Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume Ii Part 2

But even in four days it melted rapidly, and probably by August little remains except a few patches, in the highest and most sunless of the rifts. It is only on the north side that the snow lasts even into July.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ZARD KUH RANGE. _To face p. 30, vol. II._]

The marked features of this range are its narrow wall-like character, its ruggedness on both sides, its absence of any peaks rising very remarkably above the ordinary jagged level of the barrier, its lack of prominent spurs, and its almost complete nakedness. It is grand, but only under rare atmospheric conditions can it be termed beautiful. Its length may be about thirty miles. It runs from north-west to south-east. Some of its highest summits attain an elevation of 13,000 feet. Its name is a corruption of Sard Kuh, "cold mountain."

After fording various snow streams and taking a break-neck goat track, we reached the great snow pa.s.s of Gil-i-Shah, by which the Bakhtiaris come up from the Shuster plains on the firm snow in spring, returning when the snow is soft in autumn by a very difficult track on the rocky ledges above. In the mist it looked the most magnificent and stupendous pa.s.s I had ever seen, always excepting the entrance to the Lachalang Pa.s.s in Lesser Tibet, and an atmospheric illusion raised the mountains which guard it up to the blue sky. I much wished to reach the summit, but in a very narrow chasm was fairly baffled by a wide rift in a sort of elevated snow-bridge which the mule could not cross, and camped there for some hours; but even there nomads crowded round my tent with more audacity in their curiosity than they usually show, and Mirza heard two of them planning an ingenious robbery.

The heat was very great when I returned, 100 in the shade, but rest was impossible, for numbers of mares and horses were tethered near my tent, and their riders, men and women, to the number of forty, seized on me, clamouring for medicines and eye lotions. I often wonder at the quiet gravity of Mirza's face as he interprets their grotesque accounts of their ailments. A son of Chiragh Ali Khan came to tell me that the "Feringhi ointment" had cured a beautiful young woman of his tribe of an "abscess in her nose"! An instance of real benefit hardly consoles for many failures, and any cure increases the exhausting number of "patients." On one day on that plain there was no rest between eleven and five.

Small events occurred tending to show that the good order which the Ilkhani's government secures is chiefly round the centre of rule.

Stories of tribal disputes with violence, and of fights arising out of blood feuds came in daily, and recent sword cuts and bullet wounds were brought to the _Hak[=i]m_. One day there was a disturbance in camp owing to a man attacking Ha.s.san for preventing a woman from entering my tent in my absence. I learned very soon after coming into this country that the Bakhtiaris are dangerously sensitive about their women, although the latter are unveiled and have an amount of lat.i.tude unusual in the East. I have more than once cautioned my servants on this point, for any supposed insult to a female relative of a Bakhtiari would have by custom to be wiped out in blood. This extreme sensitiveness has its good side, for even in the midst of the tribal wars and broils which are constantly occurring female honour is always secure, and a woman can travel safely alone through the wildest regions; a woman betraying her husband would, however, almost certainly be put to death. One night the camps were threatened by robbers, upon whom Aziz Khan fired.

Solitary as is now the general aspect of the surrounding country, it must have been crowded with workmen and their food providers within the last two centuries, for in the beginning of the seventeenth century Shah Abbas the Great, the greatest and most patriotic of modern Persian kings, in his anxiety to deliver Isfahan once for all from the risk of famine, formed and partly executed the design of turning to account the difference in level (about 300 feet) between the Karun and Zainderud, and by cleaving an intervening mountain spur to let the waters of the one pa.s.s into the other. The work of cleaving was carried on by his successors, but either the workmen failed to get through the flint which underlies the free-stone, or the downfall of the Sufari dynasty made an end of it, and nothing remains of what should have been a famous engineering enterprise but a huge cleft with tool marks upon it in the crest of the hill, "in length 300 yards, in breadth fifteen, and fifty feet deep."[4] Above it are great heaps of quarried stones and the remains of houses, possibly of overseers, and below are the remnants of the dam which was to have diverted the Karun water into the cleft.

On a cool, beautiful evening I came down from this somewhat mournful height to a very striking scene, where the peac.o.c.k-blue branch from the Sar-i-Cheshmeh unites with the peac.o.c.k-green stream from Kuh-i-Rang, the dark, high sides of their channels shutting out the mountains. Both rivers rush tumultuously above their union, but afterwards glide downwards in a smooth, silent volume of most exquisite colour, so deep as to be unfordable, and fringed with green strips of gra.s.s and innumerable flowers. On emerging from the ravine the n.o.ble ma.s.s of the Zard Kuh was seen rose-coloured in the sunset, its crests and spires of snow cleaving the blue sky, and the bright waters and flower-starred gra.s.s of the plain gave a smiling welcome home.

