; SIX MONTHS IN PERSIA. EDWARD STACK, BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. EXBIBLIOTHECA FRANC. BABINGER SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1882. [All rights reserved. ] LONDON : FEINTED BY GILBERT AND EIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. PiGK BAREILLT TO BUSHIRE . . . . , . 1 CHAPTEE II. BUSHIRE TO SHIRAZ .. . . ... .. 29 CHAPTEE III. PERSEPOLIS . . t . . . 55 CHAPTEE IV. SHIRAZ TO FIRUZABAD . . . . . 71 CHAPTEE V. i FIRUZABAD . . . . . . . 86 CHAPTEE VI. FIRUZABAD TO LAR ...... 96' CHAPTEE VII. . 133 1845953 iv Contents. CHAPTER VIII. PAdE LAB TO SAIDABAD ..... . 146 CHAPTER IX. SAIDABAD TO KARMAN . . . . . 183 CHAPTER X. KARMAN . ... 198 CHAPTER XL KARMAN TO YAZD .... . 221 CHAPTER XII. YAZD . . . ..... . .256 CHAPTER XIII. SHIRKTTH . . .271 SIX MONTHS IN PEESIA. CHAPTER I. BAREILLY TO BUS HIRE. 24TH JANUARY TO 13xn FEBRUARY. AFTER eight years in India, I began to be con- scious that a change of climate was desirable. On the 24th January, 1881, I left the pleasant station of Bareilly in the North- Western Provinces, intending to embark at Karachi for Bushire, and make my way to Europe across Persia. One Sayyid Ali, a native of Teheran, accompanied me as major-domo, factotum, and travelling-companion. I had known him about five years, he had taught me to speak Persian, and I had lent him occasional assistance in his endeavours to maintain himself in India, a task by no means easy for the hapless foreigner who is stranded in that country without money or a patron. The Sindh railway having recently been VOL. I. B 2 Six Months in Persia. finished, it was possible to travel with ease and luxury all the way from Lahore to Karachi. Sindh is a province which possesses a strange power of captivating the affections of men con-, demned to live and work in it for a number of years, but its aspect to the casual visitor is not attractive. So far as can be seen from the railway, the country is one level expanse of white clay, whether bare or covered with tamarisk forest. Few parts of the world can boast of finer dust than is produced here. It is powdered clay, white and impalpable, filling all the air, and imparting a greyish hue to the feathery green branches of the tamarisk, as if they were covered with a dirty kind of hoar- frost. This dust has also remarkable penetra- trative qualities. It fills the rail way- carriages, and follows the traveller into the refreshment- room ; he finds it in his soup, in his basin, and on the towel with which he endeavours to clean his face. Next to the dust, the tamarisk-trees of Sindh challenge admiration. They occasionally reach a height of thirty feet, with a girth of eight or nine. Perhaps there is no part of India where this tree flourishes in greater per- fection, but in the southern provinces of Persia it attains still larger dimensions. Sakkar. 3 Travelling through, such a country, even by rail, tends to become monotonous ; and the break at Rori is gladly welcomed, where low limestone hills run down to the Indus, and the steamer waits to ferry passengers across to Sakkar. Here one may see a quaint picture in blue and grey. On the hither side, the houses of Rori, in a uniform grey tint, rise straight from the water's edge to a height of four and five stories, with rows of windows which look only half oriental, and give the river-face a curious resemblance to the back of some old Scotch town. Sakkar answers from over the river with exactly the same dull colour, while in the middle, on a long island, the walls and huge round bastions of Bakkar cast a grey shade over the blue waters. Her palaces and mosques are built of mud, once made bright with coloured tiles, but these have mostly fallen away. The presence of a newer civilization is proclaimed by the bright red of the brick-built railway station, and of the barracks within the old grey fort ; but perhaps our predecessors chose the cooler style of building, and certainly they chose the more picturesque. An air of old-fashioned peacefulness and rest hangs over the whole scene, under the quiet morning light. B 2 4 Six Months in Persia. Not far from Sakkar is the station of Ruk, where one can change for Afghanistan. The Quetta railway has been carried as far as Nari Gorge, some twelve miles within the Afghan frontier. From Ruk, the line runs to Shikar- pur and Jacobabad, through a country which grows barer of trees, till at last all vegetation disappears, and the level desert called Pat stretches unbroken for nearly a hundred miles, to the vicinity of Sibi. The Sibi plain produces wheat and rice, watered by the Nari river. As the train draws up to the station, lines of barracks come into view, Government bunga- lows, storehouses, and other signs of a depot. Northward and westward, the horizon is fenced round with mountains, whose rocky wall is broken by two main passes the Bolan, dimly descried to the west, and the Nari Gorge, only seven miles distant to the north. The train runs to the very mouth of the gorge, where a group of small but neatly-finished bungalows marks the farthest point, at present, of the railway which was to have been made to Can- dahar. Here one has leisure to admire the naked ruggedness of the mountains of Southern Afghanistan. They are of red sandstone, weather-worn into all kinds of fantastic shapes. Nari Gorge. 