even dangerous to pass caravans when the only road is a deep rut a
foot wide, and we had most tedious experience of it to-day, when some
of our men, weakened by illness, were not so patient as usual. Abbas
Khan and the orderly could hardly sit on their horses, and Hadji
rolled off his mule at intervals. As the _charvadars_ who give way
have their beasts floundering in the deep snow and losing their loads,
both attempt to keep the road, the result of which is a violent
collision. The two animals which "collide" usually go down, and some
of the others come on the top of them, and to-day at one time there
were eight, struggling heels uppermost in the deep snow, all to be
reloaded.
This led to a serious _melee_. The rival _charvadar_, aggravated by
Hadji, struck him on the head, and down he went into the snow, with
his mule apparently on the top of him, and his load at some distance.
The same _charvadar_ seized the halters of several of our mules, and
drove them into the snow, where they all came to grief. Our
_charvadar_, whose blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, and exceeding
beauty, always bring to mind a sacred picture, became furious at this,
and there was a fierce fight among the men (M---- being ahead) and
much bad language, such epithets as "son of a dog" and "sons of burnt
fathers" being freely bandied about. The fray at last died out,
leaving as its result only the loss of an hour, some broken
surcingles, and some bleeding faces. Even Hadji rose from his "gory
bed" not much worse, though he had been hit hard.
There was no more quarrelling though we passed several caravans, but
even when the men were reasonable and good nature prevailed some of
the mules on both sides fell in the snow and had to be reloaded. When
the matter is not settled as this was by violence, a good deal of
shouting and roaring culminates in an understanding that one caravan
shall draw off into a place where the snow is shallowest, and stand
still till the other has gone past; but to-day scarcely a shallow
place could be found. I always give place to asses, rather to avoid a
painful spectacle than from humanity. One step off the track and down
they go, and they never get up without being unloaded.
When we left Dizabad the mist was thick, and as it cleared it froze
in crystallised buttons, which covered the surface of the snow, but
lifting only partially it revealed snowy summits, sun-lit above heavy
white clouds; then when we reached a broad plateau, the highest plain
of the journey, 7800 feet in altitude, gray mists drifted very near
us, and opening in rifts divulged blackness, darkness, and tempest,
and ragged peaks exposed to the fury of a snowstorm. Snow fell in
showers on the plain, and it was an anxious time, for had the storm
which seemed impending burst on that wild, awful, shelterless expanse,
with tired animals, and every landmark obliterated, some of us must
have perished. I have done a great deal of snow travelling, and know
how soon every trace of even the widest and deepest path is effaced by
drift, much more the narrow rut by which we were crossing this most
exposed plateau. There was not a village in sight the whole march, no
birds, no animals. There was not a sound but the venomous hiss of
snow-laden squalls. It was "the dead of winter."
My admirable mule was ill of cold from having my small saddle on him
instead of his great stuffed pack-saddle, the _charvadar_ said, and he
gave me instead a horse that I could not ride. Such a gait I never
felt; less than half a mile was unbearable. I felt as if my eyes would
be shaken out of their sockets! The bit was changed, but in vain. I
was obliged to get off, and M---- kindly put my saddle on a powerful
Kirmanshah Arab. I soon found that my intense fatigue on this journey
had been caused by riding mules, which have no elasticity of movement.
I rode twenty miles to-day with ease, and could have ridden twenty
more, and had several canters on the few places where the snow was
well trodden.
I was off the track trying to get past a caravan and overtake the
others, when down came the horse and I in a drift fully ten feet deep.
Somehow I was not quite detached from the saddle, and in the scrimmage
got into it again, and a few desperate plunges brought us out, with
the horse's breastplate broken.
When we reached the great plateau above this village, a great blank
sheet of snow, surrounded by mountains, now buried in white mists, now
revealed, with snow flurries drifting wildly round their ghastly
heads, I found that the Arab, the same horse which was so ill at
Nanej, was "dead beat," and as it only looked a mile to the village I
got off, and walked in the deep snow along the rungs of the "mule
ladders," which are so fatiguing for horses. But the distance was
fully three miles, with a stream to wade through, half a mile of deep
wet soil to plunge through, and the thawed mud of a large village to
splash through; and as I dared not mount again for fear of catching
cold, I trailed forlornly into Saruk, following the men who were
riding.
