Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume Ii Part 11

The house is large, plain, airy, and thoroughly sanitary, very well situated, with an open view over the Hamadan plain. It is closely surrounded by the houses of the Armenian quarter, and all those domestic operations which are performed on the roofs in hot weather are easily studied, such as the drying of clothes and herbs, the cleaning of heads, the beating of children, the bringing out of beds at night, and the rolling them up in the morning, the "going to bed"

of families much bundled up, the performance of the very limited ablutions which const.i.tute the morning toilette, and the making and mending of clothes, the roof being for many months both living-room and bedroom.

At sunset, as in all Persian towns, a great hush falls on Hamadan.

Only people who have business are seen in the streets, the bazars are closed, and from sunset to sunrise there would be complete silence were it not for the yelping and howling of the scavenger dogs and the long melancholy call to prayer from the minarets. If it is necessary to go out at night a person of either s.e.x is preceded by a servant carrying a lantern near the ground. These lanterns have metal tops and bottoms, and waxed, wired muslin between, which is ingeniously arranged to fold up flat. They are usually three feet long, but may be of any diameter, and as your consideration is evidenced by the size of your lantern there is a tendency to carry about huge transparencies which undulate very agreeably in the darkness.

This is the Moharrem or month of mourning, for Ha.s.san and Houssein, the slain sons of Ali, who are regarded by the Shiahs as the rightful successors of the Prophet and as the n.o.blest martyrs in the Calendar.

During this period the whole Persian community goes into deep mourning, and the streets and bazars are filled with black dresses only. In this month is acted throughout the Empire the _Tazieh_ or Pa.s.sion Play, which has for its climax the tragic deaths of these two men.[17]

I arrived in Hamadan on what should have been the first day of Moharrem, but there had been a difference of opinion among the _mollahs_ as to the date, and it was postponed to the next day, for me a most fortunate circ.u.mstance, as no Christian ought to be seen in the streets at a time when they are filled with excited throngs frenzied by religious fanaticism. On the following day the quiet of the city was interrupted by singular cries, and by children's voices, high pitched, singing a chant so strange and weird that one both longs and dreads to hear it repeated. The Christians kept within their houses.

Business was suspended. Bands of boys carrying black flags perambulated the town, singing one of the chants of the Pa.s.sion Play.

As night came on it was possible to feel the throb of the excitement of the city, and till the small hours the march of frenzied processions was heard, and the loud smiting on human b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the clash of the chains with which the dervishes beat themselves, were intermingled with a united rhythmic cry of anguish--_Ah Houssein! Wai Houssein!_ (O Houssein! Woe for Houssein!) _Ya Houssein! Ya Ha.s.san!_ and in the flickering light of the torches black flags were waving, and frenzied men were seen beating their bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

In some of the cities these processions are a sickening spectacle.

Throngs move along the streets, escorting large troops of men either stripped to their waists or wearing only white shirts which expose the bosom. Beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s with their right hands in concert till they make them raw, gashing themselves on their heads with daggers, streaming with blood, and maddened by religious frenzy, they pa.s.s from street to street, and the yell rises from all quarters, _Ya Houssein!

Wai Houssein!_ Occasionally men drop down dead from excitement, and others, falling from loss of blood, are carried away by their friends.

It is at the end of the month of mourning that these processions, called _testeh_, increase so much in frenzy and fanaticism as to be dangerous to the good order of cities, clashing with each other, and sometimes cutting their way through each other with loss of life. To join in a _testeh_ is to perform a "pious act," and atones for sin committed and to be committed. The _Tazieh_ or Pa.s.sion Play itself, acted in splendour before the Shah, is repeated everywhere throughout Persia, lasting from ten to twelve days, the frenzy with which the different incidents are received culminating on the last day, when the slaughter of Houssein is represented. On the whole the _Tazieh_ is among the most remarkable religious phenomena of our age.

