Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume Ii Part 9

An arrangement was made for returning the visit, and he received us in a handsome tent in a garden, with the usual formalities, but only a scribe and the _Hak[=i]m_ were present. A _sowar_, sent from Burujird with a letter to the Sahib, was undoubtedly robbed of his horse, gun, and some of his clothing _en route_. Very quietly the Governor denied this, but as he did so I saw a wink pa.s.s between the scribe and _Hak[=i]m_. It was a pitiable sight,--a high official sitting there, with luxuries about him, in a city with its walls, embankments, and gates ruinous, the brickwork in the palace gardens lying in heaps, his province partially disturbed, the people rising against what, at the least, are oppressive exactions, raising an enormous tribute, from which there is no outlay on province or city, government for the good of the governed never entering into his (as rarely into any other Oriental) mind.

This evening he has made a farewell visit on the terrace, attended by the _Hak[=i]m_. Aziz Khan stood on the edge of the carpet, and occasionally interjected a remark into the conversation. I have before said that he has a certain gentlemanliness and even dignity, and his manner was neither cringing nor familiar. The _Hak[=i]m_, however, warned him not to speak in presence of the Governor, a restraint which, though very different from the free intercourse of retainers with their chiefs among the Bakhtiari, was in strict accordance with the proprieties of Persian etiquette. Aziz stalked away, shaking his wide _shulwars_, with an air of contempt. "This governor," he afterwards said, "what is he? If it were Isfandyar Khan, and he were lying down, my head would be next to his, and twenty more men would be lying round him to guard his life with ours."

It seems as if Burujird were dest.i.tute of cavalry, at least of men who can be spared, though it has been stated that a whole cavalry regiment is in garrison.[13]

The Governor promised three escorts; my modest request was for one _sowar_, and a very unmilitary-looking horseman has arrived for me, but now, within an hour of marching, the others are without even one!

Attended by the _Hak[=i]m_ and an escort, we rode yesterday through Burujird. To write that a third of it is in ruins is simply to write that it is a Persian town. It has crumbling mud walls, said to be five miles in circ.u.mference, five gates in bad repair, and a ditch, now partially cultivated.

It is situated in Lat. 33 55' N, and its Long. is 48 55' E. Its elevation is 4375 feet [Bell]. Its population is estimated at from 12,000 to 18,000, and includes a great many Seyyids and _mollahs_. It has a Persian Telegraph Office and Post Office, neither of them to be depended upon, six large and very many small mosques, a number of mosque schools, thirty-three public baths, and six caravanserais. It manufactures woollen goods, carpets, and the best _arak_ to be found in Persia. It also produces dried fruits and treacle made from grapes.

The bazars are large, light, and well supplied with European goods, Russian and English cottons in enormous quant.i.ties, Austrian kerosene lamps of all descriptions and prices, Russian mirrors, framed coloured engravings of the Russian Imperial family, Russian _samovars_, tea-gla.s.ses and tea-trays, Russian sewing and machine cotton, American sewing machines, Russian woollen cloth, fine and heavy, Russian china, and Russian sugar-loaves, to the sale of which several shops are exclusively devoted.

Persian manufactures are chiefly represented by heavy cottons, dyed and stamped at Isfahan, carpets, saddles, horse and mule furniture, copper cooking utensils, shoes of all makes, pipes, _kalians_, rope, ornamented travelling trunks, _galon_, gimps, ta.s.sels of silk and wool, and "small wares" of all kinds, with rude pottery, oil jars, each big enough to contain a man, great water-jars, small clay bowls glazed roughly with a green glaze, guns, swords, pistols, long knives, and the tools used by the different trades.

Altogether the bazars look very thriving, and they were crowded with buyers. Possibly the people have rarely if ever seen a Feringhi woman, and they crowded very much upon me, and the escort drove them off in the usual fashion, with sticks and stones. Though much of Burujird lies in ruins it has a fair aspect of prosperity and some very good houses and new buildings. The roads are cobbled with great stones, and are certainly not worse than those of the older parts of Tihran. Water is abundant.

Nature evidently intends Burujird to be a prosperous city. The pasturage of the plain is magnificent, and the rich soil produces two crops a year. All cereals flourish. Wheat and barley ripen in July.