5 During my three days' stay in Nari Gorge, I rode a few miles up the pass. The scenery can scarcely be called grand, but is certainly wild and desolate in the extreme. The pass runs between two mountain-walls which now approach each other and now recede, but always present a succession of sheer precipices, jagged ridges, splintered peaks, cloven ravines, huge slopes of tumbled rocks, and taller moun- tain-tops in the background grimly over- looking all. Of vegetation, even where water might conceivably lie in ledges or hollows of the shattered hill-sides, there is no trace what- ever ; all is tawny red stone, glowing under the cloudless heat. This was in January. It is difficult to imagine how work can be carried on in June. The only tolerable feature of the pass is the Nari river. The width of the channel is about 200 yards, but the river fills the whole channel only for a few hours in times of flood. A good macadamized road has been made in the dry bed, by the simple process of removing the larger stones, and covering the remainder with earth and gravel; but as the road goes straight ahead, while the river twists like a snake, there is a ford to be crossed at every mile, with water sometimes knee-deep, 6 Six Months in Persia. sometimes more. In two bends of the stream between Nari station and Kilat-i-Kila (nine miles up the gorge) there languish half a dozen tamarisk bushes, about eighteen inches high and three feet in circumference ; these are the vegetable products of this rich river-bottom. Such is the country which the ex-Candahar railway had just begun to enter when orders came to stop work. The rails, which had already been laid down a mile beyond Nari station, were taken up while I was there, and preparations were being made for the cessation of all work within the gorge. The hewn stones prepared for the culverts were left lying where they had been cut, the coolies were nocking back, and the upper works had already been deserted. It was impossible to witness the change without a feeling of regret for labour bestowed in vain. I believe nearly seventy lakhs (say 550,OOOZ.) had been spent in carrying the railway up the pass, so far as it had gone. Rails had actually been laid for only a mile ; but the railway embankment is continuous to Kilat-i-Kila (nine miles), with the exception of one or two small gaps which were to have been filled with culverts, and beyond Kilat-i-Kila work has been done in pieces, extending dis- The Candahar Railway. 7 connectedly several miles farther. Tf an un- professional critic may hazard an opinion, I should say that the work has been admirably done. The embankment does not, like the road, run through the middle of the gorge, nor cross the stream, but keeps the left bank of the river, close under the eastern mountain- wall, which rises above in sheer cliffs of two hundred and three hundred feet, or slopes suddenly upwards in confused masses of broken crags. In one spot a projecting shoulder of rock has been tunneled through. The roof, however, is less safe than could be wished, for the rock has little hardness and no cohesion. In some places the embankment is thirty feet high. It is built of earth, faced with large round stones from the river, and squared off at the edges with artistic nicety. It winds in graceful curves through the irregular con- tortions of the pass, at a height safe against floods, except at one point, where the river has been turned to prevent the current from setting against the foot of the embankment. The excellence of the work contrasts strangely with the abominable desolation of the scene around. I was assured that the pass maintains its wild character the whole way to Quetta, and 8 Six Months in Persia. that the scenery up to Kilat-i-Kila is a fair specimen of what may be expected anywhere along the route, save that in the upper portions the road grows somewhat worse, the hills rise higher, and at Spin Tangi (the white narrows) the red rock changes to white, and limestone replaces sandstone. Railways have been carried over more difficult country, and through far grander scenery than that pre- sented by the Nari Gorge route to Quetta, where the hills immediately overlooking the line are only 500 to 800 feet high, and the taller peaks in the background rarely rise to 2000 feet. But had the line been completed as far as Quetta, perhaps no other railway in the world could have matched the sheer savagery, the weird and irreclaimable desola- tion, of its surroundings. To an ordinary observer, it seems impossible that such a line could ever pay. The worst hill-regions of Persia are hardly so dreary, so hopelessly life- less, as this arid and trackless mountain-belt, which, with the desert before it and the desert behind it, guards the south-western frontier of our Indian empire. From Nari Gorge I returned to Ruk, and reached Karachi on the 1st February. Four The Mekran Coast. 9 days later I embarked on board the Rajputana steamship of the British India Navigation Company, bound for the Persian Gulf. 6th February. Before entering the Gulf the traveller enjoys the pleasure of three days' navigation of the Sea of Oman, within sight of the coast of Biluchistan. This seaward pro- vince is called Mekran. It presents to the view an unbroken wall of precipitous and pinnacled mountains, varying from 1000 to 3000 feet in height, but always inexpressibly wild and for- bidding. They are splintered and cloven and shattered into manifold forms of rum ; it is as if Nature, finding them very bad, had set her- self to mar her own handiwork. Seen from an offing of fifteen miles these mountains seem to run down into the sea, but in reality a level strip intervenes between their bases and the coast- line. Hour after hour the prospect scarcely changes, while the steamer works her way westwards. It is a more continuous and ex- tensive desolation than that of the Sibi hills, and conveys a stronger impression of an eternity of changeless and dolorous emptiness ; " a waste land, where no man comes, or hath come since the making of the world." One might fancy that these savage Mekran hills were peopled i o St'jc Months in Per six. with evil spirits. And yet there are two Eng- lish settlements in this waste and melancholy country. They are the telegraph stations at Ormara and Grwadar, on the inland line which runs along part of the coast of Biluchistan. Ormara is within about sixteen hours' steam of Karachi. A hammer-headed promontory of cliffs projects southwards into the sea, and the village and telegraph station are nestled in the angle between the hammer-head and the shaft. The steamer does not call, and the tiny settle- ment is not visible from the offing. 7th February, Gwadar. At Gwadar, however, which is fourteen hours west of Ormara, and quite similarly situated, the Rajputana stopped and sent a mail-boat ashore. Gwadar is a village of about 2000 souls, built at the end of a sandy spit, with long cliff-walls stretched out on either hand. The southern wall runs eastward some three miles, and is about 250 feet high ; the northern wall rises much higher, and in one part takes the semblance of a cathedral with towers and spires, a mass of white rock quaintly im- planted on a platform of yellow sandstone, and measuring perhaps 500 feet in vertical height from its topmost pinnacle to the sea-beach at its feet. Some native craft give an air of life Gwadar. 