Can it be said that they rode? They sat feebly on animals, swaddled in
felts and furs, the _pagri_ concealing each face with the exception of
one eye in a blue goggle; rolling from side to side, clutching at
ropes and halters, moaning "_Ya Allah!_"--a deplorable cavalcade.
Saruk has some poplars, and is surrounded by a ruinous mud wall. It is
a village of 150 houses, and is famous for very fine velvety carpets,
of small patterns, in vivid vegetable dyes. At an altitude of 7500
feet, it has a severe climate, and only grows wheat and barley, sown
in April and reaped in September. All this mountainous region that we
are toiling through is blank on the maps, and may be a dead level so
far as anything there is represented, though even its passes are in
several cases over 7000 feet high.
_Saruk, Feb. 13._--The circumstances generally are unfavourable, and
we are again detained. The Afghan orderly, who is also interpreter, is
very ill, and though he is very plucky it is impossible for him to
move; the cook seems "all to pieces," and is overcome by cough and
lassitude; Abbas Khan is ill, and his face has lost its comicality;
and in the same room Hadji lies, groaning and moaning that he will not
live through the night. Even M----'s herculean strength is not what it
was. I have chills, but in spite of them and the fatigue am really
much better than when I left Baghdad, so that though I exercise the
privilege of grumbling at the hardships, I ought not to complain of
them, though they are enough to break down the strongest men. I really
like the journey, except when I am completely knocked up, or the smoke
is exceptionally blinding.
The snow in this yard is lying in masses twelve feet high, rising out
of slush I do not know how many feet deep. It looks as if we had seen
the last of the winter. The mercury is at 32 deg. now. It is very damp and
cold sitting in a room with one side open to the snow, and the mud
floor all slush from the drip from the roof. The fuel is wet, and
though a man has attempted four times to light a fire, he has only
succeeded in making an overpowering smoke, which prefers hanging
heavily over the floor and me to making its exit through the hole in
the roof provided for it. The door must be kept open to let in light,
and it also lets in fowls and many cats. My _dhurrie_ has been
trampled into the slush, and a deadly cold strikes up through it. Last
night a man (for Hadji was _hors de combat_) brought in some live
embers, and heaped some gum tragacanth thorns and animal fuel upon
them; there was no chimney, and the hole in the roof was stopped by a
clod. The result was unbearable. I covered my head with blankets, but
it was still blinding and stifling, and I had to extinguish the fire
with water and bear the cold, which then was about 20 deg. Later, there
was a tempest of snow and rain, with a sudden thaw, and water dripped
with an irksome sound on my well-protected bed, no light would burn,
and I had the mortification of knowing that the same drip was spoiling
writing paper and stores which had been left open to dry! But a
traveller rarely lies awake, and to-day by keeping my feet on a box,
and living in a mackintosh, I am out of both drip and mud. Such a room
as I am now in is the ordinary room of a Persian homestead. It is a
cell of mud, not brick, either sun or kiln dried. Its sides are
cracked and let in air. Its roof is mud, under which is some brushwood
lying over the rafters. It has no light holes, but as the door has
shrunk considerably from the door posts, it is not absolutely dark. It
may be about twelve feet square. Every part of it is blackened by
years of smoke. The best of it is that it is raised two feet from the
ground to admit of a fowl-house below, and opens on a rough platform
which runs in front of all the dwelling-rooms. With the misfitting
door and cracked sides it is much like a sieve.
I have waited to describe a Persian peasant's house till I had seen
more of them. The yard is an almost unvarying feature, whether a small
enclosure with a low wall and a gateway closed at night by a screen of
reeds, or a great farmyard like this, with an arched entrance and
dwelling-rooms for two or three generations along one or more of the
sides.
The house walls are built of mud, not sun-dried brick, and are only
one story high. The soil near villages is mostly mud, and by leading
water to a given spot, a pit of mortar for building material is at
once made. This being dug up, and worked to a proper consistency by
the feet of men, is then made into a wall, piece after piece being
laid on by hand, till it reaches a height of four feet and a thickness
of three--the imperative tradition of the Persian builder. This is
allowed a few days for hardening, when another layer of similar height
but somewhat narrower is laid upon it, _takchahs_ or recesses a foot
deep or more being worked into the thickness of the wall, and the
process is repeated till the desired height is attained. When the wall
is thoroughly dry it is plastered inside and outside with a mixture of
mud and chopped straw, and if this plastering is repeated at
intervals, the style of construction is very durable.