Seven sorts of grapes grow, and ripen in August and September, and some of the cl.u.s.ters are finer than any of our hothouse produce. Water and musk melons, tobacco, maize, gourds and cuc.u.mbers, beans, the _bringal_ or egg plant, peas, flax and other oil seeds, rice and cotton, apricots, walnuts, pomegranates, and peaches testify to the excellence of the soil and climate.

Not only is Burujird in the midst of an exceptionally fine agricultural district, but it is connected by caravan routes with the best agricultural and commercial regions of Persia to the north, east, and west by easy roads, never snow-blocked, or at least they never need be if there were traffic enough to keep them open. It is only 130 miles from rich Kirmanshah, 90 from the fertile district which surrounds Hamadan, 60 from Sultanabad, the most important carpet-producing region of Western Persia, and rich besides in grain and cotton, 140 from k.u.m, on the main road from Isfahan to Tihran, something about 230 from Tihran, and only 310 from Ahwaz.

These routes are all easy, though, so far as I know them, very badly supplied with caravanserais, except on the main road between the two capitals. The southern road, leading through Khuramabad to Dizful and Shuster, has no great natural difficulties, though part of it lies through a mountainous region. Some blasting and much boulder-lifting would, according to Colonel Bell, remedy the evils of the fifty miles of it which he regards as bad. But, apart from this, the Shuster-Burujird route, the most _natural_ route for north and south-western Persian commerce to take to and from the sea, is at present useless to trade from its insecurity, as the Feili Lurs, through whose territory it pa.s.ses, own no authority, live by robbery when they have any one to rob, and are always fighting each other.

There are no regular _charvadars_ in Burujird, and many and tedious have been the difficulties in the way of getting off. Up to last night I had no mules, and Hadji said mournfully, "When you learn what other _charvadars_ are like, you'll think of me." I have taken leave of Aziz Khan with regret. He echoes the oft-repeated question, "Why does not England come and give us peace? In a few years we should all be rich, and not have to fight each other." "Stay among us for some years," he said, "and you will get very rich. What have you to go back to in Feringhistan?" He asked me for a purse, and to put some _krans_ in it for his children, but not to give him any money. He said that when he asked for money and other things he was only in fun. I do not know whether to believe him.

Mirza and my caravan started this morning, and now, 4 P.M., I am leaving with the _sowar_, with the mercury at 90, for the first march of a journey of 800 miles.

I. L. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] I have since heard that this youth was an accomplice of a Burujird man in this theft, and of an Armenian in a robbery of money which occurred in Berigun.

[13] Throughout the part of Persia in which I have travelled I have observed a most remarkable discrepancy between the numbers of soldiers _said_ to garrison any given place, and the number which on further investigation turned out to be actually there. It is safe to deduct from fifty to ninety per cent from the number in the original statement!

LETTER XXII

HAMADAN, _Aug. 28_.

It was as I thought. The _sowar_ sent with me was only a harmless peasant taken from the plough, mounted on his own horse, and provided with a Government gun. The poor fellow showed the "white feather" on the first march, and I was obliged to a.s.sert the "ascendency of race"

and ride in front of him. The villagers at once set him down as an impostor, and refused him supplies, and as his horse could not keep up with mine, and the road presented no apparent perils, I dismissed him at the end of three days with a _largesse_ which gladdened his heart.

He did not know the way, and the afternoon I left Burujird he led me through ploughed fields and along roadless hillsides, till at the end of an hour I found myself close to the garden from which I started.

The early part of the first march is over great bare gravelly slopes without water. Then come irrigation and villages. The hills have been eaten nearly bare. Nothing remains but a yellow salvia and the beautiful _Eryngium caeruleum_. There, as in the Bakhtiari country, the people stack the _Centaurea alata_ for winter fodder. The road is good, and except in two places a four-wheeled carriage could be driven over it at a trot.

The camping-ground was outside Deswali, an unwalled village of 106 houses, with extensive cultivated lands and a "well-to-do" aspect. The people raise cereals, melons, cuc.u.mbers, grapes, and cotton, but in bad seasons have to import wheat. There, as at every village since, the _ketchuda_ has called upon me, and some of these men have been intelligent and communicative, and have shown such courtesies as have been in their power. It is an unusual, if not an unheard-of, thing for a European lady, even if she knows Persian, to travel through this country without a European escort; but there has been no rudeness or impertinent curiosity, no crowding even; the headmen all seemed anxious for my comfort, and supplies at reasonable rates have always been forthcoming.

