waste up to the distant horizon, a caravan of mules, mostly in single
file, approached the city. Each carried two or four white bales slung
on his sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks roped
rather than nailed together. This is the fashion in which thousands of
Persian Moslems (Shiahs or "Sectaries") have been conveyed for ages
for final burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Shiahs, an easy
journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of Ali, regarded as
scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein and Hassan his sons,
whose "martyrdom" is annually commemorated by a Passion Play which is
acted in every town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage to
Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both, constitutes
the ambition of every Shiah. The Sunnis, or "Orthodox," who hate the
Shiahs, are so far kept in check that these doleful caravans are not
exposed to any worse molestation than the shouts and ridicule of
street Arabs.
The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent. The _katirgis_, who
contract for the removal, hurry the bodies along as goods, and pile
them in the yards of the caravanserais at night, and the mournful
journey is performed, oftener than not, without the presence of
relations, each body being ticketed with the name once borne by its
owner. Some have been exhumed and are merely skeletons, others are in
various stages of decomposition, and some are of the newly dead.[6]
Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roads unsafe for solitary
travellers, and at times for feeble caravans; but things in this
respect are better than they were.
Visits to the Armenian and Chaldaean Churches, to the Mosque of Abdel
Kader, with its courts thronged by Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish
quarter, have been very interesting. There are said to be 30,000 Jews
here, and while a large proportion of them are in poverty, on the
whole they are an influential nationality, and some of them are very
rich.
Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewish High School has
been opened, where an admirable education is given. I was extremely
pleased with it, and with the director, who speaks French fluently,
and with the proficiency in French of the elder students. He describes
their earnestness and energetic application as being most remarkable.
The French Carmelite monks have a large, solid "Mission Church" or
Cathedral with a fine peal of bells, and a very prosperous school
attached, in which are boys belonging to all the many creeds professed
in Baghdad. The sisters of St. Joseph have a school for girls, which
Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of. The sisters find
a remarkable unhandiness among the women. Few, if any, among them have
any idea of cutting out or repairing, and rich and poor are equally
incapable of employing their fingers usefully.
The people here are so used to the sight of Europeans that it is quite
easy for foreign ladies to walk in this quarter only attended by a
servant, and I have accompanied Mrs. Sutton on visits to several
Armenian houses. The Armenians are in many cases wealthy, as their
admirably-designed and well-built houses testify. The Christian
population is estimated at 5000, and its wealth and energy give it
greater importance than its numbers warrant. One of the houses which
we visited was truly beautiful and in very good taste, the solidity of
the stone and brickwork, the finish of the wood, and the beauty of the
designs and their execution in hammered iron being quite remarkable.
The lofty roofs and cornices are elaborately worked in plaster, and
this is completely concealed by hundreds or thousands of mirrors set
so as to resemble facets, so that roof and cornices flash like
diamonds. This is a Persian style of decoration, and is extremely
effective in large handsome rooms. Superb carpets and divans and tea
tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl furnish the reception and smoking
rooms, and the bedrooms and nurseries over which we were taken were
simply arranged with French bedsteads and curtains of Nottingham
mosquito net. As in other Eastern houses, there were no traces of
occupation, no morning room or den sacred to litter; neither was there
anything to look at--the opposite extreme from our overloaded
drawing-rooms--or any library. Cigarettes and black coffee in minute
porcelain cups, in gold filigree receptacles, were presented on each
occasion, and the kind and courteous intention was very pleasing.
The visits which I paid with Dr. Sutton were very different. He has
worked as a medical missionary here for some years, and his unaffected
benevolence and quiet attention to all suffering persons, without
distinction of race or creed, and his recent extraordinary labours by
night and day among the cholera-smitten people, have won for him
general esteem and confidence, and he is even allowed to enter Moslem
houses and prescribe for the women in some cases.
The dispensary, in which there is not half enough accommodation, is
very largely attended by people of all creeds, and even Moslem women,
though exclusively of the poorer classes, avail themselves of it.
Yesterday, when I was there, the comfortable seats of the cheerful
matted waiting-room were all occupied by Armenian and Chaldaean women,
unveiled and speaking quite freely to Dr. Sutton; while a few Moslem
women, masked rather than veiled, and enveloped in black sheets,
cowered on the floor and scarcely let their voices be heard even in a
tremulous whisper.
