavy
black beard and thick moustache; but he was really sixty-five: this
youthful look was due to hair-dye.
He told us that the man who was nailed to the telegraph-post was a
villager who had been detected red-handed in breaking the telegraph-wire,
and that he was to remain thirty-six hours, when he would be imprisoned.
“It is a capital warning to other offenders,” said the Imād. At this time
the line was frequently damaged, several miles at a time often being
pulled down by malicious travellers and villagers, particularly on the
frontier near Kermanshah. Pierson, however, begged that the man might be
removed at sunset, on the ground that he would cease to act as a warning
at night. This was reluctantly agreed to.
The latest gossip of Teheran was retailed, and a few vague remarks were
made as to the politics of Europe. I was asked to feel the Imād’s pulse,
and did not fail to try both wrists, as I found if I did not do so I was
supposed not to know my business. This was hardly charlatanry, but merely
a deference to the prejudices of the place. After the usual tea and pipes
had been gone through we retired.
The man was still nailed to the post, surrounded by a gaping crowd of
villagers. He amused himself by cursing Pierson as “reis-i-seem” (“master
of the wire”) as we passed him. The Imād, however, unpinned him at
sunset, as he had promised.
The next morning the “Serrum-u-dowlet” called to return Pierson’s visit
to his father, and asked us to dine with him that evening, entreating us
to come in time for tea in the afternoon. The whole forenoon was occupied
in receiving visits from the personages of Kermanshah.
At five we repaired to the house of the “Serrum-u-dowlet.” We found him
sitting with his brother in a large talár, or archway, one side of which
was open to the air. The whole room was decorated in the strangest taste;
there were the usual mirrors and florid mural paintings; these in this
case were life-size full-length portraits of posture dancers and dancing
girls, and were in ancient costumes, having been painted fifty years
ago. The takhjahs in the walls were filled with chromo-lithographs in
very dubious taste; several odd chandeliers hung at various heights as
ornaments, some twenty pair of old carriage-lamps were stuck into staples
in the walls, and as many small cages stood about, each containing a
bulbul, or nightingale. What with the noise these birds made, and the
splashing of a fountain which played furiously in a basin of yellow Yezd
marble in the centre, it was difficult to catch what was said. Pipes were
brought, and a long desultory conversation ensued, in the course of which
our host’s guns, dogs, and miscellaneous property were exhibited and duly
admired.
The noise was deafening, and directly we had walked round the garden a
band of musicians, some twenty strong, made night hideous with their
strains and singing. Wine was now produced, and freely partaken of by
both brothers, and trays of sweetmeats were handed round and afterwards
placed on the ground around us. Spirits, in the form of arrack, the
strong coarse spirit of the country, were pressed on us, but we declined.
Our host and his brother, however, drank it like water.
On a whispered order being given to the servants four Susmani girls
and a buffoon now appeared. These commenced a kind of posture dance,
the buffoon singing and making remarks, which produced a good deal of
laughter from the host and his brother, but were unintelligible to me,
and simply disgusting, as Pierson told me, who _could_ understand.
The girls were pretty in a way, brunettes with large eyes; their faces
were much painted, and they were fine girls; their ages were from twelve
to seventeen. Their dance had no variety, they spun round, the hands high
in air, while the fingers were snapped with a loud report. A very free
exhibition of considerably developed charms took place. Every now and
then the dancer would make what we call a cheese; then, standing with the
feet motionless, the body was contorted and wriggled, each muscle being
made to quiver, and the head being bent back till it almost touched the
ground; the fingers being snapped in time to the music; or tiny cymbals,
some inch in diameter, were clashed between the forefinger and thumb of
each hand. The musicians, who played continuously, kept up a sort of loud
chant the whole time. The girls now showed some skill as equilibrists,
balancing full glasses, lighted candles, etc., and an exhibition of
posturing was gone through. They stood on their heads and walked on their
hands; they then danced a scarf-dance.
[Illustration: FEMALE DANCERS AND EQUILIBRISTS.
(_From a Native Drawing._)]
We had not noticed that the buffoon had retired, but he now re-entered,
disguised in a remarkable manner. He seemed a figure some four feet high,
with a face huge and like a full moon. This was, in fact, carefully
painted on his bare abdomen, the whole surmounted by a gigantic turban.
He had constructed a pair of false arms, and, with a boy’s coat and large
girdle, he presented the effect of a dwarf with a huge round fat face;
his head, chest, and arms were hidden in the enormous white turban. The
face represented was one of intense and dismal stupidity, and his whole
appearance was most ludicrous; in fact, it was only on afterwards seeing
the man disrobe, that we made out _how_ it was done.
