ask if I have a husband and children, and when I tell them that I am a
widow and childless, they simulate weeping for one or two minutes, a
hypocrisy which, though it proceeds from a kindly feeling, has a very
painful effect. Their occupation in the winter is a little
carpet-weaving, which takes the place of our "fancy-work." They also
make a species of _nougat_, from the manna found on the oaks on some
of their mountains, mixed with chopped almonds and rose-water. When I
concluded my visit they sent a servant with me with a tray of this and
other sweetmeats of their own making.
The party in the garden was a very merry one. The Bakhtiaris love fun,
and shrieked with laughter at many things. This jollity, however, did
not exclude topics of interesting talk. During this time _Karun_, a
handsome chestnut Arab, and my horse _Screw_ had a fierce fight, and
Karim, a Beloochi, in separating them had his arm severely crunched
and torn, the large muscles being exposed and lacerated. He was
brought in faint and bleeding and in great pain, and will not be of
any use for some time. The Agha asked the Ilbegi for two lads to go
with him to help his servants. The answer was, "We are a wandering
people, Bakhtiaris cannot be servants, but some of our young men will
go with you,"--and three brothers joined us there, absolute savages in
their ways. A cow was offered for the march, and on the Agha jocularly
saying that he should have all the milk, the Ilbegi said that I should
have one to myself, and sent two. He complained that I did not ask for
anything, and said that I was their guest so long as I was in their
country, and must treat them as brothers and ask for all I need.
"Don't feel as if you were in a foreign land" he said; "we love the
English."
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] The readers interested in such matters will find much
carefully-acquired information on water distribution, assessments, and
tenure of land in the second volume of the late Mr. Stack's _Six
Months in Persia_.
[49] Some of the legends connected with these objects are grossly
superstitious. At Shurishghan there is a "Holy Testament," regarding
which the story runs that it was once stolen by the Lurs, who buried
it under a tree by the bank of a stream. Long afterwards a man began
to cut down the tree, but when the axe was laid to its root blood
gushed forth. On searching for the cause of this miracle the Gospels
were found uninjured beneath. It is believed that if any one were to
take the Testament away it would return of its own accord. It has the
reputation of working miracles of healing, and many resort to it
either for themselves or for their sick friends, from Northern Persia
and even from Shiraz, as well as from the vicinity, and vows are made
before it. The gifts presented to it become the property of its
owners.
[50] And so it did, though it was then so ill that it seemed unlikely
that it would live through the night, and I told them so before I gave
the medicine, lest they should think that I had killed it.
[51] _Proceedings of R.G.S._, vol. v. No. 3, New Series.
[52] I am indebted for the information given above to a valuable paper
by Mr. H. Blosse Lynch, given in the _Proceedings of the R.G.S._ for
September 1890.
LETTER XV
ARDAL, _May 14_.
The week spent here has passed rapidly. There is much coming and
going. My camp is by the side of a frequented pathway, close to a
delicious spring, much resorted to by Ilyat women, who draw water in
_mussocks_ and copper pots, and gossip there. The Ilyats are on the
march to their summer quarters, and the steady tramp of their flocks
and herds and the bleating of their sheep is heard at intervals
throughout the nights. Sometimes one of their horses or cows stumbles
over the tent ropes and nearly brings the tent down. Servants of the
Ilkhani with messages and presents of curds, celery pickled in sour
cream, and apricots, go to and fro. Sick people come at intervals all
day long, and the medicine chest is in hourly requisition.
The sick are not always satisfied with occasional visits to the
_Hak[=i]m's_ tent: a man, who has a little daughter ill of jaundice,
after coming twice for medicine, has brought a tent, and has
established himself in it with his child close to me, and a woman with
bad eyes has also pitched a tent near mine; at present thirteen people
come twice daily to have zinc lotion dropped into their eyes. The fame
of the "tabloids" has been widely spread, and if I take common powders
out of papers, or liquids out of bottles, the people shake their heads
and say they do not want those, but "the fine medicines out of the
leather box." To such an extent is this preference carried that they
reject decoctions of a species of _artemisia_, a powerful tonic,
unless I put tabloids of permanganate of potash (Condy's fluid) into
the bottle before their eyes.
