A Pilgrimage to Nejd Volume Ii Part 8

Two or three people have been riding about on horseback; one on a very handsome little bay horse, said to be of Nejd origin, brought back by a pilgrim, as it is the fashion for pilgrims who can afford to do so, to bring back a colt from Nejd.

This year's pilgrims they tell us have not yet returned, and we are the first to announce their arrival at Meshhed Ali. We hoped to have heard something here of our friend Ali Koli Khan, but are disappointed. He intended to go by water from Bagdad to Mohammra or Ahwas, and so to Shustar and home-the usual route, in fact-for ours is not a road travelled by respectable people. Dizful communicates with the outer world only by Shustar. It is of no use, however, waiting for Ali Koli.

We cannot spare the time, and must pay our visit to Huseyn Koli Khan now or not at all. No one can tell us exactly where to find the Bactiari chief, some saying he is at Shustar, some at Teheran, while all agree that some of his people are encamped between this and Shustar, and to Shustar we consequently mean to go.

Our last visit was from the governor or deputy-governor, who being, we suspect, not quite sober, (for the Persians drink wine) behaved so oddly that Wilfrid had to beg him to take himself off there and then. On the whole, our day's rest at Dizful has been hardly a pleasant one.

_April_ 5.-Shaking the dust of this very tiresome city from our feet, we resumed our march to-day. We are depressed at the poor reception we have received after all in Persia, the country we have heard of so long as famed for its politeness, but perhaps we ourselves are to blame. Hajji Mohammed tells us we should have travelled in a different way, and he is probably right. The Persians, he says, judge only from what they see, and have no idea that people travelling without servants can be respectable. We should have come with a retinue, an escort of fifty men and half as many servants. Then we should have been _feted_ everywhere.

But it is too late now, and we must travel on as we can.

We took the Shustar road this morning, a well-travelled track, pa.s.sing at first through corn-fields and villages, and then across a fine plain of gra.s.s. The soil here looks richer than any I have ever seen in any part of the world, and it is well-watered and wooded with canora trees. We are marching parallel with the mountains, a lovely range crowned with snow, and quite 8000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. Immediately to our right, a wonderful square-topped hill stands out in front of the main range; a _diz_, or fortress, the people call it. We have pa.s.sed several encampments of Bactiari; wild-looking people, who when you ride up to their tents, run at once to their guns as though they expected constantly to be attacked. They are guarded by some of the most ferocious dogs I ever saw, which were with difficulty prevented from attacking Shiekha and Sayad. Their masters, however, are not inhospitable when things are explained, and we had several basins of milk offered us on the way. From them we have learned that the Khani, as they call their chief, is somewhere on the road, and the prospect has cheered us not a little.

To-night we are encamped all alone, except for the company of an old Arab and his wife, who joined us on the road-Chaab Arabs they call themselves-who have been useful, helping us with the camels. There are many Bedouin Arabs, it appears, in this part of Persia. We have got a sheep to-night, and are to have a feast.

_April_ 6.-The Bactiari tents are like those of the Arabs, but the men are dressed as I have described the Seguand, and Kerim Khan's people.

They keep horses, and carry lances or guns, but I saw no horses which seemed well-bred. Early in the morning a man came from one of their tents, and told us that the Khani had pa.s.sed the night not ten miles from where we were, at a place called Obeyd, which our two guides from Kerim Khan knew well. It lay off the high-road to the left, just under the square-topped hill we noticed yesterday. Though anxious now to get on to Shustar, where alone we can procure servants (and they are a necessity we feel more and more every day), we could not of course forego our visit to Ali Koli's father, and taking a line in the direction pointed out, struck out to the north somewhat back from our yesterday's line of march. It was a rough bit of travelling over broken rocky ground, cut up here and there with streams. Very beautiful, however, for in every hollow there grew real turf brilliantly green, and sprinkled over with borage flowers and anemones; and wherever there was a pool of water, frogs were croaking among the weeds. Our progress was slow, for a.s.sad, one of our men, had bought a donkey at the camp, with a new born foal, and as the foal could not walk, he carried it before him on his horse. He was continually letting it slip off, and stopping to hoist it up again. Towards nine o'clock, we came to a ridge of limestone, overlooking a wide valley out of which the square crag we had been following rose like a wall of masonry, five hundred feet or more; beyond which again, lay the snow range of the Bactiari. While we were looking and admiring, we heard shots fired, and knew that there must be a camp in the valley, the Khani's, we hoped, and so it proved. But before descending, the two Persians insisted upon going through an elaborate furbishing of themselves and their clothes. There was a little pool close by, and there they washed and combed themselves, and then washed their clothes, spreading them afterwards on the rocks to dry. We in the meanwhile found a bit of shade under a rock and slept. It was about noon when we woke and went down to the valley, where we presently saw a large building, the fort of Obeyd, with half-a-dozen white canvas tents grouped round it.

