Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume Ii Part 18

The lives and properties of all his subjects are held only at his pleasure. His sons are but his tools, to be raised or degraded at his will, and the same may be said of the highest personages in the Empire. The Shah is the State,--irresponsible and all-powerful.

Nasr-ed-Din is a most diligent ruler. No pleasures, not even the chase, to which he is devoted, divert his attention from business. He takes the initiative in all policy, guides with a firm hand the destinies of Persia, supervises every department, appoints directly to all offices of importance, and by means known to absolute rulers has his eyes in every part of his dominions. He is regarded as a very able man,--his European travels have made him to some extent an enlightened one.

His reign of forty-two years has been disfigured, especially in its earlier portion, by some acts which we should regard as great crimes, but which do not count as such in Oriental judgment; neither are the sale of offices, the taking of bribes under the disguise of presents, the receiving of what is practically _modakel_, or exactions upon rich men, repugnant in the slightest degree to the Oriental mind.

Remembering the unwholesome traditions of his throne and dynasty, we must give him full credit for everything in which he makes a new departure. Surrounded by intrigue, hampered by the unceasing political rivalry between England and Russia, thwarted by the obstructive tactics of the latter at every turn, and with the shadow of a Russian occupation of the northern provinces of the Empire looming in a not far distant future, any step in the direction of reform taken by the Shah involves difficulties of which the outer world has no conception, not only in braving the antagonism of his powerful neighbour, and her attempted interference with the internal concerns of Persia, but in overcoming the apathy of his people and the prejudices of his co-religionists.

As it is, under him Persia has awakened partially from her long sleep.

The state of insecurity described by the travellers of thirty and forty years ago no longer exists. Far feebler than Turkey, Persia, through the resolute will of one man, has eclipsed Turkey altogether in suppressing brigandage, in subduing the Kurds and other nomadic tribes, in securing safety for travellers and caravans even on the remoter roads, and in producing tolerable contentment among the Armenian and Nestorian populations.

Under him the authority of the central Government has been consolidated, the empty treasury has been filled, the semi-independence of the provincial governors has been broken, Persia has been re-created as a coherent Empire, certain roads have been made, posts and telegraphs have been inaugurated, an Imperial Bank with branches in some of the princ.i.p.al towns has been formed, foreign capital has been encouraged or at least permitted to enter the country, a concession for the free navigation of the Karun has been granted, and the _Nasiri_ Company, the most hopeful token of native progress, has received Imperial favour.

But under all this lies the inherent rottenness of Persian administration, an abyss of official corruption and infamy without a bottom or a sh.o.r.e, a corruption of heredity and tradition, unchecked by public opinion or the teachings of even an elementary education in morals and the rudiments of justice. There are few men pure enough to judge their fellows or to lift clean hands to Heaven, and power and place are valued for their opportunities for plunder.

In no part of Persia did I hear any complaint of the tribute levied by the Shah. It is regarded as legitimate. But in most districts allegations concerning the rapacity and exactions of the provincial governors were universal, and there is unfortunately great reason for believing them well founded. The farming of the taxes, the practical purchase of appointments, the gigantic system of bribery by which all offices are obtained, the absence of administrative training and supervision, the traditions of office, and the absolute dependence of every official on the pleasure of a Sovereign surrounded by the intrigues of an Oriental court, are conditions sufficient to destroy the virtue of all but the best of men.

Where all appointments are obtained practically by bribery, and no one has any security in the tenure of an office of which slander, bribery, or intrigue at Court may at any moment deprive him, it is natural that the most coveted positions should be those in which the largest perquisites can be made, and that their occupants should feel it their bounden duty to "make hay while the sun shines,"--in other words, to squeeze the people so long as there is anything left to squeeze. The great drawback of the Persian peasant's life is that he has no security for the earnings of labour. He is the ultimate sponge to be sucked dry by all above him. Every official squeezes the man below him, and the highest is squeezed by the Crown.