1 1 to the bay enclosed by these arms of rock. Gwadar is said to be the coolest station in the Gulf, but its advantages in point of climate can hardly compensate its dreadful loneliness. Moreover, the place has been haunted by fever for some years past. Two telegraph officers and the apothecary were ill with fever when the Rajputana called, and the only visible English resident was the superintendent. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do in one's leisure hours. The extreme dirtiness of the village takes away all desire of visiting it a second time. It is governed by a deputy of the Sultan of Muscat, who lives in a tumble-down mud palace, with an old bronze gun at the door a fine old piece of ordnance, probably of Portuguese manufacture, of great length, and about 32 Ibs. calibre. 8th February, Muscat. From Gwadar the course lies across the Sea of Oman to Muscat on the Arabian coast. Here are mountains of far greater height, and of another form and colour. The general effect is more grand than picturesque, majestic rather than grotesque or horrible. The inland ranges lose their tops in the clouds, and their sides, sloping down in rounded spurs and buttresses, spread into a i 2 Six Months in Persia. long table-land above the second range, which again is separated from the sea by a labyrinth of deep valleys and bold rocky peaks. All these mountains are black, and they have the quality of utter bareness in common with the mountains of Mekran. In the far background rise the great dark masses of Jabala Abu Daud (6300 feet), Jabal Tagin (5520 feet), and Jabal Nakhl (7740 feet). Their broad breasts give the eye wide scope to roam over realms of upland, where water and pasture might be expected under the shadow of mountain-tops that seem to rob the clouds of their rain. But the glass tells another tale. These mountains are nought but bare' rock, and the plateau below their summits is a waste land suspended between heaven and earth, a great raised plain all tree- less, grassless, covered with fragments of black rock tumbled from the hills. The coast abounds in little coves and bays, which open successively upon the view as the steamer passes by. A few towers, of round or square construction, flying the red flag of the Sultan of Muscat, are perched upon projecting cliffs. But Muscat itself remains invisible, though the white sails of Arab boats proclaim the vicinity of a port. These craft are rigged like an Italian felucca, Muscat. 1 3 and recall memories of the Mediterranean. Presently, as the steamer draws nearer to the black rocks, a half- Italian town discloses itself along the margin of a bay. Its tall white houses are marked with a triple row of windows, shaded by green jalousies. This is Matrah ; and while one is looking at Matrah, and gra- dually drawing nearer to it, suddenly Muscat harbour opens on the left hand. First is seen a fort on a headland, then another on a bold point opposite ; finally the town comes into view at the bottom of the cove, occupying the whole of the narrow beach, and supported by a picturesque fortress on either hand. The steamer turns to the left, and enters the cove. It is a natural harbour formed by two pro- montories three quarters of a mile long and 400 feet high. Halfway in, the harbour is narrowed by a spur which juts out from the right-hand or western promontory, and reduces the breadth of the cove from half a mile to one quarter. The left-hand promontory has a battery and round tower at its seaward end, the jutting point is similarly armed, and at the foot of the cove stand two isolated masses of rock on either side of the beach, crowned with battlements and round towers built by 1 4 Six Mont/is in Persia. Portuguese hands in the sixteenth century, and little changed since. The space between these two fortresses a frontage of 300 yards is filled by the white houses of the town. A wharf with stone steps marks the customs- house, and three houses are conspicuous with flags. The red flag flies over the Sultan's palace, and the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes grace the houses of the British and American Consuls. The Sultan's steam yacht and steam launch lie in the harbour, with a number of native craft, some of which fly the Persian ensign the two-bladed sword of Ali, 1 white on a red ground. Painted boats are moving about the cove, and crowds of people are bathing or fishing on the beach and along the black rocks under the cliffs. The whole scene is most quaint and picturesque, and the more so for its sudden revelation from the recesses of the lifeless hills. Here is a flourish- ing city, not without stateliness of its kind, the 1 The royal arms of Persia are the Lion and the Suii, and this is the ensign of the very few Persian craft that ply on the Caspian. But in the waters of the Gulf I saw only this sword of Ali that zulfiqar or divider, which is best known to the English reader under its changed name and nature as King Arthur's sword Excalibur. Muscat. 1 5 centre of no small trade, hidden away so cunningly behind the sheltering arms of rock, that one might almost have passed it by unseen. Muscat has been a rare station for pirates in the old days. At present its fortifications are hardly defensible, but they are eminently pic- turesque. The forts on either side of the town are quaint groups of yellow walls and bastions and circular batteries rising in tiers, perched on the top of black cliffs 100 feet high. A similar collection of old-world fortifications embellishes the extremity of the midway jutting point, while every coign of vantage on the cliff- walls of the cove bears its own battery or martello tower. The armament is various in character and uniform in condition. All the iron guns are rusty, and all the brass guns are green with verdigris. Some of the latter are really fine pieces of ordnance, cast by the Portuguese as far back as 1606 A.D. The iron guns are mostly carronades. Muscat and its dependencies are governed at present by Sultan Sayyid Turki. His elder brother is the Sultan of