IN THE
LAND OF THE LION AND SUN.

The Minerva Library.

• 1. Darwin’s Journal in the “Beagle.”
• 2. The Ingoldsby Legends.
• 3. Borrow’s Bible in Spain.
• 4. Emerson’s Prose Works.
• 5. Galton’s Tropical South Africa.
• 6. Manzoni’s The Betrothed Lovers.
• 7. Goethe’s Faust (Complete). Bayard Taylor.
• 8. Wallace’s Travels on the Amazon.
• 9. Dean Stanley’s Life of Dr. Arnold.
• 10. Poe’s Tales.
• 11. Comedies by Molière.
• 12. Forster’s Life of Goldsmith.
• 13. Lane’s Modern Egyptians.
• 14. Torrens’ Life of Melbourne.
• 15. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.
• 16. Barth’s Travels in Africa.
• 17. Victor Hugo: Select Poems, &c.
• 18. Darwin’s Coral Reefs, &c.
• 19. Lockhart’s Life of Robert Burns.
• 20. Barth’s Travels in Africa (II.)
• 21. Lyra Elegantiarum. Locker-Lampson.
• 22. Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, &c.
• 23. Life and Letters of Franklin.
• 24. Beckford’s Vathek, and Travels.
• 25. Macaulay’s Historical and Literary Essays.
• 26. Yonge’s Life of Wellington.
• 27. Carlyle’s French Revolution.
• 28. Wills’ Land of the Lion and Sun.

London: WARD, LOCK & CO.

SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY.

(From a Native Drawing.)

IN THE
LAND OF THE LION AND SUN,
OR
MODERN PERSIA.

BEING EXPERIENCES OF LIFE IN PERSIA FROM
1866 TO 1881.

ILLUSTRATED BY FULL-PAGE PLATES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM
NATIVE DRAWINGS.

BY
C. J. WILLS, M.D.,
LATE ONE OF THE MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HER MAJESTY’S TELEGRAPH
DEPARTMENT IN PERSIA.

THE ARMS OF PERSIA
(from the Teheran Gazette).

NEW EDITION.

WARD, LOCK AND Co.,
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND MELBOURNE,
1891.

The right of translation is reserved.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

The author of the Land of the Lion and Sun may claim an exceptional degree of credit for his book on one of the most interesting countries in the world; for he derived his knowledge not merely from a journey through the country, but from a sufficiently prolonged residence to make him thoroughly at home with the people, and to understand their inner life. The Times, on its first appearance in 1883, characterized it as probably the most amusing book of travel that had been published in recent years. The author’s profession gave him access to the personality of the people to a marked extent, giving origin to many of the amusing anecdotes referred to. The verdict of the Times was endorsed by very many journals. Nature described the anecdotes as “distinguished by three cardinal virtues: they are characteristic, they are well told, and they are infinitely varied.”

Since his return to England, Dr. Wills has become well known as a novelist and writer of short stories, which he has contributed to most of the leading magazines and society journals. His novels, some of which have been written in collaboration with Mr. F. C. Philips, have been widely read and highly appreciated.

The illustrations, on separate plates, appear here for the first time. They are reproduced from native drawings, and from Dr. Wills’s photographs and drawings.

G. T. B.

TO
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR F. J. GOLDSMID,
C.B., K.C.S.I.,
FORMERLY DIRECTOR IN CHIEF OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN
GOVERNMENT TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT,
SPECIAL COMMISSIONER FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
PERSIAN FRONTIER,
This Book is Dedicated,
WITH AFFECTIONATE ESTEEM, IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY
KINDNESSES,
BY HIS MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

My reason for calling my book ‘The Land of the Lion and Sun’ is that the Lion and Sun are the national emblems of Persia, while the second title alone, ‘Modern Persia,’ would have suggested an exhaustive and elaborate array of matter which is beyond the scope of this work.

In a personal narrative, it is necessary to use a good many I’s; and to avoid being obscure, I fear I have been at times over minute, but I have preferred this to the risk of giving a false impression.

I have striven to describe life in Persia as I saw it, not exaggerating or softening anything, but speaking of Persia as it is. The whole narrative may be considered as a record of life in an out-of-the-way corner of the world; and the reader being left to make his own reflections, is not troubled with mine.

Usually no names are given, save of those of the dead, or public men.

The important subject of our fast-dying commerce with Persia, and the means of really opening the country, I have relegated to an Appendix.[1]

As to the spelling and transliteration of Persian words used, it is not classical, it does not pretend to be; but it will convey to the ordinary reader the local pronunciation of the colloquial; and the reader not knowing anything of Oriental languages is troubled very seldom with accents and (apparently) unpronounceable words. Thus Mūnshi is spelt Moonshee, as that gives the exact sound: ū is often used to avoid the barbarous appearance of oo. Of course there is no C in Persian; still as, from habit, we write Calcutta and not Kalkutta, so some words, like Cah, that use has rendered common, are inserted under C and K. I think that all that is required is, that the ordinary English reader shall pronounce the words not too incorrectly; and it is only when a work is philological that accuracy in transliteration is of any real importance. With this end in view, I have tried so to spell Persian words that by following ordinary rules, the general reader may not be very wide of the mark. To avoid continual explanation I have added a Glossary, with a correct transliteration. I have to gratefully acknowledge the valuable help of Mr. Guy le Strange in correcting this Glossary, and kindly favouring me with the transliteration according to the system adopted by Johnson, in several cases in which that author has not noted words, &c.

Oriental Club,
Hanover Square.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN THE
LAND OF THE LION AND SUN.

CHAPTER I.
I GO TO PERSIA.

Wanted, a doctor—The Director-in-chief—Doubt and distrust—Simple advice—Am referred to ‘Hadji Baba’—My kit—Saddle for riding post—Vienna—Rustchuk—Quarantine—Galatz—Kustendji—Constantinople—Turkish ladies—Stamboul—I have my hair cut—“Karagews”—Turkish coffee—A philo-Turk—Shooting party—The theatres—The Opera—Armenian theatre—Gambling-house—A Bashi-bazouk—We leave, viâ the Black Sea—The Russian captain—Unarmed vessels—White Crimean wine—Foreign wines in Russia—Deck passengers—Sinope—Batoum—Poti—The post-house—Difficulty in getting food—Travelling en tröika—Kutais—A tarantass—Apply for horses—An itching palm—We start—Tiflis—Lecoq’s beer—A happy reprieve—The joys of travel—Chief of the Telegraph in Tiflis—Uniforms—Persian Consulate—Coffee and pipes—Smoking an art—Effects on the tyro—Tea—The Consul—His age—Dyeing the hair—The Opera, varied costumes at—The Tiflis ballet—Leave Tiflis—Erivan—The Pass—We lighten our load—Hotel—Washing—Nakchewan—Julfa, the frontier of Persia.

I think that there is no more painful position than that of the young medical man. I had “passed,” and had got my qualifications. An assistant I did not wish to be, and I therefore consulted the advertisement columns of the Lancet, and was prepared to go anywhere, if I might see the world, and have what Americans call a good time.

At my first attempt I came on an advertisement of three appointments, under the Indian Government, in Persia; the address was the Adelphi. Off I started for the Adelphi, which I had always looked on as a neighbourhood full of mystery, and whose inhabitants were to be mistrusted. Timeo Danaos.

A first-floor—this looked well. I knocked, was told to enter. Two gentlemen, kneeling on the floor, looked at me in a disturbed manner. The whole room is strewn with sheets of written foolscap, and it appears that I have arrived inopportunely, as official documents are being sorted. I am asked to take a seat, having stated to the elder of the two that I am come to see the director on business.

Now I couldn’t at that time fancy a director who knelt—in fact, my only idea of one was the typical director of the novel, a stout, bechained man—and my astonishment was great at being quietly informed by one of the gentlemen that he was Colonel G⸺, and should be glad to hear anything I had to communicate. I stated my wish to obtain such an appointment as was advertised; the duties, pay, &c., were pointed out, and I came to the conclusion that it would suit me as a “pastime” till the happy day when I should have a brass plate of my own. But if my ideas of a director were lofty, my ideas of a colonel were loftier; and I said to myself, one who combines these two functions, and can be polite to a humble doctor—must be an impostor.

I was asked for my credentials. I gave them, and was told to call in the morning, but distrust had taken hold of me; I got an ‘Army List,’ and, not finding my chief-that-was-to-be’s name in it, I, forgetting that we had then an Indian as well as an English army, came to the conclusion that he must be an impostor, and that I should be asked for a deposit in the morning, which was, I believed, the general way of obtaining money from the unwary.

With, I fear, a certain amount of truculent defiance, I presented myself at the appointed hour, and was told that my references were satisfactory, that a contract would be drawn up that I should have to sign, and that I should be ready to start in a fortnight; but, rather to my astonishment, no mention was made of a deposit. “I think there is nothing more,” said Colonel G⸺.

This, I concluded, indicated the termination of the interview; and, after considerable humming and hawing, I came to the point, and blurted out that, after searching the ‘Army List,’ I couldn’t find any Colonel G⸺, and that no one had ever heard of the Telegraph Department in Persia.

Instead of being annoyed, the Colonel merely asked if I knew any one at the War Office. As it happened I did. “Well, go to him, and he will tell you all about it.”

Off I went to the War Office, found my friend, and, to his horror, told him that I wanted to know if the Persian Telegraph Department existed or not, and if the director was or was not a myth. He easily satisfied me, and I felt that I had been stupidly suspicious.

I then announced to my friends and relatives my probably immediate departure for Persia. Strange to say, they declined to see it in any other light than a peculiarly elaborate and stupid joke. Instead of congratulations, I was treated as an unamiable and tiring lunatic, and from none of my friends was I able to get any information as to Persia. One man had a son in Baghdad! but it was no good his writing him, as it took six months to get an answer.

After a day or two I again presented myself at the office, and I had the country described to me, and various recommendations as to outfit given me, and I also was introduced to Major C⸺, the assistant-director. His advice was delightfully simple. “You’ll be able to wear out all your old clothes; don’t buy any new ones; have a ‘Dayrell’ bridle; get nothing but flannel shirts.” Colonel G⸺ certainly took great trouble to explain to me all about the country, and, taking me out to lunch with him, bought me Morier’s ‘Hadji Baba,’ saying, “When you read this you will know more of Persia and the Persians than you will if you had lived there with your eyes open for twenty years.” This is going a long way; it is seventeen years since I went to Persia, and I read ‘Hadji Baba’ now, and still learn something new from it. As Persia was in Morier’s time so it is now; and, though one sees plenty of decay, there is very little change.

Two other candidates came forward, to whom I was deputed to explain matters. They accepted the conditions, and, the deeds being prepared, we all three went to the India Office and signed a contract for three years.

On going to the Adelphi I was told that a sum of one hundred pounds had been handed to each of my two colleagues to take them to Persia. But I was glad to seize the opportunity kindly given me by Colonel G⸺ of travelling with him, and he told me to meet him in Vienna on a certain day.

I had now no time to lose, and proceeded to buy my kit; what that kit was it is as well the reader should know.

I got enough ordinary clothing for three years, such as we use in England for morning or country wear, also two pairs of riding-boots; these fitted me, and were consequently useless, for I soon found that in riding long distances boots much too big are the thing, as then the foot is neither cold in winter or crippled in summer; a knife, fork, and spoon, to shut up; a revolver; a small bradawl, with the point buried in a cork, for boring holes in straps; a military saddle (hussar officer’s), with wallet-holsters and a high cantle (this cantle keeps one’s rugs off one’s back when riding post, which is the only way of quick travelling in the country); a double-barrelled fowling-piece (nearly useless). My kit was packed in a couple of bullock-trunks, and my saddle sewn up in my rugs, which were thick and good. I also had a blanket-lined waterproof sheet.

I gave myself a week in Paris previous to my nominal start, and thence I proceeded to Vienna, to be ready to leave with Colonel G⸺ as soon as he arrived there.

I went to the “Golden Lamb,” a very comfortable hotel which the Colonel had chosen, and beguiled my time pleasantly enough in going nightly to the theatre to hear Offenbach’s operas done in German. I saw ‘Bluebeard,’ ‘La Belle Hélène,’ &c. I was a fortnight in Vienna, and I began to pick up a smattering, for, of course, the German learnt at school is useless; my Offenbach system I found more effectual than the usual one of “the gardener’s wife has brought the hat of the merchant’s little boy,” &c.

A week after the Colonel’s arrival our stay in Vienna ended. We left for Basiatch (by rail twenty-seven hours); slept there, and started early in the morning for Rustchuk by steamer. There we found that passengers from up the river were in quarantine; and the letters were taken with a pair of tongs, with immense precautions, for fumigation; we were advised not to land, as we should certainly have to go to the lazaretto; and we were told that if we quietly went on to Galatz, and said nothing, we could return the next day as from a healthy port.

We were lucky in taking the advice, as a passenger did venture on to the lighter, and was, willy-nilly, marched off to what we learnt afterwards was a six weeks’ quarantine.

We went on to Galatz, which we reached the next day.

Galatz is like a rural Wapping, but muddier. We went to bed, to find ourselves under weigh in the morning. We soon got to Tchernavoda, which seemed a mere village. There we landed, and thence, by a very slow train indeed, to Kustendji. At this place we heard the ravages of the cholera had been very great. We slept there that night, and started at noon next day for Constantinople by steamer.

It blew hard, and we were very glad indeed to find ourselves in the Bosphorus. There the scenery became splendid; no description of mine can do justice to the castles and palaces hanging on the water’s edge; the crowded picturesque villages that were reflected in the clear blue water; the shoals of porpoises that accompanied the ship at full speed, ploughing the water with a loud noise, and then, in their course, leaping, still continuing the race, from the water; and then entering it again amid a shower of spray. This wonderful scene continued for eighteen miles. At 5 P.M. we anchored in the Golden Horn. The scene was indescribable; all I had ever seen or read of paled before it. We were too late to land, as one cannot do so after sunset.

Next morning we went ashore in a caique, rowed by very picturesque boatmen in white kilts, passed the Custom House, and went straight to Misseri’s, preceded by our baggage, borne by three porters. These “hammals” bear gigantic burdens, and as in most Eastern towns there are no carriage-roads, they are of great use, and generally form a distinct corporation.

At Misseri’s the Colonel was well known, having stayed there several times before. In Constantinople, happily for me, instead of going on at once, my chief was delayed by orders from home for nearly two months; and I was enabled to see a good deal of the town.

Great was my delight to watch the Turkish ladies, their muslin yashmaks lending a fictitious delicacy to their complexions, going about in handsome carriages. Innumerable were the mysterious stories I heard after table d’hôte of these veiled beauties. Many a time have I gone on long expeditions into Stamboul with Mr. Ayrton, a brother of “Board of Works Ayrton,” who, with a thorough knowledge of Turkey and the Turk, took me under his wing in his daily pilgrimages to the most unsavoury but interesting nooks of the Mahommedan portion of the city. We went to coffee-houses, and listened to story-tellers; we dined on savoury kabobs; and, alas! I well remember my philo-Turk friend persuaded me to have my hair cut by a Turkish barber. It was only too well done; when the satisfied shaver handed me the glass I was as a sheep before the shearer, dumb, but with horror; my head was pink, so closely was it cropped, and my only consolation was the remark of my introducer to oriental life, that “in the East they generally did things thoroughly.”

I saw too the Turkish Punch (“Karagews”), a most immoral puppet; and the mildest and most favourable description of him was that “his manners were none, his customs disgusting,” but then my mentor said he was “very oriental”—perhaps the terms mean much the same thing.

As the coffee seemed particularly delicious in the native cafés, I, after some trouble, ascertained the real receipt for coffee à la Turca (not à la Turque), as they call it. Here it is; for each tiny cup (about a small wineglassful), a teaspoonful of coffee fresh roasted, and ground at once while hot to a fine powder in a brass hand-mill, or at times pounded in a mortar, is thrown into a small and heated saucepan; add the required quantity of boiling water. Place on the embers; when it threatens to boil over, remove; replace, and remove a second and a third time; serve. All the dregs go to the bottom. No sugar or milk used—never clean the saucepan!

At these cafés long chibouques with yellow clay heads are smoked, the heads being rested on a brass tray. A ball of live charcoal is placed on the long-cut Samsoon tobacco (or if the customer be liberal, Macedonian), the stem is jasmine or cherry wood, and the grander the pipe the longer the stem; rich customers bring their own mouth-pieces, which have a long inner conical tube that fits any stem. These mouth-pieces are of amber, and are frequently ornamented with a hoop of brilliants. The pieces of amber are two in number, and if of large size and of good colour cost two pounds, upwards to even five-and-twenty: the ordinary fashion is to separate these two pieces by a thin circle of lapis-lazuli or other stone.

The narghilé is also much used. It will be fully described as the “kalian” further on. In it is smoked the tumbaku of Persia. A few pence is charged for the whole entertainment of coffee, smoke, shelter, and music, such as it is, generally a guitar or flute-player, who is glad to play to order for a cup of coffee. The customers sit on little low stools like the French church chairs without their backs. In some of the grander cafés divans, and even chairs, are provided.

Mr. Ayrton had spent many years in Egypt. He wore a coat made by a Turkish tailor, a shawl waistcoat and a fez, and with his cropped grey hairs (it was his barber who operated on me) and his big chibouque with the amber mouth-piece (he had a large collection of them) with the ring of diamonds, he looked a thorough Turk, and I fancy posed and was treated as such. I remember myself thinking that the get-up was assumed for the purpose of getting a deeper insight into Turkish life. From what I know now, I merely suppose that, from his wearing the fez, he was, or had been, in Turkish employ; all government servants in Turkey have to wear it. Dr. Millengen, in whose arms Byron died, and who was an old government employé (physician to three Sultans), wore it; so did his son, who was in the Turkish Government Telegraph; and another son of his, I afterwards met in the Turkish Quarantine Service at Teheran, told me he wore it always while in Turkey.

I was introduced to a M. la Fontaine, a most enthusiastic sportsman, and his many nephews, and by him I was given a day’s cock-shooting, and there was plenty of it. As for me, I was an utter muff and cockney, or rather town-reared; but had I not a new pin-fire breechloader, and was it not my first day’s real shooting? And as I really did shoot two brace, I returned a delighted but tired youth. That night will be ever memorable. I ate my first pillaw, with fowls boiled to rags in it, and followed by curds with thick cream on the top called “yaourt.” How we all ate!

We had come from Pera, crossing in a steamer, and had to ride some twenty miles on rough little ponies to the sleeping place, and—horror of horrors!—on Turkish saddles. Now to the timid rider a Turkish saddle is at first a delight, for to leave it without great effort is impossible, and there is a pommel which is so high that it appears the height of folly not to cling to it; but when one’s knees are in one’s mouth, when one’s saddle is hard as iron and cuts like a knife, when one has new and heavy shooting-boots on, and one’s unmentionables have a tendency to ruck, besides having the glory of carrying a forty-guinea gun slung (oh, demon cockney gun-maker!) by a sling that slips along the barrel, and was highly recommended, with the addition of one hundred loaded cartridges distributed over the many pockets of a very new shooting-coat, in the sun, with a fur cap on—is it to be wondered at that the sufferings of the tortured Indian at the stake were child’s-play to what I endured without a groan, and repeating constantly assurances of my delight and enjoyment?—and remember, reader, we went at a brisk canter all the time.

How glad I was to lie down! How grieved I was, at 4.30 A.M. the next day, to be called, and, after a hurried wash, to start in the half dawn in my tight and heavy boots! But the firing began; I forgot the tightness of my boots, the stiffness of my back. Do you remember how stiff you felt after your first riding lesson, my friend? and you hadn’t one hundred loaded cartridges about you, and an intermittent garotte with your knees in your mouth; and I thanked Heaven I need not sit down, for weighty reasons.

Of course I fired wildly; of course I missed continually, but it was my first day, and I never enjoyed anything so much in my life. I hobbled bravely on till there was no more daylight, but I did feel thoroughly done on getting in, and I did not enjoy my ride back the next day.

I used to try and learn Persian in my idle hours, and I soon mastered the printed character and could read fluently, but without the slightest idea of meaning. Kind Colonel G⸺ gave me many a lesson, but I fear that loafing in Stamboul by day and going to the French or Italian theatre in the evening had greater attractions.

I was always passionately fond of the stage, and, as we were always going in a day or two, I used, on the principle that I might never be able to go to the play again, to go every evening.

Of course there was only a third-rate French company, but how very good they were! The term “stick,” so justly applied to many of our actors, could not be attached to any player in the little band. All were good, and all were good all round, and though the leading man might be everything in the drama, yet he didn’t object to play the lover in the little vaudeville, and played it well. An Englishman, in the event of anything so dreadful happening to him, would soon let his audience see that he was only doing it under protest.

At the Opera the prima donna was ridiculously fat, and to a man unmusical this somewhat destroys the illusion—but then the fauteuils d’orchestre only cost ten francs. I also went to an Armenian theatre, but it had the national characteristics, squalor and misery, and I did not repeat the visit. I failed even to see an Armenian piece (if such a thing exists), but sat out a fearful edition of ‘The Chiffonier of Paris;’ and I was told that all the pieces played in Constantinople (Pera) in Armenian were mere translations.

Even the delights of gaming were permitted in Pera. A few doors from Messeri’s was the Café “Flam,” as it was affectionately called by the Pera youth. “Café Flamand” was, I fancy, its real title. Here were played “pharaon” and roulette. I was recommended the former game, for economical reasons—it took longer to lose a napoleon. Nobody seemed to win at either game, but pharaon certainly “took longer.” I was not tempted to make frequent visits, as I had played for some small sums at Baden-Baden a year or two before. There one was at least cheated fairly; here the robbery was open.

A few days after the New Year the Colonel told me that we should really leave for Persia by the very first opportunity. I bid farewell to all the kind friends I had made, had my photo taken in breeches, boots, and revolver at Abdullah’s—a weakness every Englishman who reaches Constantinople is guilty of. It does not do to be too oriental. At Abdullah’s I purchased a fearful-looking type, marked a Bashi-bazouk, and found it out afterwards to be the portrait of a man whose acquaintance I made in Persia, the Dutch Consul in Bushire; but he made a very good type, being a big man; and he literally bristled with weapons, and seemed capable of any atrocities.

One fine afternoon, on January 5th, 1867, we were rowed on board the Russian steamer Oleg. We had an English-speaking captain, who was genial and communicative. My chief was confined to his cabin; and as there was nothing to read and nothing to do, I saw a good deal of the Russian. He told me that all the commanders of their mail-boats were naval officers, and that all the mail-boats could be turned into war-steamers at a few hours’ notice, merely requiring the guns to be put into them: “so that, as you English don’t let us have war-vessels on the Black Sea, we run a superior class of mail-boat” (built, however, on the Clyde). And a very superior boat she was.

I was told by the captain to avoid the high-priced wines, and stick to white Crimean. This was a particularly delicious light wine, like a good Sauterne; and I find, from after experience of Russian railway buffets, which far exceed anything of the sort we have in grandeur, that, as a rule, the liquor is simply fair red and white country wine, the only difference being in price and label.

In some of these labels the Muscovite imagination fairly runs riot. You see “Château d’Yquem,” “Schloss Johannisberg,” &c., but nobody ever seems to drink them, and they are mere table ornaments. The rich drink nothing but champagne of known and expensive brands, and bottled stout; while the middle classes stick to “piver” (Russian beer) and vodki.

Tea, in tumblers, was continually being served, with a big slice of lemon in it. The deck passengers, among whom were many rough Circassians, all armed to the teeth, cuddled down into the nooks of the cargo, and managed to keep themselves warm as best they could. They too always were drinking tea, but they adopted a plan to economise sugar that I have noticed constantly among the Russian poor: a bit of sugar is placed in the cheek, and then the tea is swallowed in gulps; the poor fellows thus keeping up a sort of delusion that they are swallowing sweet and hot tea, though the mouth only, and not the tea, is really sweetened. There was none of the exclusiveness of the Englishman. A made tea, and regaled B, C, and D; then B treated the rest, and so on; when not asleep, eating, or tea-drinking, the deck people were card-playing and smoking. The short pipe was a good deal used, and passed from hand to hand, while the trader class smoked the cigarette. All the men, and most of the women, wore a sort of rough butcher-boot; and, from the state of the roads at Poti, any other foot clothing for pedestrians would have been impossible.

We lay to off Sinope on the 7th (here the Russians, our little captain took care to remind me, destroyed the Turkish fleet), but could not land passengers, a gale blowing. We changed steamers at Batoum on the 10th.

The scenery at Batoum is very fine; the sea, without a wave, of a deep blue; well-wooded hills and the Elburz range of the Caucasus covered with snows forming the horizon. So warm was it here that we lay on the beach throwing stones into the tranquil sea.

At last we arrived at Poti, being the fifth day from Constantinople. We were put on a lighter with our baggage, and taken direct to the Custom House; thence we got on a little steamer that was to take us up the Riom river, and of this we had some twelve hours, the great part of the time being occupied in getting aground, and getting off again.

From Poti to Merand we went in a telega, en tröika, some sixty versts, over what was rather a track than a road, in thirteen hours.

A telega, or road-waggon, is easily described as an oblong box on wheels, and of the severest simplicity. The box is about five feet by three feet six inches at the top, and five feet by three feet at the bottom, with a plank in the front for the driver. There are no attempts at springs; strength and lightness are all that is aimed at; these are attained—also the maximum of discomfort. To this machine are harnessed three horses: one trots in the shafts with a yoke four feet high, the other two, in traces at either side, gallop. The harness is rope, the driver often drunk.

Travelling thus is monotonous, and after a time very painful. To the Russian officer, with his big pillow, little or no luggage, and plenty of hay, a tröika is comparatively comfortable, for he can lie stretched out, and be tolerably free from bruises, but, doing as we did, we suffered grinding torments. One telega was full of our luggage, and in the other we sat on a portmanteau of the Colonel’s; at each jolt we were obliged to clutch the edge of the machine to prevent knocking one against the other, and there was no support of any kind. To people accustomed to ride on springs our sufferings would only be apparent if they had once tried what it was to travel in this way for many hours over the roughest roads, day and night and at full speed, and without springs of any kind. When our hands got painfully bruised we changed sides, and bruised the other ones, for we were forced to hold on. When we were lucky enough to get a broadish telega we got some hay, and sat on it, thus resting our knees.

On our way we only saw one woman and, say, a hundred men. The country seemed to me very thinly populated after teeming England. On our arrival at the post-house at Merand we were shown a room with two plank bedsteads and a fireplace. I little thought that in Persia the post-houses hadn’t even the plank bedsteads.

Neither of us could speak one word of the language; we tried French, German, Italian, Turkish, Persian—all of no avail—and we had no food. At last we obtained fire and a samovar, or Russian tea urn; the first by pantomime, the second by looking fierce and repeating the word.

We pointed to our mouths, heads were shaken (perhaps they thought we wanted a dentist); at last I had a happy thought, and, by drawing a hen and egg, and hopping about the room clucking, the postmaster’s wife at last produced the required eggs; they then brought bread and sausage, the latter much decomposed.

Colonel G⸺ was taken ill in the night, and I feared we could not proceed. But by 8 A.M. (of the 12th) we were again on the road, and did the thirty-four versts on a good military road by noon. The 12th is with Russians New Year’s Day, and we found the town of Kutais for the most part drunk and letting off its firearms.

Here our landlord informed us that there was an opportunity to buy a tarantass, which we could dispose of when we reached the Persian frontier or at Tiflis.

I was greatly delighted when the Colonel decided on purchasing this very primitive carriage. Fancy an old-fashioned open carriage to hold two, with cushions stuffed in prehistoric ages with hay, a tarpaulin apron, a huge hood provided with a leather curtain which, when dropped, plunged the traveller into black darkness, but kept the wind and rain out; a gigantic box and boot, the whole slung on a perch from four posts by thick straps, and having very small fore and very large hind wheels, a plumb-line dropped from the top of the latter being quite a foot beyond the bottom. But it kept us warm and dry, would hold all the luggage, and would in theory enable us to travel with three horses instead of six. We found out afterwards that we had to take five, when we were lucky enough to get them.

I fancy the whole machine cost one hundred and fifty roubles, or, at the then exchange, fifteen pounds. Then came a wheelwright, and he took some seven hours at the wheels. At length, about five, all was pronounced ready, and we sent our “padoroschna,” or permit to take post-horses, to the postmaster for horses. Reply: “None just at present; would send them over as soon as they came in.” To lose no time, we carefully filled the boot with our luggage, and my bullock-trunks were firmly roped on behind.

We took tea preparatory to our start, and laid in provisions of bread, beer, &c., with a couple of fowls; for we were told we should find nothing but black bread and hot water on the road. Still no horses.

We went to the post-house, where we found nine beasts, but were told that these were all reserved for special service. The Colonel then smelt a rat; but what were we to do? the postmaster (a major) was dining out, and no one knew where he was.

The waiter told us at length that what was wanted was a bribe; but then we could hardly believe him, for had we not conversed with the postmaster—a uniformed and decorated individual, who spoke French and smoked cigarettes with an air?

However, there was nothing else for it; the postmaster was, much against the grain, asked to breakfast; a fifteen-rouble note was put under his plate, and an hour afterwards horses were actually being put to.

In we got, having a portmanteau, a hat-box, a cocked-hat case, a sword-case, umbrellas, rugs, pillows (these last a very needful thing in Russia; travellers even by rail carry them, and they are almost a necessity) in the carriage with us; the apron was buttoned down, the curtain triced up, and, with a wrench and a creak, off we went at a hard gallop. It is not a comfortable mode of travelling, far less a luxurious one; but one does get over the ground; one is dry; and certainly, as compared with the telega, one’s sufferings are less intense.

We occasionally left the tarantass to take tea at a post-house, where, ever for lack of fresh horses, we had to feed and rest our old ones. Our Kutais informant was right; nothing to be got but the samovar (or Russian urn) full of boiling water; no furniture, save two wooden bedsteads, with a slanting board at the head; the tariff for horses, and the “icon” (or religious picture) in the corner. Still, there was freedom from noise and movement, which was a great thing. The horses seemed to be fed on nothing in particular; they were turned out in the mud to graze, and were given branches of trees, which they gnawed as a bonne bouche, but I saw no grain given; but these horses went, and they were lashed and howled at; in fact, the driving seemed very hard work indeed. We travel day and night, and never halt but to change horses. After seventy-two hours, we at length reached Tiflis.

I didn’t see much of the road; in most places it was mud, and in many it seemed dangerous. Often our tarantass was repaired with nails and ropes, but we arrived unbroken at the Hôtel du Kaukase of M. Arsène Barberon.

This man kept a really comfortable house, and as it was suggested to us that this was the last civilised place, we were only too glad to make the most of it. We were given sheets to our beds as a favour and as a luxury; and we got a good dinner, with some “Lecoq” English stout, very good and strong. One never hears the name in England, and whether really English or not I don’t know, but it is very double, and much esteemed by the Russians.

Our bedrooms unfortunately abutted on the billiard-room; and as the Russian officers, by whom the hotel was frequented, seemed to be very loth to stop play, it was difficult to sleep till, about 4 A.M., even these festive gentlemen retired.

When I came down, I found that the Colonel, an old traveller, had preceded me, and was engaged upon a pile of official letters and telegrams.

“I shall be unfortunately detained here some days.”

I was overcome by a deep sense of gratitude that words cannot express; for I really was so tired and bruised that I felt as if I had been pummelled all over; in fact, that I should have been glad to be taken to pieces and put away for a time.

Now this perhaps will be looked on as affectation, but it is not so; as one gets used to the various modes of travelling, one ceases to have any grievance, and to feel fatigue, looking on the whole matter as in the day’s work; but the first time, it’s all very well, but we none of us like it in our hearts. Of course we called it glorious, and so it was, in the sense that it was a change.

But who would care to travel from, say, London to York in an old-fashioned bathing-machine, with a companion of greater age and social position than your own, pride preventing one’s grumbling, and going at a hard gallop over the worst of roads, and a good deal of loose and angular luggage with you, day and night?

My chief next day was waited on by a young man of prepossessing appearance, in a stylish uniform, the embroidered shoulder-straps of which were decorated by lightning-flashes. I was somewhat surprised to hear that this was a signalling-clerk of the Russian department.

In Russia every officer, however small, has his uniform, which is cheap, and stylish wear. I, being very young, perhaps felt a little jealous; but the Colonel assured me that, as uniform was always typical, mine would probably have silver leeches running up the red stripe of my trousers, and a gilt mustard-plaister in miniature on the collar. This contented me, and reconciled me to my position as “a plain-clothes officer.” The chief of the telegraph, too, called, and we called on him; many cigarettes were smoked, and much very hot tea in tumblers drunk.

We went also to see the Persian consul, who was very civil, and apparently a very intelligent man; he gave us coffee in the Persian manner. Small silver filagree cup-holders, the size of egg-cups, were handed round on a tray; and placed in each was a smaller vessel of china, holding about a liqueur-glassful of strong sweet black coffee, flavoured with cloves. It was not bad.

When the cups were emptied two servants advanced, one bearing the tray, the other taking with both hands the empty coffee-cups and holders, and placing them upon the tray.

Then came the water-pipe or kalian; three of these were brought in. My first inhalation provided me with a mouthful of peculiarly filthy-tasting water (I learnt afterwards that the water from the kalian is commonly used in Persia as an emetic); having, with some difficulty, got rid of this, I commenced to smoke, and to do as I had seen our host do, eject huge clouds from my nostrils. But I perceived that the other kalians were gone; I asked the Colonel if there were any etiquette as to sending the pipe away. He said—

“Oh, no; our host is an old friend. Smoke as long as it gives you pleasure.”

The consul asked me how I liked the Persian pipe. I eagerly replied that I had never smoked anything so mild and so delicious.

He was delighted, but seemed surprised at my calling it mild. The old gentleman spoke French, and said, “Du tout—très-fort.”

And so I found it, for I began to feel giddy. It appears that the tobacco used was particularly choice and strong, and that, as a rule, of such tobacco only a few whiffs are ever taken. I could smoke no more, and collapsed, for the next five minutes having the awful sensations of the youth who smokes his first “real foreigner.” But this feeling passed away as quickly as it came, and I was soon myself. Another pipe was brought, and then tea, à la Russe, with lemon.

Tea à la Persane consists of a very small cup, holding some two ounces; in this lump-sugar is placed, in big lumps, and if much honour is wished to be shown to the guest, when the cup is full the sugar should project from the centre of the liquid in an island!

The tea used is generally scented Pekoe among the rich, and made very weak. It is also always washed before it is allowed to draw. Persians do not like strong tea.

In after years, in Persia, I was somewhat intrigued to make out why my sweeper objected to sweep his carpets with tea-leaves, and it was only on pressure that I extracted the fact that “the servants always dried my strong black tea-leaves and sold them as tea in the bazaar.”

After some chat in Persian, which Colonel G⸺ spoke in a masterly manner, the Colonel asked for “the pipe of departure,” which, it appears, is the best way of going, as it is considered polite to ask permission to depart, and not to get up and go.

Our host was a largely-built, well-set-up man, dressed in a pair of uniform trousers, stockings (he had removed his shoes on entering the room), and a thick black frock-coat, such as the Turks wear, lined with fur; he did not show any linen. His hair and beard were jetty black, as was his heavy moustache. He wore a black Astrachan hat, which he did not remove, and a sword. He insisted on coming to the door with us, and shook hands in the most cordial manner.

As we were on the road home the Colonel asked me if I could give a guess as to our friend’s age. I said, confidently, “From forty to forty-five.”

“He is probably eighty—certainly over seventy. The black hair which you see is the result of dye. The whole of the upper classes, and all townsmen, military or government employés, dye their hair; it is done usually once or twice a week, and the substances used are, first henna, then indigo. They are allowed to remain on many hours; the result is the fine black dye you see. The villagers, as a rule, use only the henna, which gives a deep purply-black to black hair, and a bright red to white.”

I was also told that when in deep mourning a Persian ceases to dye at all (and, alas! at first he also ceases to wash); the result is comical in the extreme, for one sees men with beards of some foot or more in length half red or rusty black, and the rest quite white. When ill, too, he does not dye.

Afterwards I could always by this means make a pretty shrewd guess, even before asking the question, as to how long a patient had been on the sick-list, by the length of the undyed part of his beard.

The next evening we went to the opera, and saw ‘Don Giovanni’; the acting and singing was fairly good, but the auditorium, though it was not by any means a gala night, was brilliant in the extreme. Circassian officers, in their long coats of white, pale blue, black, &c., their breasts covered with the ornamental little silver boxes of niello-work that contain, or are supposed to contain, the charges for their picturesque weapons; their long straight swords, silver or silver-gilt; and the belts, that would delight South Kensington people, covered with bosses of this same niello-work; their boots, reaching in some cases to the knee, fitting like gloves at the foot, and so wrinkly down the shin as to certainly drive a West End coachman mad with jealousy. Then the hats—cylinders of shaggy sheepskins—white, gray, black, surmounted by a bit of inner cap of blue, red, scarlet, or white, elaborately embroidered in gold. And good-looking men, too; no little fellows—all big strapping men, who looked as if they could ride and fight, as well as come to the Tiflis Opera. Nearly all were decorated; some had many medals and orders. This decoration is overdone in the Russian Army.

With the ladies I was disappointed—the Georgians and Immeritians were in the large majority. They were heavy-jowled females, who seemed to wear a profusion of rich clothes; they had a sort of crown of velvet and gold lace, over which hung down at the back an embroidered kerchief and hideous jewelry. They never smiled—still the brilliant officers hung over their chairs; and perhaps they may have been very charming. They all had big eyes and a quantity of coarse hair. One or two blonde Russian ladies were present, and they were much dressed.

The little theatre was peculiarly decorated in a semi-oriental style, and the coup d’œil was really very striking. The portion of the opera which seemed to give the greatest satisfaction was the introduced ballet, which I understand was composed of Tiflis girls; they did not dance well, but were remarkably handsome, and much applauded. This theatre has been since burnt down, and a larger one erected.

As Colonel G⸺ was compelled to remain here eight days I was able to go again to the Opera, and I saw ‘Masaniello’ very fairly done.

I went all over the town looking out for a souvenir, but there was nothing but silver work, which was dear, and beyond my means at that time.

We had here our first taste of the celebrated Kakheiti wine. There are two sorts, white and red—the latter is the best; it is a strong, coarse, rough wine, and has a very leathery taste. As it is kept in skins, and not casks, this is not to be wondered at. It contains a great deal of tannin, and our landlord told me if kept in casks it turned black, probably from this excess of tannin (or perhaps bad casks). It costs at the hotel a rouble a bottle.