Under the rule of the present Prince Governor complete religious toleration exists in Hamadan, and the missionaries have a fair field, though it must never be forgotten that a _proselytising_ Christian, rendering honour to Christ as G.o.d, by his mere presence introduces a disturbing element into a Moslem population. In consequence of this tolerant official spirit there are a few Moslem girls among the sixty boarders here. In addition there are a large number of day pupils.

The girls live in native fashion, and wear native dresses of red cotton printed with white patterns, white _chadars_, and such ornaments as they possess. They sit on the floor at their meals, at each of which one of the ladies is present. They have excellent food, meat once a day in summer and twice in winter, bread, tea, soup, curds, cheese, melons, cuc.u.mbers, pickles, and gourds. The winter supplies are now being laid in, and caravans of a.s.ses are arriving daily with firewood, cheeses, and melons. The elder girls cook, and all the washing, making, and mending are done at home, each elder girl in addition having a small family of young ones under her care. The only servant is the _bheestie_ or water-carrier. The dormitories, cla.s.s-rooms, eating-room, and _hammam_ are large and well ventilated, but very simple.

A plain but thorough education of the "National School" type is given, in combination with an industrial training, fitted for girls whose early destiny is wifehood and maternity. Some of the teachers are men, but the religious instruction, on which great stress is laid, is given by the ladies themselves, and is made singularly interesting and attractive. Music and singing are regarded as among the recreations.

The discipline is perfect, and the dirtiest, roughest, lumpiest, and most refractory raw material is quickly transformed into cleanliness, brightness, and docility, partly by the tone of the school and the influence of the girls who have been trained in it, but chiefly by the influence of love.

The respect with which the office of a teacher is regarded in the East allows of much more _apparent_ familiarity than would be possible with us. Out of school hours the ladies are accessible at all times even to the youngest children. Many a little childish trouble finds its way to their maternal sympathies, and they are just as ready to give advice about the colour and making of dolls' clothes as about more important matters. The loving, cheerful atmosphere of an English home pervades the school. I write English rather than American because the ladies are Prince Edward Islanders and British subjects.

Some of the girls who have been trained here are well married and make good wives, and the school bids fair to be resorted to in the future by young men who desire companionship as well as domestic accomplishments in their wives. The ordinary uneducated Armenian woman is a very stupid lump, very inferior to the Persian woman. Of the effect of the simple, loving, practical, Christian training given, and enforced by the beauty of example it is easy to write, for not only some of the girls who have left the school, but many who are now in it show by the purity, gentleness, lovingness, and self-denial of their lives that they have learned to follow the Master, a lesson the wise teaching of which is, or should be, I think, the _raison d'etre_ of every mission school. Christianity thus translated into homely lives may come to be the disinfectant which will purify in time the deep corruption of Persian life.

The cost of this school under its capable and liberal management is surprising--only 3:15s. per head per annum! Its weak point (but at present it seems an inevitable blemish) is, that the board and education are gratuitous.

There is a High School for boys, largely attended, under the charge of Mr. Watson, the clerical missionary, with an Armenian Princ.i.p.al, Karapit, educated in the C.M.S. school in Julfa, a very able man, and he is a.s.sisted by several teachers. There is also a large school of Jewish girls, who are often maltreated on their way to and from it.

There are a flourishing medical mission and dispensary under Dr.

Alexander's charge, with a hospital nearly finished for the more serious cases. There is another dispensary at Sheverin, and both there and here the number of patients is large. A small charge is made for medicines. Mirza Sa'eed, a medical student of mature years and remarkable capacities, occasionally itinerates in the distant villages, and, being a learned scholar in the Koran, holds religious disputations after his medical work is done. He was a Moslem, and having embraced Christianity preaches its doctrines with much force and enthusiasm. He is popular in Hamadan, and much thought of by the Governor in spite of his "perversion." He also gives addresses on Christianity to the patients who a.s.semble at the dispensary. Any person is at liberty to withdraw during this religious service, but few avail themselves of the permission. Miss ---- speaks on Christianity to the female patients at Sheverin, and befriends them in their own homes.