The oven or _t[=a]nd[=u]r_ is placed in the floor of one room, at
least, and answers for cooking and heating. A peasant's house has no
windows, and the roof does not project beyond the wall.
All roofs are flat. Rude rafters of poplar are laid across the walls
about two feet apart. In a _ketchuda's_ or a wealthier peasant's
house, above these are laid in rows peeled poplar rods, two inches
apart, then a rush mat, and then the resinous thorns of the tragacanth
bush, which are not liable to decay; but in the poorer houses the
owner contents himself with a coarse reed mat or a layer of brushwood
above the rafters. On this is spread a well-trodden-down layer of mud,
then eight or ten inches of dry earth, and the whole is thickly
plastered with mixed straw and mud. A slight slope at the back with a
long wooden spout carries off the water. Such a roof is impervious to
rain except in very severe storms if kept in order, that is, if it be
plastered once a year, and well rolled after rain. Few people are so
poor as not to have a neatly-made stone roller on their roofs. If this
is lacking, the roof must be well tramped after rain by bare feet, and
in all cases the snow must be shovelled off.
These roofs, among the peasantry, have no parapets. They are the
paradise of dogs, and in hot weather the people take up their beds
and sleep there, partly for coolness and partly because the night
breeze gives freedom from mosquitos. In simple country life, though
the premises of the peasants for the sake of security are contiguous,
there are seldom even balustrades to the roofs, though in summer most
domestic operations are carried on there. Fifty years ago Persian law
sanctioned the stoning without trial or mercy of any one caught in the
act of gazing into the premises of another, unless the gazer were the
king.
Upon the courtyard stables, barns, and store-rooms open, but so far I
notice that the granary is in the house, and that the six-feet-high
clay receptacles for grain are in the living-room.
Looking from above upon a plain, the poplars which surround villages
where there is a sufficiency of water attract the eye. At this season
they are nothing but a brown patch on the snow. The villages
themselves are of light brown mud, and are surrounded usually by
square walls with towers at the corners, and all have a great gate.
Within the houses or hovels the families are huddled irregularly, with
all their appurtenances, and in winter the flocks and herds are in
subterranean pens beneath. In summer the animals go forth at sunrise
and return at sunset. The walls, which give most of the villages a
fortified aspect, used to afford the villagers a degree of protection
against the predatory Turkomans, and now give security to the flocks
against Lur and other robbers.
Every village has its _ketchuda_ or headman, who is answerable for the
taxes, the safety of travellers, and other matters.
_Siashan, Feb. 16._--The men being a little better, we left Saruk at
nine on the 14th, I on a bright little Baghdadi horse, in such good
case that he frequently threw up his heels in happy playfulness. The
temperature had fallen considerably, there had been a fresh snowfall,
and the day was very bright. The Arab horses are suffering badly in
their eyes from the glare of the snow.
If I had not had such a lively little horse I should have found the
march a tedious one, for we were six hours in doing eleven and a half
miles on a level! The head _charvadar_ had gone on early to make some
arrangements, and the others loaded the animals so badly that Hadji
and the cook rolled off their mules into the deep semi-frozen slush
from the packs turning just outside the gates. We had three mules with
us with worn-out tackle, and the loads rolled over many times, the
riders, who were too weak to help themselves, getting bad falls. As
each load, owing to the broken tackle, took fifteen minutes to put on
again, and the men could do little, a great deal of hard, exasperating
work fell on M----. After one bad fall in a snowdrift myself, I rode
on alone with one mule with a valuable burden. This, turning for the
fourth time, was soon under his body, and he began to kick violently,
quite dismaying me by the bang of his hoofs against cases containing
scientific instruments. It was a droll comedy in the snow. I wanted to
get hold of his halter, but every time I went near him he whisked
round and flung up his heels, till I managed to cut the ragged
surcingle and set him free, when I caught him in deep snow, in which
my horse was very unwilling to risk himself.