Zanzibar. Since the division of empire, the affairs of the younger branch have sadly fallen away. So late as 1864, Muscat harbour owned a 36-gun frigate, 1 6 Six Months in Persia. several corvettes, brigs, and armed buggalows ; but Sayyid Turki has been obliged to sell his frigate to a Parsee firm, and the rest of his fleet seems to have disappeared in the same direction. His government is not wholly secure from civil broils. The principal forts are extensively pitted with cannon-shot, as if they were in the habit of firing at one another; and the mountain country behind the town shelters a half-brother of the Sultan's, who comes down from time to time with his Bedouins, and exacts black-mail. Sayyid Turki's revenues consist of about 110,000 dollars from customs, 30,000 dollars from the British Government, and what- ever else he can pick up. He is in embarrassed circumstances, but as he enjoys the advantage of British protection, he need trouble himself but little about his creditors or his enemies. The city which he governs is enclosed on two sides by walls, 700 yards and 250 yards in length respectively, and on two sides by the hills and the sea. The bazaar contains the usual variety of nationalities long-haired Mekranis, grave Arabs with their girdles stuck full of cutlery, and with matchlock and brass-studded buckler at their backs ; Persians in jackets and wide trousers ; flat-nosed Africans with brawny Muscat. 1 7 limbs; and the familiar form and features of the mild Hindoo. There are 700 Hindoos under the protection of the British Resident in Muscat. They are traders, and if one may judge by their fat and comfortable appearance, they find the business pay. One does not see many signs of wealth in Muscat bazar. The chief article of wholesale export seems to be dates. 2 But the peculiar product of Muscat is its halwa, a confection of wheat-starch, with sugar and almonds, which is at once pleasant and nourishing. By walking a mile beyond the town, and climbing a low saddle-back which separates the harbour of Muscat from Sudab bay, one can obtain a pretty view of either place. On the one hand lie the town and harbour of Muscat, locked in by the dark, precipitous rocks ; on the other, the wide sweep of Sudab bay, with its white sand, blue waters, and green palm-groves. After this, nothing re- 2 Muscat has powerful rivals in this trade. Large quan- tities of dates are exported from Basrah. A gentleman engaged in the trade recently had the curiosity to inquire where the consignments to England found consumers. He disoovered that the date-eaters of these islands live chiefly in the mining districts. 1 8 Six Months in Persia. mains to be seen ; Muscat is exhausted, and the traveller may return with thankfulness to the pleasant hospitality of the British Resident and the American Consul. 9th February, Jashk. From Muscat to Jashk is one night's run. Jashk is a telegraph-station of no small importance, being the point whence the cable runs to India, and the land-line to Gwadar and Ormara. It surpasses Gwadar in desolation. The telegraph buildings occupy the end of a long sandy spit, projecting seven miles from a low and dreary coast. Mountains of 5000 feet rise in the background, but they are twenty miles inland, and almost invisible on a hot and hazy day, when all that can be dis- tinctly seen in any direction is sea and sand. As a station, however, Jashk is perhaps the best after Bushire, for the telegraph staff is large, and the charms of ladies' society are not unknown. It used even to support a news- paper, called the Jaslik Howl, a name suffi- ciently appropriate to the desert character of the place. Jashk promontory, though Persian territory, is rented by the British Government, and garrisoned by 100 Bombay sepoys. At the extremity of the promontory is an old Ma- homedan tomb, noteworthy only as having Bandar Abbas. 1 9 been mentioned in the earliest chronicles of European travellers in the Gulf. Wth February, Bandar Albas. The next port is Bandar Abbas. When Shah Abbas the Great, in unholy alliance with the East India Company, destroyed the classical port of Ormuz, and expelled the Portuguese, he founded Bandar Abbas to perpetuate his victory and his name. There is not much to be said about the town. It stands at the head of a broad and shallow bay, and presents to the sea a long frontage of grey, clay-daubed houses, with numerous badgirs (wind-catchers) or wind- towers rising above their flat roofs. An old stone wall and four ruined towers enclose about one-fourth of the town. The population may amount to 6000 souls. The trade of the place is considerable. It is the port of Karman, Lar, Seistan, and south-eastern Persia generally ; the increased security of the roads has of late years encouraged commerce ; and the customs' duties, which were worth only 25,000 tomans (about 10,000?.) a year in 1871, are rented at 40,000 tomans now, by a Turk of Azarbaijan. Ormuz island lies on the left hand as the steamer leaves Bandar Abbas. The name of Ormuz has been linked by Milton, for ever with c 2 2O Six Months in Persia. the barbaric pearl and gold of the gorgeous East. The only token now remaining of its ancient grandeur is the ruined fort, whose massive walls and bastions stand out against the sky, at the extremity of a low spit of land. The rest of the island is a circular mass of salt, a fantastic arrangement of salt hills confusedly flung together, and remarkable both for form and colour. Three sharp peaks of gleaming white overlook a wilderness of red and purple ridges and cones, at the foot of which, as they sink to the sea, arise strange pyramidal shapes of grey rock or clay. In a space of level ground between the hills and the sea, a few stunted trees mark the site of a palace visited by old voyagers of the sixteenth century, who called the place Tamberlake; but Tamberlake has long disappeared, and its very name is lost. Ormuz, in short, looks more like an enchanted island on the scenes of an extravaganza than a place for human habitation. It would make a wild and wonderful picture, if coloured by the imagination of such a painter asM. GustaveDore. As Ormuz is left behind, the steamer passes between Larak on the left and Kishm on the right. Larak is a circular and rocky island, but is not salt. A village and an old Dutch Linga. 