Around the World on a Bicycle Volume I Part 18

"How many miles do you call it." asks my companion. "Just about twelve miles," I reply; "what do you make it?" "That's about it," he agrees; "twelve miles round, and eleven gates. We have walked or climbed over the archway of eight of the gates; and at the other three we had to climb off the ramparts and on again." As far as can be learned, this is the first time any Ferenghi has walked clear around the ramparts of Teheran.

It is nothing worth boasting about; only a little tramp of a dozen miles, and there is little of anything new to be seen. All around the outside is the level plain, verdureless, except an occasional cultivated field, and the orchards of the tributary villages scattered here and there. In certain quarters of Teheran one happens across a few remaining families of guebres, or fire-worshippers; remnant representatives of the ancient Pa.r.s.ee religion, whose devotees bestowed their strange devotional offerings upon the fires whose devouring flames they constantly fed, and never allowed to be extinguished. These people are interesting as having kept their heads above the overwhelming flood of Mohammedanism that swept over their country, and clung to their ancient belief through thick and thin - or, at all events, to have steadfastly refused to embrace any other.

Little evidence of their religion remains in Persia at the present day, except their "towers of silence" and the ruins of their old fire-temples.

These latter were built chiefly of soft adobe bricks, and after the lapse of centuries, are nothing more than shapeless reminders of the past. A few miles southeast of Teheran, in a desolate, unfrequented spot, is the guebre "tower of silence," where they dispose of their dead. On top of the tower is a kind of balcony with an open grated floor; on this the naked corpses are placed until the carrion crows and the vultures pick the skeleton perfectly clean; the dry bones are then cast into a common receptacle in the tower. The guebre communities of Persia are too impecunious or too indifferent to keep up the ever-burning-fires nowadays; the fires of Zoroaster, which in olden and more prosperous times were fed with fuel night and day, are now extinguished forever, and the scattering survivors of this ancient form of worship form a unique item in the sum total of the population of Persia.

The head-quarters - if they can be said to have any head-quarters - of the Persian guebres are at Yezd, a city that is but little known to Europeans, and which is all but isolated from the remainder of the country by the great central desert. One great result of this geographical isolation is to be observed to-day, in the fact that the guebres of Yezd held their own against the unsparing sword of Islam better than they did in more accessible quarters; consequently they are found in greater numbers there now than in other Persian cities. Curiously enough, the chief occupation - one might say the sole occupation - of the guebres throughout Persia, is taking care of the suburban gardens and premises of wealthy people. For this purpose I am told guebre families are in such demand, that if they were sufficiently numerous to go around, there would be scarcely a piece of valuable garden property in all Persia without a family of guebres in charge of it. They are said to be far more honest and trustworthy than the Persians, who, as Shiite Mohammedans, consider themselves the holiest people on earth; or the Armenians, who hug the flattering unction of being Christians and not Mohammedans to their souls, and expect all Christendom to regard them benignly on that account. It is doubtless owing to this invaluable trait of their character, that the guebres have naturally drifted to their level of guardians over the private property of their wealthy neighbors.

The costume of the guebre female consists of Turkish trousers with very loose, baggy legs, the material of which is usually calico print, and a mantle of similar material is wrapped about the head and body. Unlike her Mohammedan neighbor, she 'makes no pretence of concealing her features; her face is usually a picture of pleasantness and good-nature rather than strikingly handsome or pa.s.sively beautiful, as is the face of the Persian or Armenian belle. The costume of the men differs but little from the ordinary costume of the lower-cla.s.s Persians. Like all the people in these Mohammedan countries, who realize the weakness of their position as a small body among a fanatical population, the Teheran guebres have long been accustomed to consider themselves as under the protecting shadow of the English Legation; whenever they meet a "Sahib" on the street, they seem to expect a nod of recognition.

Among the people who awaken special interest in Europeans here, may be mentioned Ayoob Khan, and his little retinue of attendants, who may be seen on the streets almost any day. Ayoob Khan is in exile here at Teheran in accordance with some mutual arrangement between the English and Persian governments. On almost any afternoon, about four o'clock, he may be met with riding a fine, large chestnut stallion, accompanied by another Afghan on an iron gray. I have never seen them riding faster than a walk, and they are almost always accompanied by four foot-runners, also Afghans, two of whom walk behind their chieftain and two before. These runners carry stout staves with which to warn off mendicants, and with a view to making it uncomfortable for any irrepressible Persian rowdy who should offer any insults. Both Ayoob Khan and his attendants retain their national costume, the main distinguishing features being a huge turban with about two feet of the broad band left dangling down behind; besides this, they wear white cotton pantalettes even in mid-winter. They wear European shoes and overcoats, as though they had profited by their intercourse with Anglo-Indians to the extent of at least shoes and coat.

The foot-runners have their legs below the knee bound tightly with strips of dark felt. Judging from outward appearances, Ayoob Khan wears his exile lightly, for his rotund countenance looks pleasant always, and I have never yet met him when he was not chatting gayly with his companion.

Of the interesting scenes and characters to be seen every day on the streets of Teheran, their name is legion. The peregrinating tchai-venders, who, with their little cabinet of tea and sugar in one hand, and samovar with live charcoals in the other, wander about the city picking up stray customers, for whom they are prepared to make a gla.s.s of hot tea at one minute's notice; the scores of weird-looking mendicants and dervishes with their highly fantastic costumes, a.s.sailing you with " huk, yah huk,"

the barbers shaving the heads of their customers on the public streets - shaving their pates clean, save little tufts to enable Mohammed to pull them up to Paradise; and many others the description and enumeration of which would, of themselves, fill a good-sized volume.