I am always sorry to see any encroachment made by Christian teachers
on national customs where they are not contrary to morality, and
willingly leave to Eastern women the _pardah_ and the veil, but still
there is a wholesomeness about the unveiled, rosy, comely, frank faces
of these Christian women. But--and it is a decided but--though the
women were comely, and though some of the Armenian girls are
beautiful, every one has one or more flattish depressions on her
face--scars in fact--the size of a large date stone. Nearly the whole
population is thus disfigured. So universal is it among the
fair-skinned Armenian girls, that so far from being regarded as a
blemish, it is viewed as a token of good health, and it is said that a
young man would hesitate to ask for the hand of a girl in marriage if
she had not a "date mark" on her face.
These "date boils," or "Baghdad boils," as they are sometimes called,
are not slow in attacking European strangers, and few, if any, escape
during their residence here. As no cause can reasonably be assigned
for them, so no cure has been found. Various remedies, including
cauterisation, have been tried, but without success, and it is now
thought wisest to do nothing more than keep them dry and clean, and
let them run their natural course, which lasts about a year. Happily
they are not so painful as ordinary boils. The malady appears at first
as a white point, not larger than a pin's head, and remains thus for
about three months. Then the flesh swells, becomes red and hard and
suppurates, and underneath a rough crust which is formed is corroded
and eaten away as by vitriol. On some strangers the fatal point
appears within a few days of their arrival.
In two years in the East I have not seen any European welcomed so
cordially as Dr. Sutton into Moslem homes. The _Hak[=i]m_, exhibiting
in "quiet continuance in well-doing" the legible and easily-recognised
higher fruits of Christianity, while refraining from harsh and
irreverent onslaughts on the creeds of those whose sufferings he
mitigates, is everywhere blessed.[7]
To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's footprints so closely
as the medical missionary, and on no agency for alleviating human
suffering can one look with more unqualified satisfaction. The
medical mission is the outcome of the living teachings of our faith. I
have now visited such missions in many parts of the world, and never
saw one which was not healing, helping, blessing; softening prejudice,
diminishing suffering, making an end of many of the cruelties which
proceed from ignorance, restoring sight to the blind, limbs to the
crippled, health to the sick, telling, in every work of love and of
consecrated skill, of the infinite compassion of Him who came "not to
destroy men's lives, but to save them."
In one house Dr. Sutton was welcome because he had saved a woman's
life, in another because a blind youth had received his sight, and so
on. Among our visits was one to a poor Moslem family in a very poor
quarter. No matter how poor the people are, their rooms stand back
from the street, and open on yards more or less mean. It is a misnomer
to call this dwelling a house, or to write that it _opens_, for it is
merely an arched recess which can never be shut!
In a hole in the middle of an uneven earthen floor there was a fire of
tamarisk root and animal fuel, giving off a stinging smoke. On this
the broken wheat porridge for supper was being cooked in a copper pot,
supported on three rusty cannon-balls. An earthenware basin, a wooden
spoon, a long knife, a goat-skin of water, a mallet, a long hen-coop,
which had served as the bed for the wife when she was ill, some ugly
hens, a clay jar full of grain, two heaps of brick rubbish, and some
wadded quilts, which had taken on the prevailing gray-brown colour,
were the plenishings of the arch.
Poverty brings one blessing in Turkey--the poor man is of necessity a
monogamist. Wretched though the place was, it had the air of home, and
the smoky hole in the floor was a fireside. The wife was unveiled and
joined in the conversation, the husband was helping her to cook the
supper, and the children were sitting round or scrambling over their
parents' knees. All looked as happy as people in their class anywhere.
It is good to have ocular demonstration that such homes exist in
Turkey. God be thanked for them! The man, a fine frank-looking Turk,
welcomed Dr. Sutton jovially. He had saved the wife's life and was
received as their best friend. Who indeed but the medical missionary
would care for such as them and give them of his skill "without money
and without price"? The hearty laugh of this Turk was good to hear,
his wife smiled cordially, and the boys laughed like their father. The
eldest, a nice, bright fellow of nine, taught in the mosque school,
was proud to show how well he could read Arabic, and read part of a
chapter from St. John's Gospel, his parents looking on with wonder and
admiration.