They have no idea of the difference between curable and incurable
maladies. Many people, stone blind, have come long distances for
eye-lotion, and to-night a man nearly blind came in, leading a man
totally blind for eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The
blind had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off!
Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their hearing, and men
with crippled or paralysed limbs think that if I would give them some
"Feringhi ointment," of which they have heard, they would be restored.
Some come to stare at a Feringhi lady, others to see my tent, which
they occasionally say is "fit for Allah," and the general result is
that I have very little time to myself.
The Ardal plateau is really pretty at this season, and I have had many
pleasant evening gallops over soft green grass and soft red earth. The
view from the tent is pleasant: on the one side the green slopes which
fall down to the precipices which overhang the Karun, with the snowy
mountains, deeply cleft, of the region which is still a geographical
mystery beyond them; on the other, mountains of naked rock with grass
running up into their ravines, and between them and me billows of
grass and wild flowers. A barley slope comes down to my tent. The
stalks are only six inches long, and the ears, though ripe, contain
almost nothing. Every evening a servant of the Ilkhani brings three
little wild boars to feed on the grain. Farther down the path are the
servants' and muleteers' camps, surrounded by packing-cases,
_yekdans_, mule-bags, nose-bags, gear of all kinds, and the usual
litter of an encampment.
The men, whether Indian, Persian, Beloochi, or Bakhtiari, are all
quiet and well-behaved. The motto of the camps is "Silence is golden."
Hadji Hussein is quiet in manner and speech, and though he has seven
muleteers, yells and shouts are unknown.
There is something exciting in the prospect of travelling through a
region much of which is unknown and unmapped, and overlooked hitherto
by both geographical and commercial enterprise; and in the prospective
good fortune of learning the manners and customs of tribes untouched
by European influence, and about whose reception of a Feringhi woman
doleful prophecies have been made.
_Tur, May 18._--The last day at Ardal was a busy one. Several of the
Khans called to take leave. I made a farewell visit to the Ilkhani's
_haram_; people came for medicines at intervals from 5 A.M. till 9
P.M.; numberless eye-lotions had to be prepared; stores, straps,
ropes, and equipments had to be looked to; presents to be given to the
Ilkhani's servants; native shoes, with webbing tops and rag soles, to
be hunted for to replace boots which could not be mended, and it was
late before the preparations were completed. During the night some of
my tent ropes were snapped by a stampede of mules, and a heavy
thunderstorm coming on with wind and rain, the tent flapped about my
ears till dawn.
It was very hot when we left the next morning. The promised escort was
not forthcoming. The details of each day's march have been much alike.
I start early, taking Mirza with me with the _shuldari_, halt usually
half-way, and have a frugal lunch of milk and biscuits, read till the
caravan has passed, rest in my tent for an hour, and ride on till I
reach the spot chosen for the camp. Occasionally on arriving it is
found that the place selected on local evidence is unsuitable, or the
water is scanty or bad, and we march farther. The greatest luxury is
to find the tent pitched, the camp bed put up, and the kettle boiling
for afternoon tea. I rest, write, and work till near sunset, when I
dine on mutton and rice, and go to bed soon after dark, as I breakfast
at four. An hour or two is taken up daily with giving medicines to
sick people.
There are no villages, but camps occur frequently. The three young
savages brought from Naghun are very amusing from the savage freedom
of their ways, but they exasperate the servants by quizzing and
mimicking them. The cows are useless. Between them they give at most a
teacupful of milk, and generally none. Either the calves or the boys
take it, or the marches are too much for them. In the Ilyat camps
there is plenty, but as it is customary to mix the milk of sheep,
goats, and cows, and to milk the animals with dirty hands into dirty
copper pots, and almost at once to turn the milk into a sour mass,
like whipped cream in appearance, by shaking it with some "leaven" in
a dirty goat-skin, a European cannot always drink it. Indeed, it goes
through every variety of bad taste.
The camps halt on Sundays, and the men highly appreciate the rest.