The next march was a very beautiful one, most of the way over the spurs and deeply-cleft ravines of the grand Kuh-i-Rang by sheep and goat tracks, and no tracks at all, a lonely and magnificent ride, shut in among mountains of great height, their spurs green with tamarisk, salvias, and euphorbias, their ravines noisy with torrents, bright springs bursting from their sides with lawn-like gra.s.s below, and their slopes patched with acres of deep snow, on whose margin purple crocuses, yellow ranunculuses, and white tulips were springing. But the grand feature of the march is not the mighty Kuh-i-Rang on the right, but the magnificent Zard Kuh on the left, uplifting its snow-fields and snow-crests into the blue of heaven, on the other side of an ever-narrowing valley. At the pa.s.s of Gal-i-Gav, 11,150 (?) feet in alt.i.tude, where we have halted for two days, the Zard Kuh approaches the Kuh-i-Rang so closely as to leave only a very deeply cleft ravine between them. From this pa.s.s there is a very grand view, not only of these ranges, but of a tremendous depression into which the pa.s.s leads, beyond which is the fine definite mountain Kuh-i-Shahan. This pa.s.s is the watershed between the Karun and Ab-i-Diz, though, be it remembered, the latter eventually unites with the former at Band-i-Kir. All is treeless.

The Kuh-i-Rang is the only "real mountain" seen on the journey hitherto. It is unlike all others, not only in its huge bulk and gigantic and far-reaching spurs, but in being _clothed_. Its name means the "variegated mountain." It has much Devonshire red about it, but clad as it is now with greenery, its soil and rock ribs cannot be investigated.

It is a mountain rich in waters, both streams and springs. It is physically and geographically a centre, a sort of knot nearly uniting what have been happily termed the "Outer" and "Inner" ranges of the Bakhtiari mountains, and it manifestly divides the country into two regions, which, for convenience' sake, have been felicitously termed the Bakhtiari country and Upper Elam, the former lying to the south-east and the latter to the north-west of this most important group of peaks, only just under 13,000 feet, which pa.s.ses under the general name Kuh-i-Rang.

A prominent geographical feature of this region is that from this point south-eastwards the valleys rim parallel with the great ranges, and are tolerably wide and level, carrying the drainage easily and smoothly, with plenty of room for the fairly easy tracks which usually run on both banks of the rivers.

The reader who has followed the geographical part of my narrative will, I hope, have perceived that the openings through the Outer and Inner ranges in the region previously traversed are few and remarkable, the Tang-i-Ghezi and the Tang-i-Darkash Warkash piercing the Outer, and the Tang-i-Dupulan the Inner range.

The Kuh-i-Rang is the definite water-parting and the originating cause of two drainage systems, and it may be seen from the map, as was beautifully obvious from the summit of one of the peaks over 11,000 feet in height, that it marks a singular change in the "lie of the land," inasmuch as the main drainage no longer runs parallel to the main ranges, but cuts them across, breaking up Upper Elam into a wild and confused sea of mountains, riven and gashed, without any attempt at uniformity.

This cutting through the ranges at right angles by rivers which somehow must reach the sea, probably through channels formed by some tremendous operations of nature, presents serious obstacles to the traveller, and must effectually prevent commerce flowing in that direction. The aspect of Upper Elam as seen from the Kuh-i-Rang is of huge walls of naked rock, occasionally opening out so as to give s.p.a.ce for such a n.o.ble mountain as the Kuh-i-Shahan, with tremendous gorges or canons among them, with sheer precipices 4000 and 5000 feet high, below which blue-green torrents, crystalline in their purity, rage and boom, thundering on their way to join the Ab-i-Diz. The valleys are short, and elevated from 6000 to 7000 feet, and the tracks dignified by the name of roads pa.s.s along them and at great alt.i.tudes on the sides of the main ranges, but are compelled continually to make dips and ascents of many thousand feet to reach and emerge from the fords of the rivers which dash through the magnificent rifts and canons.

To the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang the formation is orderly and intelligible; to the north-west all is confusion and disorder, but a sublime confusion. Two great pa.s.ses to the north and south of this magnificent mountain are the only ways of communication between the region of Upper Elam and the Bakhtiari country. The northern pa.s.s was ascended from Dima. The Kharba, one of the head-streams of the Zainderud, rises on it and fertilises a beautiful valley about fourteen miles in length. That pa.s.s, the Gal-i-Bard-i-Jamal (the pa.s.s of Jamal's stone), the stone being a great detached rock near the summit, and the Gal-i-Gav (the Cattle Pa.s.s) on the southern side, are both over 10,000 feet in alt.i.tude. They are seldom traversed by the natives, and only in well-armed parties, as both are very dangerous.