Among the Christian families we called on were those of the dispenser
and catechist--people with very small salaries but comfortable homes.
These families were living in a house furnished like those of the rich
Armenians, but on a very simple scale, the floor and dais covered with
Persian carpets, the divan with Turkish woollen stuff, and there were
in addition a chair or two, and silk cushions on the floor. In one
room there were an intelligent elderly woman, a beautiful girl of
seventeen, married a few days ago, and wearing her bridal ornaments,
with her husband; another man and his wife, and two bright,
ruddy-cheeked boys who spoke six languages. All had "date marks" on
their faces. After a year among Moslems and Hindus, it was startling
to find men and women sitting together, the women unveiled, and taking
their share in the conversation merrily and happily. Even the young
bride took the initiative in talking to Dr. Sutton.
Of course the Christian women cover their faces in the streets, but
the covering is of different material and arrangement, and is really
magnificent, being of very rich, stiff, corded silk--self-coloured
usually--black, heliotrope, or dark blue, with a contrasting colour
woven in deep vandykes upon a white ground as a border. The silk is
superb, really capable of standing on end with richness. Such a sheet
costs about L5. The ambition of every woman is to possess one, and to
gratify it she even denies herself in the necessaries of life.
The upper classes of both Moslem and Christian women are rarely seen
on foot in the streets except on certain days, as when they visit the
churches and the mosques and burial-grounds. Nevertheless they go
about a great deal to visit each other, riding on white asses, which
are also used by _mollahs_ and rich elderly merchants. All asses have
their nostrils slit to improve their wind. A good white ass of long
pedigree, over thirteen hands high, costs as much as L50. As they are
groomed till they look as white as snow, and are caparisoned with red
leather trappings embroidered with gold thread and silks, and as a
rider on a white ass is usually preceded by runners who shout and
brandish sticks to clear the way, this animal always suggests
position, or at least wealth.
Women of the upper classes mounted on these asses usually go to pay
afternoon visits in companies, with mounted eunuchs and attendants,
and men to clear the way. They ride astride with short stirrups, but
the rider is represented only by a shapeless blue bundle, out of which
protrude two yellow boots. Blacks of the purest negro type frequently
attend on women, and indeed consequence is shown by the possession of
a number of them.
Of the Georgian and Circassian _belles_ of the harams, a single
lustrous eye with its brilliancy enhanced by the use of _kohl_ is all
that one sees. At the bottom of the scale are the Arab women and the
unsecluded women of the lower orders generally, who are of necessity
drudges, and are old hags before they are twenty, except in the few
cases in which they do not become mothers, when the good looks which
many of them possess in extreme youth last a little longer. If one's
memories of Baghdad women were only of those to be seen in the
streets, they would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old,
figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained hands crinkled
and deformed by toil.
Baghdad is busy and noisy with traffic. Great quantities of British
goods pass through it to Persia, avoiding by doing so the horrible
rock ladders between Bushire and Isfahan. The water transit from
England and India, only involving the inconvenience of transhipment at
Basrah, makes Baghdad practically into a seaport, with something of
the bustle and vivacity of a seaport, and caravans numbering from
20,000 to 26,000 laden mules are employed in the carriage of goods to
and from the Persian cities. A duty of one per cent is levied on goods
in transit to Persia.[8]
The trade of Baghdad is not to be despised. The principal articles
which were imported from Europe amounted in 1889 to a value of
L621,140, and from India to L239,940, while the exports from Baghdad
to Europe and America were valued in the same year at L469,200, and
to India by British India Company steamers only at L35,150. In looking
through the Consular list of exports, it is interesting to notice that
13,400 cwts. of gum of the value of L70,000 were exported in 1889.
Neither the Indian postage stamps nor ours should suffer from the
partial failure of the Soudan supply.
Liquorice roots to the value of L7800 were exported in 1888, almost
solely to America, to be used in the preparation of quid tobacco and
"fancy drinks"!