They sleep, smoke, wash and mend their clothes, and are in good humour
and excellent trim on Monday morning, and the mules show their
unconscious appreciation of a holiday by coming into camp kicking and
frolicking.
The baggage animals are fine, powerful mules and horses, with not a
sore back among them. The pack saddles and tackle are all in good
order. The caravan is led by a horse caparisoned with many bells and
tassels, a splendid little gray fellow, full of pluck and fire, called
Cock o' the Walk. He comes in at the end of a long march, arching his
neck, shaking his magnificent mane, and occasionally kicking off his
load. Sometimes he knocks down two or three men, dashes off with his
load at a gallop, and even when hobbled manages to hop up to the two
Arabs and challenge them to a fight. These handsome horses have some
of the qualities for which their breed is famous, and are as
surefooted as goats, but they are very noisy, and they hate each other
and disturb the peace of the camp by their constant attempts to fight.
My horse, _Screw_, can go wherever a mule can find foothold. He is
ugly, morose, a great fighter, and most uninteresting. The donkeys and
a fat retriever are destitute of "salient points."
Hadji Hussein, the _charvadar_, has elevated his profession into an
art. On reaching camp, after unloading, each muleteer takes away the
five animals for which he is responsible, and liberates them, with the
saddles on, to graze. After a time they drive them into camp, remove
the saddles, and groom them thoroughly, while the saddler goes over
the equipments, and does any repairs that are needed. After the
grooming each muleteer, having examined the feet of his animals,
reports upon them, and Hadji replaces all lost shoes and nails. The
saddles and the _juls_ or blankets are then put on, the mules are
watered in batches of five, and are turned loose for the night to
feed, with two muleteers to watch them by turns. Hadji, whose soft
voice and courteous manners make all dealings with him agreeable,
receives his orders for the morrow, and he with his young son, Abbas
Ali, and the rest of the muleteers, camp near my tent, cook their
supper of blanket bread with _mast_ or curds, roll their heads and
persons in blankets, put their feet to the fire, and are soon asleep,
but Hadji gets up two or three times in the night to look after his
valuable property.
At 4 A.M. or earlier, the mules are driven into camp, and are made
fast to ropes, which are arranged the previous night by pegging them
down in an oblong forty feet by twenty. Nose-bags with grain are put
on; and as the loads are got ready the mules are loaded, with Hadji's
help and supervision. No noise is allowed during this operation.
After an hour or more the caravan moves, led by Cock o' the Walk,
usually with two men at his head to moderate his impetuosity for a
time, with a guide; and Hadji on his fine-looking saddle mule looks
after the safety of everything. He is punctual, drives fast and
steadily, and always reaches the camping-ground in good time. When he
gets near it he dismounts, and putting on the air of "your most
obedient servant," leads in Cock o' the Walk. He is really a very
gentlemanly man for his position, but is unfortunately avaricious, and
though he has amassed what is, for Persia, a very large fortune, he
wears very poor clothes, and eats sparingly of the poorest food. He is
a big man of fifty, wears blue cotton clothing and a red turban, is
very florid, and having a white or very gray beard, has dyed it an
orange red with henna.
My servants have fallen fairly well into their work, but are
frightfully slow. All pitch the tents, and Hassan cooks, washes, packs
the cooking and table equipments, and saddles my horse. Mirza Yusuf
interprets, waits on me, packs the tent furnishings, rides with me,
and is always within hearing of my whistle. He is good, truthful, and
intelligent, sketches with some talent, is always cheerful, never
grumbles, is quite indifferent to personal comfort, gets on well with
the people, is obliging to every one, is always ready to interpret,
and though well educated has the good sense not to regard any work as
"menial." Mehemet Ali, the "superfluity," is a scamp, and, I fear,
dishonest. The servants feed themselves on a _kran_ (8d.) a day,
allowed as "road money." Sheep are driven with us, and are turned into
mutton as required. Really, they follow us, attaching themselves to
the gray horses, and feeding almost among their feet. My food
consists of roast mutton, rice, _chapatties_, tea, and milk, without
luxuries or variety. Life is very simple and very free from
purposeless bothers. The days are becoming very hot, but the nights
are cool. The black flies and the sand-flies are the chief tormentors.