The Kuh-i-Rang must now be regarded as the true birthplace of the Zainderud and the Karun, though their sources have hitherto been placed in the Zard Kuh. A tributary of the Ab-i-Diz, and locally considered as its head-water, rises also in the Kuh-i-Rang.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AZIZ KHAN.]

Aziz Khan, who had gone to his tents, has returned with a very nice young servant and another mare, and with him noise and "go." He has such a definite personality, and is so energetic in his movements, that the camps are dull without him. He is a fearful beggar. He asks me for something every day, and for things he can make no possible use of, simply out of acquisitiveness. He has got from me among many other things a new embroidered saddle-cloth, a double-bladed knife, an Indian _kamarband_, many yards of silk, a large pair of scissors, bracelets for his wife and daughter, and working materials, and now he has set his heart on a large combination knife, which is invaluable to me. "What use is that knife to a woman?" he asks daily. Now he says that I have given him many things but I have never given him money, and he must have a purse of money.

"Why can you do so much more than our women?" he often asks. His astonishment that I can read, and yet more that I can write, is most amusing. "Can many women in your country write?" he asked. "Can your Queen read and write? Can she embroider as you do?" At first he thought that I only pretended to write, but was convinced when I sent a letter to the Ilkhani.

He usually appears when a number of sick people come, interprets their dialect into good Persian for Mirza, and beats and pelts them with stones when they crowd too closely, but they do not care. Sometimes when I say that nothing that I have can do a sick person any good he begs "for my sake" that I will try, and when I still decline he goes away in a tantrum, cursing, and shaking his wide _shulwars_ with an angry strut, but is soon back again with fresh demands.

He spreads his prayer-carpet and goes through his devotions thrice a day, but somehow "Aziz Khan praying" seems to suggest some ludicrous idea, even to his co-religionists. "Feringhis don't fear G.o.d," he said to me; "they never worship." I told him he was wrong, that many are very devout. He said, "Does ---- pray?" mentioning a European. I said "Most certainly," and he walked away with the sneering laugh of a fiend. He is a complete child of nature. He says what he thinks, and acts chiefly as he pleases, but withal there is a gentlemanliness and a considerable dignity about him. I think that his ruling religion is loyalty to Isfandyar Khan, and consequent hatred of the Ilkhani and all his other enemies. Going through a pantomimic firing of an English rifle he said, "I hope I may shoot the Shah with this one day!" "For what reason?" I asked. "Because he murdered Isfandyar Khan's father, and I hate him." I asked him if he liked shooting, and he replied, "I like shooting men!"

He has done a good deal of fighting, and has been shot through the lung, arm, and leg, besides getting sword cuts, and he takes some pride in showing his wounds. I think he is faithful. Mirza says that he has smoothed many difficulties, and has put many crooked things straight, without taking any credit to himself. His most apparent faults are greed and a sort of selfish cunning.

There are many camps about the Gal-i-Gav, and crowds, needing very careful watching, are always about the tents, wanting to see Feringhi things, most of the people never having seen a Feringhi. It is a novel sight in the evenings when long lines of brown sheep in single file cross the snow-fields, following the shepherds into camp.

This Gal-i-Gav on the Kuh-i-Rang marks a new departure on the journey, as well as the establishment of certain geographical facts. It will be impossible for the future to place the source of the Karun in the Zard Kuh range, for we followed the stream up to the Kuh-i-Rang, or to indulge in the supposition that the mountains which lie to the north-west are "covered with eternal snow," which in this lat.i.tude would imply heights from 17,000 to 20,000 feet.

It is indeed a disappointment that, look where one may over the great area filled up by huge rock barriers and vast mountains, from the softer ridges bounding the fiery Persian plains to the last hills in which the Inner range descends upon the great alluvial levels of Khuzistan, not a peak presents itself in the glittering snowy mantle which I have longed to see. Snow in forlorn patches or nearly hidden in sunless rifts, and the snow-fields of the Zard Kuh will remain for a time, but eternal snow is--nowhere, and it does not appear that the highest of the peaks much exceeds 13,000 feet, either in Upper Elam or the Bakhtiari country.

Great difficulties are ahead, not only from tracks which are said to be impa.s.sable for laden animals, but from the disturbed state of the country. From what I hear from Aziz Khan and from the guides who have come up here, I gather that the power of the Ilkhani, shaky enough even nearer Ardal, all but dwindles away here, and is limited to the collection of the tribute, the petty Khans fighting among themselves, and doing mainly what is right in their own eyes.

It is somewhat of a satisfaction to me that it is impossible now to go back, and that a region absolutely unexplored lies ahead, doubtless full, as the previously untraversed regions have been, of surprises and interests.