This was Huseyn Koli Khan's travelling camp, and the fort was also his.

It is modern and in good repair, a square building flanked with towers, surrounding a courtyard.

In the middle of the camp stood the Khani's reception tent like a great umbrella, for the side walls were taken down for the heat. There Huseyn Koli sat in state surrounded by a kind of court.

Huseyn Koli Khan is the greatest chieftain of all Western Persia. He is said to be able to put 20,000 hors.e.m.e.n into the field, and this may very well be true, as the whole of the south-western slopes of the mountains are occupied by his tribe. In person he is imposing without being particularly good-looking; he is a thick-set rather heavy man, with a broad face, brown beard and hair, and I think grey eyes. He reminds me of a picture I have seen somewhere of Ghenghis Khan, or another Mongul prince, from whom it is not altogether impossible he may be descended.

His manner is very straightforward and plain, and he gives one the impression of being altogether an honest man. He received us very cordially, made us sit down by him in the middle of his courtiers who were standing obsequiously round him, and gave us some cups of excellent tea.

The manner of tea-making in Persia deserves notice, inasmuch as the tea is there put into the boiling water, while with us the boiling water is poured on the tea; and tea made in the Persian fashion is without the bitter taste too often the result of our method.

We spent an hour or two thus with the Khan, giving him the latest news of his son, who it appears is expected daily now from Ahwas, and learning much about the road which still lies between us and Bushire. The Khan is on his way to Teheran, where he has rank under the Shah as a general in the army, so is unable to invite us to visit him in the mountains where his home is, and where he keeps the stud of Arab mares for which his name is famous. This would be more unfortunate if we did not now recognise the necessity of getting without further delay to the coast. The weather in the last two days has become suddenly hot, and it would be folly to allow ourselves to be caught by the summer with so long a march before us. Besides, we are hardly in such travelling order as to allow of great experiments. In spite of all our exertions, and all our offers of high wages, we cannot get any one to drive our camels. The fact is, the camel is almost as strange a beast here as he would be in England, and camel-drivers about as scarce. So we are to go to Shustar to-morrow accompanied by a confidential man of the Khani's, who will put us into good hands.

We had a grand debate on returning to our tent whether or not to send presents to our host; but on Hajji Mohammed's advice, and rather against our own judgment, at last did so. But our host would receive nothing, saying that it was for him to do honour to his guests, and that he wanted nothing. He has sent us a most excellent dinner now, consisting of half-a-dozen really well-cooked dishes, things we had not tasted since we left Bagdad. There is also a live lamb to take with us to-morrow, and two large boxes of sweetmeats made of fruits and flowers.

_April_ 7.-Our visit to Huseyn Koli Khan, though a disappointment in some ways, for it was but a morning call, has been none the less a good fortune to us. The confidential man whom the Khan sent with us brought us early into Shustar, and through his intervention we are now comfortably established in a really delightful place, the deserted palace of the Shahzade, or Prince Governor of the province, which is to us as a haven of repose, fortress and palace and garden in one. But all this requires description.

