Part 15

The female costume is also different. The women, unveiled, bold-faced, and handsome in the Meg Merrilees style, wear black sleeveless jackets vandyked and tasselled, red skirts, and black handkerchiefs rolled round their heads. Little Persian is spoken or even understood, and everything indicates that the limit of Persia proper, _i.e._ the Persia of Persians, has been passed. Gaukhaud is a village of 350 houses, grows wheat, barley, grapes, and melons; and though a once splendid caravanserai on a height is roofless and ruined, and the village has no better water than an irrigation ditch, it is said to be fairly prosperous.

The march to Babarashan is for twenty miles along a featureless irrigated valley about a mile wide, with grass and stubble, several beehive villages, and mud hills never over 150 feet high on either side. Crossing a brick bridge over a trifling stream, and passing through the large village of Tulwar, where men who were burying a corpse politely laid fried funeral-cakes flavoured with sesamum on my saddle-bow, we ascended over low scorched hills, much ploughed for winter sowing, to the beehive village of Babarashan, of 180 houses, abundantly supplied with water, where we camped close to some tents of the Kara Tepe and a large caravan. The dust blown across the camp from the threshing-floors was obnoxious but inevitable. The "sharp threshing instruments having teeth" are not used in this region, but mobs of animals, up to a dozen, tied together, oxen, cows, horses, and asses, are driven over the wheat.

I am finding the disadvantages of having an untrained servant. Johannes that evening ran hither and thither without method, never finished anything, spent an hour in bargaining for a fowl, failed to get his fire to burn, consequently could not cook or make tea, and I went supperless to bed. The same confusion prevailed the next morning, but things have been better since. No life is so charming as camp life, but incompetent servants are a great drawback.

Another uninteresting march of twenty miles over high table-lands and through a valley surrounded by mud hills, with quaint outcrops of broken rock on their summits, and a pass through some picturesque rocky hills brought us into a basin among mountains, in which stands the rather important town of Bijar in the midst of poplars, willows, apricots, and vines. Bijar is said to have 5000 inhabitants. It has a Governor for itself and the surrounding district, and a garrison of a regiment of infantry and 100 _sowars_ to keep the turbulent frontier Kurds in order. It has ruinous mud walls, no regular bazars, only shops at intervals; fully a third is in ruins, and most of the houses and even the Governor's palace are falling into decay. It is, however, accounted a thriving place, and is noted for _gelims_ and carpenters' work. It has four caravanserais, hardly habitable, however, seven _hammams_, and a few mosques and _mollahs'_ schools. It has an air of being quite out of the world. I have been here two days, and as foreigners are very rarely seen, the greater part of the population has strolled past my tent.

I camped as usual outside the walls, near a small spring, and soon a _farash-bashi_ came from the Governor, with a message expressive of much annoyance at my having "camped in the wilderness when I was their guest, and they would have given me a safe camping-ground in the palace garden." Mirza took my introduction to him, and he sent a second message saying that the next three marches were "very dangerous," and appointed an hour for an interview. Soon eight infantrymen, well uniformed and set up, with rifles and fixed bayonets, arrived and mounted guard round my tent, changing every six hours. This completed Sharban's discomfiture.

Various difficulties arose on Sunday, and much against my will I had to call on the Governor. He received me in a sort of _durbar_. A great number of men, litigants and others, crowded the corridors and reception-rooms. He looked bloated and dissipated, and seemed scarcely sober. He sat on cushions on the floor, with a row of scribes and _mollahs_ on his right, and many _farashes_ and soldiers stood about the door. Seyyids, handsome and haughty, glanced at me contemptuously, and the drunken giggle of the Khan and the fixed scowl of the motionless row of scribes were really overpowering. Tea was produced, but the circumstances were so disagreeable that I did not wait for the conventional third cup. The Khan said that the ladies are in the country a few miles off, and hoped I would visit them, that some marches on the road are unsafe, and that he would give me a letter which would be useful in procuring escorts after I left his jurisdiction, and he has since sent it. He was quite courteous, as indeed all Persians of the upper classes are, but I hope never again to pass through the ordeal of calling upon a Moslem without a European escort.

Later, the principal wife of the military commander of the district called with a train of shrouded women, followed by servants bringing an abundant dinner, with much fruit. She came to ask me to take up my quarters in the very handsome house which is her husband's, very near my tent. After a good deal of intelligent conversation she asked if I had a husband and children, and on my replying in the negative she expressed very kindly sympathy, but added, "There are things far worse, things which can never be where, as among you, there is only one wife. One may have a husband and children, and yet, God knows, be made nearly mad by troubles," and she looked as if indeed her sorrows were great. Doubtless a young wife has been installed as favourite, or there is a divorce impending.