2 1 fort of small dimensions stand on the northern shore. The island abounds in conical peaks, one of which is almost mathematically correct from base to summit, like a gigantic model of a cone. Kishm is an island which has some memories for Englishmen. The alliance between Shah Abbas and the East India Company was directed against Kishm as well as Ormuz, and one of the few Englishmen killed in the siege of the small Portuguese fortress which guards the north-eastern extremity of the island was William Baffin, the discoverer of Baffin's Bay, who came from Arctic seas and " regions of thick-ribbed ice," to find a grave under the fierce sun of the Persian Gulf. In 1820, and again in 1850, Kishm was made the rendezvous of a British expeditionary force. llth February, Linga. From Bandar Abbas to Linga is about sixteen hours' run. The two towns resemble each other in size, situation, and appearance, but Linga has a background of palm-groves, which is wanting to Bandar Abbas. As a port, Linga is of minor im- portance, the customs being farmed for only 10,000 tomans; but it is a great place for shipbuilding, and deserves honourable mention as having turned out the largest buggalow 22 Six Mont/is in Persia. (Arab felucca) afloat the Dunya or World, of 800 tons burthen. She belongs to an Arab merchant of Bombay, and was employed as a transport ship when the Indian troops were sent to Malta in 1878. She carried the horses of a Bengal cavalry regiment. While the Rajputana was lying in Linga roads, we saw a buggalow of 500 tons on the stocks ready for launching, and another of 300 tons was under the hands of the riggers. Some seven miles to the east of Linga, a cluster of palms shelters the village of Kung, once a port of the Dutch, who have left a ruined fort and the shattered walls of a factory as memorials of their occu- pation. The customs-house of Linga itself is an old Dutch factory. But these relics of European settlements are surpassed in antiquity by the ruins of a fortress on a low flat-topped hill immediately behind Linga. Nobody knows anything about these ruins, except that they date from time immemorial. Such faint and forgotten traces of past greatness are quite in keeping with the general tone of the shores of the Gulf. The aspect of the whole country suggests the idea of natural powers exhausted ages since, and a civilization that ran its appointed course a thousand years ago. Bahrein. 23 February, Bahrein. Leaving Linga, the steamer crosses again to the Arabian coast. The islands of Bahrein are the most unin- teresting places in the Gulf, at least in winter, when the pearl fishery is not going on. Low islands covered with palm-groves, and defended by a couple of square forts with round towers at the corners ; two towns built mostly of mud ; a crowd of native craft ; and a Turkish gunboat decorated with flags in honour of Friday ; such was the picture presented by Bahrein. The visitor to Bahrein is supposed to go and see the spring which irrigates the principal island. It rises about three miles from the shore. The way thither runs through date-groves and vegetable gardens, and past the ruins of a city, with a mosque and two minarets still standing. The minarets are in a shaky state, and cannot last much longer ; but it is not improbable that before they fall they will be measured, sketched, and described by a competent English officer, who will be able also to make excavations on the site. As for the spring, it is a natural pool of circular form, 20 yards in diameter, and about 20 feet in depth; the water is crystal clear, but slightly brackish. 13th February, Bushire. On the 13th of 24 Six Months in Persia. February, after a week's voyage, the Rajputana came into the roadstead of Bushire. During my last hours on board, I had an opportunity of witnessing one of those sudden changes in the wind which render the navigation of the Persian Gulf somewhat dangerous for small craft. The prevailing winds are east and north- east. The former is called Suhaili, the wind of Canopus ; the latter, Shamdl, or the north wind simply. Suhaili was blowing mildly while we lay off Bahrein, and during the night it freshened to half a gale. Towards morning it sank a little, but remained in the same quarter till about eight o'clock, when Suhaili all at once gave place to Shamal, and against a head-wind, with driving rain, the Rajputana worked her way up to Bushire. Mr. Paul's steam launch came out to the steamer, and I had the good fortune to be one of the party whom it took ashore. I remember noticing how much greater the cold was than in even high Indian latitudes at this time of year. The strong breeze struck one like a raw April blast bringing showers over the melancholy Irish Sea, while the grey sky and the grey town suggested fleeting thoughts of home. Bushire is the best-built town on the Persian Bus hire. 25 coast, and shows some signs of care and improvement. A good sea-wall runs along a great part of its seaward face, and there are small stone quays where a buggalow of sixty or eighty tons can lie and discharge cargo. It is said that an expenditure of 50,000/. would enable large ships to approach much nearer to the shore than is possible at present. Long sandy flats and banks extend nearly three miles to sea, but when the tide is out, one can distinguish a channel winding among them, which needs only dredging to make it practi- cable. A kind of tender, I believe, was made to the Persian Government by an English firm in Bushire some years ago ; but the scheme fell through, like most schemes for works of public benefit in Persia. Under proper management, Bushire might be made a place of considerable trade. The customs' duties have been increasing of late years, and are now valued at 60,000 tomans (about 24,OOOZ.) a year ; but the want of a good road to Shiraz prevents Bushire from assuming the place it is entitled to as a principal feeder of Persia. Had the British Government retained Bushire, after having been at the trouble of capturing it in 1856, the prosperity of the place would no doubt have 26 Six Mont/is in Persia. advanced much more rapidly. Bushire might have been called the eastern Gibraltar; for though there is little