Soon after leaving Saruk, which, as I mentioned before, is famous for
very fine carpets, we descended gently upon the great plain of
Feraghan, perhaps the largest carpet-producing district of Persia.
These carpets are very fine and their patterns are unique, bringing a
very high price. This plain has an altitude of about 7000 feet, is 45
miles in length by from 8 to 15 in breadth, is officially stated to
have 650 villages upon it, all agricultural and carpet producing, and
is considerably irrigated by streams, which eventually lose themselves
in a salt lake at its eastern extremity. It is surrounded by hills,
with mountain ranges behind them, and must be, both as to
productiveness and population, one of the most flourishing districts
in Persia.
We were to have marched to Kashgird, but on reaching the hamlet of
Ahang Garang I found that Abbas Khan had taken quarters there, saying
that Kashgird was in ruins.
Hadji, who had allowed himself to roll off several times, was moaning
and weeping on the floor of my room, groaning out, with many cries of
_Ya Allah_, "Let me stay here till I'm better; I don't want any wages;
I shall be killed, oh, killed! Oh, my family! I shall never see
Bushire any more!" Though there was much reason to think he was
shamming, I did the little that he calls his "work," and left him to
smoke his opium pipe and sleep by the fire in peace.
I was threatened with snow-blindness in one eye; in fact I saw nothing
with it, and had to keep it covered up. One of the _charvadars_ lay
moaning outside my room, poor fellow, taking chlorodyne every
half-hour, and another had got a bad foot from frost-bite. They have
been terribly exposed, and the soft snow at a higher temperature has
been worse for them than the dry powdery snow at a low temperature, as
it soaks their socks, shoes, and leggings, and then freezes. Making
Liebig's beef tea warms one, and they like it even from a Christian
hand. The Afghan orderly bore up bravely, but was very weak. Indeed
the prospect of getting these men to Tihran is darkening daily.
My room, though open to the snow at one end, was comfortable. The oven
had been lighted twelve hours before, and it was delightful to hang
one's feet into the warm hole. There were holes for light in the roof,
and cold though it was, so long as daylight lasted these were never
free from veiled faces looking down.
In order to become thoroughly warm it was necessary to walk long and
briskly on the roof, and this brought all the villagers below it to
stare the stare of vacuity rather than of curiosity. A snow scene is
always beautiful at sunset, and this was exceptionally so, as the long
indigo shadows on the plain threw into greater definiteness the
gleaming, glittering hills, at one time dazzling in the sunshine, at
another flushed in the sunset. The plain of Feraghan as seen from the
roof was one smooth expanse of pure deep snow, broken only by brown
splashes, where mud villages were emphasised by brown poplars, the
unbroken, unsullied snow, two feet deep on the level and any number in
the drifts, looking like a picture of the Arctic Ocean, magnificent in
its solitude, one difficult track, a foot wide, the solitary link with
the larger world which then seemed so very far away.
Things went better yesterday on the whole, though the mercury fell to
zero in the night, and I was awakened several times by the cold of my
open room, and when a number of people came at daylight for medicines
my fingers were so benumbed that I could scarcely measure them. What a
splendid field for a medical missionary loving his profession this
plain with its 650 villages would be, where there are curable diseases
by the hundred! Many of the suffering people have told me that they
would give lodging and the best of their food to any English doctor
who would travel among them.
The loads were well balanced yesterday, and Hadji only pulled his over
once and only rolled off once, when Abbas Khan exclaimed, "He's not a
man; why did Allah make such a creature?" We got off at nine, the
roofs being crowded to see us start. Fuel is very scarce at Ahang
Garang. For the cooking and "parlour" fire, the charge was forty-five
_krans_, or about twenty-eight shillings! Probably this included a
large _modakel_. For a room from two to four _krans_ is expected.
Through M----'s kindness I now have a good horse to ride, and the
difference in fatigue is incredible. We embarked again on the vast
plain of snow. It was a grim day, and most ghastly and desolate this
end of the plain looked, where the waters having done their
fertilising work are lost in a salt lake, the absolutely white hills
round the plain being emphasised by the blue neutral tint of the sky.
For the first ten miles there was little more than a breeze, for the
last ten a pitiless, ruthless, riotous north-easterly gale, blowing up
the snow in hissing drifts, as it swept across the plain with a
desolate screech.