Shustar from the river is extraordinarily like Dizful. The Karkeria, on which it stands, is the Diz over again, but I think a larger river; and there is a stone bridge apparently of the same date. The bridge of Shustar is a fine work. It is the broadest I have ever seen out of Europe, for one might drive a coach across it but for the holes; and it is quite fifty feet high above the water. The most singular feature of it is that it is built in a zigzag, and that it has immense piers to the b.u.t.tresses, some of which seem to have held waterwheels. The parapet is very low, and the whole thing so much out of repair, that crossing it as we did, in a hurricane of wind, we were rather nervous about the camels.

Below it is an immense weir, over which the river falls with a deafening roar. A fine arched gateway shuts it off from the city, and just above stands the castle, where we are.

Shustar seems a larger town than Dizful, but it is said to be less flourishing. They both have great empty s.p.a.ces within the walls, and plenty of ruins. The kalat is an immense rambling place, enclosing a number of different buildings. First, there are rows of vaulted buildings, intended probably for barracks, with a large outer court, full just now of green pasture, a sort of mallow, on which we have turned our camels out to graze. These outbuildings are two storeys high, with loop-holes to shoot out of. From the outer court a paved causeway leads up to a narrow gate, the entrance of an inner castle, built round a large square court, with trees and flower-beds in the middle. From this again a flight of fifteen steps leads up to a terrace, garden, and pavilion three storeys high. This last is the hammam, and is the building specially placed at our disposal. The Shahzade is absent, and the only inhabitants of his kalat are a garrison of about a dozen soldiers, but they live in the outer circle of buildings, and will not disturb us. The prince-governor's absence is a disadvantage to us, although we profit by it to inhabit his house, for our letters are to him, and we do not know what sort of wakil he has left here. To-day, however, we have seen n.o.body, and have been very happy and content in the coolness and peace of all around. Only the river makes a distant roar, far below, for from the terrace one looks sheer down at least eighty feet to the water.

_April_ 8.-This spot is like a thing in a fairy tale. Our pavilion contains several rooms on the ground-floor, grouped round a central piece where there is a fountain; and above this is a gallery with more empty rooms round it. We live on the ground-floor, and our windows open on to a narrow terrace with a low stone parapet, from which one can throw a stone down into the river. The Karkeria makes a sharp bend just above Shustar, round what looks like the most beautiful park, a level greensward with immense dark green shady trees, standing as if planted for ornament. Here we sit, and late in the evening and early in the morning I see a pair of pelicans swimming or flying below. The terrace communicates with the garden, which is gay with poppies, pink and lilac and white, in full bloom. There is a little tank, and a row of stunted palm-trees, where rollers, green and blue birds like jays, sit, while swifts dart about catching mosquitoes and flies, only a few hundred, alas, out of the millions that torment us. For there is no rose without a thorn, nor is this lovely kiosk and garden full of blooming poppies without its plague. The flies and mosquitoes are maddening, and to-day the heat of summer has burst upon us. After a hot night, the day dawned hotter still, and a sultry wind blew up dark clouds, till now the sky is black all round.

Towards evening we had thunder and lightning, but hardly a drop of rain; and to-night the air is heavy as lead. I am getting anxious now about the heat. I wish we could get away, either to the hills or the sea but I fear we shall be detained some days. The storm has prevented the Shahzade's wakil from paying us the visit he announced this morning, and we cannot even prepare to go on without seeing him; we are, in fact, dependent on his a.s.sistance. We sent him our letter for the Shahzade early this morning, and Hajji Mohammed brought back word that he was coming immediately; but we have been waiting all day, and he has not come. What is still more tiresome is the unfortunate circ.u.mstance that no letter has come for us from the British Consul at Bussora. This puts us into an awkward position; we had given out that we expected the letter, and it is worse to say that one expects such a letter and not to get it, than never to have mentioned it.

Several visitors have been to see us, two or three merchants, a doctor, and others; they all, on hearing we had not received the countenance we had expected, looked on us somewhat doubtfully, in spite of our talking about our letter of recommendation to the Shahzade. However, we shall see what the wakil says to-morrow.