The heat at Deswali was overpowering, the mercury in my tent standing for hours on 17th August at 120, the temperature in the shade being 104.

It is vain to form any resolution against making a pet of a horse. My new acquisition, "_Boy_," insisted on being petted, and his winning and enticing ways are irresistible. He is always tethered in front of my tent with a rope so long as to give him a considerable amount of liberty, and he took advantage of this the very first day to come into the tent and make it very apparent that he wanted me to divide a melon with him. Grapes were his next _penchant_, then cuc.u.mber, bread, and biscuits. Then he actually drank milk out of a soup plate. He comes up to me and puts his head down to have his ears rubbed, and if I do not attend to him at once, or cease attending to him, he gives me a gentle but admonitory thump. I dine outside the tent, and he is tied to my chair, and waits with wonderful patience for the odds and ends, only occasionally rubbing his soft nose against my face to remind me that he is there. Up to this time a friendly snuffle is the only sound that he has made. He does not know how to fight, or that teeth and heels are of any other use than to eat and walk with. He is really the gentlest and most docile of his race. The point at which he "draws the line" is being led. He drags back, and a mulish look comes into his sweet eyes. But he follows like a dog, and as I walk as much as I can I always have him with me. He comes when I call him, stops when I stop, goes off the road with me when I go in search of flowers, and usually puts his head either on my shoulder or under my arm. To him I am an embodiment of melons, cuc.u.mbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits, and sugar, with a good deal of petting and ear-rubbing thrown in. Every day he becomes more of a companion. He walks very fast, gallops easily, never stumbles, can go anywhere, is never tired, and is always hungry. I paid 4:15s. for him, but he was bought from the Bakhtiaris for 3:14s. as a four-year-old. He is "up to" sixteen stone, jumps very well, and is an excellent travelling horse.

Redundant forelocks and wavy manes, uncut tails carried in fiery fashion, small noses, quivering nostrils, small restless ears, and sweet intelligent eyes add wonderfully to the attractiveness of the various points of excellence which attract a horse-fancier in Persia.

A Persian horse in good condition may be backed against any horse in the world for weight-carrying powers, endurance, steadiness, and surefootedness, is seldom unsound, and is to his rider a friend as well as a servant. Generally speaking, a horse can carry his rider wherever a mule can carry a load, and will do from thirty to forty miles a day for almost any length of time.

The clothing of horses is an important matter. Even in this hot weather they wear a good deal--first a _parhan_ or shirt of fine wool crossed over the chest; next the _jul_, a similar garment, but in coa.r.s.er wool; and at night over all this is put the _namad_, a piece of felt half an inch thick, so long that it wraps the animal from head to tail, and so deep as to cover his body down to his knees. A broad surcingle of woollen webbing keeps the whole in place.

The food does not vary. It consists of from seven to ten pounds of barley daily, in two feeds, and as much as a horse can eat of _kah_, which is straw broken in pieces about an inch and a half long. While travelling, barley and _kah_ are mixed in the nose-bag. No hay is given, and there are no oats. It is customary among the rich to give their horses an exclusive diet of barley gra.s.s for one month in the spring, on which they grow very fat and useless. Old horses are fed on dough-b.a.l.l.s made of barley-flour and water. A grape diet is also given in the grape-producing regions in the autumn instead of _kah_. _Boy_ eats ten pounds of grapes as a mere dessert.

I admire and like the Persian horse. His beauty is a constant enjoyment, and, ferocious as he is to his fellows, he is gentle and docile to man. I cannot now recall having seen a vicious horse in seven months. On the whole they are very well cared for, and are kindly treated. The sore backs of baggage horses are almost inevitable, quite so, indeed, so long as the present form of pack-saddle stuffed with _kah_ is used. Mares are not ridden in Persia proper.