He danced in and out among the girls, who stood in a row snapping their
fingers and posturing: but what was our astonishment when we saw the
dismally stupid face _expand into a grin_, which became at length a
laughing mask; it resumed its dismal stupidity—it grinned—it laughed. The
musicians played and shouted their chant more and more loudly, and the
face of the figure assumed the most ludicrous contortions. We all were
unable to restrain our laughter, and the triumphant buffoon retired well
rewarded by the Serrum-u-dowlet. The four dancers now became rather too
personal in their attentions, and begged for coin. We gave them a few
kerans, but were glad when they retired on dinner being announced. We
both pronounced them monotonous and uninteresting.
After a heavy Persian dinner—much such a one as we had at Merand—we, with
some trouble, got away at eleven P.M. Our hosts seemed inclined to make
a very wet night of it; in fact, their frequent acceptance of cupfuls
of raw spirits from the hands of the dancers had made them see things
generally in a rosy light. They wept when we left!
We rode home through the silent streets of Kermanshah, the only light
being our farnooses, or cylindrical lamps, made of copper and calico,
something in the fashion of a Chinese lantern; and the full moon.
We met no one in the streets, which were deserted save by the dogs, and
the whole town seemed sunk in sleep. The Persian is an early bird,
going to bed at nine, and rising at four or half-past four. It is very
difficult to break oneself of this habit of early rising on returning to
Europe. One is looked on as very eccentric on getting up at half-past
four, and is hunted from room to room by the housemaids. Certainly
the early morning is the best part of the day all over the world, but
we Europeans in our wisdom have altered it. “Nous avons changé tout
cela”—and we prefer living by gaslight, electricity, etc.
The next morning the Serrum-u-dowlet came over to take our photographs,
and was very friendly; he took them really well, and is a clever fellow.
We went for a ride, and had the unwonted luxury of a two hours’ canter
over good turf. I never had this anywhere else in Persia but once. While
near the river we saw plenty of duck, and Pierson told me that they are
always to be had in the Kermanshah river.
In Kermanshah I found that the grassy plain round the town had many
attractions. Some two miles’ canter on it brought me to a swamp where
there were always snipe, except in the hot weather, an occasional duck,
and even at times wild geese. A ludicrous incident happened to me one
day in regard to the latter. As I was cantering up to the swamp with
my groom, I saw on the other side of a herd of cattle a flock of geese
grazing. To dismount and take my gun from him was the work of an instant,
and I quickly inserted a cartridge charged with No. 4, and a wire ditto,
for my left barrel. I walked stealthily among the cattle towards the
flock of geese, but the game took no notice of me, and allowed me to get
within thirty yards; then it came across me, how if these were _tame_
geese, what a fire of chaff I should get from Pierson. I did not think of
shouting, as of course I should have done, which would have settled the
question, but I retreated stealthily to where my groom was standing with
the horses. I saw that he was full of excitement, and felt that I had
made a fool of myself. “Shikar?” (“Are they wild ones?”) said I. “Belli,
belli, sahib!” (“Yes, yes, sir!”)
Back I went, but alas! only to be too well convinced that they _were_
wild ones, for the whole flock sailed away ere I could get within a
hundred and fifty yards. I have often shot geese—that is, a goose at a
time—but I never had such another chance. The birds really behaved just
as tame ones would; I can only suppose that my being among the grazing
cows I was looked upon as harmless. I did not relate that afternoon’s
adventure to Pierson for some time after.
The swamp, which was about a mile long, and at the widest parts only five
hundred yards, was in the centre impossible to cross, save in summer,
when there was no sport there. One side had not nearly so much cover as
the other, but there were no holes; the other side was full of them, and
it was only after a long time that I got thoroughly acquainted with the
geography. In after days I had a guest who was very hot on sport of all
kinds; and as the swamp was all I could show him at the time, it was
arranged that we were to have a day there.
I, having a holy horror of wet feet, used to go in with a pair of
duck trousers and Persian shoes regardless of water, and march on
frequently up to my waist, changing on coming out. I suggested this mode
to my sporting friend, but he looked on it as very _infra dig._ and
unsportsmanlike, and set out in a most correct get-up of shooting-coat
with many pockets, and the usual lace-up shooting-boots. Nothing would
induce him to take a change in case of a wetting, and off we went. As his
gun had no sling—almost a necessity in Persia, where the weapon is so
frequently carried on horseback—his groom carried it in its case.
We got to the swamp, and, knowing the place, I said, “You take the left
side—there are no holes; and I who know the holes will take the right,
which is full of them.”
But my friend was not to be led; he remarked that the right was certainly
the best side, and as guest he ought to have it. To this I of course
agreed, but I pointed out that the holes were deep and dangerous, and
that I knew them, and he did not. But, no, he insisted. I could, of
course, only give in.
