ISPAHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Tame gazelle—Croquet-lawn under difficulties—Wild
asparagus—First-fruits—Common fruits—Mode of preparing
dried fruits—Ordinary vegetables of Persia—Wild
rhubarb—Potatoes a comparative novelty—Ispahan quinces: their
fragrance—Bamiah—Grapes, Numerous varieties of—At times used as
horse-feed—Grape-sugar—Pickles—Fruits an ordinary food—Curdled
milk—Mode of obtaining cream—Buttermilk—Economy of the
middle or trading-classes—Tale of the phantom cheese—Common
flowers—Painting the lily—_Lilium candidum_—Wild flowers—The
crops—Poppies—Collecting opium—Manuring—Barley—Wheat—Minor
crops—Mode of extracting grain—Cut straw: its uses—Irrigation.
Mr. Walton, the superintendent of the Ispahan section, had a full-grown
buck antelope (“ahū”), which was kept tied to a peg on his croquet-lawn;
the animal was rather fierce, and my young bull-dog was accustomed
to bark at him, keeping, however, out of reach of his horns. On one
occasion the antelope got loose and chased the dog round and round the
croquet-lawn, from which there was no exit, it being between four walls;
the antelope was going well within itself, but the dog, its eyes starting
from its head, and its tail between its legs, gave a shriek of terror as
it felt the sharp prongs of the pursuing antelope prodding it every now
and then; at last, utterly expended, fear made it brave, and it turned
on the animal, pinning him by the throat. We were then able to secure
the antelope, which no one had cared to approach, as his horns were very
sharp and he was very savage from being tied up. The little croquet-lawn
had been made under very great difficulties, and it was only by getting
grass seeds from Carter’s that Mr. Walton was able to keep up turf; but
he had, by dint of watering and putting tent walls over the young grass
in the heat of the day, succeeded in making a very good lawn; and he and
his young wife played croquet nearly every evening. The fate of the
antelope was a sad one—he got loose one night, and next morning was found
drowned in the well.
Great quantities of wild asparagus were brought to the houses of the
Europeans for sale: it grows on the banks of the ditches which surround
the gardens of Julfa; there is no saltness in the soil, but it thrives
in great luxuriance, and is sold for a trifle, the villagers gladly
accepting a keran (ninepence) for fourteen pounds’ weight.
A man came one day (March 4th) bringing the no ber, or first-fruits (_i.
e._ the first cucumbers of the season); they were little things, some
three inches long, packed in rose leaves, and probably had been brought
up by some traveller by post from Shiraz, or down from Kashan, where it
is very hot indeed. As usual the man declined to sell, insisting that
they were a present—“peishkesh-i-shuma” (they are an offering to you)—and
consequently he has to be rewarded with twice the value.
Tiny unripe almonds, called “chocolah,” the size of a hazelnut, have been
brought too; they are much appreciated by Persians as a first-fruit; they
are soaked in brine and eaten raw, and they are crisp and certainly not
bad; or, when a little too large and hard for this, they are eaten stewed
with lamb, forming a “khorisht,” or dish eaten as sauce to rice.
Unripe green plums are also eaten stewed in this way with meat—_Persians
eat them raw with salt_; and the unripe grapes, preserved in their own
juice as a pickle, or the juice itself (ab-i-goora) is used to season the
stews.
The first really ripe fruit is the white cherry, which is called gelas;
then the morella, or alu-balu; then the goja, or bullace plum; then
follow plums in endless variety, and then the peach and apricot.
These latter grow in great perfection in Ispahan; there are seven known
kinds, six of which are sweet, and one bitter. The most valued variety
is the shukker-para; it is excessively sweet and cloying. All grow to
a large size, and so great is the plenty that the fruit in an ordinary
season is sold for twopence farthing the fourteen pounds, or maund. The
orchards where the apricot is grown are generally sown with clover; the
trees are never thinned, but, notwithstanding this, the finest apricots
in the world are certainly produced in Ispahan. There are also plenty
of nectarines and peaches. The fruit being so cheap, the natives never
gather it, on account of cost of labour, but allow it to fall into the
clover which is universally sown under the trees, and which partially
preserves it from bruising; so ripe is the fruit that it may be generally
seen cracked, with the stone appearing.
Great quantities of dried fruit are exported from Ispahan, which is
celebrated for its “keisi,” or dried apricots; these are merely the
fallen fruit, which is either too much bruised for sale or has not found
a market. They are simply placed in the sun, and become in a week dry,
hard, and semi-transparent, thus forming a very portable food: the stones
are of course removed and the fruit becomes as hard as horn; an hour’s
soaking renders them fit to eat, or when stewed they are delicious, being
so very sweet as to require no added sugar.