The day's work here begins at six, and is not over till 9 P.M. An English cla.s.s for young men is held early, after which people on business and visitors of all sorts and creeds are arriving and departing all day, and all are welcome. On one day I counted forty-three, and there were many more than these. The upper cla.s.s of Persian women announce their visits beforehand, and usually arrive on horseback, with attendants to clear the way. No man-servant must enter the room with tea or anything else during their visits. The Armenian women call at all hours, and the Jewish women in large bands without previous announcement. Tea _a la Russe_ is provided for all, and Ibrahim goes to the door and counts the shoes left outside in order to know how many to provide for. "_Khanum_," he exclaimed one day after this inspection, "there are at least twenty of them!"

Some call out of politeness or real friendliness, others to see the _tamasha_ (the sights of the house), many from the villages to talk about their children, and some of the Jewish women, who have become _B[=a]bis_, ask to have the New Testament read to them in the hope of hearing something which they may use in the propagation of their new faith. A good many women have called on me out of politeness to my hostesses. Persian gentlemen invariably send the day before to know if a visit can be conveniently received, and on these occasions the ladies always secure the _chaperonage_ of one of the men missionaries.

The _concierge_ has orders not to turn any one away, and it is a blessing when sunset comes and the stream of visitors ceases.

All meet with a genial reception, and the ladies usually succeed not only in lifting the conversation out of the customary frivolous grooves, but in awaking more or less interest in the religion which they are here to propagate. They are missionaries first and everything else afterwards, and Miss ----, partly because of her goodness and benevolence to all, and partly because of an uncompromising honesty in her religious beliefs which the people thoroughly appreciate, has a remarkable influence in Hamadan, and is universally respected. Her jollity and sense of humour are a great help. She thoroughly enjoys making people laugh.

I have never been in any place in which the relations with Moslems have been so easy and friendly. The _Sartip_ Reza Khan told me it would be a matter of regret to all except a few fanatics if the ladies were to leave the city. From the Prince Governor downwards courtesy and kindness are shown to them, and their philanthropic and educational work is approved in the highest quarters, though they never blink the fact that they are proselytisers.[18]

There is an Armenian Protestant congregation with a native pastor and a fine church, and nothing shows more plainly the toleration which prevails in Hamadan than the number of Moslems to be seen every Sunday at the morning service, which is in Persian. In this church total abstinence is a "term of communion," and unfermented wine is used in the celebration of the Eucharist.

This wine is very delicious, and has the full flavour and aroma of the fresh grape even after being three years in bottle. It is not boiled, as much "unfermented wine" is here, but the grapes are put into a coa.r.s.e bag, through which the juice drops without pressure. The gluten being retained by the bag, fermentation does not take place, and a bottle of the juice, even if left without a cork, retains its excellence till it dries up.

_Hamadan, September 15._--"_Revenons a nos moutons_"--the _moutons_ in this instance being my travelling arrangements. Three roads go to Urmi from Hamadan, one, the usual caravan route _via_ Tabriz, the commercial capital of Persia, and round the north end of Lake Urmi, very long, but safe; another called the "Kurdistan route," which no _charvadar_ will take by reason of its danger; and a third by Sujbul[=a]k, the capital of Persian Kurdistan, twenty marches, only five of which are reported as risky. I decided on the last, but it was only two days ago that I was able to get a _charvadar_ willing to undertake the journey. "It is too late," they say, "there are robbers on the road," they "don't know the way," or "provender is dear," or "snow will come on" before they can return. Kerbelai, the excellent fellow who brought my loads from Burujird, wished to go, and I engaged him gladly, but afterwards his father came and declared he could not let him go, for he did not know the way, and would be robbed. Another man was engaged, but never reappeared.