The march from Deswali to Sahmine is a pretty one, at first over long buff rolling hills and through large elevated villages, then turning off from the Kirmanshah road and descending into a broad plain, the whole of which for several miles is occupied by the trees and gardens of the eminently prosperous village of Sahmine, whose 500 families, though they pay a tribute of 2400 _tumans_ a year, have "nothing to complain of."[14]

I was delighted with the oasis of Sahmine. It has abundant water for irrigation, which means abundant fertility. Its walnut trees are magnificent, and its gardens are filled with n.o.ble fruit trees. The wheat harvest was being brought in, and within the walls it was difficult to find a place to camp on, for all the open s.p.a.ces were threshing-floors, piled with sheaves of wheat and mounds of _kah_, in the midst of which oxen in spans of two were threshing. That is, they drew machines like heavy wood sleds, with transverse revolving wooden rollers set with iron fans at different angles, which cut the straw to pieces. A great heap of unbound sheaves is in the centre, and from this men throw down the stalked ears till they come up to the bodies of the oxen, adding more as fast as the straw is trodden down. A boy sits on the car and keeps the animals going in a circle hour after hour with a rope and a stick. The foremost oxen are muzzled. The grain falls out during this process.

On a windy day the great heaps are tossed into the air on a fork, the straw is carried for a short distance, and the grain falling to the ground is removed and placed in great clay jars in the living-rooms of the houses. All the villages are now surrounded with mounds of _kah_ which will be stored before snow comes. The dustiness of this winnowing process is indescribable. I was nearly smothered with it in Sahmine, and on windy days each village is enveloped in a yellow dust storm.

Sahmine, though it has many ruinous buildings, has much building going on. It has large houses with _balakhanas_, a Khan's fort with many houses inside, a square with fine trees and a stream, and a _place_ with a stream, where madder-red dyers were at work, and there are five small mosques and _imamzadas_. The gardens are quite beautiful, and it is indeed a very attractive village.

The people also were attractive and friendly. After the _ketchuda's_ official visit the Khan's wives called, and pressed me very hospitably to leave my tent and live with them, and when I refused they sent me a dinner of Persian dishes with sweetmeats made by their own hands. The _kabobs_ were quite appetising. They are a favourite Persian dish, made of pieces of seasoned meat roasted on skewers, and served very hot, between flaps of very hot bread. Each bit of meat is rubbed with an onion before being put on the skewer, and a thin slice of tail fat is put between every two pieces. The cooks show great art in the rapidity with which they rotate a skewer full of _kabobs_ over a fierce charcoal fire.

In the evening, at the _ketchuda's_ request, I held a "reception"

outside my tent, and it was a very pleasant, merry affair. Several of the people brought their children, and the little things behaved most graciously. It is very pleasant to see the devotion of the men to them. I told them that in England many of our people are so poor that instead of children being welcome they are regarded ruefully as additional "mouths to feed." "Ah," said the _ketchuda_, a handsome Seyyid, "your land is then indeed under the curse of G.o.d. We would like ten children at once, they are the joy of our lives." Other men followed, expatiating on the delights of having children to pet and play with on their return from work.

Sahmine not only dyes and prints cottons, but it exports wheat, barley, opium, cotton, and fruit, and appears a more important and prosperous place than Daulatabad, the capital of the district.

The fine valley between Sahmine and Daulatabad is irrigated by a _kanaat_ and ca.n.a.ls, and is completely cultivated, bearing heavy crops of wheat, cotton, tobacco, opium, _bringals_, and castor oil. The wheat is now being carried to the villages on a.s.ses' backs in great nets, lashed to six-foot poles placed in front and behind, each pole being kept steady by a man.

The heat on that march was severe. A heavy heat-haze hung over the distances, vegetation drooped, my mock _sowar_ wrapped up his head in his _abba_, the horses looked limp, the harvesters slept under the trees, the buffaloes lay down in mud and water. Even the greenery of the extensive gardens in and around Daulatabad scarcely looked cool.

Daulatabad is a walled city of 4500 souls, has a fort, and is reputed to have a large garrison. The bazars, which contain 250 shops, are indifferent, and the five caravanserais wretched. It and its extensive gardens occupy the eastern extremity of a plain, and lie very near the steep rocky mountain Sard Kuh, through which, by the Tang-i-Asnab, the Tihran road pa.s.ses. Another road over the shoulder of the mountain goes to Isfahan. The plain outside the walls has neither tree nor bush, and was only brought into cultivation two years ago. The harvest was carried, and as irrigation had been suspended for some weeks, there was nothing but a yellow expanse of short thin stubble and blazing gravel.

