Part 14

_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 competitors, and made himself my last resource. I engaged him on Saturday, 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. Hassan 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 passed 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 illustrating 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 superstitions 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, illustrated 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 ass; 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 quantity 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, destitute 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 coarse 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 circumstances, 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 coarse 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. However, at noon I sent Mirza to read the agreement to them, and Sharban and his father could not deny the authenticity of the seal, and a superior villager, who could read, testified that Mirza had read it correctly.

They then saw that they had put themselves into a "tight place," and sent that they desired to humble themselves, saying, "your foot is on our eyes," a phrase of humility. I took no notice of them all day, but at sunset sent for Sharban, and telling Mirza not to soften down my language, spoke to him in few words. "You have broken your agreement, and you will have to take the consequences. Your conduct is disgraceful and abominable, so cowardly that you don't deserve to be called a man, it is only what one would expect from a _pidar sag_. Do you mean to keep your agreement or not?" He began to whine, and threw himself at my feet, but I reluctantly assumed a terrific voice, and saying "_Khamosh! Bero!_" (Be silent! Begone!), shut the tent.

_Bijar, September 21._--No Persian ever believes your word, and these poor fellows did not believe that I had letters to the governors _en route_. They are now terribly frightened, and see that a Feringhi, even though "_only a Khanum_," cannot be maltreated with impunity. When I arrived here, even before I sent my letter of introduction, the Governor sent a _farash-bashi_ with compliments and offers of hospitality, and afterwards a strong guard. Then Sharban piteously entreated that I would not take him before the Governor, and would not make him "eat wood," and his big caravan at last has chimed away on its northward journey to be seen no more. Thus, by acting a part absolutely hateful to me, the mutiny was quelled, and things are now going on all right, except that Sharban avails himself of small opportunities of being disobliging. I do sincerely detest the cowardliness of the Oriental nature, which is probably the result of ages of oppression by superiors.

It is so vexing that the policy of trust which has served me so well on all former journeys has to be abandoned, and that one of suspicion has to be substituted for it. I am told by all Europeans that from the Shah downwards no one trusts father, brother, wife, superior, or inferior. Every one walks warily and suspiciously through a maze of fraud and falsehood. If one asks a question, or any one expresses an opinion, or tells what passes for a fact, he looks over each shoulder to see that no one is listening.[19]

A noble Persian said to me, "Lying is rotting this country. Persians tell lies before they can speak." Almost every day when one is wishing to be trustful, kind, and considerate, one encounters unmitigated lying, cowardly bluster, or dexterously-planned fraud, and the necessity of being always on guard is wearing and repulsive.

Here is another specimen of the sort of net which is woven round a traveller. At Kooltapa, after the theft, I sent to the _ketchuda_ for a night-watchman, and he replied that he could not give one without an order, and that as he knew only Turki, my letter in Persian from the Prince Governor of Hamadan was nothing to him. Later, a _sowar_, who said he was also a "road-guard," came and said that he only was responsible for the safety of travellers, and that I could not get a watchman from the _ketchuda_, as no one could pass the gates after sunset without his permission. I already knew that there were no gates. He said he was entitled to five _krans_ a night for protecting the tents. (The charge is one _kran_, or under exceptional circumstances two.) I told him we were quite capable of protecting ourselves. Late in the evening an apparently respectable man came and warned us to keep a good look-out, as this _sowar_ and another had vowed to rob our tents out of revenge for not having been employed. These men, acting as road-guards, are a great terror to the people. They levy blackmail on caravans and take food for their horses and themselves, "the pick of everything," without payment. The people also accuse them of committing, or being accessory to, the majority of highway robberies. The women who came to condole with me on my losses accused these men of being the thieves, but it was younger feet which clattered away from my tent.

Sharban, thoroughly subdued for the time, and his servant watched, and to show that they were awake fired their guns repeatedly. The nightly arrangement now is to secure a watchman from the _ketchuda_; to walk round the camp two or three times every night to see that he is awake, and that _Boy_ is all right; to secure the _yekdan_ to my bed with a stout mule-chain, and to rope the table and chair on which I put my few remaining things also to the bed, taking care to put a tin can with a knife in it on the very edge of the table, so that if the things are tampered with the clatter may awake me.

After leaving Kooltapa, treeless country becomes bushless, and nothing combustible is to be got but animal fuel. Manure is far too precious for this purpose to be wasted on the fields. Men with asses follow caravans and collect it in bags. The yards into which the flocks and herds are driven at night have now been cleaned out, and in every village all the women are occupied in moulding the manure into _kiziks_ or cakes fully a foot long and four inches thick. These, after being dried in the sun, are built up into conical stacks, often exceeding twenty feet in height, and are plastered with a layer of the same material. The making of this artificial fuel is one of the most important industries of Persia, and is exclusively in the hands of women. The preparation of the winter stock takes from six to fourteen weeks, and is very hard wet work. The fuel gives out a good deal of heat, but burns fast. Its combustible qualities are increased by an admixture of cut straw. At this season, between the colossal black stacks of fuel and the conical piles of winter "keep" upon the roofs, the villages are almost invisible.

The march to Gaukhaud was over twenty miles of rolling scorched table-lands--baked mud, without inhabitants. Gaukhaud and the villages for fifty miles farther are unwalled, but each house, with its cattle-yard and upper and underground folds, has a massive mud wall sloping slightly inwards, with an entrance closed by a heavy wooden gate, strengthened with iron. The upper sheep-folds have thick stone doors three feet square. Each house is a fortress, and nothing is to be seen above its walls but a quantity of beehive roofs and a number of truncated cones of winter fodder on a central platform.