Little, if any, of the revenue drawn from the country is spent on works of public utility, and roads, bridges, official buildings, fortifications, and all else are allowed to fall into disrepair. In downright English the administration of government and law is execrable, and there can be little hope of a resurrection for Persia until the system under which she is impoverished be reformed or swept away.

But who is to cleanse this Augean stable? Who will introduce the elementary principles of justice? Are tools of the right temper to work with to be found among the men of this generation? Is the dwarfing and narrowing creed[38] of Islam to be replaced or in any way to be modified by Christianity? It looks very much as if the men to initiate and carry out administrative and financial reforms are not forthcoming, and that, unless the Shah is willing to import or borrow them, the present system of official corruption, mendacity, bribery, and obstruction may continue to prevail.

The inherent weakness of Persia lies in her administrative system rather than in her spa.r.s.e population and paucity of fuel and water, a paucity arising partly out of misgovernment. In the felt evils of this system, and in the idea that law, equitable taxation, and security for the earnings of labour are distinctively European blessings, lies a part of the strength of Russia in Persia. I have elsewhere remarked upon the indifference with which Russian annexation is contemplated. A reformed system of administration, by giving the Persian people something to live for and die for, would doubtless evoke the dormant spirit of patriotism, and render foreign conquest, or acquisition without conquest, a less easy task.

After living for ten months among the Persian people, and fully recognising their faults, I should regret to see them absorbed by the "White Czar" or any other power. A country which for more than 2000 years has maintained an independent existence, and which possesses customs, a language, a civilisation, and a nationality of its own, and works no injury to its neighbours, has certainly a _raison d'etre_.

My early impressions of Persia were of effeteness and ruin, but as I learned to know more of the vitality, energy, and industry of her people, and of the capacities of her prolific soil, I have come to regard her resurrection under certain circ.u.mstances as a possibility, and cordially to echo the wish eloquently expressed by the Marquis of Salisbury on the occasion of the Shah's last visit to England: "We desire above all things that Persia shall not only be prosperous, but be strong,--strong in her resources, strong in her preparations, strong in her alliances,--in order that she may pursue the peaceful path on which she has entered in security and tranquillity." I. L. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] On this subject there can be no better authority than the Hon.

George N. Curzon, M.P., who after careful study has estimated the total population of Persia at over nine millions.

[38] In _The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline, and Fall_, a valuable recent work, its author, Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I., dwells very strongly on the narrowing influence of Islam on national life, and concludes his review of it in the following words: "As regards the spiritual, social, and dogmatic aspect of Islam, there has been neither progress nor material change. Such as we found it in the days of the Caliphate, such is it also at the present day. Christian nations may advance in civilisation, freedom, and morality, in philosophy, science, and the arts, but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the lessons of its history avail, it will remain." In a chapter at the end of his book he deals with polygamy, servile concubinage, temporary marriages, and the law of divorce, as cankering the domestic life of Mohammedan countries, and _infallibly neutralising all civilising influences_.

LETTER XXVIII

KOCHANES, _Oct. 23_.

The Kurdish _katirgis_ turned out very badly. They came at twelve instead of eight, compelling me to do only a half-day's march. Then they brought six horses instead of the four which had been bargained for, and said they would "throw down the loads" if I did not take them. Each night they insisted on starting the next morning at daybreak, but no persuasions could get them off before eight. They said they could not travel with a Christian except in broad daylight.

They would only drive a mile an hour, and instead of adhering to their contract to bring me here in four days, took four to come half-way. On the slightest remonstrance they were insolent and violent, and threatened to "throw down the loads" in the most inconvenient places, and they eventually became so mutinous that I was obliged to dismiss them at the half-way halt at the risk of not getting transport any farther.[39]

The "throw on the road" from Urmi was a very large one, and consisted of nearly all the English and American Mission clergy and two Syrians, all on screaming, biting, kicking horses. It was a charming ride through fruitful country among pleasant villages to Anhar. The wind was strong and bracing. Clouds were drifting grandly over the splendid mountains to the west, the ranges to the north were glorified by rich blue colouring, purple in the shadows; among mountains on the east the Urmi sea showed itself as a turquoise streak, and among gardens and vineyards in the middle distance rose Zoroastrian cones of ashes, and the great mound, which tradition honours as the scene of the martyrdom of St. George.