Soon after I came a tall, well-dressed rich Turk, the owner of sixty mules, applied for the engagement, and we think that by certain underhand proceedings, familiar to the Persian mind, he has driven off other compet.i.tors, and made himself my last resource. I engaged him on Sat.u.r.day, and the mules and Mirza went off this morning. An agreement was drawn up in Persian and English placing five mules _under my absolute control_, to halt or march as I desire, at thirteen pence a day each so long as I want them, with two men, "handing over the mules and men" to me till I reach Urmi, which arrival is to suit my own convenience. This was read over twice, and the Turk sealed it in presence of four witnesses. All his other mules are going with loads to Urmi, and this accounts for his great desire to send the five with me. I have expressly stipulated that I am to have nothing to do with the big caravan, but am to take my own time. This Turk has good looks and plausible manners, and the animals have sound backs, but I distrust him.

The servant difficulty, which threatened to keep me here indefinitely, is also adjusted. Ha.s.san left me when I arrived, being unwilling to go to the north of Persia so late, and he bought a new opium pipe, saying that he cannot bear the pain and craving of being without it. He was a fair travelling servant for a Persian, not unreasonably dishonest, and I am sorry to lose him. In the attempt to replace him a maze of lies, fraud, and underhand dealing has been pa.s.sed through. I have at last engaged Johannes, a strong-looking young Armenian, speaking Turkish and Persian besides Armenian. He has never served Europeans, but has learned baking and the wine trade. He looks much of a cub. For appearance sake I have armed him with a long gun. He and Mirza are alike incompetent to make any travelling arrangements or overcome any difficulties, to discover where escorts are needed and where they may be dispensed with, or to meet any emergencies, and as Persian will be considerably replaced by Turki _en route_ Mirza will be of less and less use as an interpreter. I cannot get any recent information about the route, and very little at all. I see endless difficulties ahead, and a prospect of ill.u.s.trating in my own experience the _dictum_ often dinned into my ears, that "No lady ought to travel alone in Persia."

This will be my last opportunity of posting a letter for nearly a month. The Persian post is only exceeded in unreliability by the Persian telegraph. To register letters is the only way of securing their safe arrival, and it is necessary to send a trustworthy man to the Post Offices, who, after seeing the effacing stamp put upon the postage stamp, will further insist upon seeing the postmaster put the letters in the bag. In Tihran the Europeans make much use of the Legation bags, and the merchants prefer to trust their letters to private _gholams_ rather than to the post, while at Isfahan people are often glad to send their letters by the monthly telegraph _chapar_ rather than run a postal risk. However, a foreign letter, registered, is pretty safe. The telegraph is worse; you often have to bribe the telegraph clerk to send the message, and unless you see it sent it will probably be destroyed. Of five messages sent by me from Hamadan one was returned because the British agent in Isfahan was "not known"

(!), two were slower than letters sent the same day, the fourth took a week, and of the fifth there is "no information." Even in this important commercial city the Post Office is only open for a short time on two days in the week.

I. L. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] For a detailed and most interesting account of these remarkable representations the reader is referred to Mr. Benjamin's _Persia and the Persians_, chap. xiii.

[18] Since I returned I have been asked more than once, "What are the results of missions in Hamadan?" Among those which appear on the surface are the spiritual enlightenment of a number of persons whose minds were blinded by the gross and childish superst.i.tions and the inconceivable ignorance into which the ancient church of S. Gregory the Illuminator has fallen. The raising of a higher standard of morals among the Armenians, so that a decided stigma is coming to be attached to drunkenness and other vices. The bringing the whole of the rising generation of Armenians under influences which in all respects "make for righteousness." The elevation of a large number of women into being the companions and helps rather than the drudges of men. The bestowing upon boys an education which fits them for any positions to which they may aspire in Persia and elsewhere, and creates a taste for intellectual pursuits. The introduction of European medicine and surgery, and the bringing them within the reach of the poorest of the people. The breaking down of some Moslem prejudices against Christians. The gradually ameliorating influence exercised by the exhibition of the religion of Jesus Christ in purity of life, in ceaseless benevolence, in _truthfulness_ and _loyalty to engagements_, in kind and just dealing, in temperance and self-denial, and the many virtues which make up Christian discipleship, and the dissemination in the city and neighbourhood of a higher teaching on the duties of common life, ill.u.s.trated by example, not in fits and starts, but through years of loving and patient labour.

