Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume I Part 23

Much ostentation comes out in the keeping of it; very pious people begin to fast before the month sets in. A really ascetic Moslem does not even swallow his saliva during the fast, and none but very old or sick people, children, and travellers, are exempt from the obligation to taste neither food nor water, and not even to smoke during daylight, for a whole month. The penance is a fearful one, and as the night is the only time for feasting, the Persians get through as much of the day as possible in sleep.

Welcome indeed is the sunset. With joy men fill their pipes and drink tea as a prelude to the meal eaten an hour afterwards. Hateful is the dawn and the cry an hour before it, "Water! oh, water and opium!"--the warning to the faithful to drink largely and swallow an opium pill before sunrise. The thirst even in weather like this, and the abstention from smoking, are severer trials than the fasting from food. The Persian either lives to smoke, or smokes to live.

Although travellers are nominally exempt from the fast from water at least, pious Moslems do not avail themselves of the liberty. Hadji Hussein, for instance, is keeping it as rigidly as any one, and, like some others, marches with the end of his _pagri_ tucked over his mouth and nose, a religious affectation, supposed to prevent the breaking of the fast by swallowing the animalculae which are believed to infest the air!

Beyond Riz, everywhere there are arid yellow mountains and yellow gravelly plains, except along the Zainderud, where fruit-trees, wheat, and the opium poppy relieve the eyes from the glare. We took leave of the Zainderud at Pul-i-Kala, where it is crossed by a dilapidated but pa.s.sable and very picturesque stone bridge of eight arches, and the view from the high right bank of wood, bridge, and the vigorous green river is very pretty.

Little enough of trees or greenery have we seen since. This country, like much of the great Iranian plateau, consists of high mountains with broad valleys or large or small plateaux between them, absolutely treeless, and even now nearly verdureless, with scattered oases wherever a possibility of procuring water by means of laboriously-constructed irrigation ca.n.a.ls renders cultivation possible.

Water is scarce and precious; its value may be gathered from the allusions made by the Persian poets to fountains, cascades, shady pools, running streams, and bubbling springs. Such expressions as those in Scripture, "rivers of waters," "a spring of water whose waters fail not," convey a fulness of meaning to Persian ears of which we are quite ignorant. The first inquiry of a Persian about any part of his own country is, "Is there water?" the second, "Is the water good?" and if he wishes to extol any particular region he says "the water is abundant all the year, and is sweet, there is no such water anywhere."

The position of a village is always determined by the water supply, for the people have not only to think of water for domestic purposes, but for irrigating their crops, and this accounts for the packing of hamlets on steep mountain sides where land for cultivation can only be obtained by laborious terracing, but where some perennial stream can be relied on for filling the small ca.n.a.ls. The fight for water is one of the hardest necessities of the Persian peasant. A water famine of greater or less degree is a constant peril.

Land in Persia is of three grades, the wholly irrigated, the partially irrigated, and the "rain-lands," usually uplands, chiefly suited for pasturage. The wholly irrigated land is the most productive. The a.s.sessments for taxes appear to leave altogether out of account the relative fertility of the land, and to be calculated solely on the supply of water. A winter like the last, of heavy snow, means a plenteous harvest, _i.e._ "twelve or fourteen grains for one," as the peasants put it; a scanty snowfall means famine, for the little rain which falls is practically of scarcely any use.

The plan for the distribution of water seems to be far less provocative of quarrels than that of some other regions dependent on irrigation, such as Ladak and Nubra. Where it is at all abundant, as it is in this Zainderud valley, it is only in the great heats of summer that it is necessary to apportion it with any rigidity. It is then placed in the hands of a _mirab_ or water officer, who allows it to each village in turn for so many days, during which time the villages above get none, or the _ketchudas_ manage it among themselves without the aid of a _mirab_, for the sad truth, which is applicable to all Persian officialism, applies in the _mirab's_ case, that if a village be rich enough to bribe him it can get water out of its turn.

The blessedness of the Zainderud valley is exceptional, and the general rule in the majority of districts is that the water must be carefully divided and be measured by "_tashts_," each _tasht_ being equivalent to the use of the water supply for eleven minutes.

"This s.p.a.ce of time is estimated in a very ancient fas.h.i.+on by floating a copper bowl with a needle hole in the bottom in a large vessel of water. The _tasht_ comes to an end as the bowl sinks. The distribution is regulated by the number of _tashts_ that each man has a right to.

If he has a right to twenty he will receive water for three and three-quarter hours of the day or night every tenth day." Land without water in Persia is about as valuable as the "south lands" were which were given to Caleb's daughter.