On leaving Ardal we passed very shortly into a region little traversed
by Europeans, embracing remarkable gorges and singularly abrupt turns
in ravines, through which the Karun, here a deep and powerful stream,
finds its way. A deep descent over grassy hills to a rude village in a
valley and a steep ascent took us to the four booths, which are the
summer quarters of our former escort, Rustem Khan, who received us
with courteous hospitality, and regaled us with fresh cow's milk in a
copper basin. He introduced me to twelve women and a number of
children, nearly all with sore eyes. There is not a shadow of privacy
in these tents, with open fronts and sides. The carpets, which are
made by the women, serve as chairs, tables, and beds, and the low wall
of roughly-heaped stones at the back for trunks and wardrobe, for on
it they keep their "things" in immense saddle-bags made of handsome
rugs. The visible furniture consists of a big copper bowl for food, a
small one for milk, a huge copper pot for clarifying butter, and a
goat-skin suspended from three poles, which is jerked by two women
seated on the ground, and is used for churning butter and making
curds.
A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused sea of mountains, and
of a precipitous and tremendous gorge, the Tang-i-Ardal, through which
the Karun passes, making a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a
narrow and apparently inaccessible canyon or rift on the south side of
the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 feet in less than
three-quarters of a mile brings the path down to the Karun, a deep
bottle-green river, now swirling in drifts of foam, now resting
momentarily in quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume
and power. Large and small land turtles abound in that fiercely hot
gorge of from 1000 to 2000 feet deep. The narrow road crosses the
river on a bridge of two arches, and proceeds for some distance at a
considerable height on its right bank. There I saw natural wood for
the first time since crossing the Zagros mountains in January, and
though the oak, ash, and maple are poor and stunted, their slender
shade was delicious. Roses, irises, St. John's wort, and other flowers
were abundant.
The path ascends past a clear spring, up steep zigzags to a graveyard
in which are several stone lions, rudely carved, of natural size,
facing Mecca-wards, with pistols, swords, and daggers carved in relief
on their sides, marking the graves of fighting men. On this
magnificent point above the Karun a few hovels, deserted in summer,
surrounded by apricot trees form the village of Duashda Imams, which
has a superb view of the extraordinary and sinuous chasm through which
the Karun passes for many miles, thundering on its jagged and fretted
course between gigantic and nearly perpendicular cliffs of limestone
and conglomerate. Near this village the pistachio is abundant, and
planes, willows, and a large-leaved clematis vary the foliage.
Leaving the river at this point, a somewhat illegible path leads
through "park-like" scenery, fair slopes of grass and flowers
sprinkled with oaks singly or in clumps, glades among trees in their
first fresh green, and evermore as a background gray mountains slashed
with snow.
In the midst of these pretty uplands is the Ilyat encampment of
Martaza, with its black tents, donkeys, sheep, goats, and big fierce
dogs, which vociferously rushed upon _Downie_, the retriever, and were
themselves rushed upon and gripped by a number of women. The people,
having been informed of our intended arrival by Reza Kuli Khan, had
arranged a large tent with carpets and cushions, but we pitched the
camps eventually on an oak-covered slope, out of the way of the noise,
curiosity, and evil odours of Martaza. Water is very scarce there,
three wells or pools, fouled by the feet of animals, being the only
supply.
I rested on my _dhurrie_ under an oak till the caravan came up. It was
a sweet place, but was soon invaded, and for the rest of the day quiet
and privacy were out of the question, for presently appeared a fine,
florid, buxom dame, loud of speech, followed by a number of women and
children, all as dirty as it is possible to be, and all crowded round
me and sat down on my carpet. This _Khanum Shirin_ is married to the
chief or headman, but being an heiress she "bosses" the tribe. She
brought up bolsters and quilts, and begged us to consider themselves,
the whole region, and all they had as _pishkash_ (a present from an
inferior to a superior), but when she was asked if it included
herself, she blushed and covered her face. After two hours of somewhat
flagging conversation she led her train back again, but after my tent
was pitched she reappeared with a much larger number of women,
including two betrothed girls of sixteen and seventeen years old, who
are really beautiful.