LETTER XXV

GAUKHAUD, _Sept. 18_.

This is a difficult journey. The road is rarely traversed by Europeans, the marches are long, and I am really not well enough to travel at all, not having been able to shake off the fever. Cooler days and cold nights are, however, coming to the rescue.

My Hamadan friends gave me a _badraghah_ (a parting escort)--Miss C.

M----, Mr. Watson, Pastor Ovannes and his boy, all on horseback; Mrs.

Watson and her baby on an a.s.s; several servants on foot, and Miss M---- and Mrs. Alexander in a spidery American buggy with a pair of horses; Dr. Alexander, a man six feet two inches high and very thin, "riding postilion" on one of them to get the buggy over difficult places; Ibrahim, the ladies' _factotum_, with a gun slung behind him, following on horseback. Two of the ladies and the native pastor stayed at night. It was not a pleasant return to camp life, for Johannes is quite ignorant of it, and everything was at sixes and sevens. Nor was the first morning pleasant, for the head _charvadar_, Sharban, came speaking loud with vehement gesticulation, saying that if I did not march with the big caravan and halt when it did, they would only give me one man, and added sundry other threats. Miss M---- scolded him, reminding them of their agreement, and Ibrahim told them that if they violated it in the way they threatened they would have to "eat more wood than they had ever eaten in their lives on going back to Hamadan." ("Eating wood" is the phrase for being bastinadoed.) A squabble the first morning is a usual occurrence, and Miss M---- thought it would be all right, and advised me to go on to Kooltapa, the first stage put down by the _charvadars_.

Cultivation extends over the eight miles from Hamadan to Bahar. There are streams, and willows, and various hamlets with much wood, and Bahar is completely buried in orchards and poplars. It is a place of 1500 people, and has well-built houses, small mosques, and _mollahs'_ schools. It makes _gelims_ (thin carpets), and grows besides wheat, barley, cotton, and oil seeds, an immense quant.i.ty of fruit, which has a ready market in the city.

Miss M---- and Pastor Ovannes escorted me for the first mile, and, meeting the caravan on their way back, gave Sharban a parting exhortation. As soon as they were out of sight he sent back one man, and, in spite of Mirza's remonstrances, drove my _yabus_ with the big caravan--a grievance to start with, as his baggage animals were so heavily loaded that they could not go even two miles an hour, and I have taken five, though I only need three, in order to get over the ground at three miles an hour. I am obliged to have Johannes with me, as comparatively little Persian is spoken by the common people along this road.

Beyond Bahar the road lies over elevated table-lands, dest.i.tute of springs and streams, and now scorched up. One or two small villages, lying off the track, and some ruinous towers on eminences, built for watching robbers, scarcely break the monotony of this twenty-four miles' march.

At three, having ascended nearly 1000 feet, we reached the small and very poor walled village of Kooltapa, below which are some reservoirs, a series of pools connected by a stream, and the camping-ground, a fine piece of level sward, much of which was already occupied by two Turkish caravans, with 100 horses in each, and a man to every ten. The loads were all carefully stacked, covered with rugs, and watched by very large and fierce dogs.

I lay down in the _shuldari_, feeling really ill. Four o'clock, five o'clock, sunset came, but no caravan. Johannes was quite ill, but went to the village to hire a _samovar_, and to try to get tea and supplies. There was neither tea nor _samovar_, and no supplies but horse food and some coa.r.s.e cheese and blanket bread, too sour and dirty to be eaten. Long after dark they brought a little milk. _Boy_ was locked up in a house, and I rolled myself in his blanket and the few wraps I had with me, and, making the best of circ.u.mstances, tried to sleep; but it was too cold, and the position too perilous, and Johannes, who had loaded his gun with ball, overcome with fatigue, instead of watching was sound asleep. At eleven Mirza's voice, though it said, "Madam, these _charvadars_ won't do for you, they are wicked men," was very welcome. They had stopped half-way, and four of them, including Sharban's father, had dragged him off his horse with some violence, and had unloaded it. He appealed to the village headman, who, after wrangling with them for some hours, persuaded them to let him have a mule, and come to Kooltapa with the servants' tent, my bed, and other comforts, and sent two armed guides with him.