outward similarity between the high Spanish rock and the low shores of the Gulf, yet in each case we find a town and harbour at the extremity of a peninsula difficult of access from the mainland, commanding a great highway to India, and of just sufficient extent to be easily defensible. Had we retained Bushire, some arrangement would doubtless have been made with the Persian Government for the improvement of the road to Shiraz. Some embankments remain as memorials of our temporary occupation. A ruined mud fort stands on the edge of the sea. It was defended by a garrison of Arabs in 1856, and its capture by storm cost our troops a loss quite dispro- portionate to the strength of the position. Bushire is garrisoned by two companies of infantry and a battery of artillery. The infantry soldiers here, as throughout Persia generally, are slovenly and awkward to the last degree. Their arms are old percussion muskets, all covered with rust. The artillery consists of eight bronze field-guns, in a similar state of unclean- ness. Besides these, four carronades or mortars are stowed under cover in the barracks. One Bushire. 2 7 of these bears the inscription, " Cast for the Imaum of Muscat by Cyrus Meyer and Co., Boston, 1850." The town has been encom- passed by a wall, but the wall has disappeared on the seaward side, and is vanishing on the landward also. The interior of the town pre- sents the customary Eastern labyrinth of narrow and dirty lanes. Viewed, however, from the high ground four miles inland, Bushire is not without its elements of beauty. The city stands clustered together on a low knoll at the point of the peninsula; before it is the sea; behind it extend level sand and swamp ; while the remote background is filled with dark and rugged mountains. This is the mountain-chain which was seen behind Bandar Abbas, and again behind Linga ; the great barrier which separates the central plateau of Persia from the low strip along the coast. The Residency buildings are situated at the eastern end of the town, close by the beach. A second or summer Residency stands on the high ground in the inland portion of the peninsula. Hereabouts also are the telegraph buildings, and the house of Mr. Paul, whose generous hos- pitality afforded me a home during my stay in Bushire. The European society of Bushire is 28 Six Months in Persia. more numerous than that of many an Indian sta- tion. The climate is excellent during the winter months, and detestable in summer and autumn. Bushire has an advantage over the ordinary Indian station in enjoying a longer and more bracing period of cold weather. Its great dis- advantage is the difficulty of getting away from it, of going anywhere for change of air and scene. The European residents are glad to welcome a stranger, and treat him magnifi- cently. 2 9 CHAPTER II. BUSHIRE TO SHIRAZ. FORTY-ONE FARSAKHS : EIGHT DAYS. 1 FOUND some difficulty in hiring mules for Shiraz. Bushire had recently been flooded with pilgrims returning from Mecca and Baghdad, and these worthies had apparently exhausted the resources of the place in the way of trans- port. The difficulty was increased by the fact that we were a party of four, and all our demands were in the market at the same time, to the no small advantage of the muleteers. My three companions were Messrs. Bruce and Collignon of Ispahan, and a young Scotch lad bent on seeing Persepolis. I8th February, Sliif to Burazjan, Gfarsaklis ; 2 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. The high road from Bushire to Shiraz has so often been described, that no very minute account of it can be neces- sary here. It traverses the low coast-region, 3O Six Months in Persia. crosses successive mountain-ranges by succes- sive passes or kotals, and finally descends upon the interior plateau of Persia. AYe left Bushire an hour before noon on the 18th of February. Mr. Paul's steam yacht carried us across the bay to Shif, thus saving two tedious and muddy marches along the coast-line of the peninsula. At Shif, which consists of two huts on a knoll of mud, we found our mules, and after an excellent lunch, provided by my kind host, I began my experience of Persian marching. It was not a happy beginning. Since then I have made a pretty extensive acquaintance with various sorts of Persian roads, in various kinds of weather, but without meeting any- thing worse than this first march over a clay swamp, on the back of a refractory mule. Burazjun l is the first inland station on the Anglo-Persian telegraph, and was destined to be our halting-place for the night. It is about twenty- five miles from Shif; the road draws obliquely away from the coast, leaving the sea on the left hand, and approaching the mountains. In ordinary weather the ground is 1 Corrupted from Gurazdun, i.e., abode of boars. The place used to be haunted by wild boars before the re- establishment of settled government encouraged the ex- tension of cultivation. Burazjun. 3 1 hard clay, mixed with sand ; but the rain of the last few days had made the surface slippery and sticky, and had covered it with water. After seven hours of weary plodding, where the only relief to the monotony consisted in watch- ing the varying hues and features of the mountain-wall on the right, we reached Buraz- jun at half-past nine at night, hungry and tired. Mr. Arshak, who was there in charge of the telegraph station, received us hospitably, and gave us a good dinner. In the middle of the swamp, we had passed an elegant carriage, which the Prince Governor of Ispahan had ordered out from Europe. It had got so far on its way, by the help of six- and-twenty men, who were painfully bearing it on their shoulders. The wheels and pole had been taken off, and packed in the body of the carriage. How the vehicle has subsequently fared in the kotals, one can only guess. When I left Isfahan nearly four months later, the last news of it was that it was stuck, for the time being, in the neighbourhood of Qazran. \Wi February, Kunar-taldita, 8 farsakhs; 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Next morning we set out for the telegraph station of Kunar-takhta, 2 nearly ! That is, jujube-bed. The Kunar or jujube tree (the common ber of Hindustan) is a bush about as large as the 32 Six Months in