So far as I can learn, the Persian peasant enjoys a tolerable security of tenure so long as he pays his rent. A common rate of rent is two-thirds of the produce, but on lands where the snow lies for many months, even when they are "wet lands," it is only one-third; but this system is subject to many modifications specially arising out of the finding or non-finding of the seed by the owner, and there is no uniformity in the manner of holding land or in a.s.sessing the taxes or in anything else, though the system established 1400 years ago is still the basis of the whole.[48]

The line between the oasis and the desert is always strongly marked and definite. There is no shading away between the deep green of the growing wheat and the yellow or red gravel beyond. The general impression is one of complete nakedness. The flowers which in this month bloom on the slopes are mostly stiff, leathery, and th.o.r.n.y. The mountains themselves viewed from below are without any indication of green. The usual colouring is grayish-yellow or a feeble red, intensifying at sunset, but rarely glorified owing to the absence of "atmosphere."

It is a very solitary route from Pul-i-Kala, without villages, and we met neither caravans nor foot pa.s.sengers. The others rode on, and I followed with two of the Bakhtiari escort, who with Rustem Khan, a minor chief, had accompanied us from Julfa. These men were most inconsequent in their proceedings, wheeling round me at a gallop, singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns, throwing themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their horses, and one who rides without a bridle came up behind me with his horse bolting and nearly knocked me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun.

When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to them to go on, and we all rode at a gallop, the hors.e.m.e.n uttering wild cries and going through the pantomime of firing over the left shoulders and right flanks of their horses.

The camps were pitched on what might be called the village green.

Charmi, like many Persian villages, is walled, the wall, which is much jagged by rain and frost, having round towers at intervals, and a large gateway. Such walls are no real protection, but serve to keep the flocks and herds from nocturnal depredators. Within the gate is a house called the Fort, with a very fine room fully thirty feet long by fifteen high, decorated with a mingled splendour and simplicity surprising in a rural district. The wall next the courtyard is entirely of very beautiful fretwork, filled in with amber and pale blue gla.s.s. The six doors are the same, and the walls and the elaborate roof and cornices are pure white, the projections being "picked out" in a pale shade of brown, hardly darker than amber.

The following morning Miss Bruce left on her return home, and Mr.

Douglas and I rode fourteen miles to the large village of Kahva Rukh, where we parted company. It is an uninteresting march over formless gravelly hills and small plains thinly gra.s.sed, until the Gardan-i-Rukh, one of the high pa.s.ses on the Isfahan and Shuster route, is reached, with its extensive view of brown mountains and yellow wastes. This pa.s.s, 7960 feet in alt.i.tude, crossing the unshapely Kuh-i-Rukh, is the watershed of the country, all the streams on its southern side falling into the Karun. It is also the entrance to the Chahar Mahals or four districts, Lar, Khya, Mizak, and Gandaman, which consist chiefly of great plains surrounded by mountains, and somewhat broken up by their gravelly spurs.

Beyond, and usually in sight, is the snow-slashed Kuh-i-Sukhta range, which runs south-east, and throws out a spur to Chigakhor, the summer resort of the Bakhtiari chiefs. The Chahar Mahals, for Persia, are populous, and in some parts large villages, many of which are Armenian and Georgian, occur at frequent intervals, most of them treeless, but all surrounded by cultivated lands. The Armenian villages possess so-called relics and ancient copies of the Gospels, which are credited with the power of working miracles.[49]

The Chahar Mahals have been farmed to the Ilkhani of the Bakhtiaris for about 20,000 _tumans_ (6000) a year, and his brother, Reza Kuli Khan, has been appointed their governor. Thus on crossing the Kahva Rukh pa.s.s we entered upon the sway of the feudal head of the great Bakhtiari tribes.

We camped outside the village, my tents being pitched in a ruinous enclosure. The servants are in the habit of calling me the _Hak[=i]m_, and the report of a Frank _Hak[=i]m_ having arrived soon brought a crowd of sick people, who were introduced and their ailments described by a blue horseman, one of the escort.

His own child was so dangerously ill of pneumonia that I went with him to his house, put on a mustard poultice, and administered some Dover's powder. The house was crammed and the little suffering creature had hardly air to breathe. The courtyard was also crowded, so that one could scarcely move, all the people being quite pleasant and friendly.

I saw several sick people, and was surprised to find the village houses so roomy and comfortable, and so full of "plenis.h.i.+ngs." It was in vain that I explained to them that I am not a doctor, scarcely even a nurse. The fame of Burroughes and Wellcome's medicine chest has spread far and wide, and they think its possessor _must_ be a _Hak[=i]m_. The horseman said that medicine out of that chest would certainly cure his child.[50] I was unable to go back to the tea which had been prepared in the horseman's house, on which he expressed great dismay, and said I must be "enraged with him."