The gall nuts which grow in profusion on the dwarf oaks which cover
many hillsides, were exported last year to the value of L35,000, to be
used chiefly in the production of ink, so closely is commerce binding
countries one to the other.
Two English firms have concessions for pressing wool and making it
into bales suitable for shipment. There are five principal English
firms here, three French, and six Turkish, not including the small
fry. There are five foreign Consulates.
The carriage of goods is one of the most important of Persian and
Turkish industries, and the breeding of mules and the manufacture of
caravan equipments give extensive employment; but one shudders to
think of the amount of suffering involved in sore backs and wounds,
and of exhausted and over-weighted animals lying down forlornly to
die, having their eyes picked out before death.
The mercury was at 37 deg. at breakfast-time this morning. Fuel is scarce
and dear, some of the rooms are without fireplaces, and these good
people study, write, and work cheerfully in this temperature in open
rooms, untouched by the early sun.
The preparations for to-morrow's journey are nearly complete. Three
mules have been engaged for the baggage--one for Hadji, and a saddle
mule for myself; stores, a revolver, and a _mangel_ or brazier have
been bought; a permit to travel has been obtained, and my hosts, with
the most thoughtful kindness, have facilitated all the arrangements. I
have bought two mule _yekdans_, which are tall, narrow leather trunks
on strong iron frames, with stout straps to buckle over the top of the
pack saddle. On the whole I find that it is best to adopt as far as
possible the travelling equipments of the country in which one
travels. The muleteers and servants understand them better, and if any
thing goes wrong, or wears out, it can be repaired or replaced. I have
given away _en route_ nearly all the things I brought from England,
and have reduced my camp furniture to a folding bed and a chair. I
shall start with three novelties--a fellow-traveller,[9] a saddle
mule, and an untried saddle.
It is expected that the journey will be a very severe one, owing to
the exceptionally heavy snowfall reported from the Zagros mountains
and the Persian plateau. The Persian post has arrived several days
late. I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] I heard that the Shah had prohibited this "Dead March" to Kerbela,
on account of the many risks to the public health involved in it, but
nearly a year later, in Persian Kurdistan, I met, besides thousands of
living pilgrims, a large caravan of the dead.
[7] Six months later a Bakhtiari chief, a bigoted Moslem, said to me
at the conclusion of an earnest plea for European medical advice,
"Yes, Jesus was a great prophet; _send us a Hak[=i]m in His
likeness_," and doubtless the nearer that likeness is the greater is
the success.
[8] The entire trade of Baghdad is estimated at about L2,500,000, of
which the Persian transit trade is nearly a quarter. The Persian
imports and exports through Baghdad are classified thus: Manufactured
goods, including Manchester piece goods, and continental woollens and
cottons, 7000 to 8000 loads. Indian manufactures, 1000 loads. Loaf
sugar, chiefly from Marseilles, 6000 loads. Drugs, pepper, coffee,
tea, other sugars, indigo, cochineal, copper, and spelter, 7000 loads.
The Persian exports for despatch by sea include wool, opium, cotton,
carpets, gum, and dried fruits, and for local consumption, among
others, tobacco, _roghan_ (clarified butter), and dried and fresh
fruits, with a probable bulk of from 12,000 to 15,000 loads.
[9] I had given up the idea of travelling in Persia, and was preparing
to leave India for England, when an officer, with whom I was then
unacquainted, and who was about to proceed to Tihran on business,
kindly offered me his escort. The journey turned out one of extreme
hardship and difficulty, and had it not been for his kindness and
efficient help I do not think that I should have accomplished it.
LETTER III[10]
YAKOBIYEH, ASIATIC TURKEY, _Jan. 11_.
Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is begun. I am ashamed
to say that I had grown so nervous about its untried elements, and
about the possibilities of the next two months, that a very small
thing would have made me give it up at the last moment; but now that I
am fairly embarked upon it in splendid weather, the spirit of travel
has returned.
Much remained for the last morning,--debts to be paid in complicated
money, for Indian, Turkish, and Persian coins are all current here;
English circular notes to be turned into difficult coin, and the usual
"row" with the muleteers to be endured. This disagreeable farce
attends nearly all departures in the East, and I never feel the
comfortable assurance that it means nothing.