These maidens were dressed in clean cotton costumes, and white veils
of figured silk gauze enveloped them from head to foot. They unveiled
in my tent, and looked more like _houris_ than any women I have seen
in the East; and their beauty was enhanced by the sweetness and
maidenly modesty of their expression. I wished them to be
photographed, and they were quite willing, but when I took them
outside some men joined the crowd and said it should not be, and that
when their betrothed husbands came home they would tell them how bold
and bad they had been, and would have them beaten. Although these
beauties had been most modest and maidenly in their behaviour, they
were sent back with blows, and were told not to come near us again.
The Agha entertained the _Khanum Shirin_ for a long time, and the
conversation was very animated, but when he set a very fine musical
box going for their amusement the lady and the rest of the crowd
became quite listless and apathetic, and said they much preferred to
talk. When their prolonged visit came to an end the _Khanum_ led her
train away, with a bow which really had something of graceful dignity
in it.
The next morning her husband, the _Mollah-i-Martaza_, and his son,
mounted on one horse, came with us as guides, and when we halted at
their camp the _Khanum_ took the whip out of my hand and whipped the
women all round with it, except the offending beauties, who were not
to be seen. The _mollah_ is a grave, quiet, and most respectable-looking
man, more like a thriving merchant than a nomad chief, though he does
carry arms. He is a devout Moslem, and is learned, _i.e._ he can read
the Koran.
In a short time the woodland beauty is exchanged for weedy hills and
slopes strewn with boulders. Getting other guides at an Ilyat camp, we
ascended Sanginak, a mountain 8200 feet high, from the top of which a
good idea of the local topography is gained. The most striking
features are the absence of definite peaks and the tremendous gorges
and abrupt turns of the Karun, which swallows in its passage all minor
streams. Precipitous ranges of great altitude hemmed in by ranges yet
loftier, snow-covered or snow-patched, with deep valleys between them,
well grassed and often well wooded, great clefts, through which at
some seasons streams reach the Karun; mountain meadows spotted with
the black tents of Ilyats, and deserted hovels far below, with patches
of wheat and barley, make up the landscape.
These hills are covered with celery of immense size. The leaves are
dried and stacked for fodder, and the underground stalks, which are
very white, are a great article of food, both fresh and steeped for a
length of time in sour milk. After resting in some Ilyat tents, where
the people were friendly and dirty, we had a most tiresome march over
treeless hills covered with herbs, and down a steep descent into the
Gurab plain, on which a great wall of rocky mountains of definite and
impressive shapes descends in broken spurs. My guide, who had never
been certain about the way, led me wrong. No tents were visible, the
nomads I met had seen neither tents nor caravan. Two hours went by in
toiling round the bases of green hills, and then there was the joyful
surprise of coming upon my tent pitched, the kettle boiling, the mules
knee-deep in food, close by the Chesmeh-i-Gurab, a copious spring of
good water, of which one could safely drink.
This Gurab plain, one of very many lying high up among these Luristan
mountains, is green and pretty now--a sea of bulbs and grass, but is
brown and dusty from early in June onwards. It is about four miles
long by nine or ten broad, and is watered by a clear and wonderfully
winding stream, which dwindles to a thread later on. The nomads are
already coming up.
The rest was much broken by the critical state of Karim's arm, which
was swelled, throbbing, and inflamed all round the wound inflicted by
_Karun_ on May 13, and he had high fever. It was a helpless
predicament, the symptoms were so like those of gangrene. I thought he
would most likely die of the hot marches. It was a very anxious night,
as all our methods of healing were exhausted, and the singular
improvement which set in and has continued must have been the work of
the Great Physician, to whom an appeal for help was earnestly made.
The wound is daily syringed with Condy's fluid, the only antiseptic
available, and has a drainage tube. To-day I have begun to use
eucalyptus oil, with which the man is delighted, possibly because he
has heard that it is very expensive, and that I have hardly any left!