_April_ 10.-This is the evening of our fourth day at Shustar, and we are not absolutely sure of starting, though we hope to get away to-morrow morning... . Yesterday was a wretched day. The night before last Wilfrid was suddenly taken ill, and though the attack has now pa.s.sed off, it has left him weak. A serious indisposition makes all minor difficulties seem trifles; but these become important when they cause delay, and we have been in much trouble about getting servants.

This town life is certainly not healthy in the great heat (and summer has come upon us in earnest); and every day wasted will make travelling more difficult, and the heat greater. We hope, however, that we have settled all with the governor, but until we are actually off I shall not be at ease.

The wakil has reluctantly promised us an escort for Bebahan, protesting that the country between it and Shustar is so unsafe, that he cannot guarantee our safety, but he may at the last moment recall his promise.

And we are still without a servant, except a little man who takes the camels out to graze in the morning, and brings them home at night. This little man says he will go with us, but I doubt his doing so when the moment comes; so many people have offered their services and then backed out, amongst them the so-called "Sheykh" Mohammed, our acquaintance of the mill and not a sheykh at all, only a zellem of Chaab extraction, and a householder of Shustar. But we do not like him, nor any of the candidates, except two soldiers, and these we cannot have, as they belong to the small garrison of the kalat, and the governor refuses to give them leave.

The governor has been very suspicious of us, and thrown all the obstacles he could in our way. He came yesterday, fortunately not till Wilfrid was better and able to receive him, and was evidently indisposed to further our wishes. His manner, though extremely polite, showed that he was determined we should go to Ahwas, not Bebahan. He strongly urged us to give up all notion of taking the Bebahan road; the country was unsafe; no escort short of a thousand men would suffice to get us through, and that number he had not at his disposal; and besides, we should be wanting in respect to the Shahzade if we did not go and present our letter to him; we were really bound to go to Ahwas, where we should find him. As to a letter from the English balioz (consul) at Bussora, no such communication had been received; and he the wakil, knew nothing about us. He could only repeat that he would do nothing for us except forward us to Ahwas.

He positively refused an escort for any other object.

Things were in this position when the wakil left, and we were at our wits' end, when fortunately, a young gentleman called who belongs to the telegraph office, Mirza Ali Mohammed, of Shiraz, "captain of telegraphs,"

who talks a little Arabic, and a little French. It then occurred to Wilfrid to telegraph to the Legation at Teheran, requesting that the government there should be asked to order the wakil of Shustar to give us an escort to Bebahan. The captain of telegraphs carried off this message, which he had written and translated into Persian for us, and the money for its transmission; but this morning he returned the money, with news that the telegram could not be sent. The fact is he dared not send it without informing his superior, who declined to let it go. But it has had its effect. The governor has no pretext now for doubting our respectability, for suspicious characters would not want to communicate with the central government at Teheran. So instead of a thousand, we are to have an escort of six men and a sergeant to accompany us to Bebahan.

It has been unwillingly granted, and I shall not be surprised if it should even yet be withdrawn.

_Later_.-There seems to have been a storm somewhere; the air is clear, and we hope for less oppressive weather. But the foretaste of heat we have had, is a warning. We have talked over our plans, and agreed to give up all idea of pushing on to Bender Abbas, and to be satisfied with reaching Bushire. There can be no difficulty in finding Captain Cameron, for he will be obliged to pa.s.s between Bebahan and the sea, but we must make haste or he will have crossed our line before we can get to the coast. His intention was to keep as near to the coast as possible, so that we ought to meet him near or at Bender Dilam.

Three or four respectable merchants of Shustar have waited upon us this evening, and given us much friendly advice about the dangers of travel in which we do not much believe. They shook their heads when Wilfrid remarked, that surely under the administration of the Shahzade and his excellent wakil, the country must be safe, and a.s.sured us that the wakil was perfectly justified in dissuading us from our undertaking. It would be much safer to go to Ahwas. Another, Hajji Abdallah, had with him a letter in English from an English firm at Bushire, which he begged us to translate. It was far from complimentary, and we had some difficulty in disguising it under a form of Arabic politeness. He, too, was loud in his dissuasion of our journey.