One thing that strikes one in Russia is the peculiarly good bread. I have now been in Russia five times, and I never have tasted anywhere bread so white or so delicious. Often have I made a breakfast of it, and sent my cutlet untasted away.

We laid in a good supply; and, with some Kakheiti wine, some stout, cold fowls, and tea, we left Tiflis, knowing we should get nothing till we got to Tabriz. The tarantass had been thoroughly overhauled; and, in a heavy drizzle, off we went, well provisioned by Arsène Barberon.

After four days’ severe travelling we reached Erivan. Snow had fallen heavily, and rendered some of the defiles of the Caucasus almost impassable, in particular one called Delijan, at the head of Lake Jeukjar. There we were obliged to have seven horses to the tarantass to pull and some men to push, in which we assisted. We had a precipice going sheer down on one side and snow twelve feet deep on the other. Our difficulties were increased by meeting three hundred camels laden with huge unpressed bags of Erivan (or Persian?) cotton, in a place where there was hardly room to pass, and it was impossible for either party to turn back. Our Cossacks, however—we had two of these gentry—by whipping the drivers, made them go on the outer or dangerous side, while we remained stationary until the camels had passed; then, amid much shouting and swearing, we did the Pass.

At four stages from Tiflis we had our luggage put on camels to be brought on to Erivan, and went on ourselves in the tarantass, with never less than five horses. The most slashing races take place on the road, as he who succeeds in presenting his padoroschna (or permit to take post-horses) first, takes as many horses as he needs; and if the roads are bad often takes all, as he wishes to be well ahead of rival travellers.

In Erivan we are in savage Russia—the people are the ugliest and dirtiest we have yet come across. At the so-called hotel they gave us two wooden bunks with mattresses—a great luxury after the post-houses without. Our servant, a ferocious Persian lent us by the consul at Tiflis, named Mahommed Ali, having ordered water for washing, the waiter, if the greasy ruffian could be dignified with that title, asked if it would not do in the morning.

On being sworn at in Turkish and Russian by Mahommed Ali, and afterwards beaten in the passage, water in one brass jug and one basin was brought, and the Russian stood by to pour it over our hands—this is the cleanly mode of performing one’s ablutions here. The fellow then brought a dirty towel, on which Mahommed Ali again remonstrated with him in the passage in a forcible manner; in this sort of thing Mahommed Ali is very useful.

On leaving Erivan, which was covered with snow, we reached in a day and night Nakchewan; round this place I saw cotton bushes—of course they were bare. Here we rested a night.

Going on next morning, we came to Julfa, the frontier village of a few hovels. Crossing the river Araxes, a shallow stream, we put up in the windowless telegraph office. As we saw nothing but snow since we left Tiflis, there has been little to describe in the way of scenery; as may be fancied, the cold was intense. We are now in Persia.

CHAPTER II.
POST JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL.

Preparations for the start—Costume—Chaff bed—First fall—Extra luggage—The whip—Stages and their length—Appearance of the country, and climate—First stage—Turk guides—Welcome rest—Weighing fire-wood—Meana bug—Turcomanchai—Distances—New friends—Palace of Kerrij.

At Julfa, on the Araxes—a muddy stream, when we were there, easily fordable—is the Persian frontier, and here our horse-journey was to begin. The tarantass was sold a bargain to the postmaster. A change of clothes and boots and a few flannel shirts were stuffed in the “koorjins,” or saddle-bags, made of rough carpet; boots were greased and put on, so were spurs; and I, in my innocence, at the instigation of the saddler, who I suppose wished to get rid of them, had provided myself with a pair of huge long brass ones, such as were worn by the barons of melodrama, and palmed off on me as real Mexican persuaders adapted for long journeys—these awful things the Colonel suggested I should do without, but I did not like to be shorn of any of my splendour, and I wore them. At first I spurred myself considerably when walking, but I got over this, and no doubt they added to the picturesqueness of my get-up. Fur-cap, “horsey” box-cloth pilot-jacket, with big horn buttons, cords and boots, also a huge courier’s whip and fur gloves, made, to my youthful mind, a striking picture, and I greatly appreciated myself.

At Tiflis we had provided ourselves with bags, some seven feet long and four feet wide—these bags were to be filled with chaff, of which there is an abundance, at each station. It is called “kah,” and is the ordinary horse-feed, some of it being always in the manger; at this the Persian horse persistently munches; when he has had a bellyful of it he gets his morning or evening feed—never before. This rather primitive mattress is soft, cool in summer, warm in winter, free from insects, and there is no bed to carry.

We each carried a small washing-basin of brass; we had also a teapot and two tin plates. I had a wonderful expanding cup which I used to fill with wine, but, before I had time to drink, it generally collapsed, so I soon flung it away. We carried a few packets of candles; and, having our chaff-bags filled, we retired early, to begin on the morrow our first day’s posting. To my companion, an old traveller, this was nothing, but I looked forward to it with mixed feelings of delight and awe.

Apparently in the dead of night—really at dawn—I saw the Colonel dressed and busy; I hurried on my clothes, bundled my few odds and ends into my saddle-bags, rolled up my rugs into a cylinder, with the waterproof one outside, swallowed as many cups of hot tea as I could hold (it was terribly cold), reluctantly put my long brass spurs away—the Colonel told me I should only find them in my way—and dragged my various impedimenta into the yard.

The fact was that, with our heavy baggage, which quite loaded one of the horses, which was to be led, we were unable to take more than one servant. To be without one when posting in Persia is extremely inconvenient. Of course, if speed is a great object, a man gets along much faster without a servant, but then he has to do everything for himself, and to know how to do it.

After some three-quarters of an hour we managed to get the baggage-horse loaded with two portmanteaux, and our own beasts saddled; the koorjins, or saddle-bags, put on across the loins of the horses, and firmly secured by a strap passing from the bottom of each bag to the girths. This is most important to prevent the shaking up together of everything the saddle-bags may contain.

My “Dayrell” bridle was fitted with a common watering bit, and as the horses of Persia are accustomed to a very severe native machine, my melancholy animal, as soon as he had been lashed into a canter, bolted, and was only brought to a stop by his coming down on his nose, which he did after some quarter of a mile. Of course, with such a bit, it was quite impossible to pull him up. As usual, though we fell with a crash, no one was hurt. I struggled to my feet, but the pony lay quite still, as if injured, till the “shargird chupper,” or horse-boy, on his arrival, by a few vigorous kicks caused him to get up and shake himself. The Colonel now advised me to take the native bridle used by the shargird, and with this, of course, I could easily command my pony.

Several times we had to stop to arrange the load of the pack-horse, and also to alter the contents of our saddle-bags. These should be so packed as to be of nearly exactly equal weight, as when they are not so they gradually slip round, and one’s horse stops; when one finds one bag under his belly, the other on his crupper.

The ordinary chuppering kit of saddle, rugs, and bags is well suited for this kind of travelling, but we had besides a led horse, a tin cocked-hat case, a leather hat-box, and a sword and umbrella of the Colonel’s. Our shargird, after many attempts to manage differently, fixed the tin cocked-hat case to his saddle, en croupe, tied the leather hat-box on as a knapsack behind his shoulders, and carried the sword under the surcingle of his saddle.

We kept on at a smart canter, only stopping to fix or shift the loads of the various animals. As soon as we were a mile or two from the station the shargird ceased to lead the baggage-horse; he had been compelled to do so till then, as he would have turned back.

The cantering through the cold air was exhilarating; and now I had time to look at the country—Persia at last!—which I was to inhabit for three years certain. I found that the road, if such it could be called, simply consisted of a number of tracks across country, which ran along irregularly side by side, formed by the wear of strings of mules and camels; there was no road in our sense of the term; in fact, the judicious thing seemed to be to go as straight ahead as one could, avoiding bad bits by a curve, and keeping to the most worn portion of the track, unless it was deep in mud or water. The ponies did not require much urging, and I found it expedient to keep my big chupper whip quiet, till I had learnt how to use it with ease and effect.

This whip is provided with a short stick of hard and heavy wood, covered with leather, and having a big loop of the same, that it may hang at the wrist when not in use.

The lash is a round one of four thongs of Hamadan leather plaited, and is from four to seven feet long; when the latter, it is reduced in actual length to about three and a half feet by plaiting the lash from the stick downwards for about two feet; it ends in a knot, and beyond this are two flat pieces of leather some six inches long, which the expert keeps flicking under the horse’s nose; thus, without hurting the horse or tiring himself, letting him be aware of the punishment in store for the lazy being at hand.

The stages are from three to eight farsakhs in length, a farsakh being in the rough three and a half miles; they vary in different parts of the country, and are especially long between Teheran and Hamadan, some of the seven-farsakh stages being, in the opinion of those who have been often over them, thirty miles and more.

The average stage is, however, five farsakhs, and from one large city to another, as Tabriz to Teheran, Teheran to Ispahan, or Ispahan to Shiraz, this reckoning holds good. As a rule, a very short stage has a very bad road, a very long one a good one; but this is not invariable. The first and last stage of a long journey, too, is as a rule a very short one, as Persians like, in marching, to have the first stage a short one, that omissions may be replaced before definitely starting, and the caravan got together well outside the town. The last stage being a short one enables friends to receive them, makes it easier to put on good clothes and to brush up after the journey—in fact, to arrive in a presentable condition.

All around us were earth-hills, with quantities of loose stones on them; here and there patches of snow; in the distance, in every direction, we were surrounded by snow-covered mountains; but the sky was blue and cloudless, the air was pure and dry. As it got warmer and warmer we felt a sense of freedom, and that a change for the better had been made from the noisy and stifling tarantass.

Our guide now began to shout “Yawash!” (gently), and “Nuffus! nuffus!” (breath), and the Colonel intimated to me that we must walk our animals to give them their second wind. This we did, and we jogged along easily till within some six miles of the post-house. Then the guide rushed to the front, the ponies did their best, and it appeared the correct thing to get them along as fast as possible. The fact was that we had very good horses, so that as we cantered up to the post-house, having done our stage of six farsakhs (twenty-one miles) in three hours, we felt that the Colonel, being burdened with a greenhorn and a lot of extra luggage, had not done badly.

And now I thought that I had fairly earned a rest and something to eat. I was hungry and rather tired, for, being determined to get no cropper, unless my beast came down as well, I had used my knees too much. Your experienced chupper merely rides by balance, to avoid tiring himself. What, then, was my disgust at seeing the Colonel order out more horses at once, and to see him set to to help with the saddling. I groaned in the spirit, and did the same; though it was with some doubt that I agreed to the proposition that “it was very lucky we got horses, and could get on at once.”

The Colonel explained to me that, in travelling “chupper” (or post), it was incumbent on the traveller never to stop during the day, at least when he could get horses. This is doubtless a safe rule, but a corollary should be added that, unless the country is very safe indeed, it is as well, unless very urgent, not to go on after sunset. To a neglect of this latter rule I must put down my falling into the hands of robbers during the famine.

I now found out what it was to get a really rough and bad horse; this beast’s only pace was a hard trot, and the amount of shaking was tremendous. The road was much as before, and the going was fairly good. On reaching the next stage I was heartily glad to find there were no horses, which gave us time to get some tea, and a breakfast of hard eggs and harder biscuits. It was two ere we could make a start, and I did not forget to change my steed, and profited considerably; but the shaking had been severe, and I felt very stiff and tired. I was, however, ashamed to say so, and I chimed in with my companion in his praises of the delights of posting, and the glorious freedom of travel in the East.

Though the Colonel was a good Persian scholar, he could not make much of the guides and post-house keepers, who are all Turks; and very few of them speak Persian, Turkish being the language of the country. It is not till some four stages past Tabriz that Persian is the dialect of the peasant.

The reigning family, too, affect to think and speak in Turkish with their relatives and families; but it is not the Turkish of Constantinople, but the rougher speech of Tabriz, the cause being probably that at some period of their early life they have resided at Tabriz, where nothing else but Turkish is spoken; of course, it is also their ancestral tongue.

We got safely to our third post-house, at half-past three, got fresh horses, and started. The warmth of the last two stages had ceased, and patches of snow were getting more frequent; but I felt, though sorely against the grain, that as long as the Colonel would go on I ought not to object, under penalty of being thought a muff. Our steeds were bad; we couldn’t get more than a walk out of them, and we were six hours doing the stage, which we reached chilled to the bone. I was indeed delighted to hear from the Colonel that “it was hardly worth while pushing on!” and as I scrambled into the bare and blackened room which the postmaster allotted to us, and busied myself in getting a light, I was grateful that even the Colonel’s ideas of duty were satisfied. Of course, afterwards, such a day’s posting came to be looked on as a joke; but sixty-eight miles, over bad roads, to a man not accustomed to the saddle, is a serious matter.

Our first care was to get the postmaster, a poor ragged fellow, to light a fire of brushwood; a fierce blaze that thoroughly warmed the room, and at the same time filled the place with smoke, was the result. Then he bethought him that the chimney was stopped up with a brick; the brick was removed, and more brushwood put on. Then he gave us a carpet on loan, brought some firewood and the scales to weigh it; the weights were big stones, the scales two baskets slung on a stick.

There were recesses some yard from the ground all round the room, which was some eight feet by twelve. The floor was earth, the walls mud, the roof big poles with branches of trees laid across them. In the recesses we stuck three candles. The walls and roof were polished black from the smoke of many fires. In the part of the room near the door were flung our saddles and luggage. No furniture of any kind; we got the bullock-trunk forward to use as a table.

The shargird chupper brought our chaff-bags filled, and laid one on either side of the fireplace as a mattress; we laid our rugs, and put our saddle-bags for pillows. We made a big fire, borrowed a kettle, got some strong tea under weigh, enjoyed a dinner of cold fowl and biscuit; barricaded our door, which seemed merely three planks nailed together, and lay down to sleep like tops. The naib, or postmaster, replaced the brick, and the ashes of our fire were alight in the morning. I never enjoyed a night’s rest so much. But at 5 A.M. there was the Colonel with the tea under weigh, and adjuring me to rise.

Up I got, gobbled down some hot tea, and we started in the snow at six, for it had come down heavily in the night.

Ah, it was cold! and hardly light, the horses trying to turn back as we followed at a snail’s pace the shargird, who seemed not to know much of the road. In a few minutes I was sitting on alternate hands in a vain attempt to keep them warm. We had fortunately taken the precaution to put on big Turkish wool socks over our boots, and this kept our feet from freezing, for the cold stirrup-iron soon, in such weather, extracts any warmth from the feet.

At last the light came, and we could see the village and post-house, some half-mile off, after an hour’s wandering; but we were on the road, which was something. And now that we could see to go, and the shargird was sure of the way, off we went at the usual pace, a smart gallop. Nine o’clock brought us to the next stage—five farsakhs.

We reached Meana, at which there is a fine new post-house, at about five, but we had arranged that, unless we were compelled to sleep at this place, we would avoid it, as the celebrated so-called bug of Meana is found here. During the whole time I have resided in Persia I never could find any one who had suffered any ill effects from the bite of the “Meana bug” at all in proportion to the horrors narrated; and I must look on the description given by travellers as apocryphal: Eastwick dilates on it. The kenneh, or camel-tic, certainly causes a particularly irritating wound, which will be found fully described further on. But the “Meana bug,” I am inclined to think, is nothing more than an ordinary camel- or perhaps sheep-tic, and by no means dangerous to life (pace Eastwick). But we both at that time were inclined to believe that there was something in the terrible accounts given of the insect, and so we avoided Meana. As it was we made a very great mistake; Meana, having at that time a brand-new post-house, was quite safe; but as we pushed on darkness caught us, and we did not arrive till nearly ten at night at Turcomanchai. Here was an old caravanserai only to put up in; the post-house was in ruins. And on the Colonel asking the postmaster if he had many insects he shrugged his shoulders in a significant manner.

We found a French merchant, with a big box of valuables, in the blackened cell of the doorway appropriated to posting travellers. He was marching, but had taken the room as the only water- and wind-tight one, and he welcomed us to a share of it and his big fire. It was very cold outside, and we were glad to get to the grateful warmth and partake of a cup of tea. But we had not been in the place half an hour when we found that it was literally alive. We couldn’t go on, and there was no other place to go to.

I throw a veil over our sufferings. How we regretted the clean new post-house at Meana, and how glad we were to leave Turcomanchai[2] at the earliest break of dawn! The insects, however, were merely fleas, B flats, and those nameless to ears polite.

There was little or no snow on the road as we started, but it was sufficiently cold; the roads were hard, good, but full of loose stones.

Such was the journey—each day a repetition of that before it, varied only in weather.

February 12, after going 480 miles chupper, we were met about twenty miles from Teheran by Major S⸺, the director of the Persian telegraph department, Mr. B⸺, my medical chief, and Messrs. T⸺ and M⸺, secretaries of the English Legation, all friends of Colonel G⸺’s.

They escorted us to a place called Kerrij, a palace of the Shah’s, gave us a sumptuous dinner, and we lay down to sleep in huge rooms gay with paint, gilding, and coloured glass. A mighty brew of egg-flip prevented a wakeful night; and the next morning we rode over a muddy plain to Major S⸺’s house in Teheran, which was to be my home till I started for “down country.”

CHAPTER III.
TEHERAN.

Teheran—The Director’s house—Persian visits—Etiquette—Pipes, details of—Tumbakū—Ceremony—Anecdote—The voice of the sluggard—Persian medicine explained—My prospects as a medico—Zoological Gardens.

Teheran struck me as a poor place, particularly from the outside of the town; the streets were narrow, and the houses seemed mostly of plastered mud, or of mud alone. And when we reached Major S⸺’s house, on the outside the prospect was not inviting, but no sooner were we inside than everything was comfortable: good doors, good windows, carpets of great beauty, chairs—only try to do without these for a few days, and then, and then only, does one appreciate their comfort—big settees and divans, and a host of smart and attentive servants. Tea and pipes at once; a warm bath, much needed, in prospect, and, above all, the freedom from the morning’s call to boot-and-saddle at an unearthly hour.

No sooner was breakfast over than messages were for ever arriving for my chief as to what time he would receive this grandee or that friend; and shortly the ceremonious visits commenced. I was, of course, only too glad to see what a Persian visit was like.

To be a successful entertainer in Persia it is imperative to be a master in the art of compliment, as the conversation itself is generally trivial; but the exact amount of compliment must be meted out with a careful hand, according to the visitor’s rank. By no means should the thing be overdone, as an excess of good treatment, over and above what the caller is entitled to, merely lowers the recipient of the visit in the guest’s estimation.

Of course I did not at once appreciate the differences of the intonation in the “Bismillah!” or invitation to be seated, but I saw that great differences were made in the position of the guest, in the duration of his visit, and whether he were pressed to stop or not, and in the rising and advancing to receive him, or the refraining from so doing.

I soon found out that in addressing a great man, or at times an equal, the third person plural was frequently used; while the expression “bander” (literally, the slave), really “your servant,” in lieu of the first person singular, touched on scriptural form. “Shuma” (you), the second person plural, was, of course, frequent, but in the case of a grandee some prefix was used, as “sircar-i-shuma” (your excellency), &c.; these prefixes it was necessary to use correctly, giving each man his due, or if you wished to please him, a little more than his due. To give a man a good deal more than his due was understood to be sarcasm.

The second person singular is only used to inferiors, servants or children, or in anger. As a rule the lower-class Persian always uses to the European the second person singular, if he thinks he can do it with impunity; and it has to be resented, and the transgressor put in his place at once, or all respect is gone. Of course the offender feigns ignorance.

Each visitor was regaled with some three little cups of tea and the same number of water-pipes; some of the more advanced among the guests affected cigarettes, as did Major S⸺ and most Europeans. A few whiffs would be taken from the water-pipes, and they would be removed or passed on, at the will of their masters, for I noticed that, as a rule, the greater personages brought their own pipes.[3]

The tobacco smoked in the kalian is called “tumbakū,” in distinction to “tootoon,” or that smoked in pipes or cigarettes; it is sold in the leaf, which is packed dry in layers, and is preserved in bags sewn up in raw hide; it improves by age, and is quite unsmokable the first year. The best comes from Jarūm, south of Shiraz.

When a visitor is offered a pipe, and there is not a second one to hand, it is at once taken to him by the host’s servant. He then deprecatingly suggests that his host should smoke first; this is declined by a sweeping gesture. He now offers it to the other guests, if any, and, on receiving a negative gesture, commences to inhale.

Should, however, the host be much superior in position, the visitor will either refuse to smoke first, or, if he has the bad taste to do so, the host does not smoke at all, but sends the pipe away. When there are many visitors and only one pipe, the greatest one smokes first, then the rest smoke in order of rank, previously paying the compliment of suggesting that some one else should precede them. These little punctilios are endless.

Priests or holy men do not, as a rule, like to smoke the pipe of the European, or to smoke even out of the same pipe. Of course the only plan to be then adopted is to feign a disinclination to smoke at all. As a rule, Persians (the Frenchmen of the East) are usually so polite as to prevent any sign of this disinclination to be apparent, and will bring their own pipes, or smoke those of friends, and so get over any hitch. But at times bigoted men will try to be offensive. I well remember a case in point. A priest of Hamadan, high in office, had occasion to call on our superintendent, Captain Pierson, R.E. Pierson, with whom I lived at the time, sought to provide against any possible unpleasantness by purchasing a pipe with a clay bottle and head (it was summer-time, and such pipes are liked then), and told his servant that if the priest didn’t provide his own smoke, this particular pipe was to be brought to him, with a hint in a whisper to the guest that it was an entirely new one.

As he had expected, so it turned out; the holy man came without his pipe, and on the usual procession of pipebearers entering, he roughly informed Pierson that he did not smoke after Europeans. Pierson drew his attention to the fact that a new pipe had been specially provided.

He took it, smoked it, and then had the gross impertinence to hand it to Pierson; the latter politely declined, but the priest was not content, and drew from Pierson the following:—

“Just as it would be painful to you to smoke after a European, so it would pain me to do so after a Mussulman. I provided against you having to do without your pipe, and respected your prejudices; as you are my guest, politeness prevents my expressing what I think of your conduct. You can break that pipe to pieces and burn the stick”—this to his servant—“I do not care to smoke it.”

The priest turned pale, sat silent for a minute, and then said in apology—

“Yes, yes, you say truly, I have eaten dirt.”

Strange to say, we were very friendly with him afterwards.

The pipe affected by the lower classes is the short chibouque, this nearly every North Persian of the lower class carries at his back in his girdle or in his pocket; there is a small clay, brass or iron head, and a straight stem of cherry-wood, six inches to a foot long, with a bore some half-inch in diameter through it; there is no mouth-piece, and it is held to the lips, and not in the teeth. The tobacco smoked is usually Samsoon, a common kind of coarse Turkish; or Koordi, a mild tobacco, nearly white in colour, but with a pungent flavour; there are many other varieties. This Koordi looks like coarse sawdust, and is quite dry, and is simply the leaf-stalk and stem of the plant coarsely pounded; to look at it, no one would suppose on a first inspection that it was tobacco at all: the best comes from Kermanshah.

A third kind of pipe is used by the Arabs of the Gulf and many South Persians; it consists simply of a tube of clay, an inch in diameter, bent at a right or acute angle, and constricted at the middle; from end to end it measures four to seven inches; one side is crammed with tobacco, “Tootoon i Koordi;” a coal is placed on it, and it is passed from hand to hand till the contents are burnt out. It is a very primitive pipe.

Enough of pipes. By five all the visitors had gone; we dined at seven, and I retired to sleep in a comfortable bed.

At about five[4] next morning I am roused by—

“Chai, sahib” (tea, sir); and a lordly individual, with huge mustachios, a black lambskin cap, a brown cloth inner coat, a blue cloth outer coat, a broad belt, and a long “kummer” (or straight broad-bladed sword), dark-blue “shulwar” (what an American calls pants, and an outfitter pyjamas), and his stockinged feet—his shoes were outside my door—places a cup of tea, some twice-baked sweet biscuit, of delicious crispness, and some marmalade, at my side, and departs. He soon returns with a second cup of tea and a kalian.

As I am a griffin, he draws my attention to the latter being—“Welly good thing, kalian.”

He then goes through a pantomime suggesting sleep, talking all the time to me in Persian. I take his advice.

At eight he wakes me, and I find he has a warm tub ready for me. I dress once again in the clothes of ordinary life, and go down, to find no one about, for Major S⸺ has gone to the office, and taken the Colonel with him.

However, my especial chief, Mr. B⸺, soon appears, accompanied by his big black dog “Topsy,” who comes into all the rooms and sits on all the settees: there is a fine sense of liberty in this. Mr. B⸺ warns me that I must not hope to make anything by practice—that he never did, and I never shall; but that there is a fine field for gratuitous work.

He then explains to me the Persian system of medicine. It has its advantages in its delightful simplicity. All diseases are cold or hot. All remedies are hot or cold. A hot disease requires a cold remedy, and vice-versâ.

Now, if the Persian doctor is called in, and has any doubt as to the nature of the disorder, he prescribes a hot remedy, let us say; if the patient gets better, he was right; if worse, then he prescribes a cold remedy, and sticks to it. He thus gets over all need for diagnosis, all physiological treatment, and he cannot, according to his own lights, be wrong.

His prescriptions contain a multitude of mostly obsolete and inert drugs, ten being a small number of ingredients, twenty an ordinary one. Before he is summoned, an omen is taken by the patient and his friends, as to who shall be called in; when he has seen his patient, another is taken, as to whether his advice shall be followed or not. His fee is a few pence, or more generally he undertakes the case on speculation; so much—of which he is lucky if he gets half—if the patient gets well; nothing if he doesn’t.

Most of the relatives, friends, and neighbours prescribe various homely, or at times, powerful remedies, which are all as a rule tried.

Quiet by the sick-bed is unknown; in fact, the patient used to fuss and noise would be depressed by it. And remedies and contrivances of a barbarous nature, such as putting a patient in fresh horse-dung, sewing him up in a raw hide, are the rule rather than the exception.

Usually the European doctor is distrusted, only called in when the patient is breathing his last, or by the very rich or very poor.

Mr. B⸺ gave me one very good piece of advice. “You will go to Hamadan—with the Persians novelty is everything. Strike while the iron is hot, and before the novelty is worn off, and you—well, you will get lots of experience.”

I was astonished and incredulous—it was all true.[5]

We visited the telegraph-office, and looked round the Colonel’s garden, returning to breakfast at eleven, and we sat down to a substantial déjeuner à la fourchette, with country wines, and tea for those who preferred it. It was followed by the inevitable kalian and coffee.

I wanted much to see the Zoological Gardens, but we were told that the Shah had turned the beasts loose. We, however, decided to go, and we found it so—they were all loose.

The leo-panther, a cross between the lion and panther, a lovely animal like an immense cat, very tame, allowing one to pat him; two lions, a bear, two tigers (young ones), walking about with the antelopes and wild sheep. I must say the presence of the tigers was not quite pleasant. There is a pretty building—a sort of summer pavilion—here, belonging to the king, well worth seeing.

A curious incident occurred as Major S⸺, Mr. M⸺, Mr. B⸺, and I were walking home from these Zoological Gardens; we were crossing a bit of desert plain behind the gardens towards the Major’s house. On a sudden we saw come from under the corner of the garden wall at a shambling trot—a big tawny animal; to discover that it was a lioness was instantaneous, and it was coming our way. B⸺, with whom discretion was the better part of valour, did not hesitate; like the last of the Horatii, he “vowed revenge, and to pursue it fled.”

We kept on, but fear was in all our hearts—I know it was in mine, possibly the Major was exempt—but we walked very fast, looking ever and anon at the advancing lioness. There was apparently no mistaking the shambling pace of the wild beast; as it got nearer it turned out to be a big dog. Of course when we arrived at the house we all laughed at B⸺.

The Major’s dignity and profession forbade his running, Mr. M⸺, as a diplomat, never of course did anything in a hurry, so couldn’t run, and as they were present I didn’t like to run, though I itched to do it. Of course, B⸺ said he knew it was a dog, and ran to frighten us; if so, his simulation of terror was almost lifelike.

In the evening we dined at the English Mission,[6] where there is a billiard-table—my last game for some time, I fancy.

CHAPTER IV.
TEHERAN.

The Gulhaek Road—Visit to a virtuoso—His story—Persian New Year—Persian ladies—Titles—The harem—Its inhabitants—A eunuch—Lovely visions—The Dervish—The great festival—Miscellaneous uniform—At the Court of Persia—The Shah—The ceremony—Baksheesh—Rejoicings.

I passed a fortnight in Major S⸺’s house, and gradually got some sort of smattering of colloquial Persian; but I could not see much of the place, for I had no servant of my own, and, though a horse was always at my disposal, not knowing the language, I was unable to go out alone, and was forced to content myself with rides on the “Gulhaek Road” with my chief, Mr. B⸺.

This “Gulhaek Road” was the usual ride, simply because it was at that time the only attempt at a road on our side—or, in fact, any side—of Teheran. It led past the Kasr-i-Kajar, one of the royal palaces, to Gulhaek, where the English Legation summered, and also to the other numerous villages at the foot of the mountains, at each of which a foreign legation during the summer hung out its ensign; as Zergendeh, where the Russians lived; Tejreesh, the French, &c.

One visit we paid, to a gentleman who had been many years in the Persian service, was rather amusing. Our host was an old Frenchman who held an appointment as instructor in French and translator to the Shah, and was a Mahommedan. I do not know whether the account I heard of his mode of life was true or not. It was that he proceeded to Hamadan every year, and invested in two wives; as the spring came round he divorced them, and made his annual excursion, returning with two more. He was a very cheery old man, and evidently derived great comfort from a barrel-organ that stood in his room. Of his other comforts I know nothing, but I did see two remarkably clean pairs of ankles and two remarkably fine pairs of eyes. This was all one could make out of two closely-veiled females, who, with many giggles, constantly bustled in and out of the room on divers pretexts. The Frenchman had a large collection of valuable antiquities, which he showed us, and they were all genuine. That was seventeen years ago; now, in a hundred specimens from Persia, be they what they will, ninety are shams. Amongst other treasures he had a fine balass ruby as big as a florin, on which was cut an intaglio of a Sassanian king, which was, I believe, afterwards purchased by Mr. Alison (then Her Majesty’s Minister) for a large sum. At that time the craze for objects of oriental art had not set in, and the big tiles we saw (or bricks) of reflet métallique, with raised inscriptions, were such as one seldom sees nowadays, save in national collections.

Our host’s history had doubtless been a checkered one, and I was told on good authority that he had a faithful page who waited on him, and—gaily dressed as a boy-pipebearer, a favourite attendant with the wealthy of the capital—attended his master wherever he went. The page was a lady in disguise, and a Mussulman; but, alas! this romantic episode could not be allowed to continue. Some busybody betrayed him to the priests, he and the lady were arrested, and he had the usual choice of Islam or death. Under the circumstances he chose the former, and retained, under an outward conformance to the tenets of Mussulmanism, a practical power of jollity and “keeping it up” which few of the most advanced viveurs could rival. I was afterwards led to understand that the French Minister of the day at the Court of Persia had the power, but not the will, to protect the poor fellow against the very unpleasant choice given him. Years sober us all, and I saw the gentleman long afterwards, a most grave and reverend seigneur.

The Persian New Year was about to commence, and, as there is always a jubilee reception of all the foreign ambassadors by the Shah, it was decided that Colonel G⸺ should be presented at it by the minister, and I too was to have the pleasure of seeing the splendours of the Persian Court; after which Major S⸺, who was going to Baghdad on duty, kindly promised to allow me to accompany him as far as Hamadan, where I should enter on my active duties.

One morning my medical chief asked me if I should like to visit the anderūn, or ladies’ quarter, of a great Persian nobleman?

“As you are going down country you probably won’t have the chance again; and I have seen such things too often for it to be any pleasure to me.”

Of course I was delighted. I hurriedly put on a long-tailed coat, which is de rigueur in visiting a Persian house, our short ones being considered by them as extremely indecent. I had goloshes on over my boots, and rode off with one of B⸺’s servants to the house of the Eyn-ul-Molk (eye of the state); such titles, not being hereditary ones, are usual among the statesmen and great officials of Persia.

“The Sword of the State,” “The Pillar of the Kingdom,” “The Shadow of the King,” are all titles in actual use; they are sufficiently high-sounding and poetical even to satisfy a Persian’s sense of dignity.

No sooner is a prince born, than the king proceeds to give him a title, which as he grows in dignity and years is often changed for a higher one; thus, when I came to Persia, Sultan Massūd Mirza, the eldest son of the king, was known as Yemeen-u-dowlet, or Sword of the State; this some ten years afterwards, when the young man became a real power in the kingdom, was changed to Zil-es-Sultan, or Shadow of the King.

On reaching the house of Eyn-ul-Molk, I was at once conducted to his presence, given a chair, and treated with great consideration. I removed my goloshes at the door of his apartment. An interpreter, who spoke pigeon French, informed me that one of the ladies was ill, and that I had better see her and prescribe.

The Eyn-ul-Molk was a blear-eyed, venerable man of evidently high position, very rich and very anxious; as the interpreter put it, the patient was trop jolie pour mourir, and my expectations were considerably aroused.

I was handed over to a white eunuch, who seemed to be troubled with all the ills that flesh is heir to, and who grunted and grumbled a good deal as he led me towards the part of the house set apart for the habitation of the ladies.

After passing through several yards and passages, we came to a low door with a curtain. My guide entered, and raised the curtain, previously shouting “Bero! bero!” (be off, be off).

A crowd of children and negresses scuttled off into the various rooms which surrounded a well-kept garden, with beds of flowers and playing fountains, some thirty yards by fifteen.

Those who did not go out of sight drew down the big sheets of printed calico that covered their heads, turning themselves into faceless bundles, terminated in bare legs visible to the knee, with feet either bare or thrust into tiny slippers; even the very little girls had veils, though they did not cover their faces, and were mostly pretty little round-faced things, with large eyes, and fringes of black hair cut across their foreheads.

I had been told not to appear to notice anything, as that would be interpreted as a desire to look at the inhabitants of the anderūn, which would be considered the height of bad breeding. So I kept my eyes discreetly fixed on the ground, feeling certain that I should find plenty of time for thorough investigation.

The old eunuch took me into a room, beautifully carpeted, and bare of all furniture save one chair, on which I was directed to sit.

He left me, and I noticed that the room was decorated with small mirrors let into elaborately cut plaster-of-Paris work; the walls were so covered with small facets of mirror that one could hardly see anything of the white plaster, which was arched at the ceiling, arch within arch, in the manner so familiar to us in the decoration of the Alhambra; but a peculiarly chaste effect was produced, for neither colour nor gilding was used—only pure white plaster and mirror. In many places there were panels, where plaster-work, cut (not moulded) in high relief, showed patterns whose effectiveness could not be denied. In fact, the result was one of chastened splendour quite new to me. The doors, which were of polished walnut-wood, were covered by curtains of bright colours of Yezd silk, some six feet by four, simply suspended in front of them. The window, which occupied one entire end of the room, was composed of small pieces of glass of all the colours of the rainbow, set in a wooden frame of a geometrical pattern of a very elaborate nature; as the window was some fourteen feet by ten, and no piece of glass was more than two inches square in size, some idea may be formed of the enormous amount of work in such a piece of carpentry. The wood employed in such work is plane, and it does not warp.

This window was made in three compartments; each one was made to draw up when required, thus giving a full view of the garden; all were, however, at present down, and the coloured light which entered produced a very rich effect—a relief, too, from the strong sunlight outside.

Round three sides of the room were nummuds, or felt carpets, some two inches thick; as one walked on them, it was like going over the softest turf; they were light-ochre in colour, with a pale-blue pattern inlaid. In the centre was a carpet some twenty feet by nine. I had never seen such a carpet; it was very beautiful, but of very subdued colours, and of a rather large pattern.

In each of the three walls there were three recesses or takhjahs, a yard from the ground, and in each of these was placed a glass vase of narcissus blooms; as every vase contained some hundred stems, the perfume was somewhat overpowering.

The eunuch now returned, seated himself on the ground at my side, and a black woman, of hideous aspect, brought me a water-pipe.

While I was smoking it, the curtain at one of the doors was lifted, and two young ladies entered, aged from sixteen to eighteen, though they seemed some three or four-and-twenty to me. I must acknowledge that I was unprepared for such a free display of loveliness, and it was the first time I ever saw Persian ladies in their very becoming, if slightly indelicate, home-dress.

Their feet and legs were bare; their skirts were bouffés by a number of under-skirts such as are usually worn by the ballet on our operatic stage; but instead of these under-garments being white and gauzy, they were of silk, and of all colours. The outer skirt was of silk also—in the one case pale pink, in the other pale blue—with gold patterns on them, and these voluminous skirts barely reached their knees. Each lady wore a small zouave jacket of bright-coloured gold-embroidered velvet, with tight-fitting sleeves, which buttoned from the elbow with a multitude of small silver buttons, but these buttons were not fastened. A gold-embroidered gauze shirt was worn under this jacket that left, I am sorry to say, nothing to the imagination; the sleeves of it were wide and open. Each lady had tied a gold-embroidered silk kerchief, called a “chargāt,” over her head, fastened by a brooch at the chin; each had a fringe of hair over her forehead, and each had a big love-lock, which came from under her kerchief, at the middle of her cheek. Long tresses of black hair came below their waists.

Both were good-looking plump girls, in robust health. Both giggled, and both were full of fun.

The one who was supposed to be ill had not coloured a very rosy pair of cheeks; the other was heavily rouged. Their eyelashes were darkened with antimony, but their eyebrows were unpainted. The Persian woman’s eye is usually very dark and large, and the painting the edges of the lids produces a very languishing effect.

After talking to the eunuch for some minutes, in which the old fellow evidently was calling these very gushing ladies to order, they suddenly plumped down on their knees in front of me, and compelled me to feel both their pulses, look at both their tongues, examine their throats, and a second time to feel their pulses at the other wrist.

As I understood very little Persian, and neither they nor the eunuch anything but that language, it was very difficult to make out what was the matter. One thing was very certain—they looked upon the whole matter as a very good joke; and seemed inclined to torment the eunuch and make great fun of me.

At last one lady showed me a flea-bite on a very round and shapely arm, which literally jangled with glass bangles and gold bracelets. As this was the most serious symptom I had yet seen, I began to think I had better retire, when tea was brought in by a young negress.

The ladies, the eunuch, and myself, all partook, but the two ladies did so with shrieks of laughter, in which the negress joined.

Suddenly a cry of “Aga! aga!” (the master, the master) was raised, and I saw the Eyn-ul-Molk coming up the garden. The two indiscreet ones became at once staid matrons of the severest type. They sprang to the other side of the room, they drew their kerchiefs, or rather the corners of them, over their faces, leaving the eyes alone visible; and the young negress who had brought the tea became a statue of propriety in ebony, pulling her big print veil over her mouth till she looked like a living bolster.