The coverings with which we were swaddled were soon penetrated. The
cold seemed to enter the bones, and to strike the head and face like a
red-hot hammer, stunning as it struck, the tears wrung from the eyes
were frozen, at times even the eyelids were frozen together. The
frozen snow hit one hard. Hands and feet were by turns benumbed and in
anguish, terrific blasts loaded with hard lumps of snow came down from
the hills, snow was drifting from all the white ranges above us; on
the more exposed part of the track the gusts burst with such violence
as to force some of the mules off it to flounder in the deep snow; my
Arab was struck so mercilessly on his sore swollen eyes that at times
I could scarcely, with my own useless hands, induce him to face the
swirls of frozen snow. Swifter and more resistless were the ice-laden
squalls, more and more obliterated became the track, till after a
fight of over three hours, and the ceaseless crossing of rolling
hills and deep hollows, we reached the top of a wind-bared slope 7700
feet in altitude and saw this village, looking from that distance
quite imposing, on a hill on the other side of a stream crossed by a
brick bridge, with a ruined fort on a height above it. It promised
shelter--that was all. Below the village there was an expanse of snow,
sloping up to pure white hills outlined against an indigo depth of
ominous-looking clouds.
While M---- went up a hill for some scientific work, I followed the
orderly, who could scarcely sit on his horse from pain and weakness,
into the most wretchedly ruinous, deserted-looking village I have yet
seen, epitomising the disenchantment which a near view of an Eastern
city brings, and up a steep alley to a ruinous yard heaped with
snow-covered ruins, on one side of which were some ruinous rooms,
their backs opening on a precipice above the river, and on the
north-east wind. I tumbled off my horse, Abbas Khan, the least sick of
the men, with benumbed hands breaking my fall. The severe cold had
stiffened all my joints. We could scarcely speak; the bones of my face
were in intense pain, and I felt as if the cold were congealing my
heart.
With Abbas Khan's help I chose the rooms, the worst we have ever had.
The one I took for myself has an open-work door facing the wind, and
it is impossible to have a fire, for the draught blows sticks, ashes,
and embers over the room. The others are worse. It is an awful night,
blowing and snowing; all the men but two are _hors de combat_. The
poor orderly, using an Afghan phrase, said, "The wind has played the
demon with me." He has a fearful cough, and haemorrhage from the lungs
or throat. The cook is threatened with pleurisy. It may truly be
called "Hospital Sunday." The day has been chiefly spent in making
mustard poultices, which M---- is constantly crossing the yard in
three feet of snow to put on, and protectors for the chests and backs,
preparing beef tea, making up medicines, etc.
Surely things must have reached their worst. Out of seven men only one
servant, and he an Indian lad with a fearful squint and eyes so badly
inflamed that he can hardly see where he puts things down, is able to
do anything. Two of the _charvadars_ are lying ill in the stable.
Mustard plasters, Dover's powders, salicylate of soda, emetics,
poultices, clinical thermometers, chlorodyne, and beef tea have been
in requisition all day. The cook, the Afghan orderly, and Hadji seem
really ill. At eight this morning groans at my door took me out, and
one of the muleteers was lying there in severe pain, with the hard
fine snow beating on him. Later I heard fresh moaning on my threshold,
and found Hadji fallen there with my breakfast. I got him in and he
fell again, upsetting the tea, and while I attended to him the big
dogs ate up the _chapatties_! He had a good deal of fever, and severe
rheumatism, and on looking at his eyes I saw that he was nearly blind.
He lost his blue glasses some days ago. I sent him to bed in the
"kitchen" for the whole day, where he lay groaning in comfort by the
fire with his opium pipe and his tea. He thinks he will not survive
the night, and has just given me his dying directions!
Afterwards M---- came for the thermometer and chlorodyne, and remarked
that my room was "unfit for a beast." The truth is I share it with
several very big dogs. It did look grotesquely miserable last
night--black, fireless, wet, dirty, with all my things lying on the
dirty floor, having been tumbled about by these dogs in their search
for my last box of Brand's meat lozenges, which they got out of a
strong, tightly-tied-up bag, which they tore into strips. On going for
my fur cloak to-day, these three dogs, who, I believe, would take on
civilisation more quickly than their masters, were all found rolled up
under it, and lying on my bed.