Our visitors shewed no sign of going away, and I believe they would have sat on all through the night talking, had we not dismissed them. Hajji Abdallah's last words were an entreaty to reconsider our decision, and abandon the foolish plan of going to Bebahan. He has once been that way he says, and would not for the world go again; there are not only dangerous wild tribes, but mountain pa.s.ses and impa.s.sable rocks. We listened unmoved, and in fact we had no choice.

[Picture: s.h.a.gran]

CHAPTER V.

"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

TACITUS.

Illness and misery-A Persian escort-The Shah's Arab subjects-Ram Hormuz and its nightingales-Night marching-Deserted villages-How they collect taxes in Persia-Bebahan.

_Friday_, _April_ 11.-It would be easy to quote unlucky starts on Fridays, and I am afraid this is one. Wilfrid is ill again, a pa.s.sing fatigue we hope, from loading the camels this morning in the hot sun, and riding all day long in it. He is lying down now in the tent and trying to rest, but the flies are intolerable.

Our plan in leaving Shustar was to go with our escort, seven soldiers on foot, armed six with matchlocks and one with a narghileh, to Ram Hormuz, a small town eighty miles on the road to Bebahan, and there get a reinforcement from the Ferraz-bashi or deputy governor of the place for the other eighty miles. This sounded well enough, but already our escort has deserted us, and we are alone.

After delays of all sorts, for till the moment of starting we were still without servants, we got our camels loaded, and about ten o'clock rode out of the palace gate and through the streets of Shustar, and over a stone bridge, which spans the second of the two branches of the river on which the town stands, and into the open country beyond. It was terribly hot, and the whole country is a plague of flies, which buzz about one all day long, and settle on one's head at night.

Our camels have profited by the mallows in the court of the palace to such an extent that they are all fat and frisky, and we had some trouble in loading them. But, at the last moment, we had an unexpected offer of a.s.sistance. A young Arab, dressed in a green calico jibbeh, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and volunteered his services. He had a pleasant face, so that we were taken with him at once. He told us that he was a native of some village on the Tigris near Bagdad, and that he had been impressed by the Turks for their navy, in which he had served three years, that he had then managed to desert while in port at Bussorah, and had fled across the border to Mohamrah. He had since earned his bread by working as horse-keeper for one of the Bawiyeh sheykhs, and later, tiring of that, in service with different Persians at Shustar. His idea now, was to get down to the sea once more, and he begged us to take him with us to Bushire. By accident Hajji Mohammed knew something of some of his relations at Bagdad, and as such a person was exactly what we most wanted, we accepted him at once, on his own terms. This young fellow's coming has been an advantage to us in more ways than one, for it had the immediate effect of inducing another of the crowd who were witnessing our departure to volunteer, and a little red-haired Persian in blue frock and trowsers, came forward to enlist in our service. Thus we are no longer wholly dependent on our old cava.s.s and on ourselves.

As soon as we were outside the town, our sergeant and the six soldiers began to give themselves airs of military importance, advancing in front of us in skirmishing order, and enjoining us to keep close together, although the country had a quite peaceable appearance, the road much frequented by country people on donkeys, unarmed and peaceable folks.

The track led through undulating ground chiefly barren, here and there a patch of cultivation, often between high banks. Our brave defenders here shewed their zeal by running up to the tops of the steepest and highest of these banks, firing off their guns at random, generally in the air, but one of the shots. .h.i.t a lizard sitting in its hole. Their energy, however, cooled as the heat increased; and towards noon, they were satisfied to trudge along with only an occasional diversion to look out for enemies. By a quarter to one o'clock, they all seemed tired, and we too were glad to halt for three quarters of an hour, under a large shady canora tree, in the midst of a field of oats. Here we ate our luncheon, while the animals fed on the oats. Wilfrid complained a little of the sun, but it was not till we had gone on again for a couple of hours that he acknowledged he felt really ill. We were just turning off the track to the north, to go to the tents of a certain Ha.s.san Khan, known to the soldiers, when he said he could have gone no further. The tents were not a mile from the road, but getting there was almost too much for him. We found them set in a circular enclosure, fenced in by a hedge of branches, like a new made Suss.e.x fence, and evidently intended to last longer than a true Bedouin camp ever does. Here there are about a dozen small tents, half hair, half matting. Outside the enclosure, a few mares and foals grazing, among them one rather nice filly, Wadneh Hursan they say, and animals of all sorts, cows, sheep, and goats have been brought inside the hedge for the night.