The old nobleman came in, and I was made to feel again the pulses of my patient, and again look at her tongue. But nothing but her eyes and tongue were now visible, and both ladies pretended to look on the infidel doctor with horror. They answered their husband’s questions only in a whisper, and in a few minutes I followed the Eyn-ul-Molk to the “berūni,” or general apartments. I noticed that these were furnished with much less luxury than the women’s side.

I now managed to find out that the fair sufferer had that morning very early had a slight attack of intermittent fever, and, with the help of the interpreter, I said that I would prescribe on getting home.

The farewell pipe was brought, and I retired, I trust, gracefully. Thus ended my first visit to a Persian patient.

I suppose that my remedies were successful, for, though I was not asked to attend again, I received a plate of oranges and two dried salmon as a fee, with a polite message of thanks in a day or two.

As this visit had occupied some four hours in all, I came to the conclusion that I should not add much to my income by private practice, the result of an attendance on the wife of a great noble being so small in a money point of view; and though interesting at the time from its novelty, yet I felt that that would soon pass off.

I had been regularly robbed of my rest, after the first few dreamless nights that one has at the end of a long journey, by a sort of hooting sound, followed by cries of “ya huc, h-u-u-u-c.” These noises were repeated at irregular intervals all through the night, and I found also that they occurred in the day-time whenever Major S⸺ entered or left the house. They proceeded from the Major’s dervish, and they grew louder and more frequent day by day.

The dervishes, or wandering mendicants, are persons who, from laziness or inclination, take a vow of poverty, either for a time or permanently. They form various colleges or sects, and have recognised heads (“mūrsheds”) to whom they show great deference. It is extremely difficult to find out what their precise tenets are, for the more learned among them have a great disinclination to discussing religious matters with the infidel, while the more ignorant seem, when sane, to have really no religion, save that of doing no work. In many ways they resemble the monks of old amongst ourselves, though, as—in Persia at least—they seldom live in communities, “wandering friars” would be a safer comparison. Persians as a rule dislike and despise them, but they fear to offend the masses by showing it, and cede to them a great show of deference. The more respectable simply wander about, obtaining free food and lodging in any town they may pass through. Others combine the profession of travelling mountebank and dealer in charms with that of religious mendicancy.

Many are clothed all in white, having taken a vow to that effect; and most of them refrain from shaving or from cutting the hair. All, or nearly all, wear a tall cap of felt or cloth, shaped like a sugar-loaf, and ornamented by inscriptions of texts from the Koran. Most of them carry a carved almsholder, which is generally composed of a huge nut elaborately carved, and suspended by brass or silver chains from the waistband. A steel axe is often carried, and a panther or deer-skin worn. All affect a striking and eccentric appearance, and all have a lean and travel-worn air, save some few, who merely affect the costume, and are dervishes only in dress.

One man who used to haunt the Gulhaek Road was entirely naked, and was a most importunate and offensive beggar. A European got into some trouble on this man’s account, for on his accosting him with great importunity, and then proceeding to curse him because his demands were ungratified, the despised infidel administered several lashes with the long thong of his hunting-crop.

Another celebrated dervish, who is a man of some property, draws a good pension from the Shah, and is sent yearly to some shrine to pray for the king, his expenses being defrayed from the royal purse. He perpetually rotates his head, after the manner of the harlequin of the old school, and incessantly vociferates in a loud voice, Ali Oh! Ali Oh! As he is always bareheaded, and an old man rather inclined to corpulence, the result is not edifying; but his perquisites must be very large, as he is well known to possess the royal favour. Provincial governors and local magnates treat royally “him whom the king is delighted to honour.” I have seen this man roll his head continuously and vociferate his cry, merely pausing for breath, for three hours at a stretch: the power of doing this continuously can only have been attained by long practice. His journeys over all Persia are so frequent, and he is so well known, that in every large town great crowds turn out to gaze on and follow “Ali Oh!”, by which name the man is always known.

A striking appearance is attained at all hazards; often the clothing being merely a pair of short drawers, an antelope, panther, or tiger-skin being slung across the shoulder, and an axe or huge club, often armed with spikes, being almost invariably carried.

When a dervish meets a horseman or any one of condition he offers him in the politest manner a flower, or even a leaf or blade of grass; as a rule it is accepted and a trifle given. At other times the dervish will simply stretch out his hand or his almsholder, and favour the passer-by with a steady stare, the word “huc” (my right) being suddenly ejaculated.

Dervishes are often professional story-tellers, the costume being merely donned for effect; or, as in the case of a highly-gifted story-teller of my acquaintance, one Aga Nusserulla of Shiraz, a man who earned a good living by his erudite and interesting tales, the cap only was worn, and that merely when engaged in his public recitals; he also carried the big iron axe, with which he gesticulated in a manner really graceful and artistic.

I often, as I grew more acquainted with Persian, had this man in to beguile the tedium of the long evenings, and he would sit by the hour under the orange-trees, rattling off an endless story freely interspersed with poetical recitations, which were always apposite and well given—in fact, they were intoned. He never allowed the interest of his tales to flag, and never left off, save at a point so interesting as to ensure a request for his attendance the succeeding evening, adopting the principle of the lady of the ‘Arabian Nights.’ I frequently, on passing through the Maidan, or public square, of Shiraz, saw Aga Nusserulla surrounded by a gaping crowd of peasants, porters, and muleteers squatting in a circle, he striding up and down and waving his axe as he told his story of love or fairyland; then he recognised my presence by merely the slightest drop of his eyelid, for his harvest of coppers would have been blighted had he betrayed to his gaping listeners his intimacy with a “Feringhi” (“Frank”—the term used in Persia for all Europeans to their face; that of “Kaffir,” or “unbeliever,” being carefully kept for speaking of them in their absence).

The tales told in the bazaar to the villagers were mostly bristling with indecency; but the dervish never transgressed in this respect on getting a hint from me that that sort of thing was unpleasing, and his stories were always of great interest, intensely pathetic at times, and at others very comic. His power of imitation was great; the voices of his old men and women were unmistakable, while the sex of the lovers was equally distinct, and his laugh was infectious and sympathetic.

Another dervish I knew was a man six-feet-six in height, who was possessed of the sounding title of “King Panther” (Shah Paleng). This man’s only title to respect was his great height and startling appearance, for he was but a stupid and pertinacious beggar, after all. I had the misfortune to make his acquaintance, having selected him as a good photographic type; I got my type, but could not get rid of my model, always finding the fellow seated in my courtyard, engaged apparently in religious meditation. It was only by the strongest remonstrance with my servants that I could get him kept out of the house, and even then he used to haunt my door.

Dervishes, as a rule, have many vices. They have very often vague ideas of meum and tuum, and debauch and rob the wives of the villagers by tricks; in fact, their holiness is more believed in by the women than the men throughout Persia. Many are drunkards, others take opium; this is often the cause of their haggard appearance.

Others indulge in the smoking or drinking of bhang, or Indian hemp, and when under the intoxicating influence of this drug, a state which is induced prior to the coming-on of the stupefying effect, they have been guilty of great and dreadful crimes.

In Shiraz they were credited with nightly orgies and the celebration of unknown rites, the mysteries and horrors of which were probably much exaggerated, being possibly merely debauches of smoking and drinking.

So common is the condition of the dervish in Persia, that in each of the big towns there is a shop appropriated to the sale of their paraphernalia of tiger-skins, axes, embroidered hats, &c.

The vows seem simply to consist of those of poverty and obedience to a chief, with a payment of a portion of the alms extracted from the charitable to him. There is no vow of continence; and, on the whole, a dervish may be generally said to imply an idle “vagrom” man, who lives by imposing on the good-nature of others.

We were approaching the Aid-i-No-Ruz, or festival of the New Year, when it is the custom of the dervishes to erect a sort of tent at the street-door of any personage, and to remain in it till dismissed with a present.

Major S⸺, as an undoubted personage, had a dervish sent to his house. He had suffered from the infliction before, and had bought himself off on that occasion by a gift of fifty kerans (two pounds), but this time he was determined to grin and bear it, thinking that by making a stand he would escape a similar infliction in the future.

The chief of the dervishes indicates to his subordinates the houses that they are to besiege, and they are allotted to the various members of the fraternity according to seniority—the king, the prime minister, the chancellor, and so on, downwards.

When I say that every man of standing had his dervish, it will be seen that there were many of the brotherhood at that time in Teheran.

Every foreign minister had one at his door, and I am sure that any Persian of consideration would have been very loth to be without this very visible sign of greatness.

The Major’s dervish was to be found in the street day and night, in or beside his so-called tent; this consisted of some two yards of thin canvas, pegged into the wall at the side of the outer gate, and held down by three pieces of string. The dervish sat by day on an antelope-skin, and by night (if he ever did sleep) slept on it in his clothes.

As any one, visitor or host, entered or left the house, a shrill blast was blown on a buffalo-horn, and the man emitted his monotonous “Huc—yah huc” and extended his palm. He had a small pot of live charcoal before him; and smoking, and his so-called garden (a sort of playing at gardening, six twigs of box-tree being planted in a little heap of dust, and an orange being placed between each), occupied a good deal of his time.

The annoying part of it was that he was always there, and that we could never forget, or fail to notice this fact, from the persistent salutations of “Salaam, sahib!” smilingly given, or the eternal cries and blasts of the buffalo-horn, by which he made night hideous and the day unbearable. As time wore on and the New Year approached, the blasts and cries became more prolonged and more frequent, and the whole household became more and more depressed. We all knew that the servants were providing the man with two square meals a day and unlimited tobacco, of course quite contrary to orders.

But I think the greatest sufferers were myself and a friend, whose bedroom-window was above the so-called tent of this demon in human form. Patience has its limits, and one morning we determined to, as we hoped, induce our bugbear to shift his quarters. We poured our two tubs into one, and carefully choosing our moment, suddenly emptied the contents on the tent.

Down it came on the head of the dervish, putting out his fire-pot, and producing a very free succession of invocations to saints.

But, alas! when we went out in the morning, hoping to find him gone, we were received with “Salaam, sahib!” and a solo on the horn that for volume, Harper, of trumpet fame, might have vainly attempted to emulate.

We slunk off, but vowed further vengeance. The next day we determined on a baptism of fire, and we carefully stoked our “mangal,” or brazier, till it gave off a fine red heat, and was quite full of live charcoal. At that time, when there were few fire-places in the rooms of Persian houses, it was usual to employ these braziers to warm the rooms.

We did not impart our design to the Major, who would doubtless have disapproved, but as soon as the coast was clear, and we were sure that the dervish was in his tent, we prepared for action.

We had got the brazier into position, when the wretch commenced one of his frantic solos; down came the contents, some twenty pounds of live charcoal and wood-ashes.

The dervish laughed at such things, and blew a defiant blast; but in a moment the charcoal, having burnt through the tent-roof, descended on his flowing locks, and, amidst deriding shouts of “Khock ber ser um!” (ashes on my head), a favourite form of imprecation with Persians, from my companion, the dervish emerged considerably the worse.

We were delighted, and felt that we had been at last too many for him. Though our minds were not quite free from visions of a severe wigging from the Major, we felt we had triumphed, and hurried down to tell our tale.

We then found that the dervish had exhausted even the Major’s patience, and had received his present and gone. We maintained a discreet silence. Whether the Major heard of our two attacks I never knew, but the man was gone—tent, garden, fire-pot, oranges, and all. Perhaps the treatment he got was considered too bad; anyhow, he was gone, and we ceased to hear nightly “the voice which cried, Sleep no more.”

A few days after the above little drama came the Aid-i-No-Ruz, or New Year’s Day: the excitement was great. It appeared that uniform of some sort was de rigueur, and Colonel G⸺ kindly lent me a blue frock-coat with many frogs, and a gold-laced cap; a pair of uniform inexpressibles with a broad red stripe, were got from some one else; a cavalry sabre and a pair of buckskin gloves completed the semi-military appearance which is possessed by officers of the English army on the stage; there they always live in uniform, off it never; a pair of goloshes were also donned!

I was only too grateful to complete my nondescript rig-out, for, determined as I was to see the sight, and uniform of some sort being a sine quâ non, Mr. Alison, Her Majesty’s Minister, had kindly placed at my disposal the full-dress costume of a Highland chief, in which all my friends were dying to see me, and in which I should no doubt have presented a striking appearance; and rather than not go, I was determined to don even so appalling a costume as that worn by the traditional Highlander.

I had girded on my sword, when my medical chief entered in a frock-coat similar to mine, but with fewer frogs, and a cap with much narrower lace.

We were doubtless filled with mutual admiration, but my chief’s eye soon fell on my wealth of frogs, for was not I disguised as a lieutenant-colonel, while he was merely a travesty of a captain?

“This will never do, Wills. Why, I shall appear to be your subordinate!”

There was no doubt of the justice of the remark. My plumage was decidedly the handsomer. I consented to a change to the less-befrogged and humbler coat; but my chief had long arms, and what was short in the sleeve for me was only half-way down his fore-arm, and he showed all his cuff and a good deal of shirt-sleeve. He looked now undoubtedly my senior, but also as if he had grown considerably since that coat was made. We had to stick to our caps, as my head was too big to get into his.

We all collected, and we two doctors caused some amusement by our very martial array; in fact, our get-up was a considerable likeness to that of “the bold gendarmes.”

Off we went, all on horseback, to the English Mission (or Legation), and we joined the procession of his Excellency, Mr. Alison, who was doubtless disappointed not to have in his train a spurious Highland chief.

The streets were crowded; every one, to the poorest, in new clothes, for the Persian on this auspicious day always puts on a new suit. Many of the streets and bazaars were lined by soldiers of rather unmartial appearance, and most of them were preparing plumes of white cocks’ feathers, which they got ready with a knife, a bit of stick, and some string.

The din was tremendous. Gradually we neared the palace, and, getting down at one of the side doors of it, we entered in the order of our rank, the ambassador and Colonel G⸺, in full uniform, with cocked hats, leading the procession; then came the secretaries, then the mission doctor, the major, then my chief, while I came last and least, the junior of all.

Passing through many courtyards crowded with grandees and their servants, we came into a handsome apartment well provided with chairs; there we found the other ambassadors and their suites, viz., the French, Russian, and Turkish, who had preceded our party; they were in full dress, and wore all their orders.

Pipes were handed round, and then trays of sherbet (iced water flavoured with syrups) and coffee; also a profusion of sweetmeats.

After some half-hour, the master of the ceremonies—who was arrayed in the tall turban of Cashmere shawls, the long robe of the same, trimmed with fur, and the red stockings, that constitute the Court dress of Persia; decorated with numerous orders and the portrait of his sovereign set in diamonds—preceded Mr. Alison, who, as the “doyen” of the ambassadors, took precedence of the other nationalities; and ushered us in.

We entered a garden, up the path of which were laid carpets, and in the midst was a fountain; various little formal beds, filled with narcissus and planted with shrubs, occupied the rest of the space, while a long “hauz,” or enclosed basin, raised some six inches from the ground, ran down the centre; the water in this, which was quite still, was ornamented with an elaborate pattern, formed on its surface by sprinkling handfuls of rose-leaves, and the effect was pretty in the extreme. All round the edge of the hauz were placed a continuous row of oranges.

A few of the royal body-guard, or “gholams,” with their guns in red cloth cases, slung over their shoulders, stood about in motionless groups; also some of the king’s ministers and more favoured servants chatted in whispers; while at an open window sat the Shah-in-Shah, or King of kings and Asylum of the Universe.

When we had all entered we made a military salute, to which the Shah vouchsafed no reply; after a few more paces, we halted again and made a second; and then we were ushered into the room itself in which his Majesty deigned to receive us. Here we all formed in single file in order of rank behind our respective ambassadors, thus forming four files.

The Shah was on our entrance no longer sitting, but lounged against a table; on it lay his jewelled sword, which, covered as it was with diamonds, literally glittered in the strong sunbeams, these also illuminated the jewels with which the king really blazed; the royal plume, or “jika,” of white feathers and diamonds trembled on the black hat of finest Astrachan lambskin, shimmering with rays of many-coloured light.

I learnt afterwards that as the Shah, if he sits himself, is obliged to give seats to the ambassadors, he avoided it by not sitting down, but lounged in the manner described. There was nothing particularly striking in the room; it was much over-decorated, and in the most barbarous taste; the carpets, however, were valuable.

The ambassadors now all gave the king a military salute, and so did the suites and hangers-on. To this his Majesty returned a not over-gracious nod. The king now addressed them in turn, and each ambassador replied through his dragoman or Oriental secretary, replying to the questions as to his sovereign’s health, and congratulating the Shah on his festival. Mr. Alison presented a new secretary, and introduced Colonel G⸺, who was favourably received, and in fluent and graceful Persian he replied to the Shah’s queries, and made somewhat of a speech on telegraph matters, which was also graciously received, the Shah assenting frequently. The king now unceremoniously left the room, and every one saluted.

We all hurried off to see the great ceremony of the public salaam. We were ushered pell-mell into a room that commanded on one side the court of audience, on the other the public square of Teheran. In the former were drawn up in rows, according to their degree, all the officers of state, all the governors of provinces, all the generals and servants of the Crown, the secretaries of various departments, and the foreign employés, among whom I saw Mr. D⸺ and one of the signallers, of the Telegraph Department.

We were told that in a few moments the Shah would lighten their countenances by appearing in an open balcony above our heads.

The royal “farrashes,” or carpet-spreaders, armed with long wands of unpeeled boughs, who surrounded the courtyard, began to beat the few unauthorized onlookers at the far corners, and on a sudden the whole crowd bowed nearly to the ground—a ceremony in which the unfortunate Mr. D⸺ had to join nolens volens. This told us that the king had shown himself.

The prostration was repeated a second and a third time. Then the Prime Minister, having his rod of office, with many bows, mumbled a speech to his Majesty; to which the king replied in a few words in a loud voice.

A priest in a green turban (being a Syud or descendant of the prophet) now recited what was apparently a long prayer: a dress of honour on a tray was immediately, by the king’s order, produced, and placed on his shoulders; and this was no empty compliment, for I was told by an experienced onlooker that the cloak was worth one hundred pounds or more.

Then a poet recited an ode, and got also a dress of honour; and then, at the royal command, men bearing trays of gold coin distributed handfuls to the officials, the number and size of the handful being in proportion to rank; the bigger people, who stood in the front ranks, getting the larger and more numerous handfuls. Even Mr. D⸺, who was in a back row, got some seventy kerans (three pounds). The coins were gold, and very thin, and are instituted for this special occasion; they are called “shahis,” which is, literally, “king’s money,” and were worth some one shilling and eightpence each. During the excitement and scramble that the distribution occasioned, the king retired, and the orderly ranks of Government servants became at once a seething crowd.

We lookers-on now crossed the room and stood at a balcony which commanded the public square. This was kept clear by a double line of soldiers all in new clothes for the occasion. The space was occupied by dancers, buffoons, jugglers, wrestlers, sword-and-buckler men, and owners of fighting sheep and bulls, with their animals; while in front of the big pond or hauz, immediately below our balcony, stood twenty wretched Jews in rags and tatters, prepared to be thrust head over heels into the water for the royal delectation.

The king’s farrashes kept up showers of good-humoured blows on an equally good-humoured crowd at all the entrances. Not less than fourteen to sixteen thousand people were present; all were on the tiptoe of expectation.

Suddenly a cannon from among a battery in the square was discharged, and the king appeared. The entire crowd bowed to the ground three times; then the people shouted and cheered, the dancers went through their antics, the buffoons began their jokes, some forty pairs of wrestlers struggled for mastery, among whom was the king’s giant, seven feet eight inches high; gymnasts threw up and caught huge clubs, and showed feats of strength and skill; the swordsmen engaged in cut and thrust, hacking each other’s bucklers; the jugglers showed their sleight of hand; the fighting bulls and sheep rushed at each other; the royal bands and the regimental ones struck up different tunes; the zambūreks (or camel artillery) discharged their little cannon; the Jews were cast into the tank, and on coming out were again thrown in by the farrashes and executioners; while the rest of the cannon fired away merrily in every direction; the bulls got among the crowd, the women shrieked and the men shouted.

Handfuls of gold coin were thrown to the various performers, for which they violently scrambled; and amidst the smoke and cries the king retired.

The royal salaam was over, and we struggled through the crowd within the palace to our horses at the gate, and rode home through a happy mob, having assisted at a great Persian festival.

I dined at the Russian, English, and French embassies several times at Teheran. As the entertainments were European there is nothing to be described.

CHAPTER V.
HAMADAN.

Start for Hamadan—Bedding—Luggage makes the man—Stages—Meet Pierson—Istikhbals—Badraghah—Pierson’s house—Hamadan wine—Mode of storing it—My horses—Abu Saif Mirza—His stratagem—Disinterested services—Persian logic—Pierson’s horse’s death—Horses put through their paces—I buy Salts and Senna—The prince’s opinion—Money table—Edict.

A few days after the great festival Major S⸺, who was going down country, kindly allowed me to accompany him as far as Hamadan. We started one afternoon, doing the two first stages by sunset, and stopping at the post-house at Karneabad.

The weather was fine, the roads and horses good. I had by this time learnt to ride by balance only, and acquired the art of remaining in an upright position on my steed whenever he suddenly dropped as if shot, instead of going over his head by the force of momentum. The Major had a few tinned provisions, which it had been impossible to get in a place like Tiflis, and with a roast fowl or two our commissariat was well provided. The intense cold was over, and I was glad to use my goggles to protect my eyes during the middle of the day. We also never started before the light was good, which made an immense difference in our comfort.

I had invested in a native bridle, the severe bit of which enabled me thoroughly to control my horses, and, being the one they were used to, did not keep them in the perpetual state of fret that the European bit did. My saddle-bags, too, were well packed and exactly the same weight, so that I never had to get down to put them level, and they never annoyed the horse.

I had my rugs, four in number, and the same size, sewn together down one side and at the bottom, so that whichever side I might have to the draught, and of this there is always plenty, I could have one blanket under me, three over me, and the sewn edge to the wind, while, as the bottom was sewn up, the blankets could never shift, and the open side could be always kept to the wall. This arrangement, an original one, I have never altered, for in hot weather, by lying on say three blankets, one only was over me.

There is, however, one thing that I soon found out in travelling. To thoroughly rest oneself it is needful to, firstly, undress and wear a night-jacket and pyjamas; and, secondly, to sleep in a sheet. The addition to one’s comfort is immense, particularly in warm weather, while the extra weight of a sheet is not worth considering. An air pillow, too, is a great luxury.

I have been in the habit of no longer using a waterproof sheet to keep my blankets dry, but of rolling them tightly up, and then strapping them and cramming them into an india-rubber soldier’s hold-all, which ensures a dry bed, and straps handily to the saddle. This hold-all was the cause of a rather amusing adventure.

On coming home once on leave, in a great hurry, I had left Persia with only my hold-all, having given my saddle-bags and road kit to my servant. I had come direct from Tzaritzin on the Volga to Boulogne without stopping, but had to wait some hours on the tidal boat before she started. I stepped on board and asked one of the men where the steward was.

“Oh, he ain’t aboard yet, mate.”

“Can you get me a wash?”

“Come along a’ me, mate.” The man took me down to what seemed the fo’cassel, and placed a bucket of water before me.

I said, “Come, is this the accommodation you give your first-class passengers?”

The man roared with laughter.

“No yer doant, mate, no yer doant. I never seed no first-class passengers with luggage like that,” pointing to my hold-all; and it was only on producing my coupon book, that the man could be persuaded I was not a deck passenger, and to take me to the saloon aft.

As I was covered with coal dust, and generally grimy—the opportunities for washing being then not what they are now in Russia and Germany—the hold-all had made the man sure that I was an impostor.

We came in the afternoon of the third day into Hamadan, having done the stages in fair time. The journey was without incident, save that a string of antelopes crossed the road in broad daylight some ten yards ahead of us. As they appeared so suddenly, we neither of us thought of using our revolvers. Hamadan looked pretty as we entered it, and was surrounded by apparently interminable gardens. On turning a corner we came upon Captain Pierson, under whom I was to serve, and of whose division I was in medical charge. He had ridden out to meet us.

In the early days of the Persian Telegraph it was usual to ride out with the departing, and to do the same to meet the coming guest.

This is the Persian custom of the “istikhbal,” or ceremonious riding out to meet the new arrival; being a very important ceremony, regulated by hard-and-fast rules: such as that the greater the personage, the further must the welcomer travel; while the lesser the welcomer, the further must he go. Thus, in the case of a new governor of Shiraz, the king’s son, the big men rode out three stages, the ex-governor one, while some actually went as far as Abadeh, or seven days’ journey; but these were mostly merchants or small people.

Great fuss and parade is made, the condition of the incomer being denoted by the grandeur of this “istikhbal,” or procession of welcome. In the case of official personages, soldiers, both horse and foot, go out; led-horses also are sent simply for show, splendidly caparisoned with Cashmere shawls or embroidered housings on the saddles. And it is found necessary, in the case of the arrival of ambassadors or envoys, such as that of Sir F. Goldsmid (when on the duty of the definition of the Seistan boundary), to stipulate that a proper istikhbal shall be sent out prior to the commissioners entering a large town.

There is another ceremony, that of the “badraghah,” or riding out with the departing guest. This, however, is not so formal, and is less an act of ceremony than one of friendship; however, it is a compliment that in both cases is much appreciated, especially when shown by a European to a native.

Latterly the Europeans have almost given up this riding out, which practically is a great nuisance to those riding at an unusual or uncomfortable time, perhaps in the sun, and when the arrival of the guest is very uncertain; it is, too, very annoying, when tired with a rapid chupper, and having ridden many hours on end, to be put on a very lively horse, ready to jump out of his skin with condition, and to pull one’s arms off.

As we had got in sooner than was expected, and were only some mile from Pierson’s house, we did not change our horses for the fresh ones provided by him, and after many turns and twists between high mud walls, we came to the house, and here my travels ended for the time.

The courtyard was some twenty yards by thirty wide. A hauz or tank ran the entire length, filled by a constant stream of running water, and on either side of it was a long flower-bed sunk in the stone pavement, about the same depth below it as the hauz was elevated above.

On a level with the ground in the basement were the cellars and servants’ quarters, and above this a platform ten feet from the ground, some four yards broad, which extended the whole width of the courtyard. This was covered by an enormous structure, consisting of a roof some six feet thick, being painted wood mudded over a yard deep; and then under it a hollow air-chamber, supported on three huge wooden octagonal columns, likewise painted in red, blue, and yellow. Behind and beneath this talár, or verandah, which was some thirty feet from floor to ceiling, was a central room (orūssēe), elaborately painted and gilt in the vilest taste, with a huge window (which could be kept wide open in hot weather) of coloured glass, in small panes four inches by seven. This was the dining and reception room.

On either side of this orūssēe, and having the talár still in front of them, was a smaller apartment. One was Pierson’s bedroom, the other mine. Thus in front of the three rooms was a covered platform, four yards by twenty. On this during the summer, save when the sun was on it, we lived, and when the sun was high the rooms were kept cool by the talár.

We soon sat down to a sumptuous dinner, and I tasted, for the first time, Hamadan wine, of which I had heard many and different opinions. It was a delicious pale, scented, straw-coloured wine, like a light hock; rather too sweet, but apparently of no great strength. I soon found, however, that in the latter idea I was much in error, for it was a wine that went straight to the head, and remained there.

Delicious as it is, the fact of its newness—and it often will not keep, a second summer generally turning it sour if in bottle—makes it objectionable, for though it is light and delightful, especially when iced, a headache surely follows even a third glass.

The natives, we found out in after years, are able to keep it in bulk, and then the tendency to give an after headache goes away, but so does the delicious flavour. In winter so cold is Hamadan, that the wine, which is kept in huge jars holding two hundred maunds (or eight hundred bottles), or even more, sunk half their depth in the ground, has to be kept from freezing by making a hot-bed of fermenting horse-dung around the upper part of these jars, and often these means fail; for I have myself been present when blocks of frozen wine have been chopped out of the jars for drinking; these plans of storing wine only refer to Hamadan: in other Persian towns the wine, as soon as it is cleared, is placed in carboys, holding from six to twenty-four bottles.

It is sold in Hamadan in baghallis, or native bottles, holding about a pint and a half. They are of the very thinnest glass, and very fragile when empty. One of these bottlefuls costs about fourpence—at least it did when I was in Hamadan in 1869.

In a couple of days Major S⸺ left on his way to Baghdad, and Pierson insisted on my remaining his guest, which I was only too glad to do, till I could get servants, etc. of my own.

The first thing, however, was to buy a horse, as I could not draw my horse allowance from Government till I had really a horse of my own, and the three pounds a month was, considering the smallness of my pay, a consideration. Of course at that time I knew nothing about horses, and was fortunate in having the advice of Pierson. As soon as it was given out that I wanted horses there was a permanent levée at our quarters of all the owners of the lame, the halt and the blind, and their animals. These men, however, were all sent to the right-about by Pierson, and at last a dealer came with four likely young horses; these were examined and pronounced sound. On their price being asked, one hundred tomans each was demanded. I was disappointed, for this was exactly the sum (forty pounds) that I was prepared to give for two horses. But I was reassured by Pierson, who made me understand that that was always the price asked for any beast worth having, and merely meant that the seller did not mean to take less than one half the amount. I was told, too, that if one wanted to buy a horse anywhere near its value some weeks must be taken in the negotiation. The matter ended in Pierson’s offering the dealer fifty tomans for two of the animals, and the man leaving our courtyard in simulated indignation, declining even to notice a bid so ridiculous. However, as Pierson said we had not seen the last of him, I did not despair.

Next morning, on coming out to breakfast, I saw our horse-dealer seated with the servants, and as Pierson put it, “They are settling the amount of commission they are each to get, and this commission they will have; ten per cent. is legitimate, more is robbery. So all we have to do is to be very determined; if you can get any two of the four animals for your limit you will do well, if not you must let them go.”

Pierson now sent for his head-man and told him that “I was to have two serviceable horses for forty pounds, and that I should not pay a penny more; so, as he knew the amount of modakel (profit) he and the rest of the servants could make, he had better do the best he could for me, and that he (Pierson) would see that I was not done as to quality.” The man cast up his eyes and retired.

While we were at breakfast a poor prince, Abu Saif Mirza, came, and was invited to partake. Pierson told me that he was a very good fellow indeed, and a grandson of Futteh-Ali Shah,[7] a former Shah of Persia, but from the irregularity with which his very small pension was paid, he had to live almost by his gun, and chance meals, such as the present.

Of course I could not understand what he said, but he fully entered into the difficulty as to finding me a horse. And as in Persia nothing can be done without stratagem, he suggested on the spot a means for bringing the dealer to his senses; it was deep, “deep as the deep blue sea.” It was simply this: he would exhibit his horse to Pierson and promise to send it for trial to-morrow, naming a price just about its value, and “then you will see all will be well.”

No sooner was breakfast over than the prince’s horse was brought into the courtyard, stripped and examined, and the suggested arrangement made. As it happened I afterwards bought this very horse for Pierson to make a wedding present of, but he would have been more than I could manage at the time, being a spirited beast and a puller. The Shahzadeh (prince) took his departure, promising loudly to send his horse round in the morning.

No sooner was he gone than the nazir, or head-servant, presented himself and delivered to Pierson an oration somewhat of this sort. “May I represent to the service of the sahib, that it would be very unwise to purchase the horse of the prince? he is not young” (he was five years old), “he is gone in the wind” (he was quite sound), “and his temper is awful; besides this I have reason to know that he is worthless in every respect” (he was one of the best horses I ever saw, and I knew him for ten years). “Of course to me it would make a great difference, for the prince has indeed offered me a handsome commission” (quite untrue), “while from this poor dealer not a farthing can be wrung by the servants. No! he would rather die than pay one farthing. So though the other servants are loath to let a sale take place to my sahib’s friend, yet I, as an old servant, and looking for a reward from my sahib for conduct so disinterested, have after infinite trouble got the dealer to consent to a hundred and fifty tomans for any two of his four horses.”

“Be off,” was the laconic reply of Pierson. “When we ride to-day, if the dealer will sell for my price, let the horses be ready and I will see them and ride them; if not he can go.”

The man sighed and replied: “Ah, I see, sahib, the prince has laughed at your beard, and persuaded you to buy his worthless brute. I can’t offer such terms to a respectable man like the dealer, but I will give the message.”

I now saw the horse-dealer leave the courtyard with the air of an injured man, and I feared I was as far off a purchase as ever. But Pierson reassured me. I had plagued him to sell me one of his own large stud which he wished to reduce, but he declined with a smile, saying he never sold a horse to a friend unless he was a thorough judge, and that as I knew nothing about horses he must decline, as I might repent when too late; and though I pressed him a good deal, he would not relent. Few men would have lost an opportunity to get rid of beasts they did not require, but Pierson was a man in a thousand.

At that time he had eight horses in his stable, all good and all sound. He had named them after heathen gods, Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Cupid, Hercules, etc. But his pet nag, Apollo—a grey he had given one hundred and twenty tomans, or fifty pounds, for, an enormous price in those days in Persia—had a few weeks before caught his foot in a hole while galloping over turf; horse and man came down with a crash; Pierson was insensible; and when he came to himself he found, some four yards off, his favourite lying dead with his neck broken.

He rode away on his groom’s horse, the man carrying his saddle and bridle. On getting to the house he sent a gang to bury the poor beast, but too late, for the villagers had taken off the skin and tail. Pierson on telling me the story did it so pathetically, that he left off with wet eyes, and I felt inclined to sob myself.

As we got ready for the afternoon ride, the horse-dealer and his four horses appeared, and with a sigh he informed Pierson that he accepted the terms, or nearly so. On getting out of the town the horses were put through their paces. They were a big grey, with enormous mane and tail, of not much breed, but in dealer’s condition, and a well-shaped and strong-looking beast; an iron-grey, who plunged and shied and was generally vicious, but really the most valuable of the four; a fourteen-hand pure-bred Arab, with a huge scar of a spear-wound a foot long on his shoulder, otherwise perfect, of angelic temper, but small by the side of the Persian horses, as all Arabs are; his muzzle almost touched his chest as he arched his neck, and his action was very high, yet easy; he seemed an aristocrat compared to the rest; his thin and fine mane and tail were like silk—he, too, was five. A big, coarse, raking chestnut, that took all the boy who rode him could do to hold him, rising four, completed the list.

Pierson kindly rode them all, and with considerable fear I did the same, save the lively grey, which I wisely acknowledged to be too much for me. The big chestnut bolted with me, but I stuck on. The other chestnut was all I could wish, fast, paces good, no tricks, willing—but, then, the scar. I did not wish to buy him on that account, but Pierson over-ruled me, and I took his advice; he told me that in Persia a scar was nothing, that I could ride the horse in comfort and safety, as he had no vices, and that whenever I wished to sell I should lose very little. The raking chestnut, as a young horse, Pierson told me was a speculation; he might turn out well, he might not. And the grey—well, all I could get out of Pierson was, that “he had a fine mane and tail,” which he certainly had, and that “he was value, or nearly.” He was not a well-bred animal, and I liked him, I fear, on account of the mane and tail; but he pulled. All were entire horses.

Pierson wouldn’t let me buy the iron-grey, had I wanted to, as he said he was dangerous, even to a good rider.

So the matter ended in my taking the chestnut for five hundred and fifty kerans and the grey for six hundred and fifty. Pierson said the prices ought to have been reversed. He was right. I had that chestnut Arab ten years; he never was sick or sorry, and I never had to strike or spur him; a pressure of the knee and a shake of the rein would make him do his utmost. And he was a fast horse; small as he was he carried my twelve stone comfortably, and as a ladies’ horse he was perfect, having a beautiful mouth, while he followed like a dog, and nothing startled him or made him shy. In the stable he was quiet, save to a new-comer, on whom he always left his mark by a bite on the neck, and then, having asserted his position, which was afterwards never disputed, he was always friendly to stable companions. He never kicked. I gave him away at last, when I left Persia on leave.

Next morning the “poor prince” called and looked over my purchases; he approved the chestnut, but shook his head at the grey, saying he had “ableh,” or leprosy, and that in time he would break down, pine, and die. The only sign he had was a pink patch the size of a fourpenny-piece on his black muzzle. “Give him back,” said the Prince.

“I can’t see anything wrong,” said Pierson. His mane and tail decided me. I stuck to him, christening him “Salts”—the chestnut I called “Senna.”

The custom in Persia is that, until a horse has been three nights fed in the stable of a new master (unless specially stipulated to the contrary before witnesses of respectability, or in writing) he may be returned without giving any reason whatever, simply on the purchaser repenting his bargain; this is often taken advantage of by the buyer to return the animal in order to lower his price; the manœuvre seldom succeeds, as the seller is prepared for it.

The European, if awake to his own interest, generally spends the three days in giving the beast a good “bucketting” over ploughed land, when, if there be any hidden defect, it comes out, and the animal can be returned. We did this, but no fault showing itself, I paid my one hundred and twenty tomans[8] (forty-eight pounds) and concluded the purchase.

CHAPTER VI.
HAMADAN.

Morning rides—Engage servants—Dispensary—A bear-garden—Odd complaints—My servants get rich—Modakel—The distinction between picking and stealing—Servants—Their pay—Vails—Hakim Bashi—Delleh—Quinine—Discipline—I commence the cornet—The result of rivalry—Syud Houssein—Armenians—Cavalry officer—Claim to sanctity of the Armenians—Their position in the country—Jews.

As the weather got warmer we began morning rides; we used to start regularly at six A.M. Pierson kindly gave me a hint occasionally, and we had some very enjoyable canters about Hamadan, the environs of which are very pretty and full of foliage; in this other Persian towns are generally rather deficient. We usually managed to get in before the sun got too high, had a second tub, and dressed for breakfast.

I engaged three servants, Abdul-Mahomed, personal or head-servant; Abdullah, a groom-boy; and Ramazan, as sweeper and dispensary attendant.

As the staff under my official charge was very small, and they were unmarried healthy men, my Government work was very trifling; but a constant crowd at the door, desirous of seeing the new Hakim,[9] made me anxious to take the advice given me while in Teheran, and make the most of my opportunities ere the novelty had worn off. I gave out, then, that I was prepared to see patients from eleven A.M., and a courtyard that we did not use in any way, (it was originally the women’s quarter of our house,) was kindly placed at my disposal by Pierson, who also gave me the advantage of his knowledge of Persian as an interpreter.

I saw my servant was very busy indeed, and that all the morning a file of people were flocking into the courtyard, in which I had installed my dispensary. Precisely at eleven I proceeded to seat myself; what was my astonishment to find some two hundred people sitting in groups, my two servants vainly endeavouring to keep some sort of order; the noise was great, and practical joking and laughter were in the ascendant.