Persians always use round numbers, and the _ketchuda_ says that the village has 300 Persian houses, and 100 more, inhabited during the winter by Ilyats. It has mud walls with towers at intervals, two mosques, a clear stream of water in the princ.i.p.al street, some very good houses with _balakhanas_, and narrow alleys between high mud walls, in which are entrances into courtyards occupied by animals, and surrounded by living-rooms. The only trees are a few spindly willows, but wheat comes up to the walls, and at sunset great herds of cattle and myriads of brown sheep converge to what seems quite a prosperous village.

_May 5._--Yesterday, Sunday, was intended to be a day of rest, but turned out very far from it. After the last relay of "patients" left on Sat.u.r.day evening, and the last medicines had been "dispensed," my tent was neatly arranged with one _yekdan_ for a table, and the other for a washstand and medicine stand. The latter trunk contained some English gold in a case along with some valuable letters, and some bags, in which were 1000 _krans_, for four months' travelling. This _yekdan_ was padlocked. It was a full moon, the other camps were quite near, all looked very safe, and I slept until awakened by the sharpness of the morning air.

Then I saw but one _yekdan_ where there had been two! Opening the tent curtain I found my was.h.i.+ng apparatus and medicine bottles neatly arranged on the ground outside, and the trunk without its padlock among some ruins a short distance off. The money bags were all gone, leaving me literally penniless. Most of my store of tea was taken, but nothing else. Two men must have entered my tent and have carried the trunk out. Of what use are any precautions when one sleeps so disgracefully soundly? When the robbery was made known hors.e.m.e.n were sent off to the Ilkhani, whose guest I have been since I entered his territory, and at night a Khan arrived with a message that "the money would be repaid, and that the village would be levelled with the ground!" Kahva Rukh will, I hope, stand for many years to come, but the stolen sum will be levied upon it, according to custom.

The people are extremely vexed at this occurrence, and I would rather have lost half the sum than that it should have happened to a guest.

In addition to an escort of a Khan and four men, the Ilkhani has given orders that we are not to be allowed to pay for anything while in the country. This order, after several battles, I successfully disobey.

This morning, before any steps were taken to find the thief, and after all the loads were ready, officials came to the camps, and, by our wish, every man's baggage was unrolled and searched. Our servants and _charvadars_ are all Moslems, and each of them took an oath on the Koran, administered by a _mollah_, that he was innocent of the theft.

_Ardal, May 9._--I left rather late, and with the blue horseman, to whom suspicion generally pointed, rode to Shamsabad, partly over gravelly wastes, pa.s.sing two mixed Moslem and Armenian villages on a plain, on which ninety ploughs were at work on a stiff whitish soil.

Shamsabad is a most wretched mud village without supplies, standing bare on a gravelly slope, above a clear quiet stream, an affluent of the Karun. This country has not reached that stage of civilisation in which a river bears the same name from mouth to source, and as these streams usually take as many names as there are villages on their course, I do not burden my memory with them. There is a charming camping-ground of level velvety green sward on the right bank of the river, with the towering ma.s.s of Jehanbin (sight of the world), 12,000 feet high, not far off. This lawn is 6735 feet above the sea, and the air keen and pleasant. The near mountain views are grand, and that evening the rare glory of a fine sunset lingered till it was merged in the beauty of a perfect moonlight.

After leaving Shamsabad the road pa.s.ses through a rather fine defile, crosses the Shamsabad stream by a ten-arched bridge between the Kuh-i-Zangun and the Kuh-i-Jehanbin, and proceeds down a narrow valley now full of wild flowers and young wheat to Khariji, a village of fifty houses, famous for the excellent quality of its opium. From Khariji we proceeded through low gra.s.sy hills, much like the South Downs, and over the low but very rough Pasbandi Pa.s.s into an irrigated valley in which is the village of Shalamzar. I rode through it alone quite unmolested, but two days later the Sahib, pa.s.sing through it with his servants, was insulted and pelted, and the people said, "Here's another of the dog party." These villagers are afflicted with "divers diseases and torments," and the crowd round my tent was unusually large and importunate. In this village of less than fifty houses nearly all the people had one or both eyes more or less affected, and fourteen had only one eye.