Persia. thirty miles north-east of Burazjun. The road wound among the low spurs and knolls in which the first range of mountains sink towards the flat coast-region. Marching in such a country is often tantalizing work ; the prospect is bounded by knolls and ridges of which it seems impossible to get clear. But we had a picturesque view of the hills on our right, and the grassy slopes beside the road were bright with celandine, poppy, daisies, and bluebells. At length we rose on the crest of one of these grassy waves, and caught sight of the plain on our left. The broad stony bed of the Dalaki river, half filled with swift snow-water, wound under miles of date-palm forest, over which again could be seen the bare flats stretching to the sea. On the right hand the hills drew nearer and nearer. Here we began to be conscious of an evil smell, as of sulphuretted hydrogen and coal-tar, proceeding apparently from the plain which had just come in sight. We had heard of the naphtha springs of Dalaki, and now we were to see them. Sulphur springs are met with first ; they well copiously from the base of the hills, and flow across the road. hawthorn. It flourishes in the neighbourhood of the tele- graph station to which it has given its name. Dalaki. 33 A little further on, the brown naphtha may be seen floating on the white sulphurous waves. Then the village of Dalaki comes in view. It is only a few mud huts ; but the background is formed by hills of various and strange hues. Salt-hills in Persia are always remarkable in shape and colour. They are angular and abrupt, curiously stratified, and coloured red or brown, green, light blue, grey, or white. Behind Dalaki we could count all these colours, while above all rose the duller brown of the higher ranges in the background. The road enters the salt-hills by a narrow gorge, with fantastic forms of rock on every side. In some places Nature has been playing the architect, and has joined together rocks of different colours, or super- imposed slabs of gypsum upon red sandstone, with a neatness which mocks the work of human hands. Winding through defiles and dry watercourses, the road, or rather track, at last comes down upon the Dalaki river, in the middle of the salt-hills. The river is crossed by a good stone bridge, and the ruins of two older bridges are seen a little way down the stream. Nothing could be wilder than the view from this bridge in the evening sunlight. On either side of the river-bed rise streaked VOL. i. D 34 Six Months in Persia. and jagged hills, bright brown, yellow, tawny-red, or grey, while the prospect up-stream is closed by a broken mass of bright red, almost crimson, with the shoulder of a pale green hill just showing itself on the left. Down-stream, the river turns abruptly round the foot of a grey cliff. A solitary square tower at the bridge- head adds to the loneliness of the scene. The Kotal Malu begins a little beyond this point. It is a rocky staircase a thousand feet high, with its landing in the plain of Khisht, 1800 feet above the sea. It offers some pic- turesque views of the river, many hundred feet below. Part of the road has been paved with stones, the rest is the work of Nature. The top of the pass is six miles from Kunar Takhta. We reached the telegraph-station at eight in the evening, and were hospitably entertained by Mr. Gifford. The march had been one of about thirty miles, Dalaki being half-way. 20th February, Kamdrij, 3 farsaWis ; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Next day we marched only twelve miles to Kamarij. The road traverses a corner of the Khisht plain, leaving rice-fields and date- groves on the left, and enters the low hills which run out from the foot of the Kamarij kotal a second flight of rocky stairs, 1200 feet high, Kamdrij Kotal. 35 landing in the quaint little plain of Kamarij, 2950 feet above the sea. There is a slight descent from the summit of the pass into the plain. The kotal itself is remarkable for two things the singular conformation of the long, flat-topped hills at its base, and the extreme badness of the road. The latter circumstance was partly due to recent floods in the Khisht river, which washes the foot of the kotal. Half-way up, the road becomes so narrow that a laden mule strikes his load against the rocks on either hand. It is literally a staircase, but entirely of Nature's making. It is shut up between overhanging peaks on the left, and a torrent-bed far below on the right. The oppo- site side of the torrent bed is flanked by a wall of black rock, 300 feet high, furrowed by deep channels worn by the rain of centuries. With one exception, I have seen no mountain pass in Persia so wild and steep as the Kamarij kotal. In the very narrowest part, we met mules descending with bales of cotton. After a wordy war, our servants compelled the muleteers to unload and tumble the bales down the rocks. The unladen mules scrambled out of the way, wherever they could find foothold; and our caravan got past. D 2 36 S/x Months in Persia. Kamarij plain is a level patch, nine miles by four, shut in by hills 600 to 800 feet high. The village has about 500 inhabitants ; it lies at the foot of the hills on the left-hand border of the plain, and its grey flat-roofed houses, set in the green of spring, make a pretty picture from a due distance. From the top of the hills, a good view can be had of Kamarij plain and a larger plain to the west, with date-groves and a gleaming river. To the north appear the snowy summits of ranges yet to be crossed. Our quarters were in the upper room of a small rest-house maintained by the Government for the convenience of European travellers. At this time of the year, when the ground is covered with hoarfrost in the morning, four persons can find accommodation in a small room. In summer it would be a very different matter. 21s February, Qazrdn, 5 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Our next stage was Qazran. Going down the middle of the Kamarij plain, we made our exit from it over low hills, where the morning air was delightfully fresh and in- vigorating. Then descending on the upper courses of the Khisht river, whose white bed and blue waters gave colour to the landscape, we left the river on the left, and turned sharp Qazrdn. 