When all my kind friends left me, and I walked alone in the frosty twilight on the roof of my comfortable room in the _Qasha's_ house, and looked towards the wall of the frontier mountains through which my journey lay, I felt an unwonted feeling of elation at the prospect before me, which no possible perils from Kurds, or from the sudden setting-in of winter could damp, and thus far the interest is much greater even than I expected.

The next morning I was joined by _Qasha_ ----, a Syrian priest, a man of great learning and intelligence, a Turkish subject and landed proprietor, who knows everybody in this region, and speaks English well. He is fearfully anxious and timid, partly from a dread of being robbed of his splendid saddle mule, and partly from having the responsibility of escorting an English lady on a journey which has turned out full of peril.

On the long ascent from Anhar a bitter wintry wind prevailed, sweeping over the tattered thistles and the pale belated campanulas which alone remain of the summer flora, but the view from the summit was one of rare beauty. The grandly drifting clouds of the night before had done their work, and had draped the Kurdish mountains half-way down with the first snows of winter, while the valley at their feet, in which Merwana lies, was a smiling autumn scene of flowery pasturage and busy harvest operations under the magic of an atmosphere of living blue.

Merwana is a village of 100 houses, chiefly Christian, though it has a Kurdish _ketchuda_. It is a rich village, or was, being both pastoral and agricultural. The slopes are cultivated up to a great height, and ox sleds bring the sheaves to the threshing-floor. The grain is kept in great clay-lined holes under ground, covered with straw and earth. I write that the village _was_ rich. Lately a cloud of Kurds armed with rifles swooped down upon it towards evening, drove off 900 sheep, and killed a man and woman. The villagers appealed to Government, after which Hesso, a redoubtable Kurdish chief in its pay, went up with a band of men to Marbishu, a Christian village in Turkey, drove off 1460 sheep, and offered to repay Merwana with the stolen property. As matters now stand 700 of the poorest of the sheep have been restored to Marbishu, Merwana loses all, and Hesso and his six robber brothers have gained 760. The sole hope of the plundered people of both villages is in the intercession of Dr. Cochrane with the Governor of Azerbijan.[40]

As I reached Merwana at 10 A.M., and the _katirgis_, after raging for an hour, refused to proceed, I took Mirza and _Qasha_ Bardah, the priest under whose hospitable roof I lodged, with me, and went up the valley to Ombar, the abode of Hesso, with the vague hope of "doing something" for the poor people. The path lay among bright streams and flowery pastures, the sun was warm, the air sharp, the mountains uplifted their sunlit snows into a heaven of delicious blue, the ride was charming. Hesso's village, consisting of a few very low rough stone houses, overshadowed by great cones of _kiziks_, is well situated on a slope above a torrent issuing from a magnificent cleft in the mountain wall, at the mouth of which is a square keep on a rock.

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

Hesso's house is just a "but and a ben," with a door which involves stooping. Its rough stone walls are unplastered, and the only light admitted comes from a hole in the roof, which serves to let out the smoke. I confess to a feeling of trepidation when I asked to see the Kurdish chief, and I felt the folly of my errand. A superbly-dressed Kurd took us into a room dense with tobacco smoke, which, from its darkness, the roughness of its walls, and the lowness of its rude roof, resembled a cave rather than a house. Yet Hesso receives 200 a year from the Persian Government, and has apparently unlimited opportunities for plunder.