As a dessert fruit the Persians at times place an almond or a peeled
walnut within the fruit where the stone has been; as it dries the nut
becomes embedded, a sharp packing-needle and string is run through
them when half dry, and they are sold thus, hung on strings like huge
necklaces.
Enormous quantities of alū Bokhara, or acid plum, are sold; these,
however, are not dried but half boiled, and poured into the skins of
sheep, as bags, forming a kind of preserve; they are very appetising,
being a very acid yet sweet fruit, and are eaten raw with mast (curdled
milk), or are used as a sauce to stewed meat with rice.
Cherries, too, are dried in the sun in the same manner, the stones being
extracted; also peaches.
Small melons, called germak and tellabi, now (May) make their appearance;
these, though far superior to anything produced in England, are not
thought much of. The big brown melon, or karbiza of Gourg-ab, which will
keep good a year, and attains an enormous size—some being seventy and
eighty pounds in weight—is the most highly prized; the flesh is white,
and tastes like a Jersey pear. They grow on a salt soil, are heavily
manured with pigeons’ dung, and freely irrigated till the plant flowers.
Many choice varieties of melon abound, as the “Shah passand,” or king’s
favourite, and others.
The “Hindiwana,” or water-melons, are of three kinds, the red-fleshed,
the yellow-fleshed, and the white-fleshed: these run from three to
twenty-eight pounds in weight, as an ordinary size; there are long and
round descriptions. The skin varies from pale green to almost black with
green blotches; the latter are the best.
Pumpkins also are common and of great size.
Cucumbers never grow long, but short and thick; they are called “keeal,”
are very plentiful and delicious, and may, at the height of the season,
be bought fourteen pounds for one shaie, or halfpenny. There is another
fruit something between the melon and cucumber, a kind of eatable gourd,
called the koompezeh; it has not much flavour, and is eaten with salt.
The cucumbers form one of the staple foods of the people; they are eaten
with salt, and are looked on as a fruit; the peasants eat at a sitting
five or six pounds’ weight, and find no inconvenience; the Persian
cucumber may be eaten with impunity.
Lettuces grow in vast profusion, also the kalam kūmri, a
strongly-flavoured kind of nohl-kohl. The Aubergine, or “badinjan,”
the fruit of which I have seen weighing three pounds, and carrots and
turnips are also grown: the carrots are generally a _green_-rooted
variety. Spinach, called “Ispinagh,” is a favourite vegetable. Kanga (or
chardons), a kind of thistle, is brought from the mountains, and also
Rivend, or wild rhubarb; both are good.
Potatoes are now much grown, but were hardly known on my first arrival
in Persia. Kalam-i-Rūmi, or Turkish cabbage, is raised successfully and
attains an enormous size, twenty-eight pounds being a common weight for a
head; it is the perfection of cabbage, and nearly all heart. Parsnips are
unknown.
Toorbēsah, white radishes, are grown about the size of an egg, the
tops are boiled and eaten as greens. Apples are good and common. Pears
are very bad. The quinces and pomegranates are magnificent; the former
especially are grown in Ispahan and are of great size and fragrance. They
are sent with the Gourg-ab melons all over Persia as presents to grandees.
The bamiah, or lady’s finger, is little grown; it is a nasty slimy
vegetable when cooked. Vegetable marrows are common; they generally have
the seeds removed, and are filled with spiced and minced meat, and are
boiled. Gourds of many forms are found, and used as vessels for oil, etc.
Walnuts and almonds are plentiful, also filberts. There are no chestnuts
in the south.
Some thirty varieties of grape are raised; some are merely used for
pickling, others for eating, and some only for wine-making. The best
eating grapes are the Ascari. This is the first good grape to ripen;
it is a smallish white grape, globular, bright golden colour, very
delicious, and the skin, being very thin, is swallowed.
Kishmish, a delicious grape, of white elongated shape, also small, and
very sweet, both eaten and used for wine-making. When dried this is the
sultana raisin, _stoneless_, the skin very thin.
Riech-i-baba, or “old man’s beard,” a long white grape, very sweet and
delicious in flavour. Some varieties of this have tiny stones, others
large; they are both red and white. Some are two and a half inches long.
The Persians, when the price of grapes is very low, and they are unable
to dispose of them, boil them down to obtain the grape-sugar, which is
sold all over Persia and eaten in lieu of sugar; it is called “_sheera_.”
With vinegar this forms circa-sheera, a sour-sweet liquid, in which
various pickles are preserved, as grapes, apples, lemons.