Wilfrid is extremely tired. The rest seems to have done him no good. He complains of his head and of pains all over. I hope fatigue and the heat are sufficient to account for his feeling ill. I dread a return of the attack he had at Shustar. I wish we had not left the town. This is a forlorn spot to be ill in, and though at Shustar we should be no better off, as far as concerns getting out of the country, there would be a few more comforts, and a chance of sending for help to Bussora. If he gets worse we shall be in an almost hopeless position. Every place seems frightfully far off the moment there is a difficulty about moving; to get back to Shustar would be almost as impracticable as to go on to Ram Hormuz. Seven hours' travelling seems now an impa.s.sable gulf. I have arranged a sort of mosquito net for Wilfrid against the flies, but it only keeps them out for a time, and then a few manage to get inside it, and it has all to be rearranged. But now it is nearly sundown, and the flies will go to sleep at dark; and if the night is cool he may get some sleep.

Everybody here is fortunately kind. Ha.s.san Khan, the chief, is away at Shustar, but his brother Kambar Aga received us well. He has good manners, speaks Arabic pretty fairly, and has been telling me about his tribe, a section of the Bawiyeh of Ajjem, as distinguished from the Bawiyeh of the Ottoman dominions. The people and their chief seem to be very poor. Kambar professes himself ready to accompany us to-morrow to another camp not far off, and on our line of march, that of Hajji Salman, an Arabic-speaking tribe; this is fortunate, as our escort has deserted.

They probably never meant to come further than this, but however that may be, they have in fact abandoned us and gone home to Shustar. In the middle of the day, while we were sitting under the canora tree, they demanded money, and Hajji Mohammed foolishly, without asking us, gave them as much as they ought to have had for the whole journey to Ram Hormuz, and as a consequence, having secured their pay, and with no further motive for taking trouble they departed. Their company is no loss, they were disagreeable and tiresome, but they were of value as a mark of government protection, and in that respect it is unfortunate that they have left us.

Escort or no escort I care not, if only Wilfrid would get better, and he seems no better.

_Sat.u.r.day evening_, _April_ 12.-Wilfrid alarmingly ill all night. He got rapidly worse, and then seemed unconscious of all around; it seemed hopeless, but now he has rallied, and I think the worst is over. Still I have made up my mind not to look beyond the necessity of the moment, and indeed these twenty-four hours blot out past and future. I don't know why I write a journal. He cannot sit up yet, though he says he shall be able to travel to-night. I don't know what to think, but the wish to move is something gained; a short time ago he could hardly speak, and if he really has turned the corner, a few hours may make a great difference.

He now says that by travelling at night only, he shall be able to go on.

Ghada, our new Arab, has behaved very well. I hardly know what I should have done without him to keep the fire up all night, and help to make medicines and beef-tea. In the evening and night I tried everything I could think of out of our small stock of medicines, and in vain. The sun rose and blazed fiercely, and the flies swarmed as before. But in the afternoon the illness took another turn, and now, at any rate, the danger seems to be past.

To please Wilfrid, though I doubt his being able to travel, I have packed up everything and got the tents down, and each separate load put ready; for to carry out the plan of night-travelling, we must load after dark, that is, by the light of a very small moon, when it rises about one o'clock. We are then to be off, Wilfrid to ride his delul, and we are to get as far as we can; I have got cold tea and beef-tea in bottles, to be accessible at any moment. He has remained lying down on his rugs and pillow, the only things not yet packed, which, when the time comes, will be put on his delul.