Pierson’s presence, however, awed the rioters, and silence was after a time obtained, some few of the more noisy among the males being ejected.

I soon found that many of the so-called patients had merely come from curiosity, while others had old injuries to complain of, and did not expect medicines, but miracles.

The replies to the question, “What is the matter?” were sometimes highly ridiculous, one man informing me that he had a serpent in his inside, while another complained of being bewitched.

Among the ladies, Pierson, who bravely stuck to his self-imposed duty of interpreter, informed me that the principal request was for aphrodisiacs, drugs to increase embonpoint, and cosmetics; while many women of apparently great age were urgent for physic for improving their appearance. Many cases of eye-disease presented themselves, and not a few of surgical injury, which had been treated only in the most primitive manner. It was only by four in the afternoon that I succeeded in getting rid of the rabble-rout that had come to my dispensary.

Rome was not built in a day. As the novelty wore off and the sightseers ceased to come, the sick, who generally amounted to from two hundred to two hundred and fifty a day, more or less, became more tractable, and my servants better able to manage them.

I made stringent rules as to seeing all in the order of their coming, and separating the men from the women. Although I saw many thousands of patients in Hamadan, yet I found that I made no appreciable addition to my income; those who could pay, didn’t; and the only grist that came to the mill my two men absorbed. These now bloomed out in silken raiment, and my head-man, whose pay was twelve pounds a year, and clothe and feed himself, actually kept a servant of his own, and adopted a slow and dignified pace, which, as he day by day increased in wealth, became more and more apparent.

I, after some weeks, on some provocation or other, determined to discharge Ramazan, who immediately told me, with many protestations, that on account of the great love he bore me he could not leave me, and was desirous to stay at half-wages. On my remaining obdurate he wished to stop on nothing a month and “find himself.” He begged so hard that I couldn’t turn him out, and forgave him. The fact was, that his pickings from the daily crowd of patients was some ten times as much as his pay.

Often have I been asked by Persian acquaintances, “What is your pay?” “Little enough,” I reply. “Ah, but what is your modakel?” i. e. pickings and stealings.

This system of modakel it is useless to fight against. The Persians, from the king downwards, speak of “my modakel.” The governor of a province buys his appointment: this is the king’s modakel; he farms the taxes for one hundred thousand tomans, and sells them for half as much again; this is his modakel; the buyer exacts two hundred thousand, the difference is his modakel.

I buy a horse, a carpet, or a pound of sugar, ten per cent. is added by my servant to my bill. I sell a horse, and ten per cent. is taken on the price by my servant. I pay a muleteer, and ten per cent. is deducted from the hire. These things are the so-called legitimate “modakel” of my servant, and I cannot avoid it. If pressed, or the thing is brought home to him, he will not even hesitate to acknowledge it.

“It is the custom, sahib. Could you have bought the thing cheaper than I, or sold it so well, even with the modakel? No, you could not; then why object? What stimulates me to do the best I can for you? My modakel; you cannot fight against it.” And he is right; the ten per cent. is extracted from all, Europeans or Persians; and it is no use to kick against the pricks. But more than this is considered robbery (if detected).[10]

In the last five years of my life in Persia I kept all these servants mentioned in the note, with the exception of a nazir, who is, as a rule, a purely useless man, and only an increaser of his master’s expenses for the sake of the addition to his own profits. Thus my cook, through whose hands the whole expenses, eight hundred kerans a month, or at times a thousand, used to pass, made, say, ninety kerans as his percentage; out of the sums paid for shoeing and repairs and sale of manure (a valuable perquisite), the grooms made theirs; while for every penny expended by my servant a percentage was taken in money or goods.

Even the laundress would take (not steal) a tenth or more of the soap given her. But then it was no use fighting against it, for it was not etiquette for the better-class European to be seen in the bazaar, save for special things, as curios, and such a proceeding would entail a great loss of consideration, and cause him to be classed as a “mean white.”

Again, one’s head-servant, though he took this percentage, made it a point of honour to do his best for you after that had been deducted, and no one else but himself was permitted to rob on a large scale.

I have struggled against the system repeatedly. I have even caused muleteers to be paid in my presence, and have given them a present for civility, and have then ordered the men off the premises, not allowing my servants to leave the house; or I have paid by cheque on a native banker; but I am sure the servants got their commission, and shared it in certain proportions arranged among themselves.

Another source of revenue to servants is the system of vails. This is, I am glad to say, being lessened. At one time the Europeans encouraged it. I remember, after I had been about a year in the country, going to stay with Pierson in Teheran, on a visit of five weeks: I gave his head-servant to distribute amongst the rest two hundred and fifty kerans, or ten pounds. The man’s face did not express a lively satisfaction, though that was merely policy; and as I was riding out of the gate, the “dog-boy,” a youth retained to feed the five or six dogs my friend kept, seized my bridle, and asked me roughly, “Where was his present?” This was more than mortal man could stand; I thonged the fellow, going back afterwards to explain and apologise to his master, who turned him out then and there.

Thus a servant, though he nominally feeds and clothes himself, has his wages, his profits, his presents which each servant gets from his master at the New Year—generally a month’s pay—his vails, and his master’s old clothes; as these fetch a high price in a bazaar, they are an important item in the servant’s budget. In addition to this, he gets a small allowance when travelling, and on the road his master feeds him. So that, taken altogether, his position is not a bad one, the emoluments of my head-man, for instance, being more than those of a native country doctor in fair practice.

I felt considerable satisfaction at this time at the visits to my dispensary of the “hakim bashi” (chief doctor), or rather one of those who had that title in Hamadan. He expressed himself as eager to learn, and knew a few words of French. I was, of course, delighted to give him any information I could, and he seemed very grateful for instruction; he, however, turned out afterwards to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and was very nearly the cause of my stay in Persia being brought to an abrupt termination, a matter which will be duly detailed.

One day one of the servants brought a “delleh”[11] for sale, a sort of weasel, and of similar size; he was of an olive-green colour, with a bushy tail, having patches of yellowish-white on the body: a boy dragged him in by a string. He was so fierce no one would go near him, and was evidently carnivorous.

He was kept on our platform tied to a ring, till one day he gnawed his thong and bolted into a hole. In this hole he remained, just showing his nose in the daytime, but coming out at night, when he was generally pursued by our dogs, who roamed about the place loose.

I had been in the habit of feeding the beast on raw meat, of which he was immoderately fond, and after some little trouble I taught him to come to call. The animal got very tame, though extremely pugnacious when teased, bristling his long soft fur out, like the mongoose, biting savagely, and emitting a short sharp cry of rage.

He used to beg for his food, sit in our hands, allow himself to be stroked, and became a great pet with both of us; but, as he showed a great disinclination to be tied up, we allowed him to live in his hole in the wall. As he grew fat from good living, he discontinued his nocturnal excursions, presenting himself at meals with great regularity; his intelligence was great, and the servants, who hated him, and looked on him as “nejis,” or unclean, kept carefully out of his way; as did the dogs, most of whom had been bitten severely, and the suddenness of his movements and the sharpness of his cries terrified them.

The beast, too, had another mode of defending himself, which I am glad to say he only resorted to once when hard pressed. Two of the dogs had got him in a corner, when suddenly they both bolted, and the delleh made for his hole in a dignified manner. He had employed the mode of defence used by the skunk, and the particular corner of the courtyard, and the two dogs and the delleh were unapproachable for a fortnight.

However, the animal had no stronger odour than any other carnivorous beast, save on this occasion, and it probably was his only means of safety. After he had inhabited his hole some months, while he was gambolling on our platform, I saw the head of a second delleh cautiously protruded and rapidly withdrawn. He had been joined by a female, and after a week or two, she too became quite tame. Like the ferret and mongoose, these animals waged war against whatever had life, hunting fowls, etc., with the peculiarly stealthy gait so well known.

I noticed now that a considerable number of my patients, and Persian acquaintances, and all the servants, were continually pestering me for quinine. The reason was that the high price of this drug, pure as I had it, was a temptation, and as each impostor got a small quantity, my store sensibly diminished.

I was loath to stop distributing the drug altogether, as I had been particularly instructed that the giving away of quinine to the sick was beneficial, indirectly, to the good feeling which we desired to produce towards the English in Persia.

However, I made a rule only to give away the drug in solution, or, in the case of servants of our own, in the dry state in the mouth.

This had the desired effect, and as a rule one dose of the bitter drug caused the most grasping of the domestics to hesitate before applying for a second. This system I adopted during the whole time I was in the country, only giving the crystals to the European staff, and the quinine being distributed each year in ounces, where before it had been pounds. In fact, I did away with one of the sources of legitimate (?) modakel of the servants, who had traded on my innocence and simulated fever (intermittent) to obtain what was such very “portable property.”

One morning, while we were at breakfast under the “talar,” we saw a European enter the compound, and a little scene ensued that was sufficiently amusing. I must premise that in those early days of the Persian Telegraph Department, when communication was infrequent, owing to the continual destruction of the line, orders could only be conveyed by letters, which often never reached their destination.

The unknown sahib, without announcing himself, or asking if the superintendent were visible, stalked up on to the platform and thrust a paper into Pierson’s hand. On it was an order to Mr. P⸺ to proceed to Hamadan and take charge of the office there. And he (Mr. P⸺) had that moment alighted from his horse, having marched some twelve stages from Ispahan.

Pierson took the paper, read it, and said, “Well?”

The stranger replied, “I’m P⸺.”

“Have you nothing else to say?” said Pierson.

“No; I’ve come to take charge of the office here.”

Pierson now called for ink, and wrote “Mr. P⸺ will proceed at once to Shiraz, and take charge of the office there,” and signed it.

“You need not discharge your mules, and will start to-morrow. Good morning to you.”

Mr. P⸺ was equal to the occasion; he walked out of the place without a word, and he did start the next day (on his march of sixteen stages).

So much for discipline.

Pierson, who played the concertina, cornet, and piano, suggested to me as a pastime that he should teach me the cornet. To this I assented; and the first thing was to learn to blow. This is not so easy as it seems, and as the noises I produced were not pleasant, Pierson only allowed my practising in the house when he was not at home. The flat roof at sunset was my place to practise, and here I blew to my heart’s content. I only blew one note of various loudness, and to my astonishment found I had a rival, whose lungs were stronger than mine; he, too, blew one note in rapid succession. I blew—he blew—but his were decidedly the stronger sounds, and he blew longer. I kept up my blowing, but soon came down, feeling my inferiority.

The next night I was alone, my rival absent. I blew my one note in rapid succession till I could blow no more. Suddenly I heard cries, and sounds of beating, and shouts of men and women—a row evidently. I blew on.

Next morning the British Agent, Syud Houssein (these native agents are appointed by the English Legation in lieu of consuls throughout Persia at the great cities; they are really news-writers, but act as consuls, and look after English interests), came to Pierson, with a long face, saying that a complaint had been made to him by the Governor, of the conduct of the sahibs in his (Pierson’s) house.

It appears that when the bath is full of men, and the time allotted to them expires, the bath is cleared, and the bath-man, on its being empty, blows on a buffalo horn for a few minutes a succession of notes. This is the signal to the expectant women, and so on, when the time for the ladies expires, for the men. The bath-man was my unknown rival.

The day before, the bath being full of women, I proceeded to our roof to indulge in cornet practice. My efforts, alas! were so like the solos of the bath-man, that the Hamadan men of our quarter rushed to, and into the sacred precincts of, the bath. The women who were inside were furious at the unexpected intrusion, and called on their male relatives for protection. A fight ensued, which only ceased on both parties uniting to give the innocent bath-man a sound thrashing; which having thoroughly accomplished to their satisfaction, and broken his buffalo horn, they retired, hinc illæ lachrymæ. The matter was soon explained, and a small present consoled the beaten bath-man, and I gave up the cornet.

Syud Houssein was a dignified little man, with the dark complexion and scanty black beard that is supposed to characterise the true descendants of the prophet. I fancy myself that while his duties consisted merely in looking after the few Persians who were British subjects in Hamadan, and writing a monthly news-letter to the Legation at Teheran, he was quite happy; but that the actual presence of the unbeliever in the city itself was not very palatable to him. However, we ever found him kind and courteous, though he avoided breaking bread with us, save in secret and when there was no escape.

There are a great many Armenians in Hamadan, and there are villages in the immediate neighbourhood of the place inhabited only by them. They have mostly adopted the Persian dress and language, Armenian being in disuse as a language among those living in Hamadan, and there being no distinctive mark by which one can tell them in either indoor or outdoor dress; unlike the Armenian of Teheran, who adopts the dress of those of his nation who are Russian subjects, or the Julfa (Ispahan) Armenians, who affect the fez to simulate the Turkish subject, or at times pretend an ignorance of Persian, and disguise themselves as sahibs. A ludicrous instance of this occurred once when I was coming into Shiraz chupparee. In the distance I saw under some trees, by a running brook, where generally travellers from Shiraz bid their friends farewell, what appeared to me an officer in the full-dress uniform of the English (?) army. I was intrigued, and as the trees were off the road I cantered up to the group.

I found one of our Armenian signallers in an engineer officer’s full-dress scarlet mess jacket, jack-boots, a full-dress uniform cap, lambswool drawers (sewn up in front) to simulate buckskins, a huge cavalry sabre, and three revolvers. The fact was that he had assumed what he supposed to be the correct get-up of an English officer of rank, in order that if any highway robbers met him (the country was very disturbed at the time) on his seven days’ march to Abadeh, they might refrain from attacking him. He arrived safely. Unfortunately these assumptions of the appearance of the European by Armenians does not add to the respect which the real sahib receives.

Some of the tales these people tell to increase their own importance in the eyes of their oppressors, the Persians, are ingenious and amusing. When I was living in Julfa, an Armenian village close to Ispahan, which had been for divers reasons made the headquarters of the Persian Telegraph Department in that place, I was called upon by a great personage, the farmer of the taxes, a Persian, one Rahim Khan.

After the usual compliments, he remarked, in conversation, that “I must be very glad to live in so holy a place as Julfa. Full, too, of churches.”

I demurred.

“But amidst your co-religionists, men whom you so much revere.”

This was too much. I told him that “we could not respect the Armenians, but that we pitied them for the many years of oppression they had undergone, which probably had brought out the bad points in their characters.”

He would not be denied. “But you revere them?” he persisted.

“Quite the contrary.”

He burst into a laugh. “Ah! dogs, and sons of dogs as they are,” he replied; “only the other day one of them told me, on my congratulating him on the presence of their protectors, the English—for you know, sahib, before the Feringhis came, they were as are now the Jews—that they were not complimented, but rather the Europeans; for, said the dog, ‘we are to them what your Syuds (descendants of the prophet) are to you, noble sir’—in fact, holy men.”

This anecdote is characteristic of the Armenian.

The Hamadan Armenian is brighter and more civilised than his Ispahan confrère, his frequent journeyings to Russia having sharpened him, while, there being only two priests in the place, he is not bigoted. He has adopted the manners and dress of the Persian, also his language, and is so far less exposed to annoyance by the reigning people; in fact, in Hamadan he is not looked on or treated as an outcast; while in Julfa the national dress, specially apparent in the female attire, the national language, and their ignorance and lack of politeness, make them a people apart.

The gist of the matter is, that in Hamadan and its environs, the Armenian is simply a Persian, not a Mahommedan; while in Julfa he is an Armenian of the Armenians; “and the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”

As to the Jews, their position is terrible. Probably in no country in the world are they treated worse than in Persia. Beaten, despised, and oppressed, cursed even by slaves and children, they yet manage to exist, earning their living as musicians, dancers, singers, jewellers, silver- and gold-smiths, midwives, makers and sellers of wine and spirits. When anything very filthy is to be done a Jew is sent for.

CHAPTER VII.
HAMADAN.

Tomb of Esther and Mordecai—Spurious coins—Treasure-finding—Interest—A gunge—Oppression—A cautious finder—Yari Khan—We become treasure seekers—We find—Our cook—Toffee—Pole-buying—Modakel—I am nearly caught—A mad dog—Rioters punished—Murder of the innocents.

Hamadan has no show place save the shrines of Esther and Mordecai. A poor-looking, blue-tiled dome or “gōmbeza,” some fifty feet in height, surmounts the shrine, and covers the tombs themselves; the rest of the building is in red brick, in many places mudded over. It presents the appearance of an ordinary minor shrine. In the outer chamber is nothing remarkable. A low door leads to another apartment by a passage; on crawling through this inner passage, which can only be done with considerable discomfort, almost on hands and knees, one enters a vaulted chamber, floored with common blue tiles. There is no splendour here, and nothing to attract the cupidity of the Persians.

In one corner lay a heap of common “cherragh,” or oil lamps of burnt clay, covered with blue glaze, such as are used by the poor. They are on the same principle as the classic lamp, a reservoir for the oil or fat, with a projection in which lies the wick of twisted cotton or rag; these lamps will give a dull, smoky light for some hours without trimming. Our guides, two evil-looking and squalid Jews, informed us that twice a year the place was illuminated. In the centre of the apartment stood two wooden arks, almost devoid of ornament, but of considerable age; these were thickly sprinkled with small pieces of paper, on which were inscriptions in the Hebrew character, the paper being stuck on as is a label. Our guides could only tell us that pious Jewish pilgrims were in the habit of affixing these to the arks. We could not even ascertain which was the tomb of Esther and which that of Mordecai. The arks were shaped like dog-kennels, and had a slightly ornamented pinnacle of wood at either extremity of their roofs. The guides declined to allow Pierson to make a drawing of them; but I fancy this was merely done to extract a further gratuity. Nothing else was in the place save a poor and much-thumbed copy of the Jewish Scriptures, quite modern and in the book form.

When we left the tomb, after having gratified the two Jews, one produced from his pocket a large bag of what appeared to be ancient coins, both copper and silver. We examined these, and I was anxious to make a purchase; but Pierson assured me that they were spurious. And the Jew, after many protestations, acknowledged that they were so, with the exception of a few coins of Alexander the Great, with the head in high relief; and Sassanian coins of various monarchs, on the reverse of which were always represented figures and an altar (of a fire temple). These two sorts of coin are so common in Persia as to be absolutely worth merely their weight in silver, and the coins of the Sassanian monarchs are constantly being found in crocks.

Treasure-finding in Persia is a frequent thing, and is easily to be accounted for in a country where the bankers are simply money-changers, and there is a danger of being a mark for the oppressor, in being thought a rich man. The only way to invest money is in land or houses; either of these methods are subject to the same objection, the owner is known to be a man of property; and unless he can buy protection is subject to exactions and extortions innumerable. Burying or secreting remains; for a good Mussulman will not lend his money at interest, though many who are not strict do so, the current rate of interest among merchants being twelve per cent. per annum, paid monthly; while, where there is risk at all, or the loan is given without full security, twenty-five to forty per cent. is often exacted.

Ruins of all sorts abound in every part of Persia, and these ruins are constantly being either levelled for cultivation, the earth being valued as a fertiliser (they are many of them of mud), or taken down and removed in donkey-loads for the sake of the old burnt bricks, which it is found practically cheaper to obtain in this manner than to make and burn; for an old brick is more valuable to the builder, being always a good brick, than the new one, which is often small and worthless, except for ornamental facings of decorative brickwork—an art in which the Persians, particularly in Shiraz, have attained a great proficiency, but which, from the poverty of the country, and the less substantial mode of building practised on that account in the present day, is rapidly dying out.

In these various operations the discovery of a “gunge,” or treasure, is not infrequent, although such a find is not always a very profitable transaction for the finder. I have known three such instances.

One occurred at a place called Bonaat, in the province of Fars, some five stages from Shiraz. The finder was a man of learning, who had a house and a few acres of land at this place. He had mostly lived at Baghdad, where he had been well educated, but, on his marriage, bought the little estate at Bonaat.

He found one day in the mud wall of his house, a very old one which he was rebuilding, five jars full of coin. He sent away the workmen, but not before some of them were aware of the discovery, and at once proceeded to bury the treasure (of the truth of this story there is no doubt). Two or three days after this, a messenger from the owner of the greater part of the country in the neighbourhood arrived, and he proceeded to demand the whole of the treasure-trove; he gave no good reason, simply saying that his master meant to have it. The finder tried to make terms with the man, but, unfortunately, he had no means of bribing him but with the actual coins found, which the messenger was anxious but afraid to accept. Taking possession of all the contents of one jar, which my acquaintance with many protests placed at his disposal, the great man’s retainer produced a written order for the man to accompany him to Shiraz, and, putting two men in charge of the house and the rest of the treasure, the poor fellow’s wife, child, and servant being sent off to a neighbour’s without ceremony, they started at once for the residence of the man in power at that place. The end of the matter was, that the contents of all five jars went to this grandee, while nothing remained to the unhappy finder but the suspicion of his having secreted a still greater treasure, and he went about in fear of his life, frequent demands being made for the supposed balance still hidden. In disgust he sold his house and land for a trifle, and went to Bushire, where, under the shadow of the British Residency, he was safe from further troubles. I never got other details than this, but I am in a position to vouch for their truth.

Another case was that of a villager who found a treasure of coin in the ruins of a mud village close to Ispahan. He, luckily for himself, was alone, and managed to transport the whole amount, little by little, to a place of safety. Shortly after this he set out, as a poor man, to walk the pilgrimage to Mecca. This was sufficient and valid excuse for a disappearance for two years. This time he wisely employed in the safe investment of the amount. He went in rags, he returned in comparative affluence; and though often accused of the crime of having discovered a treasure, he wisely denied it; and having secured by a handsome payment the protection of a local magnate, whom he had, doubtless, to heavily subsidise each year, he remained a wealthy man, and will probably be allowed to die in his bed.

The last case was that of a peasant of the neighbourhood of Zinjan, and occurred within the last five years. It was reported to the local governor that a peasant named Yari was in the habit of selling ingots of gold to the Jews of Zinjan at a rate considerably below the market price; the governor seized the man, searched his house, finding a considerable quantity of gold in ingots therein, and, as the matter had now become public, reported the whole affair to Teheran, with a statement that the fellow had discovered a gold-mine, or found “the treasure of King Darius,” or the way to make gold!

This “treasure of King Darius” is a legendary myth that is constantly occurring to the minds of the inflammable Persians. An order came to take the man at once to the capital, but he simply denied either the treasure or the mine, stating that he had found a few ingots, and sold them gradually. But the evidence pointed another way, for the appliances for fusing the metal, of a rough description, were found in his house, and what could an obscure villager know of fusing gold?

The man remained a long time in prison in Teheran, and it is stated on the best authority that means were employed to cause him to speak, which are common in the East, but are happily no longer in use in Europe (save, it is said, in Turkey).

At last he confided to his jailers that he had discovered a gold-mine in the hills; the excitement was intense, he received at once a dress of honour and the title of Khan, equivalent to our knighthood—i. e. it converts a nobody into a somebody. And Yari Khan, carefully guarded and treated with consideration, was taken to Zinjan that he might point out the site of the mine, for his descriptions, though very graphic, had not enabled the searchers to find it. On his arrival he endeavoured by an opportune illness to put off the evil day, but as finding the mine was of more importance to the authorities than the health of a villager, he was soon conveyed to the mountains where he had carefully indicated its situation. But he could not or would not find it. Free recourse was had to the bastinado, but no mine. The man was cast into prison, and doubtless, unless ere this he is dead, or has confessed the source of his wealth, or found means to administer a bribe, he is still in prison on the lowest diet and a frequent administration of stick, even if other and nameless horrors be not resorted to.

Pierson told me that one of the occupations of the Hamadan Jews is the manufacture of the so-called ancient coins; these are sent in large quantities to Baghdad, Teheran, Ispahan, and Constantinople, and sold there to the unsuspicious or ignorant European. He told me, too, that Hamadan has a great reputation for the finding of real antiquities, and that many of the Jews actually paid a small sum for the privilege of searching the ground in certain spots, taking the chance of a find or a blank day.

A Jew readily acceded to the proposal that he and two labourers should be paid for their time, and a few kerans should be given by us for permission to dig, and the intrinsic value of any object in the precious metals handed over to him, the objects themselves being ours.

A few days after, the Jew came to show us the place, some miles from the town where the search was taking place. Two labourers dug some foot of the surface earth away in clods and piled it in heaps. The Jew watched the labourers, and we watched the Jew. After they had uncovered the whole of the ten yards square, which it was agreed that we should dig, the labourers set to to sift it through a coarse sieve, but nothing was found; a second sifting, however, which we noticed that the Jew watched with much more curiosity than the first, produced four small cubes of gold; they were about one-third of an inch cube, and were composed of tiny beads of pure gold soldered together, a hole being left in two of the opposite sides for stringing; they were hollow, and about two pounds in value (the four). We found only these, and they were too few to form an ornament, though doubtless real relics of ancient Ecbatana. So we rewarded our Jew, and dug no more for hidden treasure, or rather antiquities.

I frequently laugh at our housekeeping experiences in those early days. We paid our cook ten kerans a day each for our messing, but every little extra was debited to us with stern accuracy; as, one day we made a pound of toffee, and at the month’s end were charged, “For making the Feringhi sweetmeat, fifteen shillings!” These items and the pay of my servants and my horse-keep made me fear that I should not be able to live on my pay; but I soon found that the cook was simply charging us four times the cost of our living. As Pierson was now leaving for Teheran, I was able to manage with a humbler cook on a less extravagant scale, and live better.

An amusing instance of the inveterate habit of making modakel now occurred prior to Pierson’s departure. In the early days of the Telegraph Department in Persia the line was supported by wooden poles, generally poplar, and much trouble was found in buying these. It would have been impossible for a European to buy them at all, and as the natives had to be employed, it taxed all Pierson’s ingenuity to prevent wholesale robbery taking place. The poles had to be paid for, and the buyer and seller generally managed to put their heads together to make the “Dowlet Ingleez” (English Government) pay a very fancy price.

Some poles were suddenly very urgently required, and the Sarhang or Colonel, the chief of the officials of the Persian office of the telegraph in Hamadan, the moonshee[12] or interpreter, a member of our staff, a native of Baghdad, and Pierson’s head-servant or nazir, were sent together to buy poles to the tune of kerans two thousand four hundred, in the villages in the neighbourhood, on the principle that each would act as a check on the other. These gentry divided their money into two portions, half to be profit and half to buy poles.

The poles were purchased; but when they returned, the moonshee desired an interview with Pierson.

After pointing out his own integrity and high sense of honour (this man’s English was peculiar; it had been acquired of the sailors in Baghdad, and was freely interlarded with oaths; but, worst of all, he had never learnt the use of the words very, more, and most, substituting the more homely expression which is used by Anglo-Saxons for sanguinary, as a word meaning all three; his conversation was thus less choice than forcible), he communicated to Pierson that half of the sum said to be expended had been set aside as plunder, but that he was no party to such arrangement. When I heard of the matter I set it down to disinterested virtue, but Pierson, whose experience of the Oriental was larger than mine, determined to sift the matter.

Hardly had the moonshee retired than the nazir requested a private interview, and stated that he too felt impelled by virtuous indignation to discover to his master the wicked conspiracy of the Colonel and the moonshee, who had agreed to divide the hundred and twenty tomans illicitly gained into three shares, making forty for each; but that the Colonel suggested to him that it would be better to give the moonshee nothing, which would leave them, the sarhang and himself, sixty each.

“Of course, I report the affair to the sahib, and he will use his discretion,” he said. The next morning Pierson sent for the Colonel, who denied the whole matter, produced receipts duly sealed for the payment of the whole two thousand four hundred kerans, and indignantly protested his honesty: “Comme officier Persan—décoré par sa Majesté!” (he spoke French fluently.) On an inquiry being instituted, it came out that the original idea was, as the moonshee said, to divide the plunder into three shares. Then, as the nazir said, into two—hence the honesty of the moonshee; and at last the Colonel resolved to keep the whole himself, which accounted for the virtue of the nazir. The money was disgorged, and the chief of the Persian Telegraph in Teheran fined his subordinate in Hamadan forty pounds, or one hundred tomans. So there is not always, in Persia at least, “Honour among thieves.”

Pierson left for Teheran, and I was alone in Hamadan with no one to speak to but the two corporals of engineers, who were the office staff, and the two others, who were inspectors of the line. I was then very ardent, and pushed my dispensary work, having many and interesting cases, and finding my patients, especially among the poor, increasing in number. Ramazan was gayer in his attire than ever, and my knowledge of the colloquial increased rapidly. I had, however, to freely have recourse to pantomime, as my only interpreter, the moonshee, now Pierson was away, seldom came near me.

But I had, without knowing it, raised up enemies among the native doctors. I found that, if I could not get money from my better-class patients, I could get experience; and I had commenced a system of seeing every one gratuitously. Of course I had no lack of patients, but the effect was, that the consulting-rooms of the native doctors were emptied, as the Persians would always prefer gratuitous physic with the additional “tamasha” (show) of a European doctor, to paying those who practised medicine strictly as taught by Aflatoon (Plato), Abu Senna (Avicenna), Galenus (Galen), and Pocrat (Hippocrates). This state of things was naturally intolerable to the profession in Hamadan, and my pseudo-friend, the Hakim-bashi, with the rest of his brethren, took steps to frighten me, in order to make me cease my obnoxious system.

I had been sitting quietly in the courtyard when my servant ran in to say that there was a mob at the door. I went on the roof and found it was so; some two hundred ragamuffins were assembled; they hooted me, and said a good deal evidently of an uncomplimentary nature. After a while stones began to come. I returned with a gun, which I valiantly discharged over their heads, shouting “Bero!” (“Be off;”) for I felt that, if I did not get rid of the small mob, a big one would soon form, at whose hands I should fare badly. However, the gun effectually frightened the fellows off, and the space outside my door was cleared. I got on my horse to go to the telegraph-office and seek advice. Off I started, accompanied by my servants (three) and all Pierson’s dogs.

I noticed on the road that one of these dogs behaved in an eccentric manner, attacking several people; but I was too occupied and excited by my own affairs to take much notice. On getting to the office, I at once sent a message to the director in Teheran, and his promptitude prevented any further unpleasantness to me. Orders came by wire to the Governor of Hamadan to punish the rioters the next morning; and ere I left the office a guard of soldiers (at the instance of our British Agent in Hamadan, who had heard of the affair) was sent to escort me to my house, four sentries being placed to relieve guard at my door.

I felt now that all was safe, and the only result was that my friend the Hakim-bashi, who got up the row, was severely bastinadoed by the Governor.

On my return to the house I noticed the very extraordinary behaviour of “Jill,” a black setter, one of a pair (“Jack” and “Jill”) belonging to Pierson; she snapped and bit, emitting a peculiar cry, and showed signs of rabies. I shut her up and made inquiries; it appeared that she, an unusually quiet and playful dog generally, had bitten every dog in the house. These were a very fine Arab greyhound and two young bull-terriers of Pierson’s, a Persian greyhound of my own, and a little white dog owned by the cook—for Persians will often own and pet a small, long-haired dog. Undoubtedly all had been bitten.

There was nothing for it but (Jill being now certainly rabid, for I had watched her, and she was eating earth and uttering the special cry which, once heard, can never be forgotten) to destroy them all; this I had done, and the cook wept bitterly, but assented to the measure. It is sad, in such a place as Persia, to lose all one’s four-footed friends at one fell swoop; but so it was, and thus ended an exciting day. I have never seen, except on this occasion, a rabid dog in Persia; and as it is a country where water is very scarce, it shows that want of water can have little to do with causing rabies. I never either saw or heard of a case of hydrophobia in Persia.

CHAPTER VIII.
HAMADAN.

Antelope—Hunting and hawking—Shooting from the saddle—Thief-catching—The prince offers his services as head-servant—Our hunting party—The prince takes the honours—Kabobs—A provincial grandee—His stud—Quail-shooting—A relative of the king—Persian dinner—Musicians and singers—Parlour magic—The anderūn—Cucumber-jam—Persian home-life—Grateful Armenians—Lizards—Talking lark—Pigeon-flying—Fantails—Pigeons’ ornaments—Immorality of pigeon-flying—Card-playing—Chess—Games—Wrestling—Pehliwans—Gymnastics.

The “poor prince,” Abu Seif Mirza, called one day and suggested our going the next morning to hunt antelope, promising to show us sport. When posting from Teheran we had seen several herds of antelope, generally five or six animals together; and on one occasion, as I have noted, a string had suddenly crossed the road within ten yards of us—a thing very unusual, and which never occurred to me since. The hunting of the antelope is a favourite pastime among the grandees of Persia, and is also practised by the villagers, who will frequently get a pot-shot from behind a stone when the animals visit their drinking-places. They are either pursued with relays of dogs, shot from the saddle, or, rarely, hawked with a specially large kind of falcon, who always succeeds in stopping them till the dogs pull them down. Our plan was the second one. After drinking tea, we started one afternoon and marched out some seven farsakhs into a sandy wilderness; the shah-zadeh (or prince), who was a well-known shikari, shooting several small birds from the saddle while at full gallop, to show his skill.

Abu Seif Mirza, after holding small offices at the courts of the different Governors of Hamadan, such as mirshikar (or chief huntsman), ser-cashikji-bashi (or chief of the guard), etc., had given up the life of a courtier, and tried to support himself by agriculture; this did not answer, for the prince, though a sober man, was a spendthrift. He told us an anecdote, which we found on inquiry to be quite correct.

On one occasion the Governor of Hamadan sent for him, and offered him a present of forty pounds and a dress of honour if he would rid the environs of the town of a certain highway-robber. The grandson of a king did not hesitate, and set about the matter in a business-like way.

“My great object,” said he, “was to obtain the reward intact, and so the only thing was to do the job myself, as going out in a party in search of the robber would have been expensive, and he would have got wind of it and kept out of the way. I consequently put on the dress of a substantial villager, disguised myself as a man of the pen by a big turban and huge slippers down at heel, mounted a donkey provided with a big pair of full saddle-bags, and started for the neighbourhood where the robber carried on his trade. At the first stage I purposely started after all other travellers had left, so as to make myself a conspicuous mark for attack, and as I apparently carried no weapons, I seemed, doubtless, an easy prey.

“On getting some half-way to the village to which I was proceeding, I was suddenly pounced upon by two men armed to the teeth, who rushed out from behind a ruined wall and covered me with their guns. I placed my donkey whom I was driving between us, and immediately simulated abject fear. ‘Amān, amān!’ (‘Mercy, mercy!’) ‘Oh, masters!’ I cried out; ‘I am a poor priest.’

“The men, seeing me apparently unarmed, lowered their guns and demanded my money; with many protestations I thrust each hand into the long pockets of my outer garments, and whipping out a brace of pistols before they had time to raise their weapons, I had shot one through the heart, and now rushed on the other, ordering him to drop his gun or I would fire; he was too astonished to resist. I bound him firmly, and informing him that on the first attempt to escape I should either hamstring or shoot him, I proceeded to reload my discharged pistol. I now searched them both, but only found a few kerans on them. I laid the dead man across my donkey—he it was on whom the price had been set; I shook the priming out of their guns and removed the flints, and we got safely back to the caravanserai from which I had started. The next morning I brought my prisoner and the dead man into Hamadan. Of course the fellow was duly executed, but the dog of a Governor never gave me anything but a colt worth some fifty kerans—a bad business, sahib; and though the catching the thieves did not cost me much, on other occasions I didn’t get off so cheaply.” Here he showed us several scars of sword-wounds.

The prince now changed the subject to that of servants. Addressing Pierson, he asked him what wages he gave his head-man (nazir).

Pierson told him he gave two pounds a month.

“And he robs you, I suppose?”

“Of course.”

“Why not engage an intelligent and honest man?”

“You know, Prince, I can’t find such a man in Persia.”

“Don’t call me ‘Prince,’” he said. “A man so poor as I am should do as I have done and drop the title; I only call myself ‘Khan’”—and here the tears were in his eyes—“till—till I can find myself in bread and my horse in food. Let me see; five tomans a month, the usual modakel—say ten tomans, my commission say twenty tomans; thirty-five tomans—a noble position! try me.”

Pierson was amused, and treated the matter as a joke.

“No,” said the prince, “it is real earnest. I will come to you the day after to-morrow.”

Pierson pointed out that it was impossible.

“I can’t see it,” said the prince; “in Persia the servants of the king may attain the highest offices of the State; there is no degradation in being a servant. What is the chief vizier but the king’s head-servant?”

The matter passed over, and Pierson did not engage a King of Persia’s grandson as his domestic.

We put up for the night in a village, and were sufficiently comfortable. At two A.M. we rose, and started at three. Abu Seif Khan (as I may now call him, for so he desired to be addressed) directed us to load with slugs, which he declared much more favourable than a bullet, and gave us his directions, which Pierson explained to me. They were, first, that it is no use to follow an antelope unless he is hit; second, to be sure not to fire until near enough; third, to keep our eyes open, and note the animals ere they could see us. The antelope, the prince told us, always make straight for their lairs, avoiding the mountains, and the only way to get a shot is to attempt to cross their track, and to fire at the point where the animal is actually nearest. He particularly warned us as to the futility of following the animal, unless wounded, and definitely instructed us always to fire on the slightest chance, and to keep the horse at his greatest speed when doing so, “as unless he is really going ventre à terre it is impossible to attain accuracy. If you do make a hit, follow the beast as long as you can see him, then follow his track if you can find it.”

It was now nearly dawn, and we were going straight for a range of low hills, and as yet had seen nothing. Our Nimrod now stopped, and directed our two grooms to continue slowly straight towards the hills, now three miles off, in order to disturb the animals, while we turned our horses’ heads to a direction nearly parallel with the range, but tending towards it, going at an amble.

Every now and then we saw groups of antelope in the distance, on the plain on our right, but nothing between us and the hills. Abu Seif Khan explained that to follow these would be hopeless, and that our chance was that the servants, with whom were the dogs, would put something up, and that we should attempt to head them, in which we should certainly fail, but that we should have a chance for a shot. All the dogs had been sent with the servants except the Persian’s, which, though of strange appearance, could both, so the prince said, hunt by sight and scent, and would find an antelope if we had the luck to wound one.

The ground was good going, a plain of sand and gravel, a few loose stones lying about, and a rock or two protruding occasionally; the whole having a greenish tinge from the tufts of young spring grass growing here and there, and as yet undried by the fierce sun: patches of thorn-bushes (bhuta) were frequent, but there was no cover of any kind. The sun now rose, and the few antelope we had seen, which before had appeared black, now became white, but they were all on the open plain and quite out of our reach, of which they seemed well aware, as they continued grazing.

Our leader adjured us to keep a sharp look-out, and kept himself carefully watching the space between the hills and us, more especially in our rear.