There were some coa.r.s.e mats on the floor, and a _samovar_ with some Russian gla.s.s tea-cups. Two Persian officials and a number of well-armed and splendidly-dressed Kurds, with jewelled _khanjars_ and revolvers in their girdles and rifles by their sides, sat or reclined against the wall. Hesso himself leaned against a roll of bedding at the upper end of the room, and s.p.a.ce was made for us on the floor at his left hand. A superb stage brigand he looked, in fitting surroundings, the handsomest man I have seen in Persia, a large man, with a large face, dark prominent eyes, a broad brow, a straight nose, superb teeth, a fine but sensual mouth, a dark olive complexion, and a false smile. A jewelled Kurdish turban with much crimson, a short jacket and full trousers of a fine cream-coloured woollen fabric, an embroidered silk shirt, socks of an elaborate pattern, a girdle of many yards of Kashmir stuff, with eight knots, one above another, in the middle, and a _khelat_ or coat of honour of rich Kerman brocade formed his striking costume. In his girdle he wore a _khanjar_, with an ebony hilt and scabbard ornamented with filigree gold k.n.o.bs incrusted with turquoises, attached to the girdle by a silver chain two yards long, of heavy filigree b.a.l.l.s, a beautiful piece of work.

Hesso's brothers, superb men, most picturesquely dressed, surrounded him. The Kurds who handed round the tea and the jewelled _kalians_ looked fantastic brigands. The scene was a picture.

Of course my errand failed. I could not speak about the sheep through the priest of the robbed village, and Hesso said that he could not speak on any "political" subject before the Persians who were present.

The conversation was not animated, and _Qasha_ Bardah was very nervous till Hesso turned round, and with an awakened expression of face asked how it was that "England had allowed Turkey to grow so feeble that her frontier and Armenia are in a state of anarchy"?

Hesso's handsome face is that of a villain. He does not look more than thirty. He has 200 well-mounted marksmen at his disposal. The father of this redoubtable Kurdish chief died in prison, where he was confined by order of the Shah, and the son revenged himself by harrying this part of the Shah's dominions, and with sixty men, including his six brothers, successfully resisted a large Persian force sent against him, and eventually escaped into Turkey, doing much damage on his way. Hesso on arriving in Kerbela obtained a letter from the Sheikh, or chief _Mollah_ there, saying that he offered his submission to the Shah, and went to Tihran, where after seeing the Shah's splendour he said that if he had known it before, he would not have been in rebellion.

Before this the Persians took a strong castle from the Kurds, and garrisoned it with an officer and a company of soldiers. Up to it one day went Hes...o...b..ldly, keeping the six men who went with him out of sight, and thumped upon the gate till it was opened, saying he was a bearer of despatches. He first shot the sentry dead, and next the officer, who came to see what the disturbance was about. Meantime the six men, by climbing on each other's shoulders, scaled the castle wall, and by confused shouts and dragging of the stone roller to and fro over the roof they made the garrison believe that it was attacked by a large force, and it surrendered at discretion. The lives of the soldiers were spared, but they were marched out in their shirts, with their hands above their heads.

The Merwana threshing-floor was guarded at night by ten men. The following morning we were to have started an hour before daylight, but the _katirgis_ refused to load, and the Kurdish _ketchuda_, with his hors.e.m.e.n, declined to start till an hour after sunrise, because he could not earlier "tell friends from foes." The ground was covered with h.o.a.r-frost, and the feathery foliage of the tamarisk was like the finest white coral.

Turning into the mountains, we spent nine hours in a grand defile, much wooded, where a difficult path is shut in with the Marbishu torrent. The Kurds left us at Bani, when two fine fellows became our protectors as far as a small stream, crossing which we entered Turkey.