_Takautapa, September 24._--This is a great grain-growing region, and by no means unprosperous, but it only yields one crop a year, the land is ploughed immediately after harvest, and the irrigation is cut off until sowing-time. Consequently nothing can exceed the ugliness of the aspect of the country at this time. There is not one redeeming feature, and on the long marches there is rarely anything to please or interest the eye. On the march from Bijar there was not a green thing except some poplars and willows by a stream, not a blade of grass, not a green "weed,"--nothing but low mud hills, with their sides much ploughed and the furrows baked hard, and unploughed gravelly stretches covered sparsely with scorched thistles.

Eight miles of an easy descent of 1500 feet brought us to the Kizil Uzen, a broad but fordable stream, on the other side of which is Salamatabad, a village consisting chiefly of the large walled gardens and houses of the Governor of Bijar. A little higher up there is a solid eight-arched stone bridge, over 300 feet long. This Kizil Uzen is one of the most important streams in north Persia. It drains a very large area, and after a long and devious course enters the Caspian Sea under the name of the Sefid Rud. Eleven miles from this place I crossed the lofty crest of the ridge which divides the drainage basins of the Kizil Uzen and Urmi. A number of _sowars_ came out and escorted me through a gateway down a road with high walls and buildings on both sides to an inner gateway leading to the Khan's _andarun_. Here we all dismounted, but the next step was not obvious, for the heavy wooden gate which secludes the _andarun_ was strongly barred, and showed no symptoms of welcome. An aged eunuch put his melancholy head out of a hole at the side, and said that the ladies were expecting me and that food was ready for the animals and the servants, but still the gate moved not. I asked if Mirza could go with me to interpret, the _sowars_ suggesting that he could be screened behind a curtain, quite a usual mode of disposing of such a difficulty. The eunuch returned, and with him the Khan's mother, a fiendish-looking middle-aged woman, who looked through the peep-hole, but on seeing a good-looking young man drew back, and said very definitely that no man could be admitted, especially in the absence of the Khan. All the men were warned off, and the door was opened so as just to allow of my entrance and no more.

The principal wife received me in a fine lofty room with fretwork windows opening on a courtyard with a fountain in it and a few pomegranates, and a crowd of Persian, Kurdish, and negro women, with all manner of babies. The lady is from Tihran, and her manners have some of the ease and polish of the capital. It is still the Moharrem, and she was enveloped in a black _chadar_, and wore as her sole ornament a small diamond-studded watch as a locket. Her mother-in-law, who, like many mothers-in-law in Persia, fills the post of _duenna_ to the establishment, frightened me by the expression of her handsome face and her sneering, fiendish laugh. It must be admitted that there was much to amuse her, for my slender stock of badly-pronounced Persian is the Persian of muleteers rather than of polite circles, and she mimicked every word I uttered, looking all the time like one of Michael Angelo's "Fates."

The room was very prettily curtained, and furnished with Russian materials, they told me, and the lithographs, the photographs and their frames, and the many "knick-knacks" which adorned the tables and recesses were all Russian. They showed me several small clocks and very ingenious watches, all Russian also. They said that the goods in the shops at Bijar are chiefly Russian, and added, "The English don't try to suit our taste as the Russians do." The principal lady expressed a wish for greater liberty, though she qualified it by saying that men who love their wives could not let them go about as the English ladies do in Tihran. Dinner had been prepared, a huge Persian dinner, but they kindly allowed me to take tea instead, and produced with it _gaz_ (manna) and a cake flavoured with asafoetida. When I came to an end of my Persian, and they of their ideas, I said farewell, and was followed to the gate by the mocking laugh of the _duenna_.

The _sowars_ asserted that the next _farsakh_ was "very dangerous," so we kept together. Wild, desolate, rolling, scrubless open country it is, the spurs of the Kurdish hills. The _sowars_ were very fussy and did a great deal of galloping and scouting, saying that bands of robber horsemen are often met with on this route, who, being Sunnis, would rejoice in attacking Shiahs. Doubtless they magnified the risk in order to enhance the value of their services. In the early afternoon we reached the Kurdish village of Karabul[=a]k, sixty mud hovels, on the flaring mud hillside, the great fodder stacks on the flat roofs alone making the houses obvious. The water is very bad and limited in quantity, and of milk there was none. The people are very poor and unprosperous, and a meaner set of donkeys and oxen than those which were treading out the corn close to my tent I have not seen.