The men weighed my baggage, which was considerably under weight, the
day before, but yesterday three or four of them came into the
courtyard, shouting in Arabic at the top of their loud harsh voices
that they would not carry the loads. Hadji roared at them, loading his
revolver all the time, calling them "sons of burnt fathers," and other
choice names. Dr. Bruce and Dr. Sutton reasoned with them from the
balcony, when, in the very height of the row, they suddenly
shouldered the loads and went off with them.
Two hours later the delightful hospitalities of Dr. and Mrs. Sutton
were left behind, and the farewell to the group in the courtyard of
the mission house is a long farewell to civilisation. Rumours of
difficulties have been rife, and among the various dismal prophecies
the one oftenest repeated is that we shall be entangled in the snows
of the Zagros mountains; but the journey began propitiously among
oranges and palms, bright sunshine and warm good wishes. My mule turns
out a fine, spirited, fast-walking animal, and the untried saddle
suits me. My marching equipment consists of two large holsters, with a
revolver and tea-making apparatus in one, and a bottle of milk, and
dates in the other. An Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front
of the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind. I wear a
cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil, an American mountain
dress with a warm jacket over it, and tan boots, scarcely the worse
for a year of Himalayan travel. Hadji is dressed like a wild
Ishmaelite.
Captain Dougherty of H.M.S. _Comet_ and his chief engineer piloted us
through the narrow alleys and thronged bazars,--a _zaptieh_, or
gendarme, with a rifle across his saddle-bow, and a sheathed sabre in
his hand, shouting at the donkey boys, and clearing the crowd to right
and left. Through the twilight of the bazars, where chance rays of
sunshine fell on warm colouring, gay merchandise, and picturesque
crowds; along narrow alleys, overhung by brown lattice windows; out
under the glorious blue of heaven among ruins and graves, through the
northern gateway, and then there was an abrupt exchange of the roar
and limitations of the City of the Caliphs for the silence of the
desert and the brown sweep of a limitless horizon. A walled Eastern
city has no suburbs. It is a literal step from a crowded town to
absolute solitude. The contrast is specially emphasised at Baghdad,
where the transition is made from a great commercial city with a
crowded waterway, to an uninhabited plain in the nudity of mid-winter.
A last look at gleaming domes, coloured minarets, and massive
mausoleums, rising out of an environment of palms and orange groves,
at the brick walls and towers of the city, at the great gate to which
lines of caravans were converging from every quarter, a farewell to
the kindly pilots, and the journey began in earnest.
The "Desert" sweeps up to the walls of Baghdad, but it is a misnomer
to call the vast level of rich, stoneless, alluvial soil a desert. It
is a dead flat of uninhabited earth; orange colocynth balls, a little
wormwood, and some alkaline plants which camels eat, being its chief
products. After the inundations reedy grass grows in the hollows. It
is a waste rather than a desert, and was once a populous plain, and
the rich soil only needs irrigation to make it "blossom as the rose."
Traces of the splendid irrigation system under which it was once a
garden abound along the route.
The mid-day and afternoon were as glorious as an unclouded sky, a warm
sun, and a fresh, keen air could make them. The desert freedom was all
around, and the nameless charm of a nomadic life. The naked plain,
which stretched to the horizon, was broken only by the brown tents of
Arabs, mixed up with brown patches of migrating flocks, strings of
brown camels, straggling caravans, and companies of Arab horsemen
heavily armed. An expanse of dried mud, the mirage continually seen, a
cloudless sky, and a brilliant sun--this was all. I felt better at
once in the pure, exhilarating desert air, and nervousness about the
journey was left behind. I even indulged in a gallop, and except for
her impetuosity, which carried me into the middle of a caravan, and
turning round a few times, the mule behaved so irreproachably that I
forgot the potential possibilities of evil. Still, I do not think that
there can ever be that perfect correspondence of will between a mule
and his rider that there is between a horse and his rider.
The mirage was almost continual and grossly deceptive. Fair blue lakes
appeared with palms and towers mirrored on their glassy surfaces,
giving place to snowy ranges with bright waters at their feet, fringed
by tall trees, changing into stately processions, all so absolutely
real that the real often seemed the delusion. These deceptions,
continued for several hours, were humiliating and exasperating.