At last we saw four rapidly moving spots: to dash for the hills was the work of a moment. The spots on our left became galloping antelope. How we thirsted for their blood, and we raced apparently with them as to who should attain first a point half-way between us and the hills. On they came, and on we went; our horses needed no stimulus, our guns were on full cock. Pierson, who had borne too much to the left, came near them first, or rather, they came near him, for they seemed to fly. He did not raise his gun.

Now was my turn. I was, I fancy, some hundred or perhaps ninety yards from the animals, and I should have fired as they crossed me, bearing to my left, and thus had them broad-side on, but I forgot the Persian’s caution; my horse was going well, and I thought I must get nearer. I bore to my right and followed; but, alas! I found my “Senna” seemed, having made a supreme effort, to die away; the antelope were doubtless well out of range when I fired my two barrels, without effect of course.

I did not attempt to reload, but watched the prince, who with loud cries had kept well to the right, fire first one barrel and then the other; at the second discharge the third antelope swerved, but kept on his course, and the animals were soon out of sight, Abu Seif Khan tearing after them in hot pursuit, loading as he went. Pierson now galloped up, and we cantered after the prince, although we were doubtful if his eager pursuit was aught but mere bounce. But, no; after a smart canter of about two miles, we saw the Persian stop behind a low sandhill, dismount, look carefully to his gun, ramming down his charge again for precaution’s sake, and flinging off his huge, loose riding-boots and his heavy coat, he commenced climbing the mound, crouching as he went. He had previously by a gesture warned us to remain where we were.

As soon as he reached the top of the mound he fired and disappeared on the other side. We cantered up, and found him cutting the throat of a fine buck ahū (antelope). He now set to in a sportsman-like manner to disembowel the animal, and it was soon slung en croupe on his horse.

It appeared that his first shot was unsuccessful, but the second had injured the fore-leg of one of the herd. As he instantly followed, he noticed that one lagged a little behind, and that four passed behind the sandhill but only three reappeared. The sequel we had seen.

The sun was now high, and it was close on eight; we marched slowly back to the village and breakfasted on antelope kabobs; that is to say, small lumps of meat of the size of a half walnut skewered in the usual manner—of a piece of meat, a shred of onion, a piece of liver, a shred of onion, a piece of kidney, and so on; they were impaled on a long skewer and turned rapidly over a fierce fire of wood-ashes until cooked; and very tender they were.

The Persians always cook an animal before it is yet cold, and thus ensure tenderness, otherwise antelope-meat must hang ten days to be eatable, for we do not boil venison as they do in Persia.

We started from the village at midnight, and marched till nine A.M., arriving at a large village by a river, called Mahrand, thirty miles from Hamadan, the owner of which, Mahommed Houssein Khan, Mahrandi, had invited us to visit him for a few days; we were to hunt the antelope and have some quail-shooting. Our host, a great friend of Pierson’s, was an enormous man of great wealth, whose life was a harmless one, passed generally in his own village, and he was liked by his acquaintances, and adored by his ryots (villagers). Simple-minded in the extreme, he had, save a fondness for the bottle—a fault common with the wealthy in Persia—no vices such as are usual in the Persians of towns.

We stayed with him four days; the first morning some fifty horses were paraded for our inspection, for our host bred very fine animals, and among other taxes had to find yearly three fine beasts fit for the royal stables. As we sat at a window just raised from the ground, the entire string were led or ridden past us; but as the clothing was on, one could not see much of them.

This clothing consists of a perhan (shirt) of fine woollen blanketing, which envelops the whole body of the animal, being crossed over the chest, but all above the withers is bare. Over this is the jūl, or day clothing; this the horse wears summer and winter, save during the midday time in summer, when he is either naked or has only the perhan on. The jūl is of the same shape as the perhan, but is of coarser texture and lined with felt. Over the jūl is the nammad,[13] or outer felt.

This is a sheet of felt half or three-quarters of an inch thick, and so long that it can be drawn over the horse’s head and neck while the quarters are still well covered, thus completely enveloping the animal in a warm and waterproof covering, and enabling him to stand the cold of winter in the draughty stables of the caravanserai, or even, as is frequently required, to camp out. (During all the summer months in Persia the horses sleep outside.)

This nammad is held in its place by a long strip of broad cotton webbing, which is used as a surcingle, and usually, except at night, the part of the nammad used to cover the neck is doubled down over the animal’s body.

As the procession went by we gave free vent to our admiration; as Pierson acknowledged, he had never seen such a collection of horses. I, too, was surprised. Some dozen of the finer animals were stripped, and as we admired each, the usual empty compliment of “Peishkesh-i-shuma” (“A present to you”) was paid us.

The quail-shooting was good fun; we marched through the green wheat in a row of some ten, horses and servants following, and the birds got up in every direction, a very large bag being made, though probably as many more were lost in the high wheat. The peculiar cry of the bird resounded in every direction.

Several princes were among the guests of Mahommed Houssein Khan, and he and his sons showed us and them the greatest kindness and attention.

In the afternoon suddenly arrived Suleiman Mirza (literally Prince Solomon), a near relative of the king, who was returning from a pilgrimage to the burial-place of the saints at Kerbela, near Baghdad. This man was quite a Daniel Lambert, moving with difficulty, very old, but of a very merry disposition; a good deal of joking took place after his arrival.

PERSIAN BAND.

After an apparently interminable Persian dinner, which consisted of some hundred plats, among which may be favourably mentioned the pillaws of mutton or fowls, boiled and smothered in rice, in rice and orange-peel, in rice and lentils, in rice and haricots, in rice and “schewed,” a herb somewhat resembling fennel; the fizinjans of fowls and boiled meats; also partridges boiled and served with the concentrated juice of the pomegranate and pounded walnuts; kabobs of lamb and antelope; a lamb roasted whole, stuffed with dates, pistachios, chestnuts, and raisins; salt fish from the Caspian; extract of soup with marrow floating in it; dolmas, or dumplings, made of minced meat and rice, highly flavoured and wrapped in vine leaves and fried; rissoles; wild asparagus boiled; new potatoes, handed round cold, and eaten with salt; while roast quails, partridges, and doves were served with lettuces, drenched with honey and vinegar.

Each guest was supplied with a loaf of flat bread as a plate, and another for eating.

We sat on the ground, some twenty in all, round a huge tablecloth of red leather, if I may use that expression, for a large sheet of leather laid on the ground. Suleiman Mirza, as the king’s relative, occupied the place of honour. On the other hand of our host sat Pierson, and I next him, while Abu Seif Mirza, as a prince, took his position by right on the other side of the great man, and was by him punctiliously addressed as prince, and generally treated as one. Huge china bowls of sherbet were placed down the centre of the sūfrah (tablecloth), and in each bowl was an elaborately-carved wooden spoon, which were used indiscriminately; these spoons held a gill, and were drunk from, no glasses being used.

During the time the dinner was progressing little conversation took place, everybody being engaged in eating as much of as many dishes as possible. But a band of villagers played the santūr, a sort of harmonicon; the tūmbak, or small drum, played on with the tips of the fingers—there were two tūmbak players; the neh or flute, or, more properly speaking, reed; and the deyeereh, literally circle, a kind of large tambourine, played, like the tūmbak, with the tips of the fingers.

As soon as every one had (literally) eaten his fill, Suleiman Mirza, the king’s relative, rose, and we all got up.

In lieu of grace each man said, “Alhamdillilah!” (“Thank God!”) and from politeness most of the guests eructated, showing that they were thoroughly satisfied.

This ceremony is common through the East, and it is considered the height of rudeness to the host to abstain from it. Coffee was now handed round, and pipes were brought. A singer, too, commenced a ditty, which he shouted as do costermongers when crying their wares in England; he put his hand to the side of his mouth to increase the sound, his face became crimson with his efforts, the muscles and veins stood out in relief on his neck, and his eyes nearly started from their sockets. He frequently paused to take breath, and ceased amid loud applause. The singing and music were kept up till a late hour.

Politeness prevented our retiring, but we longed for rest; and on Pierson’s being tormented into a long disquisition on magic, he seized the opportunity to get away by stratagem. Telling the fat prince that, as he insisted on seeing the magic of the West, he would gratify him, he placed the old gentleman on a mattress, and putting four princes (he insisted on royal blood), standing each on one leg at the four corners, with a lighted lamp in each hand, he gravely assured them that we should retire and perform an incantation, while, if no one laughed or spoke, on our return the lights would burn blue. We got to bed, barricaded ourselves in our room, and tried to sleep. After some few minutes, loud shouts announced the discovery of the ruse, and a party arrived to bring us back, but too late, for we had retired.

Next morning I was asked to see some of the ladies of the family. So little does this village khan observe the Mahommedan rule of veiling the women, that I was allowed to pass my whole morning in his anderūn. My host’s wife, a huge woman of five-and-forty in appearance, but in reality about thirty-five, was intent on household cares; she was making cucumber-jam. The cucumber having been cut into long slices the thickness of an inch, and the peel and seeds removed, had been soaked in lime-water some month; this was kept frequently changed, and the pieces of cucumber were now quite transparent. They were carefully put in a simmering stew-pan of strong syrup, which was placed over a wood fire, and, after cooking for a quarter of an hour, the pieces of cucumber were carefully laid in an earthen jar, and the syrup poured over them, spices being added.

I fancy that about a hundredweight of this preserve was made that morning. When cold the cucumber was quite crisp; the result satisfied our hostess, and she presented me with a seven-pound jar.

Our host’s young son, a youth of seventeen, caused considerable commotion among the two or three negresses by his efforts to get his fingers into the cooling jam-pots; while his two sisters, nice-looking girls of fifteen and sixteen, tried to restrain his fancy for preserves in vain. We all laughed a great deal, and mother and daughters were full of fun, while the grinning negresses thoroughly enjoyed the noise and laughing.

Not having seen a woman’s face for three months, these girls seemed to me perhaps better looking than they really were, but I confess returning to the outer regions of the berūni with regret; and Pierson envied my good fortune in having, as a medico, had a glimpse of Persian home-life which he could never hope for. Really the patient was, as it often is, a mere excuse for entertaining so strange a being as a Feringhi, and getting thus a good look at him.

We went out twice after antelope, which we hunted with relays of dogs; but as we were not successful, there is little to tell. We returned to Hamadan, regretting the end of a very pleasant visit.

On our arrival a grateful patient among the Armenians sent me eighty kerans (three pounds ten) in a little embroidered bag. As the woman could ill afford it, I told her that I would accept the bag as a keepsake, and returned the money. So unheard-of a proceeding astonished the Armenian community, and the priest, a wealthy old sinner, saw his way, as he thought, to a stroke of business. I had treated him, too, and he brought me a similar sum in a similar bag. Great was his disgust when I thanked him for the money and politely returned the bag, and he confided to my servant that, had he thought this would have been the result, he would never have paid a farthing.

One day a villager brought us two large lizards, some three feet from snout to the tip of the tail, and we secured them for a couple of kerans. They ran about the place for a week or two, interfering with no one, but did not get tame. The dogs chased them when they were not on the face or top of a wall, and they at first used to bolt; but after a time they stood still, allowed the dog to get within range, and then—thwack—the tail was brought down with tremendous force, and the dog retired howling. After a day or two no dog would go near the lizards. They were uninteresting as pets, and as Pierson once got a severe blow on the shin from one he stumbled over in the dark, we sent them away. They were huge beasts, of a yellow-ochre colour, and lived on flies and chopped meat; they were never seen to drink.

I purchased about this time a talking lark: he seemed the ordinary lark such as we see in England; “torgah” is the Persian name. The bird never sang, but said very plainly, “Bebe, Bebe Tūtee,” which is equivalent to “Pretty Polly”—being really “Lady, lady parrot;” he varied occasionally by “Bebe jahn” (“Dear lady”). The articulation was extremely clear. There are many talking larks in Persia. The bazaar or shopkeeper class are fond of keeping larks, goldfinches, and parrots, in cages over their shops.

Sitting, too, on our roof, we could see the pigeon-flying or kafteh-bazi. A pigeon-fancier in Persia is looked upon as a lūti (blackguard), as his amusement takes him on the roofs of others, and is supposed to lead to impropriety; it being considered the height of indecency to look into another’s courtyard.

The pigeons kept are the carrier, which are very rare; the tumbler, or mallagh (mallagh, a summersault), and the fantail, or ba-ba-koo. The name exactly represents the call of the fantail. It was this bird which was supposed to bring the revelations to the prophet Mahommed, and consequently keeping a fantail or two is not looked on as discreditable. They are never killed. These fantails do not fly with the rest, keeping in the owner’s yard and on the roof. The yahoo is the other ordinary variety, and is only valued for its flesh, being bred, as we breed fowls, by the villagers. It has a feathered leg, and will not fly far from home.

The pigeons are flown twice a day, in the early morning and evening, and it is a very pretty thing to watch.

The owner opens the door and out fly all the pigeons, perhaps thirty, commencing a circular flight, whose circles become larger and larger. The fancier watches them eagerly from his roof, and when he has given them a sufficient flight and there are none of his rival’s birds in view, he calls and agitates a rag affixed to a long pole. This is the signal for feeding, and the weaker birds generally return at once to their cupboard, the stronger continue their flight, but lessen the diameter of the circle, and one by one return, the best birds coming back last. As they come over the house they commence to “tumble” in the well-known manner, falling head over heels as if shot; some birds merely make one turn over, while others make twenty. It is a very curious and a very pretty sight. The birds are extremely tame, and settle on the person of the fancier.

Hitherto there has been nothing more than a flight of pigeons, but in the afternoon, about an hour or two hours before sunset, the real excitement commences. Up goes a flight of some twenty pigeons, they commence to make circles; no sooner does their course extend over the house of a rival fancier than he starts his birds in a cloud, in the hope of inveigling an outlying bird or two into his own flock; then both owners call, whistle, and scream wildly, agitating their poles and flags.

The rival flocks separate, but one bird has accompanied the more successful fancier’s flight. As it again passes over the house of the victimised one, he liberates two of his best birds; these are mixed with the rest, but ere they have completed half a circle they, with the lost one, rejoin their own flight. Their delighted owner now calls down his birds, and in a few moments envelops a pair of his rival’s in a crowd of his own.

Then again commence the cries, the whistlings, the agitating flags, and the liberation of single or pairs or flights of birds. As one of Mr. A.’s birds is being convoyed towards B.’s roof with a pair of his, Mr. C. envelops the three in a cloud of pigeons, and the whole flock alight—C.’s flight in his own dovecot, and A.’s bird and B.’s pair, as timid strangers, on a neighbouring wall; A. and B. vainly screaming while their two flocks keep circling high in air. C., B., and A. simultaneously run over roofs and walls to get near the birds. But B. and A. have a long way to travel, while happy C. is close by; he crouches double, and carrying in one hand a kind of landing-net, makes for the birds; in his bosom is a fantail pigeon, in his left hand some grain. Artful B. throws a stone and his two birds rise and fly home, and with a fancier’s delight he watches C.; but A. is too far off for this manœuvre, and hurries over roof after roof. Too late! C. has tossed his fantail down near A.’s bird, the fantail, struts about calling “Ba-ba-koo, ba-ba-koo!” The prize has his attention taken and stoops to peck the seed that C. has tossed over a low wall. As he does so C.’s landing-net is on him, the fantail flies lazily home, and C., shouting and brandishing his capture, makes the best of his way to the roof of his own premises.

Then the flights begin again, rival fanciers from distant roofs liberate their flocks, flags are waved, and the drama, with endless variations, is repeated. Once a fancier always a fancier, they say.

A. repairs to C.’s house to buy back his bird at six or more times its intrinsic value, for to leave a bird in the hands of a rival fancier might cost the man his whole flock on a subsequent occasion, the captured birds, of course, acting as the best of decoys.

The favourite birds are ornamented with little rings or bracelets of silver, brass, or ivory, which are borne like bangles on the legs (the mallagh, or tumbler, has no feathers on the leg) and rattle when the bird walks; these bangles are not ransomed, but remain lawful prize.

As the colours of the birds are very different, one soon recognises the individual birds of one’s neighbours’ collections, and the interest one feels in their successes and defeats is great. Our high roof, towering over most others, made us often sit and watch the pigeon-flying; and the circling birds as they whirred past us, flight after flight, against the blue, cloudless sky near sunset, was a sight worth seeing. The fanciers were many of them old men, and some actually lived on the ransom exacted from the owners of their captives.

These pigeon-fanciers had a slang of their own, and each coloured bird had a distinctive name. So amused were we that I ordered my groom to buy a flight of pigeons and commence operations; but Syud Houssein, the British Agent, pointed out that it would be infra dig. to engage in a practice that was considered incorrect. It is strange that sporting, or what is called sporting, generally leads, even in the East, to blackguardism.

Card-playing, too, is only indulged in by the less reputable of the community; there is only one game, called Ahs an Ahs; it is played with twenty cards—four kings, four soldiers (or knaves), four queens (or ladies), four latifeh (or courtesans), and four ahs (or aces). This latter is shown generally by the arms of Persia, “the Lion and Sun.” The lion is represented couchant regardant, bearing a scimitar, while the sun (“kurshid,” or head of glory) is portrayed as a female face having rays of light around it; this is shown as rising over the lion’s quarters. There is only this one game of cards played with the gungifeh (or cards); they can hardly be called cards, as they are made of papier-maché an eighth of an inch thick, and elaborately painted. As much as ten tomans can be given for a good pack. European cards are getting generally used among the upper classes, who, under the name of bank or banco, have naturalised the game of lansquenet. But as Persians have an idea that all is fair at cards, like ladies at round games, they will cheat, and he who does so undetected is looked on as a good player (“komar-baz zereng,” clever gamester).

Chess (“shahtrenj”) is much played by the higher classes, but in the Indian manner, the pawn having only one square to pass and not two at the first, as with us. Backgammon, too, is in great vogue; the dice, however, are thrown with the hand, which leads to great “cleverness,” an old hand throwing what he likes; but as the usual stakes are a dinner or a fat lamb, not much harm is done.

The lower orders have a kind of draughts played on a board (marked somewhat similar to our Fox and Geese), and at each angle of which is placed a mor (seal), i. e. piece. This game is generally played on a brick or large tile, the board being chalked, the pieces stones; they are moved from angle to angle. I never could fathom how it is played, the rules being always different and seemingly arbitrary.

Another game is played on a wooden board or an embroidered cloth one; this is an ancient one called takht-i-pul. I have a very old embroidered cloth forming the board, the men being of carved ivory, given me by Mr. G⸺, of the Persian Telegraph Department, but I never could find two Persians who agreed as to the rules. Pitch-and-toss is constantly engaged in by the boys in the bazaar.

Rounders (a bastard form of it) are played by the Ispahan boys, and they also play at a species of fives. Marbles are unknown, but I have seen the primitive game of “bonse,” which is played by our boys with “bonses” (large marbles), large pebbles being the substitutes for the bonses in Persia, as they are with street-boys here.

Wrestling is in great favour; the gymnasia (Zūr Khana) are frequented by the youth and manhood of all ranks, who meet there on an equality. Wrestling bouts are common among the boys and youths on every village maidān.

In each gymnasium (Zūr Khana, literally “house of force”) the professional “pehliwan,” or wrestlers, practise daily; and gymnastics, i. e. a course of attendance at a gymnasium, are often prescribed by the native doctor. Generally an experienced and retired pehliwan acts as “lanista,” and for a small fee prescribes a regular course of exercises. Dumb-bells are much used; also a heavy block of wood, shield-shape, some two feet by three, and three inches thick, with an aperture in the middle, in which is placed a handle. The gymnast lies on his back, and holding this in one hand makes extension from side to side; a huge bow of thick steel plates, with a chain representing the string, is bent and unbent frequently.

But the great and most favourite implements are the clubs (what we call Indian clubs); these the professional athlete will use of great size and weight; and after going through the usual exercises will hurl them, together or alternately, to a great height, and unfailingly catch them.

The wrestling is carried on, as a rule, good-temperedly; but when done by professionals for reward, awkward tricks are employed, such as suddenly thrusting the fingers into the eye of the adversary, and others still more dangerous.

As a preventive against these, the wrestler always wears knee breeches of stiff horsehide, some of which are beautifully embroidered with blue thread; all above the waist and below the knee being bare. A good deal of time is, as a rule, lost in taking hold and clappings of hands, and then generally the bout commences with one hand grasping the adversary’s, while the other clutches the body. The object is not a clean throw, but to make the knees of the opponent touch the ground, and consequently agility tells more than strength and size. The pairs are always made with regard to skill, size and weight being little considered.

The gymnasia are merely darkened rooms (for coolness), with a sunken ring in the centre, where the wrestling takes place. The floor is nearly always of earth only, to render falls less severe.

A Persian has no idea of the use of his fists. When a street-fight takes place, the combatants claw and slap at each other, and end by clutching each other’s “zūlf” (long love-locks, which most wear), or beards, or clothing. Then comes a sort of wrestle, when they are generally separated.

Every great personage retains among his favoured servants a few pehliwans or wrestlers; and among the artisans many are wrestlers by profession, and follow at the same time a trade.

CHAPTER IX.
KERMANSHAH.

Leave for Kermanshah, marching—Detail of arrangements—Horse feeding—Peculiar way of bedding horses—Barley—Grape feeding—On grass—Nawalla—Colt, Anecdote of—Horses, Various breeds of—Turkomans—Karabagh—Ispahan cobs—Gulf Arabs—Arabs—Rise in price of horses—Road cooking—Kangawar temple—Double snipe—Tents—Kara-Su River—Susmanis—Sana—Besitūn—Sir H. Rawlinson—Agha Hassan—Istikhbal—Kermanshah—As we turn in another turns out—Armenians—Their reasons for apostatising—Presents of sweetmeats.

On Pierson’s return to Hamadan, I gladly prepared to start with him for Kermanshah. My traps were not numerous—a folding-table, four chairs, a tressel bedstead, and two bullock-trunks, formed one load; and my bedding in a case, made of carpet, bound with leather, and surmounted by my head-man, another; my groom was perched on a third, sitting on the clothing of the two horses, and carrying their head and heel ropes and the stable spade, with which their bed of “pane” (dried horse-dung) is prepared at night, and the copper bucket for watering them.

The cook, with all his batterie de cuisine, had the fourth, and Ramazan and the contents of the dispensary took two more. I think another was charged with bottled beer, and of course we each rode our horses. The stages were:—

An hour’s riding took us clear of the vineyards of Hamadan, and we passed over grassy downs with patches of desert till we got to the commencement of the Seydabad Pass. This, though it would be looked on as a tremendous matter in England, is nothing difficult to get over when there is no snow, and an hour’s smart climb brought us to the top.

The descent on the other side was much longer, and we made the seven farsakhs, about twenty-eight miles, in nine hours’ continuous marching. The road was very bad, being full of loose stones the whole of the way from the commencement of the ascent. We put up at the “chupper-khana;” as this was my first experience of marching, I may as well detail our arrangements.

As soon as we had cleared the top of the pass, the servants pushed on with those loads that it was needful to unpack, while we came on slowly with the mules; the grooms, too, went on as smartly as possible; my fellow had my other horse led in a halter. As it got to nearly sunset (we had started very late, as is always the case in a first stage), we cantered gently in to the post-house.

Our grooms were at the door ready to take our horses, and we found the dirty little mud room swept, carpeted, a fire lighted, and the entrance curtained with a tent door; the chairs and table had been put out, and the kalians got under weigh. Our servants had tea ready, and we were quite prepared to rest and be thankful. Our books and pipes had been put handy in our bedding, and were laid out for us.

Half-an-hour after sunset the groom came to say he was going to feed the horses. We go into the yard, into which our room opens, and find Pierson’s stud of Gods on one side, my two on the other, each tethered by double head-ropes to a mud manger, which is constructed in the wall, and secured by heel-ropes of goats’ hair tied to pins of iron a foot long, firmly driven into the ground.

The horses had been carefully dry-rubbed and clothed, the nammads, or felt coverings, drawn over their necks, for it was chilly, and the beds of “pane” laid for them.

The Persians use no straw for making beds for their horses, as it is too valuable; but they utilise the dung, which is carefully dried in the sun and then stored, as bedding; this is very dry, clean, and soft, and quite without smell. When thus dried, it is called “pane.” It is laid a foot deep all round the standing of the horse, and the edges carefully smoothed (as a gardener in England smooths his flower-beds) by the grooms.

The horses, well aware that it is feeding-time, and having been watered some ten minutes before (they had been walked about for half-an-hour to cool them on arrival—a thing a Persian never omits), now commenced neighing, playfully biting and letting out at each other as far as their heel-ropes would permit. Pierson’s head-groom measured out in handfuls the allowance of barley for each beast, and it was poured into a nosebag filled with “kah,” or chaff, and then affixed to the animal’s head, that not a grain might be lost. When we had seen this done, and noticed that each horse fed well, we left, our place being taken by the head-servant, who stayed till the barley was eaten; for in those days we could not trust our grooms, who would always steal the barley if they could.

Oats are not used in Persia, though there are many salt-marshes in the country where they would grow well. Barley is the only food for horses, the allowance being from seven to ten pounds of barley for the animal’s two feeds; generally seven pounds are not exceeded. (It must be remembered that the general run of animals is much smaller than that of English horses, fourteen hands being the usual height, and fifteen being an unusually large beast.) This allowance is divided into two feeds, five pounds at night and two in the morning. This, with as much as he chooses to consume of wheat or barley straw, broken in pieces two inches long (“kah”), is all the animal has from one end of the year to the other; no hay is given, but for a month the horse is put on an entire diet of young green barley-grass, of which he will eat two hundred and fifty pounds a day. Prior to being put on this diet, which is termed full grass, he has a larger and larger proportion administered with his chaff; this mixture is called “teleet.”

The barley-grass is cut by the grooms, by tearing handfuls of it against a curved toothed sickle fixed upright in a piece of wood, and is given from two to four inches long. As the horse is given “teleet,” his grain is diminished, and, when he is on full grass, stopped altogether; as he gets more and more grass, his teeth get blunt, and do not break the grain, and on leaving off grass his barley has to be soaked.

A horse on grass cannot do any serious work, and the gentlest canter will put him in a lather. Of course it is very difficult to march a horse when on grass, and in Persia it can only be had in the spring; and unless he is going from a country where the season is early to one where it is late, the animal has to do without grass altogether, or even to march on “teleet”—a very dangerous thing, as he will often break down. The Persians are very fond of seeing their horses fat, particularly the townsmen, so that these latter will keep their beasts on entire grass for two months, and on “teleet” seven months in the year, giving clover, too, mixed with the “kah,” when they can get it. The result is an animal bursting with fat, very irritable and restive, but who can do no work.

To old horses “nawallah,” or balls of dough made of barley flour and water, are given; the animals take to this, which is the usual camel food, and will look fat and work well when they have not a tooth in their heads.

During the only grape season that I was in Hamadan, the fruit was so cheap that we put our horses on a diet of it for a week. Hasseens, or earthen pans of tile, were affixed to the wall in the mangers, and the horses grew extremely fat on a diet of grapes alone.

Persian horses, like Persian women, age early; possibly they are ridden too young; the two-year-old is often put to hard work, and an animal of nine is an old horse.

The young colt of two is termed a no zin, or newly fit for the saddle. On one occasion I had removed a tooth for the Zil-es-sultan, the Governor of Ispahan (the king’s eldest son). As it came out at once he was much pleased, and gave me an order on his master of horse for an “asp-i-no zin,” “a horse just ready for the saddle,” meaning a two-year-old.

I sent over the order, and to my disgust got back an eight-months-old colt. This, of course, was of comparatively little value. I did not like to complain, for “one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth,” and the master of horse was an acquaintance, and the prince’s maternal uncle.

I had recourse to stratagem, being put on my mettle by ironical questions from my Persian friends, as to whether I had ridden my horse, etc.

The prince was about to review the troops, and I sent a polite message to the master of the horse, asking the loan of a Persian saddle, for, said I, “I want to ride out on my new horse, and to thank the prince for his present.” This brought the master of the horse (“mir-achor,” or “lord of the manger”) to my house to call on his dear friend the English doctor. Pipes were smoked, tea drunk, and then I was asked why I wanted a Persian saddle.

“You see, the prince’s present has been probably only used to a Persian saddle, having been just broken in, and I have none.”

“But, dear doctor sahib, he is not fit to ride, he is eight months old.”

“Oh, my friend, you, as the mir-achor, are far too good a servant of his Royal Highness to give me other than his order said, a horse fit for the saddle—the order said so, so he must be fit for the saddle. I ride him out to the review to-morrow, and shall thank the prince.”

The mir-achor sighed, and with a half-wink said, “I see you don’t like the colt, I shall send you another; in fact, some to choose from.”

“Many, many thanks, let them be good, or I shall surely ride out on the one I have; and in case I don’t take any of those you send, don’t forget the saddle.”

The mir-achor left, and in an hour sent me over three full-grown but worthless brutes to choose from.

I sent them back, telling his servants that I would send for the saddle their master would lend me.

The grooms returned with a full-grown horse of considerable value, which I took, and returned the worthless eight-months-old colt. I was duly felicitated on my action by my Persian friends, and was told that I had behaved in a very diplomatic way.

The horses most in use in Persia are, in the north, the Turkoman, rarely seen south of Teheran, and despised in Fars—a tall, ungainly animal, sometimes over sixteen hands, with no barrel, heavy head, but great stride and endurance.

These Turkomans, when one is on them, give the idea of riding on a gate, there is so little between the knees. They will get over, at a jog or loose canter, one hundred miles a day, and will keep it up for ten days. Their gallop is apparently slow, but, from the length of stride, they get over a great deal of ground.

They are, however, not sure-footed, and quite useless on bad roads and hilly country, having a tendency to fall. I have never seen a Persian of condition ride a Turkoman horse himself, though many great personages keep several for show, on which they mount servants. In their own plains, and for the long expeditions for plunder (“chuppaos”) made by the Turkomans, they are doubtless invaluable; they are able to go without water for three days, and to subsist on the hardest and scantiest fare, and after the severe training they undergo previous to these expeditions, they will get over an amount of ground that no other breed could hope to cover. Their paces are rough and uncomfortable. They vary in price from kerans three hundred to kerans five thousand; the usual price is four hundred to six hundred for a good one. The mane is in some cases almost wanting, and what there is is generally removed by a knife, and the stubble burnt off by a hot iron, or by means of gunpowder or depilatory. This gives the breed an unearthly and incomplete appearance. The tail, too, is very slenderly provided with hair.

The “Karabagh”—also used in the north and towards the Caspian; he is seldom seen south of Teheran—is a miniature edition of the English hunter: big-boned and clean-limbed, he stands fourteen and a half to sixteen hands; the latter is, however, an unusual size; he is generally evil-tempered, but is up to hard work, and always has a black mark running from the mane to the insertion of the tail; his mane is thick, so is his tail; his head is heavy. Many big horses are produced in Teheran from the mixture of the Turkoman and Karabagh, but they are leggy, and retain the tendency of the Turkoman to fall on stony ground. They are called “Yamūt;” the price is two hundred and fifty to five hundred kerans. There is an underbred look about both species.

Ispahan produces a peculiar kind of cob, with great weight-bearing powers, short-legged, big barrelled, never exceeding fourteen hands, often less. These animals are taught to amble, and are capable of carrying heavy men or heavier loads. The neck is generally very short and thick. Often very full of go, they are seldom fast, but have much bottom, are very hardy, and stand exposure and hard work. They have a clumsy appearance, enormous manes and tails, and often a good deal of long hair under the jaw; all have huge ears and coarse coats; the colour is generally grey; their appetites are enormous, and they eat more than larger horses. Price, from one hundred and twenty to four hundred kerans. This, I am convinced, is the natural horse of Persia.

The horses of Shiraz, or “Gulf Arabs” as they are called in India, because they are shipped from the Persian Gulf for the Indian market, are the result of cross-breeding from big Persian mares by the smaller and better-bred Arab horse. They are practically the best horses in the country, quite free from vice, fast, and with most of the good points of the Arab, particularly the small head. In the good ones the forehead (brow) is always very convex, never flat. The ears are small and carried well. The tail is carried, as the Persians put it, like a flag, the tail-bone very short and straight. Among the natives, if the tail is carried at all on one side, and not well up, it considerably detracts from the animal’s value. They frequently dock the tail-bone, but the hair is never shortened. Grey is the usual colour; though there are many chestnuts and bays, I never saw a black. The barrel and chest are very large, and the body short and compact; they have magnificent shoulders, and are full of bottom. The better ones are not at all goose-rumped, which all other breeds in Persia, except Arabs, are, while the hoofs are large and healthy. These horses are always full of spirit, and willing, their faults being that they are a little delicate, and dainty feeders; they are very sure-footed, going at full speed over the roughest ground or loose stones. They all pull, and, from the severe nature of the Persian bit, are hard-mouthed, till they have been ridden on the snaffle for some months. Many have a tendency to shy, but no other vices; they stand fourteen and a half to fifteen hands, and cost from five hundred to two thousand kerans.

The real Arabs, which come from Baghdad and the frontier, in the Kermanshah Province, are too well known to need description, and are all that the heart could desire, save as to size. They stand thirteen three to fourteen two, seldom more, and cost from five hundred kerans up to anything.

In the last fifteen years the price of horses has gone up from fifty to eighty per cent.; this is due to the steady drain for the Indian market, and also to the famine, when thousands were starved to death and thousands more killed and eaten, and to opium-growing in lieu of corn.

When I first came to Persia a fair yabū, or pony, could be got for one hundred and twenty kerans; they cost now (1883) two hundred to two hundred and forty. Horses in proportion. But the Gulf Arabs are very cheap in Teheran, which is by far the best place to buy horses in.

To return. We have smoked and chatted till eight o’clock, when our dinner is put on the table—soup, tinned fish, a leg of mutton, potatoes, a custard-pudding; these have been properly cooked, and are served hot.

Save the eggs and the milk for the custard, we brought all these good things from Hamadan, and the cook deserves great credit, for his kitchen has been merely a corner of the post-house yard, his range three or four bricks, and he has roasted his leg of mutton in a saucepan, and sent it to table with delicious gravy; and thus we fare daily while on the road. Some men, even when marching, insist on a hot breakfast on the road itself, of three or four courses, but this is only needful when there are ladies. Dinner over, kalians and coffee are brought. Our beds are made one on each side of the fireplace, but not on the ground, for we have tressel bedsteads, and ten sees us fast asleep.

A fertile plain brings us, next morning’s stage, to Kangawar, a large and prosperous village. Here the climate grows warmer. It is a very well-watered district, and the people seem well-to-do. In fact, in Persia, wherever there is water there is prosperity.

There is the ruin here of a temple said to have been erected to Diana; nothing seems to be known about it, and it is only memory that tells me that some authority gives it as a temple to Diana. However, the four stone columns, minus their capitals, are still standing; they are united by a mud wall, and form part of a villager’s house.

In the swamp in front of the village we go out for snipe; Pierson gets three brace and one double snipe. I manage to get a teal, which I pot from behind some reeds, the snipe being as yet too much for me. I also shoot several snippets, but am disappointed when Pierson tells me to throw them away. I have one cooked in defiance—it is uneatable.

We stop two days in Kangawar, and live in a tent. This is a very comfortable one, with double walls, the property of Government, made, so a label on it says, at the school at Jubbulpoor. It is constructed, so another label tells me, for two subalterns. It has a passage a yard wide between the walls, which keeps it cool in summer. We find it chilly at night, and as we have no stove we are unable to light a fire. The second day Pierson gets several double snipe, and I get very wet.

On our next march we come upon the Kara-Su (black water) River, and see a valley teeming with bird-life—herons, ducks, geese, what appear to be black swans, cormorants, cranes of various colours, from the big white “leg-leg” with black wings, to small and graceful ones of pure white; mallards, teal, and widgeon. They unfortunately are on the other side of the river, which is unfordable here, in a swamp which extends for miles.

As we near Sana we see a man and woman seated on a mound commanding the road, under a big green cotton umbrella, near a grove. The woman, gaily dressed, with her face painted and without any veil, her hair in long tails, strung with coins, importunately solicited us. The man remained under the umbrella, and took no notice. They were “Susmanis,” or gypsies. These people have no particular religion—certainly they are not Mussulmans; they live by singing, dancing, and prostitution. The woman, who had considerable attractions, followed us for nearly a mile, and begged hard for a present. Sana is always infested by bands of these “Susmanis,” who prey on the pilgrims.

We are now on the direct pilgrims’ road to Kerbela, where are buried the imams, or saints, of the Sheahs, Hussein and Hassan, one of the greatest shrines of Persian pilgrims. More groups of “Susmanis” accost us, and demand alms, openly proclaiming their trade.

We reach Sana, and pitch the tent in a large garden with plenty of running water, where we are able to get a good bath next day. The climate is here very pleasant; although it is early in spring, the sun is very powerful, and the night no longer chilly. The greater part of the afternoon is taken up with a long wrangle with the head-men of the village as to the price of poles for the telegraph-line. Pierson’s ideas and theirs differ widely as to the value of these, but a threatened reference to the Imād-u-dowlet (“Pillar of the State”), the Governor of Kermanshah, soon reduces the price, for these sharks would much prefer dealing with the Feringhi than their fellow-countrymen, as the latter would probably take the poles for nothing.

Another day’s journey brings us to Besitūn, which is distinguished by an inscription carved on the face of a perpendicular cliff, with colossal figures, of which a correct and learned description has been given by Sir Henry Rawlinson. At the foot of this cliff are a few fragments of what is supposed to have been “Shushan the palace.”

It is said that here, when Sir Henry Rawlinson was engaged in copying the inscriptions, on a scaffolding on the face of the cliff, at a great height from the ground, that he fell over backwards, and was caught by his trusty Arab muleteer, Hadji Khaleel; and that, in gratitude, Sir Henry, who at that time held a diplomatic position in Persia, made the Hadji British Agent in Kermanshah. This is the legend among the natives. I give it as I heard it.

I had the pleasure of the honest old Hadji’s acquaintance in that place, and was shown much kindness by him. Whether or no this legend had any ground I cannot say; but Hadji Khaleel was a charming old man, honest as the day, though with somewhat rough manners.

His son, Agha Hassan, who was, at the time I speak of, his right hand, is now the British Agent, and has become, by successful commerce, the wealthiest man in the province. Agha Hassan rode out to meet us, his father, Hadji Khaleel being ill, and Pierson told me that he recognised and spoke in rapturous terms of my “Senna,” to whom by this time I had become much attached, and who once had belonged to him.

An istikhbal of a colonel, his attendants, and two led-horses, were sent out to do Pierson honour by the Governor; kalians were smoked on the high road, and we came in sight of Kermanshah after crossing the Kara-Su River by a fairly well-made bridge.