The place was alive with snipe. I went to the left, or more open side,
and was over my ankles in a moment. My enthusiastic friend was in to
his knees. We blazed away, and were getting on well, when my friend
lost his ramrod. Persia being a very dry place, all wood shrinks, and
it had probably slipped out. There was nothing for it but to take the
cleaning-rod from the case and use that; the difficulty was how to carry
it, as we were firing frequently, and he didn’t want to unscrew it. My
friend had no belt, and so thrust it down his back, between his shirt
and waistcoat. We began again, and were soon in the thick of them. We had
now got to the widest part of the swamp; I was separated from my guest by
deep water-holes, and was looking at him when with a shout he suddenly
disappeared, and it was evident he was in a water-hole. I rushed out and
ran round the head of the swamp to his assistance; the servants were out
of call. When I got there he was nearly done for; he had fallen head
foremost into a hole, and could not get out, as the reeds gave way when
he pulled them, and there was only a bottom round the edge of soft mud.
The loading-rod had _somehow got down his back_, and he could not get
hold of it, while it crippled him; and he had a very white face indeed
when I helped him out by holding my gun out to him. He had lost his gun,
but my groom dived and brought it out.
I wished him to canter home at once, but he did not like to be seen in
the pickle he was in—mud, _green_ mud, from head to foot; and he insisted
on waiting till his man brought a change. This took an hour, and the day,
though bright, was cold and windy. So there he stood in his wet clothes,
his teeth chattering, trying to keep himself warm by jumping; but his
struggles in the water-hole had so weakened him that he could hardly
stand. Of course he had a severe go of intermittent fever, which laid him
up for a fortnight. In after excursions he was content to leave me the
right or dangerous side, which I from habit was able to safely travel in.
Pierson and I visited a magnificent palace which was in course of
construction by the Imād-u-dowlet. Some idea of its size may be given
when I say that there was stabling for two hundred horses. In Persia,
when a man passes fifty, he begins to be seized with a mania for
building, but he takes care not to _finish_ the works he undertakes,
being thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of his own death _in case of
the completion of the edifice_.
Some ten years after I had left Kermanshah, Imādieh—so the place was
called—was presented (I dare say much against the grain) to the king. At
that time the Imād-u-dowlet had become the actual freeholder of the whole
of the Kermanshah valley, and his wealth was immense in money and flocks
and herds. But the inevitable evil day arrived. The Shah recalled him to
Teheran, and the squeezing process commenced; large sums of money were
wrung from him, and the royal treasury correspondingly enriched. It is
always so in Persia; a man is allowed to quietly enrich himself, but when
he has achieved immense wealth he becomes a mark for oppression in his
turn. To use the common expression of the country, “He is ripe; he must
be squeezed.”
[Illustration: THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. (NAKSH-I-RŪSTAM.)]
Just by Imādieh, at the base of a high cliff, is an excavated arched
chamber, at the back of which, carved from the living rock, is an
equestrian statue armed with a lance; it is of colossal size, and some
fourteen feet high (?). Both figure and horse are much damaged by time
and the hand of man, and it is difficult to make much out of the detail.
There are two other figures, one at either extremity of the back of the
arch.
Over the entrance of the arched chamber, which forms a delightfully
cool place to have tea in, are carved in the face of the cliff itself
two figures of Fame (?) (or winged female figures); to the best of my
remembrance they have trumpets. These are more in the Roman style, or may
be even modern (pseudo-classic), for the early Kings of Persia employed
foreign artificers to decorate their palaces; instance being seen in
Ispahan, particularly in the large oil-paintings, which are certainly not
by Oriental artists. Of the great antiquity of the figures within the
arch there can be no doubt, and they are more than alto-relievo, for they
are only affixed to the rock by a small strip, and are much under-cut.
They have been frequently scientifically described, and appear to be the
work of the Sassanian kings.
There are several similar though less pretentious figures: one at
Naksh-i-Rūstam,[14] near Persepolis; another, called by the people
“Ferhad and Shireen,” near Shiraz; but these latter are simply rough
carvings in relief.
A stone platform has been built in front of the archway, and below this
flows a great volume of spring-water that comes from a natural tunnel
beneath the statues. A large hauz or tank is kept constantly full by
this, and when we were there it was ornamented by a flock of some sixty
tame geese, the only ones I had seen, save those in Teheran, and the
recent sight of them had something to do with my hesitation when in
search of sport on the occasion which I have noted.
The shade and coolness, the noise of flowing water, and the huge tank
with the geese on it (and a swimming goose in a large piece of water is a
decidedly handsome bird, _when you have no swans_), rendered this place a
favourite one to drink tea and smoke pipes in.
The Naib-ul-ayālut, the second son of the Imād-u-dowlet, was a man who
devoted much attention to astrology and the pursuit of the philosopher’s
stone. He entertained us one day with tea at the statue, and gave us an
impromptu exhibition of fireworks; and as they were discharged from the
edge of the tank, it acted like a mirror, and the effect was good in the
extreme.