Though most of the inhabitants are Kurds, there are some Persians and Turks, and each nationality has its own _ketchuda_. Towards evening the _sowars_ came to me with the three _ketchudas_, who, they said, would arrange for a guard, and for my escort the next day. I did not like this, for the _sowars_ had good double-barrelled guns, and were in Persian uniform, and had been given me for three days, but there was no help for it. The _ketchudas_ said that they could not guarantee my safety that night with less than ten men, and I saw in the whole affair a design on my very slender purse. A monetary panic set in before I reached Hamadan: the sovereign had fallen from thirty-four to twenty-eight _krans_, the Jews would not take English paper at any price, I could not cash my circular notes, and it was only through the kindness of the American missionaries that I had any money at all, and I had only enough for ordinary expenses as far as Urmi. I told them that I could only pay two men, and dismissed the _sowars_ with a present quite out of proportion to the time they had been with me.

During these arrangements the hubbub was indescribable, but the men were very pleasant. Three hours later the _sowars_ returned, saying that after riding eight miles they had met a messenger with a letter from the Khan, telling them to go on another day with me. I asked to see the letter, and then they said it was a verbal message. They had never been outside of Karabul[=a]k! I tell this in detail to show how intricate are the meshes of the net in which a traveller on these unfrequented roads is entangled.

Later, ten wild-looking Kurds with long guns, various varieties of old swords, and long knives, lighted great watch-fires on either side of my tent, and put _Boy_ between them. This pet likes fires, and lies down fearlessly among the men, close to the embers.

A little below my camp was a solitary miserable-looking melon garden with a low mud wall. At midnight I was awakened by the loud report of several guns close to my tent, and confused shouts of men, with outcries of women and children. The watchmen saw two men robbing the melon garden, shot one, and captured both. I gave a present to the guards in the morning, and the _ketchudas_ took half of it.

The march to Jafirabad is over the same monotonous country, over ever-ascending rolling hills, with small plateaux among them, very destitute of water, and consequently of population, the village of Khashmaghal, with 150 houses, and two ruined forts, being the one object of interest.

On the way to Jafirabad is the small village of Nasrabad, once a cluster of semi-subterranean hovels, inhabited by thieves. Some years ago the present Shah halted near it on one of his hunting excursions, and observing the desolation of the country, and water running to waste, gave money and lands to bribe a number of families to settle there. There are now sixty houses surrounded by much material wealth. The Shah still divides 100 _tumans_ yearly among the people, and takes a very small tribute. Nasr-ed-Din has many misdeeds to answer for, many despotic acts, and some bloodshed, but among the legions of complaints of oppression and grinding exactions which I hear in most places, I have not heard one of the tribute fixed by him--solely of the exactions and merciless rapacity of the governors and their subordinate officials.

Jafirabad, a village of 100 houses in the midst of arable land, has one of those camping-grounds of smooth green sward at once so tempting and so risky, and we all got rheumatism in the moist chilliness of the night. The mercury is still falling slowly and steadily, and the sun is only really hot between ten and four. Jafirabad is a prosperous village, owned, as many in this region are, by the Governor of Tabriz, who is merciful as to tribute.

Everything was wet, even inside my tent. It was actually cold. In the yellow dawn I heard Mirza's cheerful voice saying, "Madam, they think your horse is dead!" The creature had been stretched out motionless for two hours in the midst of bustle and packing. I told them to take off his nose-bag, which was nearly full, but still he did not move. I went up to him and said sharply, "Come, get up, old _Boy_" and he struggled slowly to his feet, shook himself, and at once fumbled in my pockets for food, thumping me with his head as usual when he failed to find any. He was benumbed by sleeping on the damp ground in the hoar-frost. The next night he chose to sleep under the verandah of my tent, snoring loudly. He has became quite a friend and companion.

The _sowars_ finally left me there, and I was escorted by the _ketchuda_, a very pleasant intelligent man of considerable property, with his two retainers. The next stage has the reputation of being "very dangerous," and many people anxious to go to the next village joined my caravan. My tents were guarded by eight wild-looking village Kurds, armed with clubbed sticks and long guns. I asked the _ketchuda_ if two were not enough, and he said that I should only pay for two, the others were there for his satisfaction, that two might combine to rob me, but that more would watch each other, and that the robbers of this region do not pilfer in ones and twos, but swoop down on tents in large parties.

The next march is chiefly along valleys among low hills. The _ketchuda_ did much scouting, not without good reason, and we all kept close together. A party of well-mounted men rode down upon us and joined us. Mirza sidled up to me, and in his usual cheery tones said "Madam, these are robbers." They were men of a well-known band, under one Hassan Khan. They spoke Persian, and Mirza kept me informed of what they were saying. They said they had been out a night and a day without success, and they must take my baggage and horse--they wanted horses badly. The _ketchuda_, to whom they were well known, remonstrated with them, and the parley went on for some time, they insisting, and he threatening them with the regiment from Bijar, but all he said was of no use, till he told them that I was the wife of the Governor of Tabriz, that I had been paying a visit to Hamadan, and was then going to be the guest of the ladies of Hadji Baba, Governor of Achaz, that I had been committed to him, and that he was answerable for my safety. "You know I am a man of my word," was the conclusion of this brilliant lie, which served its purpose, for they said they knew him, and would not rob me _then_.