The place looks well, and appears surrounded by a grassy plain, a very unusual sight in Persia. The town had an air of prosperity, and the people were well fed and well clothed. It occupied several small hills, and hence appeared considerably larger than it was.

Like all Persian towns, the streets were narrow, and, save in the bazaars, in which were the shops, one saw nothing but dead walls; each house having an arched entrance closed by a heavy, unpainted wooden door, with many big nails in it.

The causeway was generally some three feet wide, and raised a yard from the ground, and frequently ran on both sides of a path a yard wide and often two feet deep in mud or water, looking like a ditch, but it was really the road (save the mark!) for horses, mules, and camels. Many of the houses were built of burnt bricks, and the place seemed busier than Hamadan. I noticed many Arabs about wearing the gay Baghdad dress, with fez and small turban. The town was straggling, with many open spaces.

Quarters were assigned to us in the house of a man who was ejected to enable us to occupy them; they were not in themselves a bad place, but were in the worst and most disreputable part of the town; while the house I was obliged to rent was actually next door but one to that occupied by the public executioner, one Jaffer, and where dwelt the public women, the monopoly of whom was the largest source of this man’s revenue. All this is now changed, and Europeans can in most parts of Persia live where they like, the householders being only too glad to get a solvent tenant. Save in the capital, houses rarely are rented by Persians, it being usual to borrow a spare house, or, if a man has more than one, to put a relation in, rent-free.

The farce of the danger of living in the Persian towns is still kept up in Ispahan (the Ispahanis are the quietest men in Persia), where the English inhabit an unclean Armenian village, paying high rents, when houses in the town could be had much better and cheaper; the real reason probably being that the Armenians may enjoy the immunity they have from all control, caused by the presence of the European. But it has not answered, for in Ispahan the European is looked on as merely a clean and sober Armenian. Still, as an experiment of what the Armenian would be when practically unrestrained, it is valuable.

The Hamadan Armenian is hard-working and respectable, if occasionally a drunkard, looked on by his Persian fellow-subject as a friend and a good citizen. While the Ispahani looks on the Julfa Armenian as a race apart, and merely the panderer to his vice and the maker of intoxicating liquors; and the hang-dog Armenian, with his sham Turkish or European dress and the bottle of arrack in his pocket, scowls staggering along in secure insolence, confident in the moral protection given him by the presence of the Englishman, whom he robs; respecting neither his priest, whom he has been taught to despise; nor the missionary, whom he dislikes at heart (though he has educated his children gratuitously), and whom his priest openly reviles.

A curious instance of the religious stability of the Julfa Armenian is shown in the fact, that a Protestant on any dispute with the missionary becomes Catholic or Old Armenian. The Old Armenian, after a row with the priest, becomes either Protestant or Catholic. The Catholics, as a rule, do not relapse or become perverts. In fact, a common threat with the Armenian to his spiritual pastor and master, missionary, priest or padre, is to say, “Do it, and I’ll turn,” and some have many times; in fact, a very small temporal matter often is the cause of conversions as sudden as insincere.

We were glad enough to get in, and had hardly got our boots off ere a number of trays of sweetmeats were brought for Pierson, on the part of Hadji Khaleel, with compliments, and a similar present was sent from the Imād-u-dowlet, who sent his farrash-bashi (literally chief carpet-spreader, but really his minister) to represent him. This man was well bred, well meaning and obliging, and afterwards, through a singular circumstance, one of my best friends among the Persians.

I continued to stay with Pierson, not moving into my own quarters till he left Kermanshah.

CHAPTER X.
KERMANSHAH.

Kermanshah—Imād-u-dowlet—We visit him—Signs of his wealth—Man nailed to a post—Injuring the wire—Serrum-u-dowlet—Visits—We dine with the son of the Governor—His decorations and nightingales—Dancing girls—Various dances—The belly dance—Heavy dinner—Turf—Wild geese—The swamp—A ducking through obstinacy—Imādieh—Wealth of the Imād-u-dowlet—The Shah loots him—Squeezing—Rock sculptures—Astrologers—Astrolabes—Fortune-telling—Rammals—Detection of thieves—Honesty of servants—Thefts through pique—My lost pipe-head—Tragedy of two women.

Kermanshah is decidedly the cheapest place in all cheap Persia. Bread was selling at seven pounds for twopence; mutton, seven pounds for fourteenpence, or twopence a pound; and other things in proportion. It costs here threepence a day to keep a horse (1867).

The day after our arrival Pierson went to visit the Imād-u-dowlet, uncle (?) of the king, and Governor of the province. He is a man of very large fortune, and is liked as a Governor, being stern, but generally just, his wealth putting him above any wish to oppress the little people. We rode to the maidān, or public square, then in under an archway and up a steep incline, which conducted us to the interior of the citadel, in which the Imād lived.

As we entered we noticed a man nailed by the ear to a wooden telegraph post.

The Imād-u-dowlet received Pierson very kindly, and laughed and joked a great deal. His eldest son, the “Serrum-u-dowlet,” a man of five-and-thirty, was present; he spoke a little French and was very friendly and complimentary.

The wealth of the Governor was shown in his coffee-cup holders, of gold enamelled, and decorated with rows of diamonds; his water-pipes (kalians) all of gold; and his own special one, the bottle of which was of gold so thickly encrusted with emeralds that it appeared like green glass; all the stones were pale, and consequently of comparatively little value separately.

The Governor in appearance was a man of five-and-forty, with a heavy black beard and thick moustache; but he was really sixty-five: this youthful look was due to hair-dye.

He told us that the man who was nailed to the telegraph-post was a villager who had been detected red-handed in breaking the telegraph-wire, and that he was to remain thirty-six hours, when he would be imprisoned. “It is a capital warning to other offenders,” said the Imād. At this time the line was frequently damaged, several miles at a time often being pulled down by malicious travellers and villagers, particularly on the frontier near Kermanshah. Pierson, however, begged that the man might be removed at sunset, on the ground that he would cease to act as a warning at night. This was reluctantly agreed to.

The latest gossip of Teheran was retailed, and a few vague remarks were made as to the politics of Europe. I was asked to feel the Imād’s pulse, and did not fail to try both wrists, as I found if I did not do so I was supposed not to know my business. This was hardly charlatanry, but merely a deference to the prejudices of the place. After the usual tea and pipes had been gone through we retired.

The man was still nailed to the post, surrounded by a gaping crowd of villagers. He amused himself by cursing Pierson as “reis-i-seem” (“master of the wire”) as we passed him. The Imād, however, unpinned him at sunset, as he had promised.

The next morning the “Serrum-u-dowlet” called to return Pierson’s visit to his father, and asked us to dine with him that evening, entreating us to come in time for tea in the afternoon. The whole forenoon was occupied in receiving visits from the personages of Kermanshah.

At five we repaired to the house of the “Serrum-u-dowlet.” We found him sitting with his brother in a large talár, or archway, one side of which was open to the air. The whole room was decorated in the strangest taste; there were the usual mirrors and florid mural paintings; these in this case were life-size full-length portraits of posture dancers and dancing girls, and were in ancient costumes, having been painted fifty years ago. The takhjahs in the walls were filled with chromo-lithographs in very dubious taste; several odd chandeliers hung at various heights as ornaments, some twenty pair of old carriage-lamps were stuck into staples in the walls, and as many small cages stood about, each containing a bulbul, or nightingale. What with the noise these birds made, and the splashing of a fountain which played furiously in a basin of yellow Yezd marble in the centre, it was difficult to catch what was said. Pipes were brought, and a long desultory conversation ensued, in the course of which our host’s guns, dogs, and miscellaneous property were exhibited and duly admired.

The noise was deafening, and directly we had walked round the garden a band of musicians, some twenty strong, made night hideous with their strains and singing. Wine was now produced, and freely partaken of by both brothers, and trays of sweetmeats were handed round and afterwards placed on the ground around us. Spirits, in the form of arrack, the strong coarse spirit of the country, were pressed on us, but we declined. Our host and his brother, however, drank it like water.

On a whispered order being given to the servants four Susmani girls and a buffoon now appeared. These commenced a kind of posture dance, the buffoon singing and making remarks, which produced a good deal of laughter from the host and his brother, but were unintelligible to me, and simply disgusting, as Pierson told me, who could understand.

The girls were pretty in a way, brunettes with large eyes; their faces were much painted, and they were fine girls; their ages were from twelve to seventeen. Their dance had no variety, they spun round, the hands high in air, while the fingers were snapped with a loud report. A very free exhibition of considerably developed charms took place. Every now and then the dancer would make what we call a cheese; then, standing with the feet motionless, the body was contorted and wriggled, each muscle being made to quiver, and the head being bent back till it almost touched the ground; the fingers being snapped in time to the music; or tiny cymbals, some inch in diameter, were clashed between the forefinger and thumb of each hand. The musicians, who played continuously, kept up a sort of loud chant the whole time. The girls now showed some skill as equilibrists, balancing full glasses, lighted candles, etc., and an exhibition of posturing was gone through. They stood on their heads and walked on their hands; they then danced a scarf-dance.

FEMALE DANCERS AND EQUILIBRISTS.

(From a Native Drawing.)

We had not noticed that the buffoon had retired, but he now re-entered, disguised in a remarkable manner. He seemed a figure some four feet high, with a face huge and like a full moon. This was, in fact, carefully painted on his bare abdomen, the whole surmounted by a gigantic turban. He had constructed a pair of false arms, and, with a boy’s coat and large girdle, he presented the effect of a dwarf with a huge round fat face; his head, chest, and arms were hidden in the enormous white turban. The face represented was one of intense and dismal stupidity, and his whole appearance was most ludicrous; in fact, it was only on afterwards seeing the man disrobe, that we made out how it was done.

He danced in and out among the girls, who stood in a row snapping their fingers and posturing: but what was our astonishment when we saw the dismally stupid face expand into a grin, which became at length a laughing mask; it resumed its dismal stupidity—it grinned—it laughed. The musicians played and shouted their chant more and more loudly, and the face of the figure assumed the most ludicrous contortions. We all were unable to restrain our laughter, and the triumphant buffoon retired well rewarded by the Serrum-u-dowlet. The four dancers now became rather too personal in their attentions, and begged for coin. We gave them a few kerans, but were glad when they retired on dinner being announced. We both pronounced them monotonous and uninteresting.

After a heavy Persian dinner—much such a one as we had at Merand—we, with some trouble, got away at eleven P.M. Our hosts seemed inclined to make a very wet night of it; in fact, their frequent acceptance of cupfuls of raw spirits from the hands of the dancers had made them see things generally in a rosy light. They wept when we left!

We rode home through the silent streets of Kermanshah, the only light being our farnooses, or cylindrical lamps, made of copper and calico, something in the fashion of a Chinese lantern; and the full moon.

We met no one in the streets, which were deserted save by the dogs, and the whole town seemed sunk in sleep. The Persian is an early bird, going to bed at nine, and rising at four or half-past four. It is very difficult to break oneself of this habit of early rising on returning to Europe. One is looked on as very eccentric on getting up at half-past four, and is hunted from room to room by the housemaids. Certainly the early morning is the best part of the day all over the world, but we Europeans in our wisdom have altered it. “Nous avons changé tout cela”—and we prefer living by gaslight, electricity, etc.

The next morning the Serrum-u-dowlet came over to take our photographs, and was very friendly; he took them really well, and is a clever fellow.

We went for a ride, and had the unwonted luxury of a two hours’ canter over good turf. I never had this anywhere else in Persia but once. While near the river we saw plenty of duck, and Pierson told me that they are always to be had in the Kermanshah river.

In Kermanshah I found that the grassy plain round the town had many attractions. Some two miles’ canter on it brought me to a swamp where there were always snipe, except in the hot weather, an occasional duck, and even at times wild geese. A ludicrous incident happened to me one day in regard to the latter. As I was cantering up to the swamp with my groom, I saw on the other side of a herd of cattle a flock of geese grazing. To dismount and take my gun from him was the work of an instant, and I quickly inserted a cartridge charged with No. 4, and a wire ditto, for my left barrel. I walked stealthily among the cattle towards the flock of geese, but the game took no notice of me, and allowed me to get within thirty yards; then it came across me, how if these were tame geese, what a fire of chaff I should get from Pierson. I did not think of shouting, as of course I should have done, which would have settled the question, but I retreated stealthily to where my groom was standing with the horses. I saw that he was full of excitement, and felt that I had made a fool of myself. “Shikar?” (“Are they wild ones?”) said I. “Belli, belli, sahib!” (“Yes, yes, sir!”)

Back I went, but alas! only to be too well convinced that they were wild ones, for the whole flock sailed away ere I could get within a hundred and fifty yards. I have often shot geese—that is, a goose at a time—but I never had such another chance. The birds really behaved just as tame ones would; I can only suppose that my being among the grazing cows I was looked upon as harmless. I did not relate that afternoon’s adventure to Pierson for some time after.

The swamp, which was about a mile long, and at the widest parts only five hundred yards, was in the centre impossible to cross, save in summer, when there was no sport there. One side had not nearly so much cover as the other, but there were no holes; the other side was full of them, and it was only after a long time that I got thoroughly acquainted with the geography. In after days I had a guest who was very hot on sport of all kinds; and as the swamp was all I could show him at the time, it was arranged that we were to have a day there.

I, having a holy horror of wet feet, used to go in with a pair of duck trousers and Persian shoes regardless of water, and march on frequently up to my waist, changing on coming out. I suggested this mode to my sporting friend, but he looked on it as very infra dig. and unsportsmanlike, and set out in a most correct get-up of shooting-coat with many pockets, and the usual lace-up shooting-boots. Nothing would induce him to take a change in case of a wetting, and off we went. As his gun had no sling—almost a necessity in Persia, where the weapon is so frequently carried on horseback—his groom carried it in its case.

We got to the swamp, and, knowing the place, I said, “You take the left side—there are no holes; and I who know the holes will take the right, which is full of them.”

But my friend was not to be led; he remarked that the right was certainly the best side, and as guest he ought to have it. To this I of course agreed, but I pointed out that the holes were deep and dangerous, and that I knew them, and he did not. But, no, he insisted. I could, of course, only give in.

The place was alive with snipe. I went to the left, or more open side, and was over my ankles in a moment. My enthusiastic friend was in to his knees. We blazed away, and were getting on well, when my friend lost his ramrod. Persia being a very dry place, all wood shrinks, and it had probably slipped out. There was nothing for it but to take the cleaning-rod from the case and use that; the difficulty was how to carry it, as we were firing frequently, and he didn’t want to unscrew it. My friend had no belt, and so thrust it down his back, between his shirt and waistcoat. We began again, and were soon in the thick of them. We had now got to the widest part of the swamp; I was separated from my guest by deep water-holes, and was looking at him when with a shout he suddenly disappeared, and it was evident he was in a water-hole. I rushed out and ran round the head of the swamp to his assistance; the servants were out of call. When I got there he was nearly done for; he had fallen head foremost into a hole, and could not get out, as the reeds gave way when he pulled them, and there was only a bottom round the edge of soft mud. The loading-rod had somehow got down his back, and he could not get hold of it, while it crippled him; and he had a very white face indeed when I helped him out by holding my gun out to him. He had lost his gun, but my groom dived and brought it out.

I wished him to canter home at once, but he did not like to be seen in the pickle he was in—mud, green mud, from head to foot; and he insisted on waiting till his man brought a change. This took an hour, and the day, though bright, was cold and windy. So there he stood in his wet clothes, his teeth chattering, trying to keep himself warm by jumping; but his struggles in the water-hole had so weakened him that he could hardly stand. Of course he had a severe go of intermittent fever, which laid him up for a fortnight. In after excursions he was content to leave me the right or dangerous side, which I from habit was able to safely travel in.

Pierson and I visited a magnificent palace which was in course of construction by the Imād-u-dowlet. Some idea of its size may be given when I say that there was stabling for two hundred horses. In Persia, when a man passes fifty, he begins to be seized with a mania for building, but he takes care not to finish the works he undertakes, being thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of his own death in case of the completion of the edifice.

Some ten years after I had left Kermanshah, Imādieh—so the place was called—was presented (I dare say much against the grain) to the king. At that time the Imād-u-dowlet had become the actual freeholder of the whole of the Kermanshah valley, and his wealth was immense in money and flocks and herds. But the inevitable evil day arrived. The Shah recalled him to Teheran, and the squeezing process commenced; large sums of money were wrung from him, and the royal treasury correspondingly enriched. It is always so in Persia; a man is allowed to quietly enrich himself, but when he has achieved immense wealth he becomes a mark for oppression in his turn. To use the common expression of the country, “He is ripe; he must be squeezed.”

THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. (NAKSH-I-RŪSTAM.)

Just by Imādieh, at the base of a high cliff, is an excavated arched chamber, at the back of which, carved from the living rock, is an equestrian statue armed with a lance; it is of colossal size, and some fourteen feet high (?). Both figure and horse are much damaged by time and the hand of man, and it is difficult to make much out of the detail. There are two other figures, one at either extremity of the back of the arch.

Over the entrance of the arched chamber, which forms a delightfully cool place to have tea in, are carved in the face of the cliff itself two figures of Fame (?) (or winged female figures); to the best of my remembrance they have trumpets. These are more in the Roman style, or may be even modern (pseudo-classic), for the early Kings of Persia employed foreign artificers to decorate their palaces; instance being seen in Ispahan, particularly in the large oil-paintings, which are certainly not by Oriental artists. Of the great antiquity of the figures within the arch there can be no doubt, and they are more than alto-relievo, for they are only affixed to the rock by a small strip, and are much under-cut. They have been frequently scientifically described, and appear to be the work of the Sassanian kings.

There are several similar though less pretentious figures: one at Naksh-i-Rūstam,[14] near Persepolis; another, called by the people “Ferhad and Shireen,” near Shiraz; but these latter are simply rough carvings in relief.

A stone platform has been built in front of the archway, and below this flows a great volume of spring-water that comes from a natural tunnel beneath the statues. A large hauz or tank is kept constantly full by this, and when we were there it was ornamented by a flock of some sixty tame geese, the only ones I had seen, save those in Teheran, and the recent sight of them had something to do with my hesitation when in search of sport on the occasion which I have noted.

The shade and coolness, the noise of flowing water, and the huge tank with the geese on it (and a swimming goose in a large piece of water is a decidedly handsome bird, when you have no swans), rendered this place a favourite one to drink tea and smoke pipes in.

The Naib-ul-ayālut, the second son of the Imād-u-dowlet, was a man who devoted much attention to astrology and the pursuit of the philosopher’s stone. He entertained us one day with tea at the statue, and gave us an impromptu exhibition of fireworks; and as they were discharged from the edge of the tank, it acted like a mirror, and the effect was good in the extreme.

Astrology is at a premium in Persia; the monajem, or astrologers, are consulted on almost every subject. Each village has its diviner, and each big town supports several, the head of whom boasts the sounding title of “monajem-bashi” (chief astrologer).

Their great occupation is to predict fortunate hours, days, etc. They will fix on a day for a great man to start on a journey or arrive at a place, and the man will be careful to follow the astrologer’s direction, for they have a great belief in bad and good luck. The rules by which the astrologers make their calculations are very complicated; strange to say, there are many of them who really believe in their own profession. Each has his astrolabe of brass or silver; some of the brass ones are very large and handsome: I have known as much as one thousand kerans paid for a good one. They are manufactured in the country. The king’s astrologer is a very great man indeed, and no important act is undertaken without consulting him. Often the astrologer goes further than his own special business of “ruling the planets,” and by means of rolling six dice, which revolve on a rod run through the centre of them, he pretends to read the future—in fact, he is a fortune-teller. Many, too, are rammals, or discoverers of stolen property. This is often ingeniously done, after a good deal of hocus pocus, by working on the fears of the thieves.

The old, old plans are adopted: sticks are given to the suspected, and they are told they will grow if they are guilty; the conscience-stricken breaks a piece off. Or they are told to dip their hands into a pot placed in a dark room; this is full of dye stuff; the guilty man does not dip his hand, and is so detected. Or, more frequently, all the suspects are sworn to innocence in the name of some local saint, and are informed that the vengeance of the saint will fall on the guilty man if the property is not returned; in the morning it often mysteriously reappears. These men, then, are of use, and by their means property may often be recovered that would otherwise never be traced.

I myself have employed them successfully on several occasions. As a rule, thefts by domestics of anything valuable are very rare, though pilfering goes on a good deal, for the Persian servant looks on his master’s tea, sugar, and grain as lawful plunder; when things are taken, it is usually done by a servant merely in the hope of getting a rival into trouble, and an edict that the servants will have to pay a little more than the value of the lost property is enough to bring it back; it is impossible to detect under these circumstances the abstractor. But if a thief is really among the household, the servants as a rule find him out and clamour for his discharge.

Such an event happened when my best pipe-head suddenly disappeared. I sent for the rammal, and after various mysterious ceremonies unsuccessfully gone through, the man retired promising me my property before noon the next day. Next morning one of my men calmly informed me that he had seen the prophet Mahommed in a dream, who addressed him thus—

“‘Hadji, my son, are you well?’

“‘Alas! no, holy prophet; I am in deep grief, my heart is burnt up with misery.’

“‘Why is this, son Hadji?’

“‘My master has lost a pipe-head, O prophet, and I—I, the innocent Hadji—may be suspected; the hearts of all the servants are tightened (idiom) by this sad fear.’

“‘Be not afraid, son Hadji; if you look at the top left-hand corner of your master’s tank, you will find it.’

“I swooned away with delight, sahib, and am only waiting your permission to make a search.”

I smiled, and of course there they found my pipe-head. As I knew theft was not intended, I said nothing, but I did not reward the vision-seeing finder.

One day in Kermanshah I was surprised to meet a procession in the streets. First came all the lutis or buffoons, the public musicians singing and dancing, then a crowd of drunken roughs, then a few soldiers with fixed bayonets, then the “farrash-bashi,” or “principal tent-pitcher”—in reality the Imād-u-dowlet’s head-man—on horseback; then the executioner, clad in red, and his aides; then two wretched women, their heads shaved and rubbed with curds, their faces bare and blackened, dressed in men’s clothes, and both seated on one donkey, led by a negro, with their faces to the tail (their feet had been beaten to a pulp); then a crowd of some two thousand men, women, and children. On inquiry I learnt that these women were attendants at a public bath, and had betrayed the wife of a tradesman into the hands of an admirer, who had secreted himself in the bath with their connivance. The woman complained, the man fled, and justice (Persian justice) was being done on the two unfortunate women. The Imād-u-dowlet had severely bastinadoed them and then gave them over to the executioner to be paraded through the town and then banished—after they had been handed over to the tender mercies of all the ruffians of the city. The first part of the sentence had been carried out, and they had been led thus through the bazaars from dawn till afternoon; the executioner taking, as is customary, a small tax from each trader according to his degree. Such is the Persian custom from old times. I learnt afterwards that the mob defiled these women, and one died of her injuries; the other poor wretch either took poison or was given it by her offended relatives the next morning.

Such is Persian justice.

CHAPTER XI.
I GO TO ISPAHAN.

Deficiency of furniture—Novel screws—Pseudo-masonry—Fate of the Imād-u-dowlet’s son—House-building—Kerind—New horse—Mule-buying—Start for Ispahan—Kanaats—Curious accident—Fish in kanaats—Loss of a dog—Pigeons—Pigeon-towers—Alarm of robbers—Put up in a mosque—Armenian village—Armenian villagers—Travellers’ law—Tax-man at Dehbeed—Ispahan—The bridge—Julfa.

In these early days of the Telegraph Department we all had considerable difficulty in getting furniture; the little good furniture Pierson and I had, viz., two tables, came from Baghdad, and was originally made in India. I was delighted to get from my friend the farrash-bashi a magnificent arm-chair made of mahogany and stuffed in velvet. Even the word for a chair, “sandalli,” was not used in Kermanshah, but “kūrsi,” a platform, was the expression; and the rough chairs we got made, of plane or poplar, painted bright green or red in water-colour and unvarnished, and pinned together by wooden pegs in lieu of mortises, were uneasy in the extreme, always coming to grief; and the travelling camp-stools, with no back, were nearly as bad. In Ispahan the natives are clever as carpenters, and now make chairs, tables, and even chests of drawers very fairly. I once had some made by a very clever young Armenian carpenter, and the chests of drawers were very good indeed, but I found that the locks and hinges were nailed on instead of screws being used. I sent them back, and then, rather than buy screws, which are somewhat expensive in Persia, the carpenter cut slots with a file in the head of each round-headed nail, sending them to me and triumphantly demanding his money, supposing that now at least I was satisfied.

But on putting a screwdriver to them, I detected the ingenious deception, and remembering the Persian proverb, “If you can deal with an Armenian, you can deal with the devil,” I had to put pressure on the man to get screws really put on.

The farrash-bashi’s arm-chair arrived with five pounds in cash, ten loaves of sugar—loaf-sugar was one and sixpence a pound at that time and only used by the rich—several pounds of tea, and twenty mule-loads of barley—not a bad fee. I was surprised at the largeness of it, and found that the farrash-bashi was a “mason,” which accounted for it.

One of the king’s servants conceived the brilliant idea of introducing pseudo-masonry into Persia for the sake of his own aggrandisement. He inaugurated so-called lodges of masons (Feramūsh-khana, “the house of forgetfulness,” is the name used in the country for a masonic lodge) all over Persia, specially impressing on the neophytes the doctrine that implicit obedience was in all things temporal to be yielded to the superior, and exacted large contributions. With a people so excitable as the Persians, anything mysterious has a great charm. The astute mirza took care only to initiate rich neophytes, or at all events men of position, and a gigantic political engine was the result (of course all this was quite contrary to the spirit of masonry, which especially avoids politics). The king got wind of the matter, and the clever Armenian (for he was a son of poor Armenians of Julfa) was banished the kingdom, or fled to save his throat. But time went on, the past was condoned, and the poor Armenian boy now occupies a high diplomatic position at a great European Court, and holds the title of prince.

It appears that the farrash-bashi’s handsome fee was not so much caused by gratitude for professional treatment, but was merely a way of “rendering unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s,” for he had seen a masonic jewel of mine similar to one worn by the maker of mock masons, and hence the chair and the rest of it.

A curious episode now occurred. The Imād-u-dowlet had a son, his youngest and favourite. This fellow was guilty of every crime that is possible. While we were in Kermanshah he had attempted his father’s life, and actually wounded him with slugs from a pistol discharged at a few yards’ distance. The Imād at length confined him in chains to his chamber. At the intercession of his brothers, the chains after forty-eight hours were removed, and in a week or so he was received into apparent favour, and set at liberty. But from what we learnt afterwards, this was merely a manœuvre to quiet the minds of the townspeople—his destruction had been resolved on.

One morning a man of the Imād’s rushed into our courtyard and implored me to start at once for Imādieh, where, it was stated, the prince had wounded himself with his gun. I left at once on a very good horse of Pierson’s, and galloped violently to the place.

Here I found the Imād’s doctor, Mirza Zeynal Abdeen. He was as white as a sheet, and hurried me to the edge of the large tank; there lay the corpse of the Imād’s son; a few servants stood round, and seemed frightened out of their wits. Mirza Zeynal Abdeen was beside himself, and besought me to do something.

I told him the man had been dead some time. This seemed to astonish him. On closer inspection I found that death had been caused by a gun-shot wound, fired with the muzzle touching, or almost touching, the junction of the chin and neck; so close had the weapon been placed that the flesh was burnt by the flame. The entire charge was lodged in the brain. Nobody could give any information, but the man’s discharged gun lay by him. I have no doubt that the matter was really an execution, for one of the wrists was bruised by finger-marks, and doubtless the unfortunate man had been held down and slain with his own weapon.

An account was given that he had thrown the gun up and caught it several times, but, missing it, that the butt struck the pavement and the gun exploded; but the muzzle must have been nearly touching when discharged. There being nothing more to do, I promised to break the news to the Imād-u-dowlet, though doubtless he was well aware of the result.

I got on the horse Pierson had lent me on account of its swiftness, to return, but he could hardly move, so I took my servant’s. As we crawled towards the town, my servant leading the foundered animal, we had to take him into a village; he lay down and died, and I rode home on the servant’s horse. On the way, every now and then, I met parties of the grandees of Kermanshah, coming out with their servants to inquire the result of the “accident.”

I replied to their questions that the man was dead, on which these bearded men burst into loud weeping and shed floods of tears, getting down to take up handfuls of mud, which they immediately plastered on their hats as a sign of mourning.

I was spared any interview with the Imād. His people stated that he was aware of what had happened, and was in retirement in his women’s quarters. The unfortunate young man’s funeral was conducted with every show of grief.

Pierson left for Teheran, where he was called to act temporarily as Director, and I became now much occupied in looking after the building of my house, which a native had contracted to finish in six weeks under penalty of one toman a day for any delay over that time. I frequently sent to the man to ask why he did not commence, but the answer was always the same, “Furder” (“to-morrow”). To-morrow, of course, never came, and the fellow incurred a penalty of six hundred kerans. I let him off two hundred, but he was compelled to pay up the remainder, much to his astonishment and disgust.

I had occasion to go to Kerind, which is the last telegraph-station in Persia. The country was covered with snow, so I could not see much of the place. The Kerindis are reported to be a very turbulent set, and bad Mussulmans. They eat many things that are unlawful, as the hare, and are said to be devil-worshippers, or Yezeedis, and to celebrate certain unchaste rites.

However this may be, they seemed to me to be a fine, honest lot of people, and their then Governor, Malekneas Khan, certainly was not deficient in politeness and florid compliment, for he sent me a letter addressed “To the great English doctor, he who sits in the presence of princes.”

On my return I passed through Myedesht, some seven farsakhs from Kermanshah, celebrated for its horses. Here I bought a strong three-year-old horse for four hundred kerans (sixteen pounds). My stud had now got to five, for my patients kept me in corn and fodder, so all an animal cost me was his price and pay of groom. I used to take long rides each day, and we always managed, the groom and I, to tire all five horses over the turf. In fact, after dispensary hours there was little else to do, for there were only two signallers here, of whom I did not see much, as when one was on duty the other was sleeping.

Captain Chambers, who was newly appointed to the Persian Telegraph, now arrived, and it was a change for the better to have a companion. He received orders to buy mules for the Indian Government, for use in the Abyssinian war, and purchased some three hundred. Hardly was the mule-buying over, when orders came that the line from Teheran viâ Hamadan and Kermanshah, was to be handed over to the Persians; and I received orders to march across country to Ispahan, to which station I was now appointed.

We started—Mr. Hughes, clerk in charge of Kermanshah office, and his wife; Sergeant Hockey, Line Inspector, and his wife; and two signallers, all of whom, with myself, were transferred to the Ispahan section.

We went as far as Kangawar upon the post-road towards Hamadan, and then turned off on a less-known route to Ispahan, viâ Khonsar and Gūlpigon.

Nothing particularly noticeable occurred till we got to a large village called Gougas, where we had to make a day’s halt to rest the mules. The spring was well advanced, and the whole plain showed heavy crops. What, however, interested us was the quantity of ruined kanaats, or underground watercourses, these teemed with pigeons; some of them were of a depth of seventy feet.

The greater part of the irrigation of Persia is carried on by systems of underground tunnelling, called “kanaats.” A well is dug, generally on the slope of a range of hills, until water is reached; then, a few feet above the bottom of this well, a tunnel is made some four feet high and two wide, having its outlet in a second well, and so constructed as to have a very slight fall towards well No. 2. Should the ground be soft these tunnels are lined by large oval hoops of baked pottery, two inches thick and a foot wide. By placing these continuously the prime cost of the tunnel is much increased, but the expense for repairs is very much less; the great charge being the annual clearing out that the tunnels, unless lined, require, the soil falling in and blocking them, and the fall of water being lost by accumulations of the settlings of mud and sand.

Sometimes the wells of the kanaats are not more than twenty yards apart; sometimes as far off as fifty or even eighty. As each well is dug, the “mokennis,” or tunnellers, draw up from it all the earth, which they carefully place round it in a circle. As they come to water, the mud which is drawn up is poured on the earth, and as it hardens in the sun, a number of crater-like mounds are formed; these mark the lines of kanaats, which may be distinguished running across barren plains for many miles, or even farsakhs. They are often dry, and disused ones are rather dangerous.

I once, when riding, went into an old one, horse and all, but managed to scramble out as my horse struggled; he plugged the well, and had to be, with some difficulty, dug and drawn out.

A very curious accident happened to Mr. H⸺, of the Department, when coursing at Teheran. Fair coursing was obtained in the immediate vicinity of the capital, but the kanaat-holes rendered it somewhat dangerous. A run took place, and Mr. H⸺ was missed. His horse, riderless, joined the others, and the only conclusion was that he must have tumbled down a well-hole, which occur here in tens of thousands, and in every direction. After a long search his hat was discovered at the margin of one of the innumerable well-holes. That saved his life; for had his hat not been found, he would still be in the kanaat, as his voice would never have reached the surface. Stirrup-leathers were joined, and he was drawn out not much the worse, strange to say, though his face and hands were badly cut. To construct a kanaat is the highest benefit a rich man can confer upon a village; it at once becomes a flourishing place. Sometimes a long series of tunnels and wells are dug, and by some error in calculation there is no supply of water; but this is very rare. The great advantage of these subterranean channels is, that loss by evaporation is reduced to a minimum, and water cannot be stolen; of course the cost of making is very great; but if successful it is a very profitable transaction, for the ryots have to buy the water, and at a high price.

Most of the kanaats are full of fish: where they come from is a puzzle, as the water is lost in the ground at one end and rises subterraneously at the other. I believe it has been shown by Darwin that fish-spawn is carried on the feet of frogs: this at times accounts for it. The larger kanaat fish are not very nice, having a sodden muddy taste—they are like tench; but the smaller ones, when fried, resemble much the “Friture de la Seine” sold at the restaurants at Asnières. We often, when marching, amused ourselves by obtaining a good friture from the openings of the kanaats in the villages, in rather an unsportsmanlike manner. Cocculus Indicus (some ten beans) was pounded and mixed with dough, and cast down one of the wells; in an hour, at least a half-bushel of fish were always caught. The fish poison imparted no poisonous effects to the flesh of the fish, probably because so small a portion was taken. The fish, if allowed to remain in the water, generally recovered; the large ones always did. This mode of getting a dish of fish would have been hardly excusable; but in a country where the only food on the road is fowls or eggs, a change is of great importance. These kanaat-fish will not take bait as a rule, though I have known them to be voracious and easily taken by paste.

The ruined and dry kanaats are much more numerous than those in working order, and form a secure asylum for jackals and porcupines. Three very good bull-terriers I had, once went down a kanaat near Shiraz after a porcupine; two were badly wounded from the quills, and the third, a very old and decrepit dog, was lost, probably drowned. I fancy from their muzzles that they must have killed the beast, but the dogs did not recover from the effects of the quill wounds for a fortnight; and one had a piece of quill lodged in her thigh that I did not detect till she showed it me and almost asked me to extract it a month after. In the unsuccessful search we made for the decrepit dog in the kanaat, we nearly came to grief ourselves, for as I was creeping along with a lantern in my hand, up to my knees in mud and water, a quantity of earth and stones fell from the roof, separating me from my man who followed. I rushed for the well in front, and was drawn out by servants who were awaiting me, while my man made for the one we had descended by; we were equally glad to see each other. It was the first time I had been in a kanaat—I mean it to be the last.

Pigeons may generally be shot for the pot from these kanaats, and afford very good practice; the pigeons are similar to our blue rocks. One simply follows a line of wells, and just before you reach a well, a servant throws a stone into that behind; if there be any pigeons they usually rise and give a fair chance, returning to the kanaat by a neighbouring well. Considerable amusement may be got out of this. Gougas was full of pigeons, and here we first saw the pigeon towers so common in Ispahan. A description of one will serve for all, for they differ merely in size. The towers are constructed simply for the collection of pigeons’ dung, which commands a high price as a manure for the raising of melons, and, in fact, is a kind of guano. The pigeon when living in the kanaats is liable to the depredations of jackals, foxes, etc., so the Ispahanis, the most careful and calculating of the Persian nation, build these towers for the pigeons. They are circular, and vary in height, from twenty to seventy feet, and are sometimes as much as sixty feet in diameter. The door, which is merely an opening in the wall half-way up, is only opened once a year for the collection of the guano, the remainder of the time it is plastered like the rest of the building, which is composed of mud bricks and ornamented with a ring of plaster painted with scrolls or figures in red ochre. These bricks are made on the spot, and cost from one keran to two kerans a thousand. The whole surface of the inside of the circular outer wall is covered with small cells open to one side about twelve inches in size; in these the pigeons build. In the centre of the circle are two walls cutting each other at a right angle, and so forming a cross; the sides and ends of these walls are also covered with cells.

I have counted cells for seven thousand one hundred pairs in a large pigeon tower; there were five thousand five hundred in the outer wall, and sixteen hundred in the cruciform wall occupying the centre. Most of those near Ispahan are now in ruins, for as it is no longer the capital, an excessive price cannot be obtained for early melons, and so pigeon-keeping is not so profitable. In no case did the proprietor of the tower feed the birds; they picked up a living from the fields of the neighbours.

A ridiculous incident now occurred to us. As we were marching across an immense plain, we noticed men in a crowd on the side of the mountains; they were all armed, and seemed over a hundred in number. We were considerably alarmed to see that they ran in a body towards our caravan, which we had no doubt would now be looted, for what were three revolvers and a cavalry sabre against a hundred armed men? The muleteers ran away, shouting “Doz, doz!” (“Thieves, thieves!”) We could not save ourselves by flight, for two of the party were married—Mr. Hughes and Sergeant Hockey—and their wives were in palikees, or paniers, on the mules.

The armed crowd advanced at a run; we put ourselves on the supposed danger-side of the caravan. The mules had all stopped when the drivers ran away, and to our delight we found that the armed men were merely some villagers who had fled to the mountains rather than pay excessive taxes. These poor fellows begged us to intercede with the Governor of Ispahan for them on our arrival, which we promised to do. Our muleteers, seeing there was no fighting, now returned; we put up our revolvers, and on we went. We did not pass through Khonsar, which is off the road.

That night we arrived at a small village which had a quantity of warm springs. So unsophisticated were the natives that, having no other shelter to give us, they suggested that we, like Mussulman travellers, should put up in the mosque. To this we did not object, and had a very good resting-place. This was a very extraordinary occurrence, as villagers are generally very bigoted; but I fancy these people did not really understand that we were not Mahommedans.

The next stage was Lilliane, an Armenian village; the people were apparently prosperous; they wore the dress of the ancient Armenians, or Feridan costume. Feridan is a collection of villages, most of which are Armenian, in the neighbourhood of Ispahan. The priest put me up; he had been to Bombay, and seemed a decent fellow. He was an old man, and told me that, were it not for their secluded position, they should be much oppressed.