Astrology is at a premium in Persia; the monajem, or astrologers, are
consulted on almost every subject. Each village has its diviner, and each
big town supports several, the head of whom boasts the sounding title of
“monajem-bashi” (chief astrologer).
Their great occupation is to predict fortunate hours, days, etc. They
will fix on a day for a great man to start on a journey or arrive at a
place, and the man will be careful to follow the astrologer’s direction,
for they have a great belief in bad and good luck. The rules by which the
astrologers make their calculations are very complicated; strange to say,
there are many of them who really believe in their own profession. Each
has his astrolabe of brass or silver; some of the brass ones are very
large and handsome: I have known as much as one thousand kerans paid for
a good one. They are manufactured in the country. The king’s astrologer
is a very great man indeed, and no important act is undertaken without
consulting him. Often the astrologer goes further than his own special
business of “ruling the planets,” and by means of rolling six dice, which
revolve on a rod run through the centre of them, he pretends to read
the future—in fact, he is a fortune-teller. Many, too, are rammals, or
discoverers of stolen property. This is often ingeniously done, after a
good deal of hocus pocus, by working on the fears of the thieves.
The old, old plans are adopted: sticks are given to the suspected, and
they are told they will grow if they are guilty; the conscience-stricken
breaks a piece off. Or they are told to dip their hands into a pot placed
in a dark room; this is full of dye stuff; the guilty man does not dip
his hand, and is so detected. Or, more frequently, all the suspects are
sworn to innocence in the name of some local saint, and are informed that
the vengeance of the saint will fall on the guilty man if the property is
not returned; in the morning it often mysteriously reappears. These men,
then, are of use, and by their means property may often be recovered that
would otherwise never be traced.
I myself have employed them successfully on several occasions. As a
rule, thefts by domestics of anything _valuable_ are very rare, though
pilfering goes on a good deal, for the Persian servant looks on his
master’s tea, sugar, and grain as lawful plunder; when things are taken,
it is usually done by a servant merely in the hope of getting a rival
into trouble, and an edict that the servants will have to pay a little
more than the value of the lost property is enough to bring it back; it
is impossible to detect under these circumstances the abstractor. But if
a _thief_ is really among the household, the servants as a rule find him
out and clamour for his discharge.
Such an event happened when my best pipe-head suddenly disappeared.
I sent for the rammal, and after various mysterious ceremonies
unsuccessfully gone through, the man retired promising me my property
before noon the next day. Next morning one of my men calmly informed me
that he had seen the prophet Mahommed in a dream, who addressed him thus—
“‘Hadji, my son, are you well?’
“‘Alas! no, holy prophet; I am in deep grief, my heart is burnt up with
misery.’
“‘Why is this, son Hadji?’
“‘My master has lost a pipe-head, O prophet, and I—I, the innocent
Hadji—may be suspected; the hearts of all the servants are tightened
(idiom) by this sad fear.’
“‘Be not afraid, son Hadji; if you look at the top left-hand corner of
your master’s tank, you will find it.’
“I swooned away with delight, sahib, and am only waiting your permission
to make a search.”
I smiled, and of course there they found my pipe-head. As I knew theft
was not intended, I said nothing, but I did not reward the vision-seeing
finder.
One day in Kermanshah I was surprised to meet a procession in the
streets. First came all the lutis or buffoons, the public musicians
singing and dancing, then a crowd of drunken roughs, then a few
soldiers with fixed bayonets, then the “farrash-bashi,” or “principal
tent-pitcher”—in reality the Imād-u-dowlet’s head-man—on horseback;
then the executioner, clad in red, and his aides; then two wretched
women, their heads shaved and rubbed with curds, their faces bare and
blackened, _dressed in men’s clothes_, and both seated on one donkey,
led by a negro, with their faces to the tail (their feet had been beaten
to a pulp); then a crowd of some two thousand men, women, and children.
On inquiry I learnt that these women were attendants at a public bath,
and had betrayed the wife of a tradesman into the hands of an admirer,
who had secreted himself in the bath with their connivance. The woman
complained, the man fled, and justice (Persian justice) was being done
on the two unfortunate women. The Imād-u-dowlet had severely bastinadoed
them and then gave them over to the executioner to be paraded through
the town and then banished—after they had been handed over to the tender
mercies of all the ruffians of the city. The first part of the sentence
had been carried out, and they had been led thus through the bazaars from
dawn till afternoon; the executioner taking, as is customary, a small tax
from each trader according to his degree. Such is the Persian custom from
old times. I learnt afterwards that the mob defiled these women, and one
died of her injuries; the other poor wretch either took poison or was
given it by her offended relatives the next morning.
Such is Persian justice.