The larger tent was pitched and I went to bed, and not having the nettings which hang from the roof of my Cabul tent, and are a complete security against mere pilferers, I put all I could under the blankets and arranged the other things within reach of my hand in the middle of the tent. I also burned a light, having learned that Kooltapa is a dangerous place. At midnight the Turkish caravans started with noise inconceivable, yells of _charvadars_, shouts of village boys, squeals of horses, barking of big dogs, firing of guns, and jangling of 200 sets of bells, all sobering down into a grandly solemn sound as of many church steeples on the march.

I went out to see that all was right, found my servants sleeping heavily and had not the heart to awake them, found the mercury a degree below the freezing point, and lay down, covering my head with a blanket, for the shivering stage of fever had come on. The night was very still, and after some time I heard in the stillness the not uncommon noise of a dog (as I thought) fumbling outside my tent. I took no notice till he seemed getting in, when I jumped up with an adjuration, saw the floor vacant, and heard human feet running away. I ran out and fired blank cartridge several times in the direction of the footsteps, hoping that the flashes would reveal the miscreant, but his movements had been more agile than mine. Mirza ran into the village and informed the _ketchuda_, but he took it very quietly and said that the robbers were Turks, which was false. I offered a large reward, but it was useless.

When daylight came and I investigated my losses I found myself without any of the things which I have come to regard as indispensable. My cork helmet, boots, gloves, sun umbrella, stockings, scanty stock of underclothing, all my brushes, towels, soap, scissors, needles, thread, thimble, the strong combination knife which Aziz coveted and which was used three or four times every day, a large silk handkerchief a hundred years old which I wore as a protection from the sun, my mask, revolver case, keys, pencils, paint brushes, sketches, notes of journeys, and my one mug were all gone. If anything could be worse, my gold pen, with which I have written for the last eighteen years, had also disappeared. Furthermore, to relieve the tedium of the long wait during the pitching of my tent, and of the hour's rest which I am obliged to take on my bed after getting in, I was "doing" a large piece of embroidery from an ancient Irish pattern, arabesques on dark, apricot-coloured coa.r.s.e silk in low-toned greens, pinks, and blues, all outlined in gold. This work has been a real pleasure to me, and I relied on it for recreation for the rest of my journey. Gone too, with all the silks and gold for finishing it! Now I have nothing to do when the long marches are over, and as I can scarcely write with this pen and have also lost my drawing materials, a perspective of dulness opens out before me. If Sharban had not disobeyed orders and stayed behind with my tent all this would not have happened. I now realise what it is to be without what to a European are "the necessaries of life," and I can scarcely replace any of them for three weeks.

The caravan came in at nine, and I soon got into my tent and spent much of the day in making a head-cover by rolling lint and wadding in handkerchiefs and sewing them up into a sort of turban with a leather-needle and packthread obtained from Mirza. I was able to get from a villager a second-hand pair of _ghevas_,--most serviceable shoes, with "uppers" made of stout cotton webbing knitted here by the women and among the Bakhtiaris by the men, and with soles of rag sewn and pressed tightly together and tipped with horn. These and the "uppers" are connected with very stout leather brought to a point at the toe and heel. _Ghevas_ are the most comfortable, and for dry weather and mountain-climbing the most indestructible of shoes. Thus provided I have to face the discomfort caused by the other losses as best I may. "It's no use crying over spilt milk!"

The day before, when the _charvadars_ pulled Mirza off his mule and he threatened them with the agreement, they replied that it was false that they had made any agreement except to take me to Urmi in twenty days, and that they were not afraid of the Prince Governor of Hamadan, "for he is always asleep, and the Feringhi is _only a Khanum_." I sent to them that I wished to leave Kooltapa at noon. They replied that they were not going to move. I was in their power, for they had received advance pay for seven days, and I said no more about moving.