The men and boys seemed very boorish; the women were clad in the peculiar ancient costume referred to. Cylinders of pasteboard were swathed in chintz of various colours, and worn as head-coverings. These hats, if they may be so called, were ornamented with strings of silver coins; they wore long trousers, the bottoms of which were in some cases elaborately embroidered. It is these embroideries, called naksh, that are exhibited in the Persian collection in the South Kensington Museum. At one time they were part of the universal indoor dress of the Persian women; each bride worked herself a pair during her girlhood, and they are said to have employed three, four, or even five years in the labour. The figures are flowers, generally roses, worked in diagonal rows in fine silk on muslin; there is no filling in, it is all stitching.

To return to the women. They had high shagreen shoes and thick socks of coloured wool; the skirts were long but not voluminous; over the dress was worn a long mantle of red cloth, trimmed and lined with foxes’ skin; the shirts were red or green, and the breasts were allowed to be fully exposed as ornaments. This liberal exhibition struck us as very strange. A huge metal belt of copper plated, or silver, girded their waists; the hair was hidden by long kerchiefs tied over the head and hanging down behind, while, strangest of all, a white cloth was tied round the neck and hid the nose and mouth. This, I was informed by the priest, is never removed—they even sleep in it. With them it is what the veil is with the Mahommedan woman, the sign of modesty: this completed the costume.

The women, all save the very old, spoke only in whispers or by pantomime. A girl on marriage never speaks in the presence of her mother-in-law or husband—she only signs. The very young girls and very old women, however, fully made up for the silence of the rest.

The priest was much surprised that we did not accept his invitation to get drunk, telling me that “if one didn’t get drunk one might as well be a Mussulman.” The Armenians were very friendly, but charged us much more for provisions, etc., than the Mussulmans. They are great beggars.

Of Gūlpigon, a large, scattered place, we saw nothing, from the weather being bad, but I got some good carpets there.

Our last stage brought us again on the regular caravan road to Ispahan, and there we found a magnificent stone caravanserai (Charlēseah).

There were quantities of travellers, but we were lucky enough to arrive in time to find good rooms. This is of great importance, for if one happens to come in after the arrival of a big caravan with pilgrims, or a regiment of soldiers, it is next to impossible to get rooms, and a row is often the result, for the presence of a large number of co-religionists makes the people put on the appearance of bigotry; and some beggar will insist perhaps on occupying a room large enough for ten, and decline to be even bought out; an unpleasant wrangle will ensue, and then, if one is not good-tempered, a row. First come is first served, and good road law.

ARMENIAN WOMEN.

(From a Native Drawing.)

Generally, however, a few kerans will secure two rooms, and as a rule stratagems obtain the accommodation that force fails to secure. I thought myself, when a married man, that it was better to pay a small fee when I found, as I did at times, every room occupied and no other place to go to. At the same time it is a crying shame that the employés of our Persian Telegraph Department, who always travel on business, should not be enabled to go to the post-houses as a right, and that they are at times compelled to argue in the rain, or engage in serious rows, when they find that there is absolutely no other means of getting shelter for themselves and families. This is particularly hard, too, on the signaller and subordinate member, who, with few muleteers and perhaps two servants, finds it more difficult to secure a place to put his head in than the superior officer, who has a regiment of servants and muleteers, and can consequently overawe opposition, and be too strong to provoke a row.

At times one must have recourse to stratagem. At Dehbeed, the loneliest and coldest station in Persia, there is no village, only a post-house and caravanserai, the latter quite in ruins; these, with the telegraph-office, form all the shelter in winter, in summer-time there are a few black tents. One bitter winter’s day I arrived at Dehbeed, marching, and proceeded to the post-house. This I found full of irregular horsemen, some twenty in each bottom room, while their master, a Khan, engaged in collecting taxes, occupied the top room. I, supposing these men were servants, asked them to vacate one room; they declined, and told me to get out of the place, and not on any account to wake the Khan.

What was I to do? Dehbeed is twenty-four miles from any village, the caravanserai in ruins, and the greater part of the telegraph-office had fallen in from heavy snow. The unfortunate sergeant in charge had reported to the superintendent, Mr. W⸺, the state of his office, and on asking how he was to keep the instrument dry with no roof, had been told “to sit on it.” He and his family were at a loss for room, and there was no other shelter of any kind, and snow to any amount, temperature awful, and three in the afternoon. The only thing was to shake down in the stable. I had no right in the post-house as I was marching, and not riding, post, nor had this Khan, for the same reason.

Programme:—to attempt to get a room by begging and trusting to his politeness; if that fails, a ruse. I shout violently, and am threatened by the rough horsemen.

At last I wake the Khan, and a message is sent down to know what I want. I reply that a room is all I need, and will he give me one of the three he occupies?

I am invited to a cup of tea.

Fortunately my caravan is not yet arrived, I being ahead, so I go up-stairs, am very polite, and have no doubt of getting a room. I am regaled with a cup of tea, and after a long explanation from my entertainer, the royal tax-gatherer, as to what a great man he is, and how he is waiting orders from the Governor of Fars, at Shiraz, I am told I had better march twenty-four miles, through the snow, to the next stage.

I did not argue with the Khan, but I was determined to get quarters, and I told him that I should telegraph at once to the Governor at Shiraz and complain.

“Go to the devil,” was the reply.

Boiling with rage I plodded through the deep snow to the telegraph-office. I knew the line was down, and that I could not telegraph to Shiraz, but I had my plan.

I returned with a large telegraph form covered with English writing, and entering the Khan’s room in a blustering manner sat down and tossed him the supposed despatch.

“What is this, sahib?”

“A message for you.”

“But I can’t read it; please read it for me.”

I carelessly comply, after pulling off my wet boots.

“His Royal Highness the Governor of Fars to ⸺, Khan.

“What do you mean by refusing to give the European quarters? Vacate post-house at once, and proceed instantly to Abadeh for orders.”

Now had this Persian been as sharp as he was ill-mannered and dog-in-the-mangery he would have known that he would never have received such a message; but he gave credit to it, supposing that I had complained by wire, and he cleared out with many apologies. Poor devil! He started for Abadeh, seventy miles off, the nearest halting-place twenty-eight miles, just as day was fading and my caravan marching in to the post-house. The weather was very bitter, and this rather Persian way of getting the man out did not weigh on my conscience. I told the Governor of Fars, and he said simply, “Serve him right, he ought to have given you at least one room.”

Ispahan was surrounded by gardens and full of ruins. Here a street, of which a fourth of the houses were inhabited; there a ruined quarter; then miles of bazaar full of buyers and sellers, who shouted “Bero, Armeni!” (“Be off, Armenian!”) with occasional gaps of ruins. Then a huge maidān, or public square, the largest in Persia, one end thronged by hucksters, at the other the Musjid-i-Shah, or royal mosque; more ruins, then a magnificent and lofty bazaar, also in ruins, through which we rode; then the Char Bagh, a royal garden, with its tile-domed college and golden ball, and with its rows of magnificent planes, and its dry and ruined tanks and watercourses; then a fine and level bridge which crossed the river Zendarūd, which just at that time was full of rushing muddy water, passing furiously under the many arches.

At length we arrived in Julfa, the Armenian village on the further side of the Ispahan river, after seventeen days’ marching from Kermanshah, and two occupied by our halt in Gougas. We had found the grass and young wheat high there, and plenty of lambs to be bought; but Ispahan was not so forward, the trees being only just in leaf, and weather cold.

CHAPTER XII.
JULFA.

Illness and death of horse—Groom takes sanctuary—Sharpness of Armenians—Julfa houses—Kūrsis—Priests—Arachnoort—Monastery—Nunnery—Call to prayer—Girls’ school—Ancient language of the Scriptures—Ignorance of priests—Liquor traffic—Sunday market—Loafers—Turkeys—Church Missionary school—Armenian schools.

I was given quarters in Ispahan that did not possess a stable, and I had to hire one a good way off. This cost me one of my horses, for my careless groom, instead of giving the animals “teleet,” the mixture of grass and straw, simply filled their mangers with clover, and, leaving them to their fate, went to enjoy himself in the town. The natural result followed: I was hurriedly summoned to the stable, and found my Myedesht horse “Armchair” (I had given him this name on account of the ease of his paces) flinging his head about against the ground, from which he was unable to rise; he had acute inflammation of the bowels, as I found from an examination after death.

At that time, knowing little or nothing of the diseases of horses, I was compelled to send for a native farrier, and let him work his wicked will on the poor beast. The treatment he employed was to put on a quantity of heavy clothing, canter the animal furiously about, and deprive him of water; in about four hours he died. I have since had horses who suffered in a similar way, notably in one case where I was offered ten tomans for a horse which cost sixty. I bled him largely and saved his life, but his hoofs were never any good afterwards, becoming hollow, and he was chronically foundered. I had better have dealt. Bleeding, in my experience, is the only remedy; of course, the violent cantering is the very worst possible thing.

During the excitement, my groom, a Persian of Kermanshah, slipped away, and I found that he had taken sanctuary in the Armenian Cathedral. I, however, as he was a Mussulman, got him with some difficulty away, gave him the thrashing he deserved, and kicked him out.

I found that in Julfa the cost of living was much higher than in Kermanshah, the Armenians never allowing anything to be sold to the English save at a high price; and in this manner a sort of special rate was paid by the Europeans. The remedy we adopted was to buy everything from the town, and this answered so well that, in about six months, our pay went twice as far as before. Mr. Walton, the superintendent, with some difficulty got a bazaar list with the real prices of the usual necessaries as sold in the town of Ispahan, and circulated it among the staff. These prices turned out to be nearly the same as those we had paid in Kermanshah.

Julfa itself was, for an Armenian village, unusually pleasant in appearance. The Armenians are essentially gardeners, and each house had its vineyard or orchard; the water for irrigating these was led in open channels through the middle of the principal streets, and the edges of these channels were thickly planted with “zoban-i-gungishk,” or “sparrow-tongue,” a quick-growing kind of willow, so called from the pointed leaf. This tree makes the best firewood, giving a lasting ember; the trees are lopped each year, and the twigs and branches are used for making thatch, over poplar or plane poles, for roofing those rooms which are not arched. In Ispahan most rooms have an arched roof.

The houses in Julfa are all built of mud bricks; some of them are very ancient, going back to four hundred years. The clay of Ispahan is very tenacious; and as the walls, particularly of the older houses, are built from four to five feet thick, very substantial dwellings are the result, warm in winter but cool in summer.

The Armenians almost invariably at that time (1871) built their rooms with arched brick roofs; these were quite impervious to the weather and delightfully cool in summer. The cold in winter was very great, but as the Armenian does not use an open fire, but sits the greater part of his time, his feet under a “kūrsi,” or platform having a brazier under it, and is very warmly clad in wool and skins, he does not feel it.

These “kūrsi” (literally platforms) are an economical arrangement used in every Armenian house. A small hole is dug in the floor (in summer it is planked over); in this is placed a clay fire-pan, half full of wood ashes; on them are a few handfuls of lighted charcoal. The “kūrsi,” a frame eighteen inches high, and varying from two feet square to four, is placed over this fire, and over this “kūrsi” is laid a “lahāf,” or thickly-wadded cotton quilt of such size as to cover the “kūrsi” and extend beyond it for a yard and a half. Around the “kūrsi” are placed thin mattresses or cushions; on these the whole family sit by day, and here they all sleep at night. In the day the “kūrsi” acts as a table, on which the meals are eaten; at night the feet are kept thoroughly warm by the fire-pot and the quilt. As the Armenians never wash more than once a month, and very seldom that, the “kūrsi,” with its heat, forms a nidus for the vermin with which they are infested; but it enables them to support the cold of their large and airy rooms at a minimum cost for fuel. Whole families thus sleeping in one apartment, guests, married couples, children and all, does not tend to promote morality, which with these people is at a very low ebb.

What struck me most was the great multitude of priests in the place. India and Batavia are supplied with priests from Julfa; these priests are under the jurisdiction of a bishop, whose head-quarters are the so-called monastery, or Egglesiah Wang, literally “big church.” He is assisted by a monk of jovial port, the Kalifa Kuchek, or, as he is familiarly termed, the little bishop. This little bishop, who has held his post for many years, is much and deservedly respected in the place. Nominally the jurisdiction of Julfa is in the hands of the bishop; literally, the little bishop attends to this temporal power, and gives general satisfaction.

The Arachnoort, or bishop, at the time of my arrival was one Moses; and he added to his income, regardless of consequences, by accepting bribes to make priests; some of the priests he made he accepted as little as ten pounds for, and many could neither read nor write. His successor, the present bishop, a man of singularly prepossessing appearance and blameless life, does not do this, and exacts a fair education and a good character in his candidates for ordination.

A very amusing instance showing this occurred in 1881. I had a dirty, drunken cook, whom, though knowing his work, I had to discharge for drunkenness and dishonesty; he was notoriously a great blackguard, but a clever fellow. To my astonishment in a day or two I met my drunken cook, dressed in sad-coloured garments, washed and sober. I was much surprised at the change for the better, and was told that the reason was that he was to be made a priest in a day or two. I inquired of the little bishop, and was told that he had offered a bribe of twenty pounds, or kerans five hundred, to be made a priest; but that, as the bishop did not like to hurt the man’s feelings, he had told him to live cleanly, keep sober, and that with study he might hope in time for ordination, but that just at that time it was impossible to comply with his wishes. The man’s feelings were thus spared. Alas! for the cook; in a few days he was found, as usual, drunk and incapable in the street, and compelled to say, “Nolo episcopari.”

The “Egglesiah Wang” (great church) was formerly a large monastery, and many monks inhabited it; the cells are now mostly used as store-rooms. Besides the Arachnoort and the little bishop, there were only two monks in my time, of whom one died; the other, after offering himself as a convert to Protestantism, and then to Catholicism (previously he had even tried to turn Mussulman), was sent to Etchmiadzin, in Armenia, on condition of being subsequently reinstated, and there was subjected by the patriarch to severe discipline, and forgiven. He has not returned.

The nunnery is still flourishing, and there are many nuns; some of them have attained a great age. They are harmless women, whose only fault is a love of the bottle; they fast religiously, and conduct their services, which are very frequent, by day and night, with great regularity. There was a time when the Julfa churches were not allowed to have bells, and over each church-roof is a board, hung from two posts. This is drummed on with mallets, at first slowly, then fast, for some fifteen minutes before each service at the nunnery; and, as my house was near it, I can testify to the punctuality of at least the call to prayers, at half-past three A.M. and other unearthly hours.

These boards are used on every church save the “Wang,” which is provided with a handsome bell-tower, standing in its inner court on four substantial brick columns, and covered by a dome-like roof; it is at least one hundred and thirty feet high.

On Sundays, Saturday afternoons, and all feast-days, the knocking is deafening, and the awakening power is certainly greater than the bell to those in the neighbourhood. We may yet have it adopted in England as one of the primitive forms of the early Church.

Great scandals have at times arisen in this nunnery. A nun, the sister of a deserving artist who had learnt his profession in India, was starved and beaten to death, and the corpse buried at night-time by the nuns on account of her alleged irregularities. The elder nuns are very fanatical and ignorant old women. A curly-headed young Armenian, who was detected on the premises by them, and excused himself on the ground that he wished to convert them to Protestantism, of which faith he was a paid teacher, nearly met with the fate of Orpheus; that enterprising youth, after having an application for increase of pay refused, left religion as a business and took to dealing in skins, which offered more scope for his talents. So much care had been expended on his education that he could read the New Testament in the original Greek; he, however, wisely left a calling for which he felt he had no vocation.

The nuns visit the sick, and teach, under the superintendence of an able priest (Mesrop), all the Julfa girls. They are instructed in the elements of religion, and taught to read the Scriptures, without understanding them, in ancient Armenian, and to embroider, or to knit socks. The Armenian Scriptures and prayers are written in ancient Armenian, which is a language as different from the modern dialect as nineteenth-century English is from that of Edward the Confessor. Consequently, all the people, and most of the priests, do not understand either the Scriptures or the prayers, which many can read. I was present at the burial of a Christian child by the Shiraz priest; the poor man could neither read nor write, but he was prompted with the beginning of each prayer by a member of the congregation, who could read the ancient tongue; as he had these prayers all by heart he, on getting the cue, recited them fluently.

A great portion of the service in an Armenian church is performed behind a curtain, which is raised and lowered at intervals. The sacrament is, I believe, not administered to the laity. The services are inordinately long. I was present once at a wedding, and the ceremony certainly lasted two hours.

Baptism is performed by total immersion, and the infant is anointed in seven places with a cruciform mark, with green oil, said to be brought from Etchmiadzin.

A priest, as a rule, is sent forth for two years to either India or Batavia—where he goes is the important point. If he be sent to Bombay, or a large community of rich Armenians, he returns with enough to keep him for life and provide for his children; if to a poor village, he returns as poor as he went; he then is without duty for perhaps five years. All this is arranged by the Arachnoort, and is usually determined by the amount of bribe tendered by the priest to him; kissing, in fact, goes by favour.

Some few of these priests are well educated, and have made the most of the advantages of their stay in India—notably the vicar, Kashish (priest) Mardyros. He is an enlightened man, and honest, but he can never become bishop, for the bishop must be a monk, and is always sent from Etchmiadzin.

The present Arachnoort speaks only ancient Armenian, Constantinople Turkish, and a little Persian, and the power for good or evil is mostly in the hands of the little bishop and vicar. A priest may marry before he receives priest’s orders, but if his wife dies he cannot re-marry, and the widowed priest often becomes a monk. This rule leads to a good deal of immorality, some of the priests being of very bad repute.

Another cause of crime in Julfa is the existence of a barely-concealed traffic in liquor with the Mussulmans of the town. Certain wine-sellers are tolerated by the venal authorities; these men allow the Persians to frequent their houses at all hours of the day or night, selling to them dreadful mixtures of sour wine and arrack. A Persian is never a tippler—he drinks till he is mad drunk, or till overcome by sleep. As a rule the Armenian receives him as a guest, and he deposits his weapons with his host for their mutual safety. He then hands over his money, and drinks it out. Of course scenes of violence ensue: stabbing is common. A fatal case again occurred during my last stay in Julfa. I have been twice myself threatened in the street by men carrying naked knives; on the second occasion I thrashed the man severely, and took away his knife. Any appeal to the authorities would be useless. They reply, “He went to Julfa to get drunk; what can you expect?”

A few months after my arrival I removed to comfortable quarters in the Shireh-Khaneh, or wine-sellers’ street. Unfortunately mine was the first house; at all hours of the day and night violent knocks would be given at my door by intending arrack-buyers. I could only reluctantly, and as a last resource, administer a good beating to the knockers. This, after a time, had the desired effect. In my street, too, a sort of Alsatia or Tiger Bay was established; all the houses were inhabited by wine-sellers save my own, and down this street the inebriates from the town, and their Armenian friends, were in the habit of swaggering, often with drawn swords (kammer). On meeting these men I always used to thrash them, and gradually this nuisance too was abated, and when they got drunk, they got drunk on, and not off, the premises of the wine-sellers. All the Julfa houses are made with small low doorways, and massive doors are provided, of great thickness. In many of the wine-sellers’ houses a beam is kept, which leans against the door, the end going into the ground; the door is then safe against the attacks of those without.

All the old gardens and vineyards, too, are protected by low doors, some yard square, constructed of stone six inches thick; these revolve on a pin, and are like those figured as “stone shutter at Bashan” in ‘The Rob Roy Canoe in the Holy Land.’

There is a weekly market held each Sunday in the little maidān, or square, of Julfa; it is well attended. Raw cotton, fruit, grey shirting, chintzes, and notions, are sold here, and also beef, for the Armenian, unlike the Persian, is a beef-eater. Fairly good meat is obtained; one’s cook goes with a chopper and hacks off what is wanted; they have no idea of any difference in the value of joints.

Here, too, the Persian women hawk their cotton-yarn and buy socks, which are hand-knitted in Julfa by the Armenians, of wool, and also of cotton. Any hard-working woman can keep herself in Julfa by knitting; the earnings barely exceed five kerans (three and ninepence) a month; but this, with economy, is enough to keep and clothe them.

As a rule the Armenian women are industrious and notable housewives. In the summer they knit socks in groups at the doors of their houses, and gossip; in winter they do the same around the kūrsi, as long as it is light. Wine is made by all, and the jars used in the fermenting are often very ancient, some being two and three hundred years old.

Most of the men who work do a little market-gardening, and many have orchards or vineyards. But the more active and brighter travel to India or Batavia, and often make fortunes in retail trade; some have even established well-known houses in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. Many enter the Persian service; these generally apostatise. The effect of this emigration on the inhabitants of Julfa is deleterious in the extreme. The rich relations rarely forget the family in Julfa, and there are consequently a number of people subsisting on what the successful husband, father, or son, sends as a pension. These will not work, but prefer to drag on a life of idleness on a pittance. I often have asked a man, “What are your resources?” and he has replied, “My relatives at Bombay,” etc., as the case may be. Armenians at times rise to high employ: the chief of the Arsenal to the Shah is an Armenian, so is the Ambassador in London.

The first day of my arrival in Julfa I was visited by twenty-six priests; they were all regaled with brandy. The next day there were twenty-nine, including the original twenty-six, who called again. However, I treated them this time to tea, saying I had no more brandy. The third day no more priests came.

Near the banks of the river is the old church of “Soup Gework,” or “St George.” This is celebrated for being the receptacle of two miraculous stones, which have reputed power in the healing of diseases. They are said to have flown from Etchmiadzin, in Armenia, in one night, and are the ordinary stones of the country brought to Julfa by some rich citizen in bygone days for some building which was never erected.

There are also the ruins of the old church of the Jesuit Fathers standing in its garden. There is nothing remarkable in it. It is a plain brick building, less pretentious than most Julfa churches, and whitewashed inside; it is rapidly going to decay, as are many other of the Julfa churches, for the population is lessening by emigration.

The successful Armenian seldom returns; when he does, he repairs his father’s house, buys up the gardens round it, and his estate is usually devoured at last by the priests and the Persian authorities.

At one time turkeys were bred in Julfa, but the Governor of Ispahan having imposed a tax of a certain number of fat birds at the New Year, the Julfa Armenians allowed them to become extinct. At the present moment—thanks to the protective presence of the English in Julfa—the Armenians are quite on an equality with the Persians, nay, even treat them with a certain amount of arrogance. When I first came to Julfa, no Armenian dared to ride a horse, and all used to get off their donkeys when they saw a Persian of position.

Education has advanced. The English missionary school and its energetic teacher, Mr. Johannes—who, educated in England, left the Nassick School, where he was a master, to take charge of the C.M.S. school—has effected wonders. The boys, really well educated, go off at about seventeen to India, and get their living respectably; and the C.M.S. has done really good educational work; as to the proselytising, no Mussulman convert has ever been made. Many fanatics of the Baabi sect have sought and obtained temporary protection, to which they owe their lives, but as a Christianising influence it is at present a failure, though the enterprise has been carried out regardless of cost, even in the most liberal manner.

The American mission at Teheran has really succeeded in making some headway.

However, the at present (in regard to converts) abortive mission to Julfa has in the educational department certainly done wonders, and has given an impetus to the native schools, which previously, heavily subsidised by successful Armenian emigrants, had done no work at all, and were battened on by a set of hungry priests and mirzas, who on some pretext or other sent away their pupils for five days out of seven, and declared a holiday. Where the income went nobody knew; this much was apparent, there was no result.

The long fasts of the Armenian Church are loyally kept by the poorer of the Armenian community and by the villagers. They occupy altogether a sixth of the whole year, and in them no eggs or meat may be eaten, only vegetables, fruits, grain, and vegetable oil, but wine and spirits are freely indulged in.

CHAPTER XIII.
ISPAHAN.

Prince’s physician—Visit the Prince-Governor—Justice—The bastinado—Its effects—The doctor’s difficulties—Carpets—Aniline dyes—How to choose—Varieties—Nammad—Felt coats—Bad water—Baabis—A tragedy—The prince’s view.

Almost as soon as I arrived in Julfa I received a visit from the prince’s hakim-bashi, Mirza Abdul Wahab. This gentleman, a native of Kashan, had received his medical education in Paris, and was an M.D. of its University. He described his life in Ispahan as dull in the extreme, that he was never off duty save when the Prince-Governor was asleep, and that his anxieties on account of the vagaries of his charge were great. The Mirza had spent seven years in France, and had married there; he had also two native wives (his French wife afterwards came to Teheran, but soon returned to France). He complained of the many hours he had to stand, etiquette forbidding any other attitude in the prince’s presence. He told me that he had to read poetry to his Royal Highness for many hours each day.

“Not that I mind reading poetry,” said he, “but no one listens, which is provoking in the extreme.”

I was very glad to have an acquaintance with whom I could converse, for of course the hakim-bashi spoke French fluently. The appointment as physician to the eldest son of the king and Governor of Ispahan is a high employ, and the doctor hoped it would lead to better things; but he did not like the being away from the capital. He became shortly a Khan.

He invited me to call on the prince, and told me that his Royal Highness would receive me at half-past eight A.M. the next day, or, as he phrased it, two hours after sunrise. I promised to be punctual, and duly presented myself at the appointed hour.

I passed through a garden crowded with soldiers, servants, persons having petitions to make, and the usual hangers-on of a great man and his train. In a crowded outer room sat the Minister (or real Governor), Mahommed Ali Khan, under whose tutelage the Zil-es-Sultan is. The prince himself, being a mere youth, has no real power, and everything is done by Mahommed Ali Khan. The hakim-bashi now met me, and conducted me past a sentry into the private apartment of the prince.

I took off my goloshes at the door, keeping my hat on, and making a salute. The doctor introduced me in a few words, and the prince, a good-looking youth of about eighteen years, motioned me smilingly to a chair which had been placed for me opposite him. I asked after his health in French, but he insisted on my talking in Persian, and was much amused at the hash I made of it. He was a fine, good-humoured youth, full of spirits.

After the first few minutes he threw off all his air of dignity and talked and laughed merrily, asking many questions as to the manners of Europeans, the Queen, climate of England, etc. He then gave me his likeness, and told me that he photographed himself, which was the case. I was regaled with tea, and took my leave, breakfasting in the town with the hakim-bashi at his residence.

Here I saw for the first time the administration of justice in Persia. The doctor was given the charge of the Jews of Ispahan: the Jews had attended in a large crowd to complain of extortions practised upon them by the soldiers who stood sentry at his gate. These men, not content with exacting small presents from the poor people, had insulted the wife and daughter of one of their number and severely beaten them.

As we sat smoking the kalian at the open window, the crowd of some hundred Jewish men and women shrieked and gesticulated; while the two accused soldiers, who stood with the doctor’s servants, vehemently protested their innocence. The hakim-bashi shouted, so did the accused, so did the accusers, who wept, beat on their heads, and prepared apparently to rend their already ragged garments.

THE BASTINADO.

“Somebody must be beaten,” said the doctor, “and these Jews are undoubtedly horribly persecuted.”

When the shouting was at its highest, the doctor called to the sergeant of infantry and whispered in his ear. The two soldiers turned pale, and the Jews proceeded to implore blessings on the head of the doctor.

Presently a pole some eight feet long, with a transverse handle at either end and a loop of rope in the middle, was produced, and, kicking off their boots, the two soldiers lay down on the ground, and each raised a foot; but the doctor was not to be appeased so easily, and insisted on both feet of each man going into the loop. On this being done, the noose was tightened by turning the pole by means of the handles, and the soles of the soldiers’ feet were now upwards, and a fair mark; two other soldiers held the ends of the pole, which is termed a “fellek.”

The doctor now adjured the men to confess, as, if they did not, as he put it to them, he should have to thrash them till they did, and then have to punish them for the offence itself; whereas, if they confessed, there would be only one beating and accounts would be clear.

Both men confessed, though the value of a confession under such circumstances may be doubted. Then the doctor’s servants drew from his hauz a huge bundle of sticks some five feet long; they were ordinary willow wands, switchy, and about twice the thickness of the thumb at the butt; the bark was left on, and it appeared that they were kept in water to prevent their breaking too easily.

Four of the soldiers now seized each half-a-dozen wands, and, taking one in their right hands, awaited the signal. “Bezan!” (“Lay on!”) exclaimed the hakim-bashi, and they proceeded to thrash the bare soles of their comrades with the sticks; at first they struck fair on the feet, but whenever the doctor’s eye was not on them, they broke the stick over the “fellek” and substituted a fresh one.

The men now roared for mercy; some hundred sticks had been broken over their feet, and, taking an average of four blows for each stick, they had received four hundred, or two hundred each.

“Amān Agha!” “Mercy, Lord!” “Oh, hakim-bashi!” “Oh, merciless Jews!” “Oh, Mussulmans!” “Oh, doctor, sahib!” “Oh, Lord, without mercy!” “Oh, rascal Jews!” “Sons of dog fathers!” “Mer—cy!”

The hakim-bashi now addressed them—“Rascals, do you know now that you are not to oppress the king’s subjects?”

“Ah,” replied one man, “but Jews—” He had better have been silent, for the hakim-bashi raised his hand, and the beating recommenced. I now interceded, and the men were led off, limping.

I asked the doctor if such beatings would not lame the men.

He replied, “Not in the least; they will be all right in two days, if a little tender to-morrow. I have myself had quite as bad a beating from my achōn (schoolmaster) when a boy. There is no degradation in the punishment; all are liable to it, from the Prime Minister downwards. What you have seen is merely a warning; one and two thousand sticks are often given—I mean to say fairly broken over the soles of the feet—and thicker sticks than mine; say, six thousand blows.”

I asked what was the result of such beating.

“Well,” said the doctor, “I have known them fatal; but it is very rare, and only in the case of the victim being old or diseased.”

I was told that it is really very much a matter of bribing the farrashes (carpet-spreaders) who administer the punishment. As a rule, a severe beating, such as is given by the king’s farrashes, keeps a man in bed for weeks or months. Culprits much prefer it to a fine. Here the doctor called one of his servants.

“Which would you prefer,” said he, “to lose a month’s pay or take such a beating as those soldiers had?”

“The beating, of course,” replied the man.

“His pay is ten kerans a month,” said the doctor (seven-and-sixpence).

Custom, I suppose, is everything; to our tender feet such a beating would be very terrible, but Persians of the lower class walk much barefoot; in fact, like our own tramps, unless the road be very stony, one sees them on the march take off their boots and go bare, to save shoe-leather or sore feet.

The doctor told me of the trials and troubles of his position, his long hours of duty, and his many anxieties when his young charge was ill. “Your arrival is a great thing,” he said; “you can speak as I cannot dare to, and you can insist on proper directions being carried out. At present, when the prince is indisposed, all the visitors and all the old women prescribe, and as he tries all the remedies, he becomes really ill.

“Then I have to telegraph his state to the king; then the king’s French physician and his other hakims are ordered to suggest remedies. You can fancy the result. Why, when I came here, the then hakim-bashi was a young and rowdy prince, who, though a very good fellow, kept the Prince-Governor permanently on the sick-list, gave him two china-bowls of physic to take a day, and tabooed everything that was nice. Of course I broke through all that, and, by keeping him free from physic and on good plain food, he is a strong and healthy youth.” I sympathised with the doctor, and took my leave.

From the doctor’s house I went to the principal bazaar of the town to buy carpets, for I had disposed of most of my own on leaving Kermanshah, to lessen the weight of my luggage. I was shown several hundred carpets, some four by seven yards, down to little rugs a yard square. Some of the finer carpets, astonished me by their beauty, and also their price—forty pounds was a usual figure for a large and handsome carpet.

The finer and more valuable carpets were not new—in fact, few really good carpets are made nowadays. At the time I am speaking of (sixteen years ago) the magenta aniline dyes were unknown to the carpet-makers of Persia, and all the colours except the greens were fast. Nowadays the exact reverse is the case. A very brilliant carpet is produced, and if a wet handkerchief is rubbed on it, the colours come off; these are not fast, and the carpet is worthless.

The aniline dyes are particularly used in the Meshed carpets, and as these are the showiest and most attractive, they are largely exported. Of course a native will not look at them, for when he buys a carpet he expects it to last at least a century: he is generally not disappointed. One sees many carpets which are quite fifty years old with hardly a sign of wear.

At the time of which I am speaking, carpets had very seldom been exported from Persia, and consequently there was no rubbish manufactured; now (1883) it is quite different; if a very good carpet is wanted, an old one must be bought.

The carpets made for the European market are coarse, and the weaving loose. Many, indeed, are made of fast colours, but gaudy patterns only are used, and the fine and original patterns formerly in vogue are disappearing. Of a couple of hundred carpets brought for sale, perhaps there may be only six distinct patterns, though, of course, the borders and arrangement of the colours may vary. The favourite patterns are the “Gul Anar” and “Herati:” the latter is certainly very effective, and is the pattern of nine-tenths of the carpets exported.

To choose a carpet, the first thing is to see if the colours are fast. This is done by rubbing with a wet cloth. If the slightest tinge is communicated to this, the carpet should be rejected. Then, if the carpet is limp, and can be doubled on itself like a cloth, it is “shul-berf” (loosely woven) and scamped. A carpet which is well woven (I am speaking of new ones) is always stiff. Greens in the pattern should be avoided, as they will fade to a drab, but this drab is not unpleasing; white, on the contrary, in time becomes a pale yellow, and is a good wearing colour, and should be chosen rather than avoided.

The thinner and finer the carpet is, the greater is its value. The size of the thread of the wool should be noticed, and the smaller it is the better. It should be remembered that, in the question of price, a thinner thread means a great difference in the amount of labour in making.

The size, too, of the pattern should be noted, as a large pattern is proportionately much cheaper. Again, the finer patterns being only undertaken by the best weavers, one is more likely to get a good carpet with a fine pattern than with a coarse. The general effect, too, should be noted. This is never bad, but at times an eccentric pattern is come across.

The softer the carpet is to the hand, the more valuable it is as a rule, if it be not a Meshed carpet with aniline dye. These latter should be avoided, as they always fade, and are of very small value.

One of the reasons why Oriental carpets last so long, is that chairs are not used, and they are not walked on by boots, and so dirtied and worn, but by bare feet. The carpet should now be doubled, and the ends applied to each other. If one is broader than the other, it shows careless work, and the carpet should be rejected as “kaj” (uneven, or rather, crooked).

It must be then spread on a level floor and smoothed, to see if it lies flat. Many carpets have “shatūr,” or creases; these never come out. The carpet never lies flat, and wears in a patch over the “shatūr.”

If all is yet satisfactory the carpet must be turned bottom upwards, and the edges carefully examined; if any darns are seen in the edges of the carpet it must be rejected, for the Persians have a plan of taking out any creases by either stretching the edges, which often break under the process, or, if there is a redundancy, cutting it out and fine drawing it so skilfully that it is only detected on carefully examining the back. Such carpets are worthless.

The top of the carpet should now be inspected; if the edging of cotton at the top or bottom be blue with no white in it, the carpet is rubbish, and merely a thing got up for sale, absolutely a sham. The edge or finish should be either white cotton or black wool; the latter is by far the best, but is seldom seen nowadays. The all-woollen carpets are mostly made near Mūrghab, and by the wandering tribes of Fars; they are very seldom exported, and are always of sad patterns, often very irregular.

In making a carpet, the women who weave it will often run out of the exact shade of wool used in some part of the pattern or even ground-work; they will continue with another shade of the same colour. This has a curious effect to the European eye, but the native does not look on it as a defect.

The value in Persia of a carpet in the present day may, if perfect (either new or old), be reckoned at from fifteen shillings to two pounds a square yard. In the larger carpets nothing can be obtained under a pound a square yard.

Of course there are a few carpets which have been made to order for great personages which are worth more than the price I have given, but these are not easily obtained and only at prix fou. By the term carpet, I mean what Persians call kali, that is, in contradistinction to farsch. Kali is our idea of carpet, that is, a floor-covering, having a pile.

Farsch means floor-covering generally, and may be “nammad,” or felt, or “gelim,” a thin, pileless floor-covering of coarse pattern, and much used in Europe as a portière; in these “gelim” white greatly predominates, and they soon get soiled and dirty; they are only used in Persia by the villagers and poor.

The farsch hamam-i, or bath carpet, is a finer species of gelim made near Kermanshah; both sides are alike, the patterns are elaborate and beautiful, and the colours very lovely, but they fade, being mostly of aniline dye, and are harsh to the feel. Their only recommendation is their extreme portability.

The nammad, or felts (carpets), are generally used by Persians to go round the room and act as a frame to the carpet (kali), which occupies the top and centre.

They are three in number for each room; two kanareh, or side pieces, a yard to a yard and a half wide, and a sir-andaz, literally that which is thrown over the head (of the apartment). The kanareh are from half to two and a half inches in thickness, and are usually of a light-brown or yellow-ochre colour, being ornamented with a slight pattern of blue and white, or red and green, which is formed by pinches of coloured wool inserted when the felt is made.

The best nammad are made at Yezd, and are often expensive; they cost about thirty shillings a square yard, and will last a century; they are two inches thick.

Nammad, however, are now getting out of fashion, for they will not stand the wear produced by chairs, which are coming into common use among the rich. Carpets are taking their place.

These nammad, or felts, are universally used as great-coats by the peasantry, and are very good indeed as an outer covering, being seamless. They are often made with bag-like sleeves with a slit at the wrists, thus forming a glove, and when the peasant wants to use his hands, they are thrust through the slit and the glove portion turned back over the wrist. They are all in one piece.

The gelim, or tent carpets, are very suitable for travelling or rough work, and being thin are easily dried. They wash well, and have no pile.

There is yet another variety of carpet called jejim: this is very thin and more like a plaid in consistency; it is used by horsemen, who wrap their spare clothing in it and use it as a bed and carpet too.

For about fifty pounds I was able to get enough carpets for all my living rooms, and, owing to the steady rise in the price of carpets, on my departure in nine years’ time on leave, I got as much as I gave for them. Exactly the same as with horses after the famine, the demand being greater than the supply on account of exportation, prices rose considerably.

A good deal of illness occurring just at this time among the staff, I had my attention directed to the water, which, being mostly from surface wells, was much contaminated. I therefore engaged a water-carrier from the town, purchased a skin and bucket for him, and the staff were supplied with a skinful twice a day, for cooking and drinking purposes, from the monastery well—a deep and good one.

The Persians are particular what water they drink, and invariably employ a sakka, or water-carrier; but the Armenians generally have a cesspool just outside their house door, and in its immediate proximity the well is dug, often only ten feet deep. The result is obvious.