Between Shalamzar and Ardal lies the lofty Gardan-i-Zirreh, by which the Kuh-i-Sukhta is crossed at a height of 8300 feet. The ascent begins soon after leaving the village, and is long and steep--a nasty climb. The upper part at this date is enc.u.mbered with snow, below which primulas are blooming in great profusion, and lower down leathery flowers devoid of beauty cover without adorning the hillside.

Two peasants went up with me, and from time to time kindly handed me cl.u.s.ters of small raisins taken from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of dirty felt clothing. On reaching the snow I found Rustem Khan's horse half-buried in a drift, so I made the rest of the ascent on foot. The snow was three feet deep, but for the most part presented no difficulties, even to the baggage animals.

At the summit there were no green things except some plants of _artemisia_, not even a blade of gra.s.s, but among the crevices appeared small fragile snow-white tulips with yellow centres, mixed with scarlet and mauve blossoms of a more vigorous make. At that great height the air was keen and bracing, and to eyes for months accustomed to regions buried in dazzling snow and to glaring gravelly wastes, there was something perfectly entrancing about the view on the Bakhtiari side. Though treeless, it looked like Paradise. Lying at the foot of the pa.s.s is the deep valley of Seligun, 8000 feet high, with the range of the Kuh-i-Na.s.sar to the south, and of the Kuh-Shah-Purnar to the north--green, full of springs and streams, with two lakes bringing down the blue of heaven to earth, with slopes aflame with the crimson and terra-cotta _Fritillaria imperialis_, and levels one golden glory with a yellow ranunculus. Rich and dark was the green of the gra.s.s, tall and deep on the plain, but when creeping up the ravines to meet the snows, short green sward enamelled with tulips.

Great ma.s.ses of naked rock, snow-slashed, and ranges of snow-topped ma.s.ses behind and above, walled in that picture of cool serenity, its loneliness only broken by three black tents of Ilyats far away. So I saw Seligun, but those who see it a month hence will find only a brown and dusty plain!

The range we crossed divides the Chahar Mahals from the true Bakhtiari country, a land of mountains which rumour crests with eternal snow, of unexplored valleys and streams, of feudal chiefs, of blood feuds, and of nomad tribes moving with vast flocks and herds.

Mehemet Ali, a new and undesirable acquisition, was loaded with my _shuldari_, and we clambered down the hillside, leading our horses amidst tamarisk scrub and a glory of tulips, till we reached the level, when a gallop brought us to the camps, pitched near a vigorous spring in the green flower-enamelled gra.s.s.

That halt was luxury for man and beast. Later the air was cool and moist. The sun-lit white fleeces which had been rolling among the higher hills darkened and thickened into rain-clouds, drifting stormily, and only revealing here and there through their rifts glimpses of blue. A few flocks of sheep on the mountains, and the mules and horses revelling knee-deep in the juicy gra.s.s, were the sole representatives of animated life. It was a real refreshment to be away from the dust of mud villages, and to escape from the pressure of noisy and curious crowds, and the sight of sore eyes.

Towards evening, a gallop on the Arabs with the Bakhtiari escort took us to the camp of the lately-arrived Ilyats. Orientals spend much of their time in the quiet contemplation of cooking pots, and these nomads were not an exception, for they were all sitting round a brushwood fire, on which the evening meal of meat broth with herbs was being prepared. The women were unveiled. Both men and women are of quite a different type from the Persians. They are completely clothed and in appearance are certainly only semi-savages. These tents consisted of stones rudely laid to a height of two feet at the back, over which there is a canopy with an open front and sides, of woven goat's-hair supported on poles. Such tents are barely a shelter from wind and rain, but in them generations of Ilyats are born and die, despising those of their race who settle in villages.

There were great neutral-tint ma.s.ses of rolling clouds, great banks of glistering white clouds, a cold roystering wind, a lurid glow, and then a cloudy twilight. _Hak[=i]m_ threw up his heels and galloped over the moist gra.s.s, the Bakhtiaris, two on one horse, laughed and yelled--there was the desert freedom without the desert. It was the most inspiriting evening I have spent in Persia. Truth compels me to add that there were legions of black flies.

In the early morning, after riding round the south-east end of the valley, we pa.s.sed by the lake Seligun or Albolaki, banked up by a revetment of rude masonry. The wind was strong, and drove the foam-flecked water in a long line of foam on the sh.o.r.e. Red-legged storks were standing in a row fis.h.i.+ng. Cool scuds of rain made the morning homelike. Then there was a hill ascent, from which the view of snowy mountains, gashed by deep ravines and backed by neutral-tint clouds, was magnificent, and then a steep and rocky defile, which involved walking, its sides gaudy with the _Fritillaria imperialis_, which here attains a size and a depth of colouring of which we have no conception.