They rode with us for some miles, in fact the leader, a sinister-looking elderly man, in a turban and brown _abba_ like an Arab, rode so close to me that the barrel of his gun constantly touched my saddle. They carried double-barrelled guns besides revolvers. On coming to a part of the country where the _ketchuda_ said the road became safe, I sent the caravan on with the servants, the band having gone in another direction, and halted for two hours. Riding on again, and turning sharply round a large rock, there they all were, dismounted, and rushed out upon us. A _melee_ ensued, and as I then had only two men they were two to one, and would certainly have overpowered my escort had not several horsemen appeared in the distance, when they mounted and rode away. One of the horses was scratched, and I got an accidental cut on my wrist. They believed that I had a considerable sum of money with me. The _ketchuda_ of Takautapa said that they had robbed his village of some cattle a few days before.

Takautapa is a village of thirty-five houses, with two shops, and a gunsmith who seemed to drive a "roaring trade." For three days I have scarcely seen an unarmed man. Shepherds, herdsmen, ploughmen, travellers, all carry arms. Mirza went to the Governor of Achaz, six miles off, with my letter from the Governor of Bijar, and he was most courteous. He sent his secretary to ask me to spend a day or two at his house, and told him, in case I could not, to remain for the night to arrange for my comfort and safety, an order very efficiently carried out.[20]

He sent word also that if I could not accept his hospitality I was still to be his guest, and not to pay for anything--a kindness which, for several reasons, I never accept. He added, that though the road was safe, he should send three _sowars_ "to show the _Khanum_ honour," and they had received strict orders not to accept any present. The men who attempted to rob my caravan spent the night here, and, as they had robbed them before, the villagers were very glad of the protection of the Governor's scribe and my _sowars_.

_Sujbul[=a]k, October 2._--Having been "courteously entreated," I sent on the caravan and servants at daybreak, and, having the _sowars_ with me, was able to make the march to Geokahaz at a fast pace. The _sowars_ were three wild-looking Kurds, well mounted, and in galloping _Boy_ had to exert himself considerably to keep up with them, and they obviously tried to force his pace.

The day was cool, cool enough for a sheepskin coat, and the air delightful. The halcyon season for Persian travelling has come, the difficulties are over, and the fever has left me. Brown, bare, and bushless as are the rolling hills over which the road passes, it would be impossible not to enjoy the long gallops over the stoneless soil, the crisp, bracing air, the pure blue of the glittering sky, and the changed altitude of the sun, which, from having been my worst foe is now a genial friend. True, the country over which I pass is not interesting, but, as everywhere in Persia, craggy mountains are in sight, softened by a veil of heavenly blue, and the country, though uninteresting, suggests pleasant thoughts of fertility, an abundant harvest, and an industrious and fairly prosperous people.[21] Turki is now almost exclusively spoken.

The whole of that day's route was an ascent, and the halting-place was nearly 9000 feet in altitude. I crossed the Sarakh river by a three-arched brick bridge, and afterwards the Gardan-i-Tir-Machi, from which there is an extensive view, and reached Geokahaz by a rough path on the hillside frequently dipping into deep gulches, now dry. The wettest of these is close to the village, and is utilised for a flour-mill. Springs abound, and as Persian soil brings forth abundantly wherever there is water, the village, which is Kurdish, confessed to being extremely prosperous. Its seven threshing-floors were in the full tide of winnowing with the fan, and so complete is the process that nothing but the wheat is left on the firm, hardened gypsum floor, recalling the Baptist's words, "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor." The wheat was everywhere being gathered "into the garner"--the large upright clay receptacles holding twenty bushels each with which every house is supplied.

This village of only 200 houses owns 7000 sheep and goats, 60 horses and mares, and 400 head of cattle, and its tribute is only 230 _tumans_. It and very many other villages belong to Haidar Khan, Governor of Achaz, of whom the villagers speak as a lenient lord. Apricot and pear orchards abound, and on a piece of grass in one of these I found my camp most delectably pitched. The _ketchuda_ and several other men came to meet me; indeed, the _istikbal_ consisted of over twenty Kurdish horsemen. The village was absolutely crowded with men and horses, 200 pilgrims being lodged there for the night.