At a Kurdish semi-subterranean village, over which one might ride without knowing it, a splendidly-dressed young Khan emerged from one of the burrows, and said he would give us guards, but they would not go farther than a certain village, where two of his men had been killed three days before. "There is blood between us and them," he said. After that, for five hours up to Marbishu, the scenery is glorious. The valley narrows into a picturesque gorge between precipitous mountains, from 2000 to 4000 feet above the river, on the sides of which a narrow and occasionally scaffolded path is carried, not always pa.s.sable for laden mules. Many grand ravines came down upon this gorge, their dwarf trees, orange, tawny, and canary-yellow, mingled with rose-red leaf.a.ge. The rose bushes are covered with ma.s.ses of large carnation-red hips, the bramble trailers are crimson and gold, the tamarisk is lemon-yellow. Nature, like the dolphin, is most beautiful in dying.

The depths were filled with a blue gloom, the needle-like peaks which tower above glittered with new-fallen snow, the air was fresh and intoxicating--it was the romance of travel. But it soon became apparent that we were among stern and even perilous realities. A notorious robber chief was disposed to bar our pa.s.sage. His men had just robbed a party of travellers, and were spread over the hill.

They took a horse from Johannes, but afterwards restored it on certain conditions. Farther on we met a number of Kurds, with thirty fat sheep and some cattle, which they were driving off from Marbishu. Then the _katirgis_ said that they would go no farther than the village, for they heard that robbers were lying in wait for us farther on!

In the wildest part of the gorge, where two ravines meet, there is fine stoneless soil, tilled like a garden; the mountains fall a little apart--there are walnuts, fruit trees, and poplars; again the valley narrows, the path just hangs on the hillside, and I was riding over the roofs of village houses for some time before I knew it. The hills again opened, and there were flourishing breadths of turnips, and people digging potatoes, an article of food and export which was introduced by the missionaries forty years ago. The glen narrowed again, and we came upon the princ.i.p.al part of Marbishu--rude stone houses in tiers, burrowing deeply into the hills, with rock above and rock below on the precipitous sides of a noisy torrent, crossed by two picturesque log bridges, one of the wildest situations I have ever seen, and with a wintry chill about it, for the sun at this season deserts it at three. Rude, primitive, colourless, its dwellings like the poorest cowsheds, its church like a Canadian ice-house, clinging to mountain sides and spires of rock, so long as I remember anything I shall remember Marbishu.

Steep narrow paths and steep rude steps brought us to a three-sided yard, with a rough verandah where cooking and other operations were going on, and at the entrance we were cordially welcomed by _Qasha_ Ishai, the priest. After ascertaining that it would be very dangerous to go farther, I crossed the river to the church, which is one of the finest in the country, and a place of pilgrimage. The village is noted for its religious faithfulness. The church is said to be 850 years old--a low, flat-roofed, windowless stone building. Either it was always partially subterranean, or the earth has acc.u.mulated round it, for the floor is three feet below the ground outside. The entrance is by a heavy door two feet six inches high. Inside it is as nearly dark as possible. Two or three circular holes at a great height in the enormously thick wall let in as many glimmers, but artificial light is necessary. There are several small ante-chapels. In two are rude and ancient tombs of ancient bishops, plain blocks of stone, with crosses upon them. In another is a rough desk, covered with candle droppings, on which the _Liturgy of the Apostles_ lay open, and on it a cross, which it is the custom to kiss. A fourth is used for the safe keeping of agricultural implements. Two are empty, and one of these serves the useful purpose of a mortuary chapel. The church proper is very small and high. The stone floor has been worn into cavities by the feet of worshippers; the walls, where not covered with lengths of grimy printed cotton, are black with the candle smoke of ages. The one sign of sacred use is a rude stone screen at the east end, at openings in the front of which the people receive the Eucharist. Behind this is the sanctuary, into which the priest alone, and he fasting, may enter.

Old bra.s.s lamps and candelabra, incrusted with blackened tallow, hang from the roof, and strings of little bells from wall to wall, which are plucked by each recipient of the sacred elements as he returns to his "stand."

In this gloomy vault-like building prayers are said, as in all Nestorian churches, at sunrise and sunset by the priest in his ordinary clothing, the villagers being summoned by the beating of a mallet on a board.[41]

The church is a place of refuge when a Kurdish attack is expected.