In this pa.s.s we met a large number of Ilyat families going up to their summer quarters, with their brown flocks of sheep and their black flocks of goats. Their tents with all their other goods were packed in convenient parcels on small cows, and the women with babies and big wooden cradles were on a.s.ses. The women without babies, the elder children, and the men walked.

Whatever beauty these women possessed was in the Meg Merrilees style, with a certain weirdness about it. They had large, dark, long eyes, with well-marked eyebrows, artificially prolonged, straight prominent noses, wide mouths with thin lips, long straight chins, and ma.s.ses of black hair falling on each side of the face. Their dress consisted of enormously full dark blue cotton trousers, drawn in at the ankles, and suspended over the hips, not from the waist (the invariable custom in Persia), and loose sleeved vests, open in front. The adult women all wear a piece of cotton pinned on the head, and falling over the back and shoulders. The men had their hair in many long plaits, hanging from under felt skull-caps, and wore wide blue cotton trousers, white or printed cotton s.h.i.+rts over these, and girdles in which they carried knives, pipes, and other indispensables. All wore shoes or sandals of some kind. These men were very swarthy, but the younger women had rich brunette complexions, and were unveiled.

Some bad horse-fights worried the remainder of the march, which included the ascent of an anemone-covered hill, 7700 feet high, from which we got the first view of the Ardal valley, much cultivated, till it narrows and is lost among mountains, now partly covered with snow.

In the centre is a large building with a tower, the spring residence of the Ilkhani, whose goodwill it is necessary to secure. Through a magnificent gorge in the mountains pa.s.ses the now famous Karun. A clatter of rain and a strong wind greeted our entrance into the valley, where we were met by some hors.e.m.e.n from the Ilkhani.

The great Ardal plateau is itself treeless, though the lower spurs of the Kuh-i-Sabz on the south side are well wooded with the _belut_, a species of oak. There is much cultivation, and at this season the uncultivated ground is covered with the great green leaves of a fodder plant, the _Centaurea alata_, which a little later are cut, dried, and stacked. The rivers of the plateau are the Karun and Sabzu on the south side, and the river of Shamsabad, which brings to the Karun the drainage of the Chahar Mahals, and enters the valley through a magnificent _tang_ or chasm on its north side, called Darkash Warkash.

The village of Ardal is eighty-five miles from Isfahan, on the Shuster caravan route, and is about 200 from Shuster. Its alt.i.tude is 5970 feet, its Long. 50 50' E. and its Lat. 32 N.

On arriving here the grandeur of the Ilkhani's house faded away.

Except for the fortified tower it looks like a second-rate caravanserai. The village, such as there is of it, is crowded on a steep slope outside the "Palace." It is a miserable hamlet of low windowless mud hovels, with uneven mud floors, one or two feet lower than the ground outside, built in yards with ruinous walls, and full of heaps and holes. It is an _olla podrida_ of dark, poor, smoky mud huts; narrow dirt-heaped alleys, with bones and offal lying about; gaunt yelping dogs; bottle-green slimy pools, and ruins. The people are as dirty as the houses, but they are fine in physique and face, as if only the fittest survive. There is an _imamzada_, much visited on Fridays, on an adjacent slope. The snow lies here five feet deep in winter, it is said.

When we arrived the roofs and balconies of the Ilkhani's house were crowded with people looking out for us. The Agha called at once, and I sent my letter of introduction from the Amin-es-Sultan. Presents arrived, formal visits were paid, the Ilkhani's princ.i.p.al wife appointed an hour at which to receive me, and a number of dismounted hors.e.m.e.n came and escorted me to the palace. The chief feature of the house is a large audience-chamber over the entrance, in which the chief holds a daily _durbar_, the deep balcony outside being usually thronged by crowds of tribesmen, all having free access to him. The coming and going are incessant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE OF ARDAL.]

The palace or castle is like a two-storied caravanserai, enclosing a large untidy courtyard, round which are stables and cow-houses, and dens for soldiers and servants. In the outer front of the building are deep recessed arches, with rooms opening upon them, in which the Isfahan traders, who come here for a month, expose their wares.

Pa.s.sing under the Ilkhani's audience-chamber by a broad arched pa.s.sage with deep recesses on both sides, and through the forlorn uneven courtyard, a long, dark arched pa.s.sage leads into a second courtyard, where there is an attempt at ornament by means of tanks and willows.

Round this are a number of living-rooms for the Ilkhani's sons and their families, and here is the _andarun_, or house of the women. On the far side is the Fort, a tall square tower with loopholes and embrasures.