There was no s.p.a.ce for camping in any available garden, and an hour was spent in finding a camping-ground with wholesome water on the burning plain before mentioned. I camped below a terraced and planted eminence, on which a building, half fort and half governor's house, has so recently been erected that it has not had time to become ruinous. It is an imposing quadrangle with blank walls, towers with windows at the corners, and a very large _balakhana_ over the entrance. A winding carriage-drive, well planted, leads up to it, and there is a circular band-stand with a concrete floor and a fountain.

The most surprising object was a new pair-horse landau, standing under a tree. Barracks are being built just below the house.

While my tent was being pitched, the Governor's _aide-de-camp_, attended by a cavalry escort, called, and with much courtesy offered me the _balakhana_, arranged, he said, in European fashion. The Governor was absent, but this officer said that it would be his wish to offer me hospitality. As I felt quite unable to move he sent a skin of good water, some fruit, and a guard of four soldiers.

It was only 11 A.M. when the tents were pitched, and the long day which followed was barely endurable. The mercury reached 124 inside my tent. The servants lay in a dry ditch under a tree in the Governor's garden. _Boy_ several times came into the shade of my verandah. The black flies swarmed over everything, and at sunset covered the whole roof of the tent so thickly that no part of it could be seen. The sun, a white scintillating ball, blazed from a steely sky, over which no cloud ever pa.s.sed. The heated atmosphere quivered over the burning earth. I was at last ill of fever, and my recipe for fighting the heat by ceaseless occupation failed. It was a miserable day, and at one time a scorching wind, which seemed hot enough to singe one's hair, added to the discomfort. "As the hireling earnestly desireth the shadow," so I longed for evening, but truly the hours of that day were "long drawn out." The silence was singular. Even the buzzing of a blue-bottle fly would have been cheerful. The sun, reddening the atmosphere as he sank, disappeared in a fiery haze, and then the world of Daulatabad awoke. Parties of Persian gentlemen on fiery horses pa.s.sed by, dervishes honoured me by asking alms, the Governor's _major-domo_ called to offer sundry kindnesses, and great flocks of sheep and goats, indicated by long lines of dust clouds, moved citywards from the hills. Sand-flies in legions now beset me, and the earth, which had been imbibing heat all day, radiated it far into the morning. I moved my bed outside the tent and gave orders for an early start, but the _charvadar_ who was in the city over-slept himself, and it was eight the next day before I got away, taking Mirza with me.

The heat culminated on that day. Since then, having attained a higher alt.i.tude, it has diminished.[15] The road to Jamilabad ascends pretty steadily through undulating country with small valleys among low hills, but with hardly any villages, owing to the paucity of water.

The fever still continuing, I found it difficult to bear the movement of the horse, and dismounted two or three times and lay under an umbrella by the roadside. On one of these halts I heard Mirza's voice saying in cheerful tones, "Madam, your horse is gone!" "Gone!" I exclaimed, "I told you always to hold or tether him." "I trusted him,"

he replied sententiously. "Never trust any one or any horse, and least of all yourself," I replied unadvisedly. I sent him back with his horse to look for _Boy_, telling him when he saw him to dismount and go towards him with the nose-bag, and that though the horse would approach it and throw up his heels and trot away at first, he would eventually come near enough to be caught. After half an hour he came back without him. I asked him what he had done. He said he saw _Boy_, rode near him twice, did not dismount, held out to him not the nose-bag with barley but my "_courier bag_," and that _Boy_ cantered out of sight! For the moment I shared Aziz Khan's contempt for the "desk-bred" man.

Mirza is so good that one cannot be angry with him, but it was very annoying to hear him preach about "fate" and "destiny" while he was allowing his horse to grind my one pair of smoked spectacles into bits under his hoofs. I only told him that it would be time to fall back on _fate_ and _destiny_ when, under any given circ.u.mstances, such as these, he had exhausted all the resources of forethought and intelligence. My plight was a sore one, for by that time I was really ill, and had lost, as well as my horse and saddle, my food, quinine, writing materials, and needle-work. I got on the top of the baggage and rode for five hours, twice falling off from exhaustion. The march instead of being thirteen miles turned out twenty-two, there was no water, poor Mirza was so "knocked up" that he stumbled blindly along, and it was just sunset when, after a series of gentle ascents, we reached the village of Jamilabad, prettily situated on the crest of a hill in a narrow valley above a small stream.