I. L. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the benefit of other travellers I add that the dose of _salol_ was ten grains every three hours. I found it equally efficacious afterwards in several cases of acute rheumatism with fever. I hope that the general reader will excuse the medical and surgical notes given in these letters. I am anxious to show the great desire for European medical aid, and the wide sphere that is open to a medical missionary, at least for physical healing.

[2] A few geographical paragraphs which follow here and on p. 35 are later additions to the letter.

[3] Although the correct name of this river is undoubtedly Kurang, I have throughout adopted the ordinary spelling _Karun_, under which it is commercially and politically known.

[4] _Six Months in Persia._--Stack.

LETTER XVIII

CAMP GOKUN, _July 6_.

A descent of 5000 feet brought us into the grand and narrow gorge of the Sahid stream, with willow, walnut, oak, maple, pear, and crab along its banks, knotted together by sprays of pink roses, with oaks higher up, and above them again overhanging mountains of naked rock, scorched, and radiating heat.

Quite suddenly, after a steep ascent, there is a view of a steep slope below, where a lateral ravine comes down on the Sahid, green with crops of wheat and barley, poplars, willows, and a grove of fine walnuts, and more wonderful still, with an _imamzada_ in good repair, and a village, also named Sahid, in which people live all the year.

The glen is magnificent, and is the one spot that I have seen in Persia which suggests Switzerland.

It is a steep and difficult descent through a walnut grove to the village, and before I knew it I was on the roof of a house. The village is built in ten steps up the steep hillside, the posts which support one projecting roof resting on the back of the roof below.

The people were timid and suspicious, gave untrue replies to questions at first, said we were "doing talisman to take their country," and consulted in Aziz's and Mirza's hearing how they might rob us. It was even difficult to get them to bring fodder for the horses. They were fanatical and called us _Kafirs_. Some of the women have never been out of their romantic mountain-walled hole, in which they are shut up by snow for four months every winter. Ten families live there, each one possessing a step. They said they owned sixty-five goats and sheep, five cows, and seven a.s.ses; that they sell their wheat, and salt from a salt spring at the back of the hill, and that their food is chiefly acorn flour made into bread, curds, and wild celery.

This bread is made from the fruit of the _Quercus ballota_, which is often nearly three inches long. The acorns are not gathered, but picked up when they fall. The women bruise them between stones to expel the bitter juices. They are afterwards reduced to flour, which is well washed to remove the remaining bitterness, and dried in the sun. It is either made into thin cakes and baked, or is mixed into a paste with b.u.t.termilk and water and eaten raw. The baked cakes are not very unpalatable, but the paste is nauseous. Acorn flour is never used from choice.

The grain is exchanged for blue cottons and tobacco. It is not possible to imagine a more isolated life. Tihran and Isfahan are names barely known to these people, and the Shah is little more to them than the Czar.

Near the _imamzada_ of Sahid is a burial-ground, rendered holy by the dust of a _pir_ or saint who lies there. It has many headstones, and one very large gray stone lion, on whose sides are rude carvings of a gun, a sword, a dagger, a powder-flask, and a spear. On a few low headstones a peculiar comb is carved, denoting that the grave is that of a woman.

To several stones long locks of hair are attached, some black and shining, others dead-looking and discoloured. It is customary for the Bakhtiari women to sacrifice their locks to the memory of their husbands and other near male relatives.

I think that they have a great deal of conjugal and family affection, though their ways are rough, and that they mourn for their dead for a considerable time. On one grave a young woman was rocking herself to and fro, wailing with a sound like the Highland coronach, but longer and more despairing. She was also beating her uncovered bosom rhythmically, and had cut her face till the blood came. So apparently absorbed was she in her grief that she took no notice of a Feringhi and an Indian. She had been bereaved of her husband for a year, his life having been sacrificed in a tribal fight.

The next two days were occupied in what might well be called "mountaineering" on goat tracks; skirting great mountain spurs on shelving paths not always wide enough for a horse's two feet alongside of each other, with precipitous declivities of 1000 or 2000 feet; ascending on ledges of rock to over 9000 feet, then by frightful tracks descending 2000 or 3000 but to climb again; and at every descent always seeing in front dizzy zigzags surmounting the crest of some ragged ridge, only, as one knows, to descend again. _Screw_ nearly fell over backwards with me once and again, and came down a smooth face of rock as mules sometimes come down a snow slide in Switzerland. I was told that I should "break my neck" many times, that no Bakhtiari had ever ridden over these tracks, or ever would, but my hurt knee left me no choice. These tracks are simply worn by the annual pa.s.sage of the nomads and their flocks. They are frightful beyond all description. The worst paths in Ladak and Nubra are nothing to them.

Occasionally we traversed deep ravines with noisy torrents where the shade was dense, and willows, ash, walnut, cherry, elm, plum, and oak were crowded together, with the _Juniperus excelsa_ in rifts above.