I have mentioned that grapes are used in some places as horse-feed.
The variety in Persian pickles is infinite, from grapes, walnuts,
almonds, peppers, onions, oranges, and lemons, green fruits, etc.; a long
list of conserves are produced.
All the fruits grown in England are found in Persia, save only the
currant, gooseberry, and raspberry.
Persians look on fruit as a staple food, and the ordinary meal of the
working classes and peasantry is a loaf of bread and a pound or two of
grapes or apricots, or a half-dozen cucumbers, which are considered
fruits. Meat is not often eaten by the poor save at the great festivals.
“Mast” is also much consumed. This is curdled milk, and is made by adding
a little curdled milk to fresh milk warmed. It is then left to cool,
and the basin of curdled milk sets in a few hours, leaving the cream on
the top. For the first twenty-four hours this is sweet and delicious,
tasting like a Devonshire junket, but as a rule the Persian does not
care for it until it has become slightly acid. When in this state a
farthing’s worth (about half a pint) added to a quart of water forms
buttermilk, or “doogh.” A little cut mint is added, and a few lumps of
ice, and a cooling drink is made, which is supposed by the Persians to be
a powerful diuretic. It is without question a capital thirst-quencher in
hot weather.
Cheese, too, is much eaten for the morning meal, with a little mint or
a few onions. The banker at Shiraz, to whom the Government moneys were
entrusted—a rich man—told me that he or any other merchant never thought
of any more elaborate breakfast than these named above. This same man,
when _giving a breakfast_, would give his guests twenty courses of spiced
and seasoned _plats_. It is said of a merchant in Ispahan, where they are
notoriously stingy, that he purchased a small piece of cheese at the new
year, but could not make up his mind to the extravagance of eating it.
So, instead of dividing the morsel with his apprentice, as that youth
had fondly hoped, he carefully placed it in a clear glass bottle, and,
sealing it down, instructed the boy to rub his bread on the bottle and
_fancy_ the taste of the cheese. This the pair did each morning.
One day the merchant, being invited to breakfast with a friend, gave his
apprentice the key of his office and a halfpenny to buy a loaf of bread;
but the apprentice returned, saying he could not get the door open, and
though he had bought his bread, could not eat it without the _usual
flavour_ of cheese.
“Go, fool, and rub your bread on the door, which is _almost_ as
satisfying as the bottle.”
Doubtless it was.
Persia is not a favourable place for flowers; the gardeners merely sow
in patches, irrigate them, and let them come up as they will. Zinnias,
convolvulus, Marvel of Peru of all colours, and growing at times as a
handsome bushy plant, five feet high, covered with blossoms; asters,
balsams, wallflower, chrysanthemums, marigolds, China and moss roses, or
“gul-i-soorkh” (from these the rose-water is made), and the perfume in
the gardens from them is at times overpowering, are the usual flowers.
Yellow and orange single roses are common; they are, however, devoid
of scent. The noisette rose, too, is much grown, and the nestorange, a
delicately-scented single rose, the tree growing to a great size.
The favourite plant is the narcissus; it grows wild in many parts of
Persia. Huge bundles of the cut flowers are seen in the dwellings of rich
and poor; the scent is very powerful.
The Persians cut small rings of coloured paper, cloth, or velvet,
and _ornament_ (?) the flower by placing the rings of divers colours
between the first and second rows of petals, and the effect is strange,
and not unpleasing, leading one to suppose on seeing it for the first
time that a bouquet of new varieties has been cut, for so transparent
a cheat does not strike one as possible, and a newcomer often examines
them with admiration, failing to detect, or rather not suspecting, any
deception. The ordinary _Lilium candidum_ is much admired in the gardens
of the great, and is called “Gul-i-Mariam” (Mary’s flower). A large
proportion of the narcissus are double; it is the single variety that
the Persians _ornament_. The tulip, too, grows wild, and the colchicum,
also the cyclamen. Above Shiraz, however, there are few wild flowers
until one nears the Caspian; but below Kazeroon, in the spring, the road
is literally a flower-bespangled way, blazing with various tulips and
hyacinths, cyclamens, etc.
The principal crops in the neighbourhood of Ispahan are, first the
poppy; this is the white variety, and has been grown with great success
in Persia, particularly in Ispahan. It has enriched the peasants, but
rendered grain and other produce much dearer, as, of course, much less
is cultivated. The young plants are carefully thinned till they are a
foot apart, and the ground is kept clear of weeds. When the poppy is
in flower, and just as the petals are about to fall, the labourers,
principally under the direction of men from Yezd, who are supposed to
understand the method of collecting opium better than the rest of the
Persians, score the seed-vessels with a small three-bladed knife, making
three small gashes an eighth of an inch apart and three-quarters or half
an inch long at one cut. This operation is performed in the afternoon.