Our superintendent being a married man, collars which I had cast off for the last year, principally because I could not get them washed, had to be worn; and I had to send them to Teheran by post to get them washed, for in Ispahan the art of ironing was unknown; and the American term for a shirt, “boiled rag,” was literally appropriate.

I made the acquaintance of three brothers who were Syuds, or holy men, but who had the reputation of being freethinkers; these men called on me and insisted on my breakfasting with them in the town: they were wealthy landed proprietors and merchants. I found their house beautifully furnished and their hospitality was great; they discoursed much on the subject of religion, and were very eloquent on the injustices perpetrated in Persia. They were nearly related to the Imām-i-Juma, or high priest, a very great personage indeed, who ruled the town of Ispahan by his personal influence. It was said that any one who incurred his displeasure always, somehow or other, lost his life.

Under the shadow of such a relation, the Syuds Hassan and Houssein and their brother openly held their very liberal opinions. They were, in fact, sectaries of the Baab.

This impostor has succeeded in establishing a new religion, the tenets of which are very difficult to get at—a community of property being one. Mahommedans state that a community of women is also observed; this is, however, very doubtful.

The execution of their prophet, far from decreasing their numbers, has had an opposite effect; many among the Ispahanis and Zinjanis still secretly profess Baabiism.

A few years before my arrival in Ispahan (1867), a determined attempt was made on the life of the present Shah by a few of the fanatics of this sect, and the unsuccessful conspirators were put to death with horrible tortures. (For details see Lady Shiel’s work.) In these latter days (1880), when I was in Ispahan, a priest was denounced by his wife as a Baabi. I saw him led to prison; he avowed his Baabiism and declined to retract, though offered his life; he, however, denied the statements of his wife and daughter, who accused him of wishing to prostitute them to others of his co-religionists.

On being taken to the public square for execution, after having been severely bastinadoed, and when in chains, knowing his last hour was come, he was offered his life if he would curse Baab.

He replied, “Curses on you, your prince, your king, and all oppressors. I welcome death and long for it, for I shall instantly reappear on this earth and enjoy the delights of Paradise.” The executioner stepped forward and cut his throat.

A few days after his execution, my friends the three brothers were arrested, their valuables looted by the king’s son the Zil-es-Sultan, the then Governor of Ispahan, and by the Imām-i-Juma, the successor of their former protector in the office of high priest of Ispahan. Their women, beaten and insulted, fled to the anderūns (harems) of friends and relations, but were repulsed by them for fear of being compromised. They then came to the telegraph-office in Julfa and sat in an outer room without money or food. After a few days the relatives, rather than let the (to them) scandal continue of the women being in the quarters of Europeans, gave them shelter.

The real cause of the arrest of these men was not their religion; the Imām-i-Juma owed them eighteen thousand tomans (seven thousand two hundred pounds); they were sent for and told that if they did not forgive the debt they would be denounced and inevitably slain. But habit had made them bold; they declined to even remit a portion of the sum owing; they were politely dismissed from the high priest’s presence, and a proposition made to the prince that the whole of their property should be confiscated by him, and that they should be accused of Baabiism and executed. This was agreed to. They were sent for and taken from the prince’s presence protesting their innocence, the youngest brother cursing Baab as proof of his orthodoxy.

The next day all were savagely beaten in prison, and it was generally given out that they would be executed; but being men of wealth and influence, no one believed in this.

The English missionary in Julfa, the assistant superintendent of the telegraph, and a few Armenians, addressed a letter to the prince which, while apparently pleading their cause, really, I fear, accelerated their fate (if it had any effect). The prince was furious, and vouchsafed no reply.

I happened to see him professionally, and he asked me why I had not signed this letter. I replied that I had not been asked to in the first place; and that I should hesitate to mix myself up in the politics of the country, being a foreign official. He appreciated my motives, and asked if I knew the three men.

I replied that all three were my intimate friends, and I trusted that their lives were not really in danger.

I never have been able to ascertain if his reply was merely given to quiet me or not; it was this:—

“The matter is really out of my hands—it has been referred to the king; he is very bitter against Baabis, as you know; nothing that sahibs in Julfa may do will have any effect. Why, sahib, what would your Prince of Wales say if he were interviewed, and letters written to him about confessed criminals by obscure Persians? The missionary, the missionary, he only troubles me to make himself notorious.”

I explained that these Syuds were really personal friends of the missionary as well as my own.

“All disaffected people are friends of missionaries, as you very well know.”

I again asked him if they would be spared or not?

“I can tell you nothing more,” he said; “one has cursed Baab, he will not die. As for the others the king will decide; for me, I wish personally to kill no one; you have known me long enough to know I dislike blood. I am not the Hissam-u-Sultaneh” (the king’s uncle, a very severe Governor). He changed the subject and declined to return to it. I cannot tell if the two elder brothers had been offered their lives or not. I went back to Julfa hoping that they would all be spared. The town was in great excitement. Next morning at dawn their throats were cut in the prison, and their bodies flung into the square. The prince had not dared to execute them publicly for fear of a tumult.

Their houses were looted, and part of their estates; the Imām-i-Juma’s share of the plunder was large, and he never repaid the eighteen thousand tomans. Such was Persia in 1880. The youngest brother, who had cursed Baab, was spared, and afterwards reinstated in part of his family property.

CHAPTER XIV.
JULFA AND ISPAHAN.

Julfa cathedral—The campanile—The monk—Gez—Kishmish wine—The bishop—The church—Its decorations—The day of judgment—The cemetery—Establishment of the Armenian captives in Julfa—Lost arts—Armenian artificers—Graves—Story of Rodolphe—Coffee-house—Tombstone bridges—Nunnery—Schools—Medical missionary—Church Missionary establishment—The Lazarist Fathers.

The sights of Julfa are very few—the cathedral, or Egglesiah Wang, and the schools of the Church Missionary Society, the cemetery, and the nunnery, being the only objects of interest.

The Egglesiah Wang, or “big church,” is a part of the monastery of Julfa. At the entrance, which is by a stuccoed doorway surmounted by a Latin cross in a mud wall, is a sort of stone drinking trough, something like our old English fonts; it is embedded in the wall. The door is of great thickness, so that in disturbed times the monks would be safe against attacks of Mussulmans; and for the same reason the entrance is narrow and winding. On emerging from this short passage, one comes to the outer court, in one corner of which are the graves of a few Europeans who have either died in Julfa or been brought here for burial. These are noted in Sir F. Goldsmid’s ‘Telegraph and Travel,’ and some of the Latin inscriptions are translated into English verse by him. A large campanile of imposing appearance and peculiar (qy. Russian) style, stands in the centre; it is new and well made, and consists of a brick tower standing on stone columns, and containing three bells. The rest of the courtyard is occupied by logs of wood from the monastery garden brought here to season previous to being sold to the Julfa carpenters. Armenians are very unromantic. The monastery church has a door opening into this courtyard, but entrance is usually effected through a passage, in which are the tombs of former bishops; these are mostly mere blocks of stone let into the ground, but the two last bishops have more ambitious mural monuments; the last, Thaddeus, having a black marble tablet, probably cut in India, with an inscription (in English), setting forth his virtues; over all is his photograph. There is an inner entrance in this passage of railings, and the walls have some small trap-doors through which the monks in stricter days used to confess the laity—at least the females.

A few miserable daubs on plaster in this passage represent Saint Michael weighing good and evil spirits, etc. To the right is a low door, which leads to the church; at the extremity of the passage is a large courtyard, which contains the apartments occupied by the Arachnoort and the little bishop Christopher.

There is no pretension to magnificence in these. The rooms of Christopher are small, and comfortable in a humble manner; a few religious engravings and paintings of saints that Wardour Street would not look at, hang on the walls; it is carpeted with cheap rugs, and a mattress and a couple of cushions form the furniture; in the corner is the tall, silver-headed ebon staff of the little bishop; in a recess stand his conical hat and hood. A room quite without ornament forms his bedroom, and his property, a few years ago considerable, he has made over to the Church.

The little bishop is a gouty man, and does not indulge, though there are legends that in his youth his potations were pottle deep; he does not even smoke, but he snuffs—a thing that most of the old people in Julfa do. A jovial old man in a skull-cap and flowing black robes, he insists on regaling one with gez; a sort of sweetmeat, prepared from the gezanjebine, a mawkish exudation from a plant found in the desert near here, and akin to manna; it is mixed with sugar and made up into round cakes with almonds or pistachios. It is impossible to break these cakes with the finger; they will bend freely, but on striking them with a hammer or another cake, they fracture at once. Ispahan is celebrated through Persia for this sweetmeat, and large quantities are sent away in every direction. In Julfa and Ispahan the gez is always offered on the arrival of a guest, and urgently pressed on one; it is considered impolite to refuse. The flavour is merely sickly sweet, and it sticks to the jaws like butter-scotch; it is white in colour, and very cloying. The monk, too, always has a glass of good old Kishmish wine for his friends. The Kishmish grape is the smallest in Persia; it is a bright yellow colour, and very sweet; it is, when dried, what we call the Sultana raisin. The wine is a golden yellow, delicious when quite new, but terribly heady. It is a great favourite with the Armenians, as it is quickly intoxicating. As a rule it will not keep well, but when it does is not to be despised. A glass of arrack is offered as an alternative, and this is more suited to the native taste; it is, as a rule, what is called in India “fixed bayonets.”

The monk is a laughing philosopher, and generally has some store of local yarns; in fact, he is a sort of “vieulx Parchemins,” and his tales would have astonished and delighted the author of the ‘Contes drolatiques.’

Passing under the guidance of the monk we ascend on the further side of the courtyard a long staircase and enter a huge empty room newly carpeted, which brings us to the curtained doorway of the bishop’s private apartment. On the walls, decorated with many figures in cut plaster of the Russian eagle (for the bishop is a Russian subject, and wisely takes care that the Persian authorities shall know it),[15] hang some twenty daubs in oil of saints and sacred scenes; these are more pretentiously framed than those in the monk’s room, but of equal value. A high chair, considerably ornamented with native carvings, is the bishop’s habitual seat, and at its side is a table covered with well-bound books, which at my first visit considerably impressed me; but I found out afterwards that they were always the same books, so my respect for the literary attainments of the Arachnoort somewhat diminished.

After a decorous interval the bishop enters, a handsome man—a man who would create a furore in England—a man with large, dreamy, black eyes, which he uses as much as the late Mr. Fechter, a pale and interesting face, and a long, silky beard, well combed, and black as the raven’s wing. From his neck hang an amethyst cross and a large portrait of the Virgin, in an oval enamel surrounded by paste. Clad in black lined with violet, his tall conical cap and flowing black hood give a fine stage picture, which is completed by a gentle raising of the hand (a white and delicate hand) as if to bless; a soft, whispering, almost purring voice, completed the charm of a man who in some other sphere would have doubtless achieved the success usually attained by great personal attractiveness. A sort of smile, as of a superior nature compassionating itself, spreads over his handsome face, and in a whisper he asks after one’s health. The glossy beard is stroked, the black eyes are rolled; coffee is brought, a kalian, and the visitor retires, after much bowing on both sides.

The church alone remains to be seen, for the monastery itself is not in use, the cells being filled with firewood and corn. The church is not large, and is divided by a row of coarsely-painted wooden rails into two compartments, the outer and larger one, which is surmounted by a dome, being decorated with large paintings in oil of the events in Bible history from the creation. There is nothing particularly remarkable in these; most are copied from well-known pictures, while others are amusing in their naïveness. The general effect is good, a sort of gorgeousness being produced by so many yards of brightly-painted canvas. All round the walls are modern tile-work, presenting a florid pattern of green leaves on a white ground. The general effect of this is not bad. The episcopal throne is placed just beyond the railings, and consists of an elaborately-carved and ornamented chair, covered by a wooden domed canopy, gilt and painted in gaudy colours. A few feet in front of this is a raised platform, some four feet from the ground, running back into a recess. This can be curtained off at pleasure; a gaudy curtain hangs at either side of it. At the extremity of the recess is the altar; there is only one in the church. It has a sort of cabinet for the host, and has numerous smaller platforms above it, each a few inches high; on these are coarsely painted a few figures of saints.

All round the church run various pictures of martyrdoms, some of them horrible in their grim realness, others as intensely ridiculous. Here are shown the various sufferings of Ripsimeh virgin and martyr, also Gregor; these are the chief saints in the Armenian calendar.

Illustrations are also seen of the parables and miracles. One of these is the man who had the beam in his eye seeing the mote in his brother’s. The mote is depicted as a moat, and the beam as a huge beam of wood.

A painful daub, framed, and meant for the Entombment, is gravely exhibited as a Raphael, and once it was intimated to me that a good offer would not be refused. It is even copied on the outer wall near the bishops’ tombs.

But the bouquet of the whole collection is the great picture of the Day of Judgment. All the persons of the Trinity are depicted, and the heavenly hosts are shown with the delights of heaven. These are, however, in the upper part of the picture, and of small size; but in the lower part, that representing the pangs of hell, the artist has given free vent to his taste for horrors.

New ideas for bogey might be derived from his very vivid treatment of the devils. George Cruikshank, the devil-drawer par excellence, is nowhere with the Eastern artist. These devils are life-size, and so are the nude male and female figures suffering torments. The mouth of hell is represented as a yawning beast, vomiting fire and smoke, into the jaws of which the nude wicked are tumbling. As a popular preacher is reported to have said, “The devil feeds you on fire, and if you don’t take it properly you get touched up with the spoon.” This is actually represented.

The position of the picture is well chosen, being over the door. All the congregation must see it on going out; and if they feel certain of getting their deserts, it must make them uncomfortable indeed.

Julfa was once a very large place, having twenty-four well-populated parishes, and the Armenians were extremely prosperous. A large village, with valuable lands, and an energetic trading population, the agricultural portion of the community being market gardeners, within a couple of miles of the then capital Ispahan; it was a very different place from the Julfa of to-day, which contains merely a population of old men, women, and girls, the better description of male having all emigrated. Ispahan, too, is now merely a vast ruin, with small local trade and few wants. Shah Abbas the Great brought away the entire population of Julfa on the Araxes, which now marks the Russo-Persian frontier on the road between Tabriz and Tiflis, and is now merely a village of a few hovels; and, giving them lands in the immediate and best part of the environs of Ispahan, in fact its present site, called it Julfa. The far-seeing monarch sought to introduce the thrifty trading habits of the Armenian among his own subjects, and to give an impulse to the commerce of his country, and the Julfa artisans in those days were not to be despised; travelling east and west, they brought many arts from Europe, India, and China. The weaving of shawls at Kerman and Yezd is still an important trade, and only the connoisseur can detect the difference between the Cashmere shawl and its imitation, that of Kerman: probably the European would prefer the Kermani one. Silk weaving was doubtless brought from China to Yezd. Coarse imitations of the Chinese porcelain are to this day common in Persia, but the art is dead. Enamelling, which the Armenians practised, and even patronised—for in the Persian collection in the South Kensington Museum may be seen a large enamelled tray, quite a unique specimen, which bears an inscription saying it was made for ⸺, prince of the Armenians—is a dying art.

As jewellers these people attain great proficiency. Any really difficult work was always brought by the native gold or silver smiths of Ispahan to be finished by an Armenian of Julfa, one Setrak. The trade of watchmaker, or rather watchmender, is almost monopolised in Persia by Armenians; and my former dispenser was a very good drug-compounder, having received his instruction when a convict in India, serving his time after committing a burglary with violence.

The cemetery lies on a bare and stony plain, under a lofty hill called the Kūh Sufi. When Ispahan was the capital this plain was all under cultivation by irrigation, the remains of the canals being yet visible: here lie the inhabitants of Julfa, and also a few Europeans. Each ancient grave is marked by a huge block of stone of a cube form, the upper face being, however, generally larger than the under one. Some are nine feet long, a yard high, and two feet wide. Many of the stones have Dutch, Latin, and French inscriptions. One of these latter is the well-known one of the watchmaker to Shah Abbas the Great. “Cy gît Rodolfe” is the inscription it bears; and here lies Rodolphe, who was a great favourite of the king, Abbas the Great. He was a youth of great beauty, and the king was much attached to him. Having killed a Mahommedan after being struck by the latter, he was offered the usual choice of Islam or death. He preferred the latter; and though the king is said to have given him ample time for reflection, and to have promised him rank and wealth if he would apostatise, preferring death to dishonour, he was executed, and interred beneath this stone. It is very difficult to get at the exact details of this story, as there are many versions. It is told first by Chardin or Tavernier. Just at the entrance to the burial-ground, by crossing a ditch, over a bridge composed of old tombstones, one comes to the Kaweh-Khana of the Armenians, a mud building of two stories. Here in wet weather the funerals halt, and here on their return the mourners stay to partake of wine and arrack. All through Persia the habit of utilising tombstones for building bridges occurs, and is not confined to the Armenians. Ispahan, which is surrounded by huge cemeteries and intersected by many watercourses, presents many instances of these tombstone bridges.

There is little to see in the nunnery. The revenues which have been, and are, plundered by the priests and those in authority, are very small. Very few nuns are now encouraged to take the veil. The scandals have been many, and instances of cruel punishments have not been wanting. One nun was expelled, but is now leading a reformed life in the Church Missionary Society’s establishment, being employed as a teacher of sewing. The nunnery has a large school, and the girls are taught to sew and embroider, also to knit socks. Long portions of Scripture are committed to memory, and the ancient Armenian Bible is read, but not translated. Of course, as the ancient and modern languages are quite different, the power of reading what one does not understand is rather useless.

But the schools of Julfa have received a great accession in the establishment of those of the Church Missionary Society, which are now (1883) conducted by Dr. Hoernle and Mr. Johannes, the former being a medical missionary (i. e. a medical man in priest’s orders), and the latter a young Armenian gentleman, who was educated in England, and at one time a master in the Nassick School in India. All that is taught in a middle-class school in England is taught in the Church Missionary Society school in Julfa; and the upper form proceed to the first four books of Euclid, Algebra, Latin, and French, in which, unlike the smattering of a middle-class school at home, a thorough grounding is given. Dr. Hoernle, too, sees all comers gratuitously, and administers to their ailments. He has a large apartment as a consulting-room, with convenient waiting-rooms for either sex. Another room has been set apart as a hospital, where the more serious cases are treated surgically; and the Church Missionary Society certainly has not spared money in benefiting the inhabitants of Julfa.

Some orphan-boys are fed, clothed, and educated with the others, and gradually it is hoped to make the school self-supporting; but I fear that the Julfa people will hardly pay for what they are used to get gratuitously. A girls’ school has also been commenced by Mrs. Bruce, and sufficient funds having been collected to obtain a schoolmistress, in November 1882 one went out. The Rev. Dr. Bruce, who commenced the work in Julfa, is engaged in translating the Bible into Persian, and portions of it have been completed and published.

All the difficulties which were first thrown in the way of proselytism among the Armenians, have now been surmounted, and a considerable number of converts have been made from the Armenian Christians to the tenets of the Church of England. But as yet no converts have been made from the Mahommedans. These, however, are encouraged to come to the services, in the hope of arousing their curiosity; but they simply seem to come for the show, only presenting themselves very occasionally. The magnificent establishment kept up by the Church Missionary Society is the wonder of the Persians, and Dr. Bruce has succeeded, principally by having expended large sums of money in building in Julfa, and employing many labourers, in securing the respect of the Julfa Armenians.

Employment is sought to be given to the less gifted among the scholars in a factory where various arts are taught, such as weaving, but this does not appear a success. The clever artisans, Baabis, nominally Mussulmans, employed by Dr. Bruce as decorators and builders, have made a really handsome series of buildings, perhaps a little florid. These men have been able to show their great skill in decoration, and the beautiful geometrical patterns on the outer wall of the church, the hand-painted screen which runs round the eaves of the courtyard, and the incised decorations in stucco in the interior of the church, representing parrots, flowers, etc., are curious in the extreme.

This church can seat three hundred comfortably; the effect is good of the pale yellow of the plaster and the coloured glass of the windows.

Every door and window in the house, etc., is beautifully made, stained, glazed, and varnished, and fitting accurately; in fact, one feels a little envious when one leaves one’s poor Persian quarters, with ill-fitting doors and windows, for this handsome European-like establishment.

On leaving the first courtyard, which contains the private quarters of Dr. Bruce and the church, one enters the school. Three sides of a large courtyard are occupied by schoolrooms, and a fine playground is in the middle, with a large stone hauz, or tank, handsomely built. In this the boys in hot weather daily bathe. Here, too, are parallel bars, a vaulting pole, and a giant’s stride; beyond this is another courtyard, containing a vineyard, the technical school, the dispensary, and rooms for the orphans. Other rooms, but small and poor, are occupied by the girls’ school, which is, however, I believe, to be enlarged, and an English teacher, too, has lately gone out for the girls. Another large house adjoining is occupied by the steward of the orphans, while at the other side are built a set of European stables. A garden is hired by Dr. Bruce, where he cultivates successfully all kinds of European vegetables for his table.

There is no doubt that so large an establishment, vying with that of the bishop in size, and far exceeding it in the amount of money expended, and the number of hands employed, is of great benefit to the Julfa people.

The influence of the priests is on its last legs, and the education given is very thorough, while gratuitous medical attendance is provided by Dr. Hoernle. This, however, is indiscriminately given to Mussulmans as well as Armenians. Of course the great hope is that the benefits of the school may be permitted to the Mahommedan population of the town; but this, I fear, will never be. Let us hope I may be wrong.

The small establishment of the Lazarist Fathers, which is the next house to the vast range of buildings belonging to the Church Missionary Society, presents a great contrast.

The priest, with his two ragged servants, has much to do to keep body and soul together, and he teaches a small school of both sexes, where the course is less ambitious than that of the English missionaries. His flock, some two hundred strong, remains faithful to its ancient tenets, and has as yet given no recruits to the rival establishment. This is strange, as the Armenian Church has furnished the whole of some hundred and twenty Armenian boys, and two hundred Armenian communicants to the Church of England in Julfa; but as many of these latter benefit directly or indirectly, or are merely temporary Protestants to annoy their relatives, or to obtain protection, the result of the whole thing cannot be considered a success as yet—in eleven years a single Mahommedan convert not having been obtained.

CHAPTER XV.
ISPAHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS.

Tame gazelle—Croquet-lawn under difficulties—Wild asparagus—First-fruits—Common fruits—Mode of preparing dried fruits—Ordinary vegetables of Persia—Wild rhubarb—Potatoes a comparative novelty—Ispahan quinces: their fragrance—Bamiah—Grapes, Numerous varieties of—At times used as horse-feed—Grape-sugar—Pickles—Fruits an ordinary food—Curdled milk—Mode of obtaining cream—Buttermilk—Economy of the middle or trading-classes—Tale of the phantom cheese—Common flowers—Painting the lily—Lilium candidum—Wild flowers—The crops—Poppies—Collecting opium—Manuring—Barley—Wheat—Minor crops—Mode of extracting grain—Cut straw: its uses—Irrigation.

Mr. Walton, the superintendent of the Ispahan section, had a full-grown buck antelope (“ahū”), which was kept tied to a peg on his croquet-lawn; the animal was rather fierce, and my young bull-dog was accustomed to bark at him, keeping, however, out of reach of his horns. On one occasion the antelope got loose and chased the dog round and round the croquet-lawn, from which there was no exit, it being between four walls; the antelope was going well within itself, but the dog, its eyes starting from its head, and its tail between its legs, gave a shriek of terror as it felt the sharp prongs of the pursuing antelope prodding it every now and then; at last, utterly expended, fear made it brave, and it turned on the animal, pinning him by the throat. We were then able to secure the antelope, which no one had cared to approach, as his horns were very sharp and he was very savage from being tied up. The little croquet-lawn had been made under very great difficulties, and it was only by getting grass seeds from Carter’s that Mr. Walton was able to keep up turf; but he had, by dint of watering and putting tent walls over the young grass in the heat of the day, succeeded in making a very good lawn; and he and his young wife played croquet nearly every evening. The fate of the antelope was a sad one—he got loose one night, and next morning was found drowned in the well.

Great quantities of wild asparagus were brought to the houses of the Europeans for sale: it grows on the banks of the ditches which surround the gardens of Julfa; there is no saltness in the soil, but it thrives in great luxuriance, and is sold for a trifle, the villagers gladly accepting a keran (ninepence) for fourteen pounds’ weight.

A man came one day (March 4th) bringing the no ber, or first-fruits (i. e. the first cucumbers of the season); they were little things, some three inches long, packed in rose leaves, and probably had been brought up by some traveller by post from Shiraz, or down from Kashan, where it is very hot indeed. As usual the man declined to sell, insisting that they were a present—“peishkesh-i-shuma” (they are an offering to you)—and consequently he has to be rewarded with twice the value.

Tiny unripe almonds, called “chocolah,” the size of a hazelnut, have been brought too; they are much appreciated by Persians as a first-fruit; they are soaked in brine and eaten raw, and they are crisp and certainly not bad; or, when a little too large and hard for this, they are eaten stewed with lamb, forming a “khorisht,” or dish eaten as sauce to rice.

Unripe green plums are also eaten stewed in this way with meat—Persians eat them raw with salt; and the unripe grapes, preserved in their own juice as a pickle, or the juice itself (ab-i-goora) is used to season the stews.

The first really ripe fruit is the white cherry, which is called gelas; then the morella, or alu-balu; then the goja, or bullace plum; then follow plums in endless variety, and then the peach and apricot.

These latter grow in great perfection in Ispahan; there are seven known kinds, six of which are sweet, and one bitter. The most valued variety is the shukker-para; it is excessively sweet and cloying. All grow to a large size, and so great is the plenty that the fruit in an ordinary season is sold for twopence farthing the fourteen pounds, or maund. The orchards where the apricot is grown are generally sown with clover; the trees are never thinned, but, notwithstanding this, the finest apricots in the world are certainly produced in Ispahan. There are also plenty of nectarines and peaches. The fruit being so cheap, the natives never gather it, on account of cost of labour, but allow it to fall into the clover which is universally sown under the trees, and which partially preserves it from bruising; so ripe is the fruit that it may be generally seen cracked, with the stone appearing.

Great quantities of dried fruit are exported from Ispahan, which is celebrated for its “keisi,” or dried apricots; these are merely the fallen fruit, which is either too much bruised for sale or has not found a market. They are simply placed in the sun, and become in a week dry, hard, and semi-transparent, thus forming a very portable food: the stones are of course removed and the fruit becomes as hard as horn; an hour’s soaking renders them fit to eat, or when stewed they are delicious, being so very sweet as to require no added sugar.

As a dessert fruit the Persians at times place an almond or a peeled walnut within the fruit where the stone has been; as it dries the nut becomes embedded, a sharp packing-needle and string is run through them when half dry, and they are sold thus, hung on strings like huge necklaces.

Enormous quantities of alū Bokhara, or acid plum, are sold; these, however, are not dried but half boiled, and poured into the skins of sheep, as bags, forming a kind of preserve; they are very appetising, being a very acid yet sweet fruit, and are eaten raw with mast (curdled milk), or are used as a sauce to stewed meat with rice.

Cherries, too, are dried in the sun in the same manner, the stones being extracted; also peaches.

Small melons, called germak and tellabi, now (May) make their appearance; these, though far superior to anything produced in England, are not thought much of. The big brown melon, or karbiza of Gourg-ab, which will keep good a year, and attains an enormous size—some being seventy and eighty pounds in weight—is the most highly prized; the flesh is white, and tastes like a Jersey pear. They grow on a salt soil, are heavily manured with pigeons’ dung, and freely irrigated till the plant flowers. Many choice varieties of melon abound, as the “Shah passand,” or king’s favourite, and others.

The “Hindiwana,” or water-melons, are of three kinds, the red-fleshed, the yellow-fleshed, and the white-fleshed: these run from three to twenty-eight pounds in weight, as an ordinary size; there are long and round descriptions. The skin varies from pale green to almost black with green blotches; the latter are the best.

Pumpkins also are common and of great size.

Cucumbers never grow long, but short and thick; they are called “keeal,” are very plentiful and delicious, and may, at the height of the season, be bought fourteen pounds for one shaie, or halfpenny. There is another fruit something between the melon and cucumber, a kind of eatable gourd, called the koompezeh; it has not much flavour, and is eaten with salt. The cucumbers form one of the staple foods of the people; they are eaten with salt, and are looked on as a fruit; the peasants eat at a sitting five or six pounds’ weight, and find no inconvenience; the Persian cucumber may be eaten with impunity.

Lettuces grow in vast profusion, also the kalam kūmri, a strongly-flavoured kind of nohl-kohl. The Aubergine, or “badinjan,” the fruit of which I have seen weighing three pounds, and carrots and turnips are also grown: the carrots are generally a green-rooted variety. Spinach, called “Ispinagh,” is a favourite vegetable. Kanga (or chardons), a kind of thistle, is brought from the mountains, and also Rivend, or wild rhubarb; both are good.

Potatoes are now much grown, but were hardly known on my first arrival in Persia. Kalam-i-Rūmi, or Turkish cabbage, is raised successfully and attains an enormous size, twenty-eight pounds being a common weight for a head; it is the perfection of cabbage, and nearly all heart. Parsnips are unknown.

Toorbēsah, white radishes, are grown about the size of an egg, the tops are boiled and eaten as greens. Apples are good and common. Pears are very bad. The quinces and pomegranates are magnificent; the former especially are grown in Ispahan and are of great size and fragrance. They are sent with the Gourg-ab melons all over Persia as presents to grandees.

The bamiah, or lady’s finger, is little grown; it is a nasty slimy vegetable when cooked. Vegetable marrows are common; they generally have the seeds removed, and are filled with spiced and minced meat, and are boiled. Gourds of many forms are found, and used as vessels for oil, etc. Walnuts and almonds are plentiful, also filberts. There are no chestnuts in the south.

Some thirty varieties of grape are raised; some are merely used for pickling, others for eating, and some only for wine-making. The best eating grapes are the Ascari. This is the first good grape to ripen; it is a smallish white grape, globular, bright golden colour, very delicious, and the skin, being very thin, is swallowed.

Kishmish, a delicious grape, of white elongated shape, also small, and very sweet, both eaten and used for wine-making. When dried this is the sultana raisin, stoneless, the skin very thin.

Riech-i-baba, or “old man’s beard,” a long white grape, very sweet and delicious in flavour. Some varieties of this have tiny stones, others large; they are both red and white. Some are two and a half inches long. The Persians, when the price of grapes is very low, and they are unable to dispose of them, boil them down to obtain the grape-sugar, which is sold all over Persia and eaten in lieu of sugar; it is called “sheera.”

With vinegar this forms circa-sheera, a sour-sweet liquid, in which various pickles are preserved, as grapes, apples, lemons.

I have mentioned that grapes are used in some places as horse-feed.

The variety in Persian pickles is infinite, from grapes, walnuts, almonds, peppers, onions, oranges, and lemons, green fruits, etc.; a long list of conserves are produced.

All the fruits grown in England are found in Persia, save only the currant, gooseberry, and raspberry.

Persians look on fruit as a staple food, and the ordinary meal of the working classes and peasantry is a loaf of bread and a pound or two of grapes or apricots, or a half-dozen cucumbers, which are considered fruits. Meat is not often eaten by the poor save at the great festivals. “Mast” is also much consumed. This is curdled milk, and is made by adding a little curdled milk to fresh milk warmed. It is then left to cool, and the basin of curdled milk sets in a few hours, leaving the cream on the top. For the first twenty-four hours this is sweet and delicious, tasting like a Devonshire junket, but as a rule the Persian does not care for it until it has become slightly acid. When in this state a farthing’s worth (about half a pint) added to a quart of water forms buttermilk, or “doogh.” A little cut mint is added, and a few lumps of ice, and a cooling drink is made, which is supposed by the Persians to be a powerful diuretic. It is without question a capital thirst-quencher in hot weather.

Cheese, too, is much eaten for the morning meal, with a little mint or a few onions. The banker at Shiraz, to whom the Government moneys were entrusted—a rich man—told me that he or any other merchant never thought of any more elaborate breakfast than these named above. This same man, when giving a breakfast, would give his guests twenty courses of spiced and seasoned plats. It is said of a merchant in Ispahan, where they are notoriously stingy, that he purchased a small piece of cheese at the new year, but could not make up his mind to the extravagance of eating it. So, instead of dividing the morsel with his apprentice, as that youth had fondly hoped, he carefully placed it in a clear glass bottle, and, sealing it down, instructed the boy to rub his bread on the bottle and fancy the taste of the cheese. This the pair did each morning.

One day the merchant, being invited to breakfast with a friend, gave his apprentice the key of his office and a halfpenny to buy a loaf of bread; but the apprentice returned, saying he could not get the door open, and though he had bought his bread, could not eat it without the usual flavour of cheese.

“Go, fool, and rub your bread on the door, which is almost as satisfying as the bottle.”

Doubtless it was.

Persia is not a favourable place for flowers; the gardeners merely sow in patches, irrigate them, and let them come up as they will. Zinnias, convolvulus, Marvel of Peru of all colours, and growing at times as a handsome bushy plant, five feet high, covered with blossoms; asters, balsams, wallflower, chrysanthemums, marigolds, China and moss roses, or “gul-i-soorkh” (from these the rose-water is made), and the perfume in the gardens from them is at times overpowering, are the usual flowers. Yellow and orange single roses are common; they are, however, devoid of scent. The noisette rose, too, is much grown, and the nestorange, a delicately-scented single rose, the tree growing to a great size.

The favourite plant is the narcissus; it grows wild in many parts of Persia. Huge bundles of the cut flowers are seen in the dwellings of rich and poor; the scent is very powerful.

The Persians cut small rings of coloured paper, cloth, or velvet, and ornament (?) the flower by placing the rings of divers colours between the first and second rows of petals, and the effect is strange, and not unpleasing, leading one to suppose on seeing it for the first time that a bouquet of new varieties has been cut, for so transparent a cheat does not strike one as possible, and a newcomer often examines them with admiration, failing to detect, or rather not suspecting, any deception. The ordinary Lilium candidum is much admired in the gardens of the great, and is called “Gul-i-Mariam” (Mary’s flower). A large proportion of the narcissus are double; it is the single variety that the Persians ornament. The tulip, too, grows wild, and the colchicum, also the cyclamen. Above Shiraz, however, there are few wild flowers until one nears the Caspian; but below Kazeroon, in the spring, the road is literally a flower-bespangled way, blazing with various tulips and hyacinths, cyclamens, etc.

The principal crops in the neighbourhood of Ispahan are, first the poppy; this is the white variety, and has been grown with great success in Persia, particularly in Ispahan. It has enriched the peasants, but rendered grain and other produce much dearer, as, of course, much less is cultivated. The young plants are carefully thinned till they are a foot apart, and the ground is kept clear of weeds. When the poppy is in flower, and just as the petals are about to fall, the labourers, principally under the direction of men from Yezd, who are supposed to understand the method of collecting opium better than the rest of the Persians, score the seed-vessels with a small three-bladed knife, making three small gashes an eighth of an inch apart and three-quarters or half an inch long at one cut. This operation is performed in the afternoon. From these gashes the opium exudes in tears, and these are carefully collected at early dawn. The process is repeated a second, and even a third time; this latter is, however, unusual.

And here lies the danger of the opium crop: should a shower of heavy rain descend the product is absolutely nil, the exuded opium being all washed away by the rain. All around Ispahan, where there is good land, and it is not exhausted, nothing can be seen for miles but these fields of white poppies, and the scenery is thus rendered very monotonous.

The Persian farmer is fully alive to the value of manure, and makes it in a very simple manner. All the wood-ashes collected from a house, and the rest of the refuse-heap, are placed in the open street in a circular ridge mixed with mould. Into this is poured the contents of the cesspools, which are allowed to sink into the thirsty heaps of earth and ashes. The “koot,” or manure thus formed, is removed to the fields, allowed to dry in the sun, then mixed with more earth, and after a month or two scattered equally over the soil and dug in.

Barley—which is used for the feeding of horses and mules, to the exclusion of oats, which are never grown—rice, and wheat, are cultivated largely. The barley of Persia is very fine; the wheat grown is the red variety. Beans, pulse, clover, sesamum, maize, cotton, castor-oil plant, cunjeet (a sort of colza), and nokōd, a grain like a pea, which is much used in cookery; potatoes, lettuces, spinach, are all largely raised. Tobacco, olives (near the Caspian), melons, and cucumbers form the rest of the crops; and millet is also grown.

Quite one half of the barley is cut as grass for the horses, and not allowed to ripen. Tares are grown for the same purpose and cut green.

The harvest of wheat and barley is cut with the sickle, the whole crop being cast pell-mell in a heap in the centre of the field, perhaps some twenty feet high; there it is allowed to lie for a month, or till it is convenient to the owner to extract the grain. This is done by laying round the heap a small quantity of straw with the ear on, and going over it with a kind of car made with heavy beams and running on rollers fitted with sharpened edges of iron; a boy rides on this, and, with a rope and a stick, guides a pair of oxen, or a mule and a horse, or a mule and a donkey, which draw this very primitive machine. As the straw gets broken, more is added, and the broken straw and ears dragged to the side with the grain entangled among them; the weather being very dry, the grain generally all falls out ere this crushing process commences. The straw is in this way crushed into pieces some two or three inches long. When the whole heap has been gone over, the farmer waits for a windy day; when it comes, he tosses the heap in forkfuls in the air. The cut straw is carried a yard or two, and the grain being heavier falls straight to the ground and is removed: the straw is now termed “kah,” and is stored; it is the ordinary fodder of the country, hay being seldom used, save by the rich.

It is also useful as a packing material and to make the “kah-gil” (“gil,” clay), a kind of plaster with which all houses, save those built of burnt bricks, are smeared, and with which all roofs in Ispahan, Teheran, and Shiraz are carefully coated: it is not until Ghilān, on the Caspian shore, is reached that we come to tiled roofs. Mud bricks are also made with mud and old or spoiled kah. It is doubtless for this that the Jews desired straw of the Egyptians to make their bricks.

Sheep are never fed on clover in sitû, it is considered too precious (it is cut and dried in twists some two yards long); but they are, however, allowed to graze on the stubble of wheat and barley, and so manure the land.

The greater part of the country is irrigated (save near the Caspian, where the water is in such excess that men may be seen ploughing up to their knees in it); consequently the fields are made up into small squares or parallelograms by trenches raised with the spade; these parallelograms run on each side of a small trench, from which the water is admitted, and as fast as one is opened and filled from the trench, it is stopped, and water admitted to another, and so on until the whole field is thoroughly soaked. Of course it is impossible to ride over a recently watered field, as, if the soil is light, one’s horse is soon up to his girths.

Land in Persia is of value according to the quantity of water it is entitled to, and the great cost of a crop is usually not the amount of labour bestowed or the rent paid, but the quantity of water purchased.