Nine years ago the people carried into it all their movables that they valued most, believing it to be secure, but the Kurds broke in in force and took all they wanted. The few sacred treasures of the village and the Eucharistic leaven are hidden in an elevated recess in the wall. The graveyard, which contains only a few flat slabs imbedded in the soil, is the only possible camping-ground; but though it is clean and neat, it looked so damp and felt so cold that I preferred to accept a big room with walls six feet thick in the priest's house, even though it overhangs the torrent with its thunder and clash.

Many a strange house I have seen, but never anything so striking as the dwelling of _Qasha_ Ishai. Pa.s.sing through the rude verandah, and through a lofty room nearly dark, with a rough stone dais, on which were some mattresses, and berths one above another, I stumbled in total darkness into a room seventy feet by forty, and twenty feet or more high in its highest part. It has no particular shape, and wanders away from this lofty centre into low irregular caverns and recesses excavated in the mountain side. Parts of the floor are of naked rock, parts of damp earth. In one rocky recess is a powerful spring of pure water. The roofs are supported on barked stems of trees, black, like the walls, wherever it was possible to see them, with the smoke of two centuries. Ancient oil lamps on posts or in recesses rendered darkness visible. Goat-skins, with the legs sticking out, containing b.u.t.ter, hanging from the blackened cross-beams, and wheat, apples, potatoes, and onions in heaps and sacks, piles of wool, spinning-wheels, great wooden cradles here and there, huge oil and water jars, wooden stools, piles of bedding, ploughs, threshing instruments, long guns, swords, spears, and gear enc.u.mbered the floor, while much more was stowed away in the dim caverns of the rock.

I asked the number of families under the roof. "Seven ovens," was the reply. This meant seven families, and it is true that three generations, seventy-two persons, live, cook, sleep, and pursue their avocations under that patriarchal roof.

The road is a bad one for laden beasts, and very dangerous besides, and the few travellers who visit Kochanes usually take the caravan route from Urmi _via_ Diza, and the fact of an English person pa.s.sing through Marbishu with a letter to the Turkish authorities was soon "noised abroad," and I was invited to spend the evening in this most picturesque house. All the inmates were there, and over a hundred of the villagers besides; and cooking, baking, spinning, carding wool, knitting, and cleaning swords and guns went on all the time. There were women and girls in bright red dresses; men reclining on bedding already unrolled on the uneven floor, or standing in knots in their picturesque dresses leaning on their long guns, with daggers gleaming in their belts; groups seated round the great fire, in the uncertain light of which faces gleamed here and there in the dim recesses, while the towering form of _Qasha_ Ishai loomed grandly through the smoke, as the culmination of the artistic effect.

The subject discussed was equally interesting to the Syrians and to me,--the dangers of the pa.s.s and the number of guards necessary. We talked late into the night, and long before I left the female and juvenile part of the family had retired to their beds. Again I heard of Hesso's misdeeds, of the robbery of 1400 sheep; of the driving off on the previous morning of thirty sheep which they were about to barter for their winter supply of wheat; of the oppressive taxation, 100 _liras_ (nearly 100) on 100 houses; of the unchecked depredations of the Kurds, which had increased this summer and autumn, leaving them too poor to pay their taxes; of a life of peril and fear and apprehension for their women, which is scarcely bearable; of the oppression of man and the silence of G.o.d. Underlying all is a feeling of bitter disappointment that England, which "has helped the oppressed elsewhere, does nothing for us." They thought, they said, "that when the English priests came it was the beginning of succour, and that the Lord was no longer deaf, and our faces were lightened, but now it is all dark, and there is no help in G.o.d or man."

I now find myself in the midst of a state of things of which I was completely ignorant, and for which I was utterly unprepared, and in a region full of fear and danger, in which our co-religionists are the nearly helpless prey of fanatical mountaineers, whose profession is robbery.