From these gashes the opium exudes in tears, and these are carefully
collected at early dawn. The process is repeated a second, and even a
third time; this latter is, however, unusual.
And here lies the danger of the opium crop: should a shower of heavy rain
descend the product is absolutely nil, the exuded opium being all washed
away by the rain. All around Ispahan, where there is good land, and it is
not exhausted, nothing can be seen for miles but these fields of white
poppies, and the scenery is thus rendered very monotonous.
The Persian farmer is fully alive to the value of manure, and makes it
in a very simple manner. All the wood-ashes collected from a house,
and the rest of the refuse-heap, are placed in the open street in a
circular ridge mixed with mould. Into this is poured the contents of the
cesspools, which are allowed to sink into the thirsty heaps of earth
and ashes. The “koot,” or manure thus formed, is removed to the fields,
allowed to dry in the sun, then mixed with more earth, and after a month
or two scattered equally over the soil and dug in.
Barley—which is used for the feeding of horses and mules, to the
exclusion of oats, which are never grown—rice, and wheat, are cultivated
largely. The barley of Persia is very fine; the wheat grown is the red
variety. Beans, pulse, clover, sesamum, maize, cotton, castor-oil plant,
cunjeet (a sort of colza), and nokōd, a grain like a pea, which is much
used in cookery; potatoes, lettuces, spinach, are all largely raised.
Tobacco, olives (near the Caspian), melons, and cucumbers form the rest
of the crops; and millet is also grown.
Quite one half of the barley is cut as grass for the horses, and not
allowed to ripen. Tares are grown for the same purpose and cut green.
The harvest of wheat and barley is cut with the sickle, the whole crop
being cast pell-mell in a heap in the centre of the field, perhaps some
twenty feet high; there it is allowed to lie for a month, or till it is
convenient to the owner to extract the grain. This is done by laying
round the heap a small quantity of straw with the ear on, and going over
it with a kind of car made with heavy beams and running on rollers fitted
with sharpened edges of iron; a boy rides on this, and, with a rope and
a stick, guides a pair of oxen, or a mule and a horse, or a mule and a
donkey, which draw this very primitive machine. As the straw gets broken,
more is added, and the broken straw and ears dragged to the side with
the grain entangled among them; the weather being very dry, the grain
generally all falls out ere this crushing process commences. The straw
is in this way crushed into pieces some two or three inches long. When
the whole heap has been gone over, the farmer waits for a windy day; when
it comes, he tosses the heap in forkfuls in the air. The cut straw is
carried a yard or two, and the grain being heavier falls straight to the
ground and is removed: the straw is now termed “kah,” and is stored; it
is the ordinary fodder of the country, hay being seldom used, save by the
rich.
It is also useful as a packing material and to make the “kah-gil” (“gil,”
clay), a kind of plaster with which all houses, save those built of
burnt bricks, are smeared, and with which all roofs in Ispahan, Teheran,
and Shiraz are carefully coated: it is not until Ghilān, on the Caspian
shore, is reached that we come to tiled roofs. Mud bricks are also made
with mud and old or spoiled kah. It is doubtless for this that the Jews
desired _straw_ of the Egyptians to make their bricks.
Sheep are never fed on clover _in sitû_, it is considered too precious
(it is cut and dried in twists some two yards long); but they are,
however, allowed to graze on the stubble of wheat and barley, and so
manure the land.
The greater part of the country is irrigated (save near the Caspian,
where the water is in such excess that men may be seen ploughing up
to their knees in it); consequently the fields are made up into small
squares or parallelograms by trenches raised with the spade; these
parallelograms run on each side of a small trench, from which the water
is admitted, and as fast as one is opened and filled from the trench,
it is stopped, and water admitted to another, and so on until the whole
field is thoroughly soaked. Of course it is impossible to ride over a
recently watered field, as, if the soil is light, one’s horse is soon up
to his girths.
Land in Persia is of value according to the quantity of water it is
entitled to, and the great cost of a crop is usually not the amount of
labour bestowed or the rent paid, but the quantity of water purchased.
In some places land is sown with barley, etc., as a speculation, and
it is left to chance; if it rains, a profit of, say, eight hundred per
cent. is secured; if it does not do so, which is often the case, the
whole crop, seed, rent, and labour is utterly lost. This is the case
near Bushire; the ground is just scratched and the seed thrown in: it
is looked on as gambling by the Persians, and a religious man will not
engage in it.