37 to the right (south-eastwards) for the plain of Qazran. After eight miles of wandering among low ridges, each of which we expected to be the last, we emerged on a view of the level country and the town of Qazran, lying behind its orange gardens, and at the foot of two green hills. The town is an ancient one, and, like most Persian towns, has seen better days. It may have 8000 inhabitants at present. It suffered severely in the famine of 1879 and 1880. The qanat 3 on which the water supply depends, dried up; many people died, and many more had to leave the place and seek work and food in Bushire or Shiraz. The antiquities of the place are to be found on the green hills behind the town. They consist of some traces of an old fort, and an empty cistern, which supplied the fort with water. The people are proud of their orange gardens, but the oranges are either sour or bitter. Much more noteworthy is the 8 It is hardly necessary to explain that a qanat is an underground conduit formed by excavating a passage which connects the bottoms of a series of wells sunk at intervals of twenty to thirty yards. Water is thus brought from the foo* of the mountains, where it may be one hundred feet under- ground, to plains ten miles distant, wher ) it comes out on the surface. 38 Six Months in Persia. encouragement recently given to the cultivation of the poppy. The opium trade of Persia will be noticed hereafter ; but it may be mentioned here that we were assured that poppy had been introduced into Qazran within only the last few years, and that the Government, desiring to encourage its cultivation, had exempted poppy fields from the payment of revenue. 22nd February, Halt at Qazran. In the evening I called on the governor. He received me very courteously in a well-carpeted room, and gave me a chair. His vizier, who was a talkative personage, asked what the English meant to do with Candahar, and evidently thought we were relinquishing it out of pure dread of the Candaharis, of whom he had a high opinion as mighty warriors and " lion- men." He proceeded to express his regrets that Persia was unable to take Herat. " Persia is not a great Power like England," he said. I afterwards found that so judicious an appre- ciation of Persia's place in the scale of nations is by no means universal throughout the country. After coffee and a qalyan, 4 the * The qalyan is the Persian pipe. It differs from the Indian hookah and the Turkish nargile in substituting a straight tube, fifteen inches long, for the long flexible tube Qazrdn Plain 39 governor gave me a guide and lantern to con- duct me to the telegraph-office, where we had taken up our quarters. From Kamarij to Qazran is about twenty miles. The point where the road turns to the right is about half-way. If, instead of turning to the right, one were to march straight on, the ruins of ancient Shahpur can be reached in less than two hours. Their situation can be descried from the high ground above the Khisht river. 23rd February, Dasht-Arjun, 8 farsakhs ; 6.30 a.m. to 8 p.m. The stage from Qazran to Dasht-Arjun is the best of all in point of scenery, but it is a long day's march thirty- two miles, with two kotals. The first is called the Kotal Dukhtar, or Maid's Pass ; the second, the Pirazan, or Old Woman's. Qazran plain extends eight miles to the foot of the Kotal Dukhtar. Long grey mountain-walls stretch on either side of the plain. The even line of their summits flushes red in the sunset, and then turns to a dead and ghastly grey. Leaving the plain on the right, the road approaches the through which the Turk smokes, and the Indian nabob of the past used to smoke. But the lordly Indian hookah has almost disappeared. 4O Six Months in Persia. left-hand range, enters an amphitheatre of hills, and disappears in a great cleft. There is a path for foot- travellers up the face of the hill. I took this, and was rewarded by a splendid view. The morning air was clear and bracing. At the foot of the hill a caravan was beginning the ascent ; I could see the mules picking their way among the rocks, and hear the cries of the muleteers, and the faint jangle of the mule- bells. The plain of Qazran was visible throughout nearly its whole extent. At its lower or eastern end it sinks into a large but shallow lake, which the heavy winter rains had swelled to a length of twelve miles, with a breadth of eight or nine. The hither side of the lake was clothed with brushwood; the farther shores rose in soft green hills. Such a combination of wood, water, and pasture-land is very rare in Persia. In summer, of course, the prospect would lose most of its charms, but as yet the greenness of early spring was fresh and unwithered. The Kotal Dukhtar is about 1000 feet high. Crossing the mountain-tops, the road descends again into the Dasht-i-Barr, a secluded moun- tain valley, four miles long by two broad, and full of oak-trees. Though the trees are no great size, and were not yet in leaf, still this The Kotal Pirazan. 4 1 part of our march was pretty and pleasant. We rode through a park-like country, with green turf under foot. The valley is closed by the huge mass of the Pirazan. Half-way up is the caravansarai of Mian Kotal. Leaving the mules to follow the windings of the main road, we chose a path which led straight up the rocky mountain-side. It was a hard climb of 2000 feet, and we were all very glad when it was over. The caravansarai is a good one. We easily found a room with a clean stone floor to lunch on. The little level platform on which the caravansarai stands is backed by a magni- ficent mountain ridge, rising steep and clear into the deep blue of the sky. Dasht-i-Barr lies at one's feet, and snowy peaks fringe the northern horizon. The air is pure, bracing, marvellously clear, and has a remarkable exhilarating and almost intoxicating power. About two o'clock, we set out again for the second half of the Pirazan. This is longer but less steep than the lower half. Before we reached the top we found ourselves walking in snow. The summit, and the sides of the descent to Dasht-Arjun, are clothed with oak forest. To the right, glimpses are caught of valleys and little plains, sinking by successive steps to the level of Qazran plain. They are 42 Six Months in Persia. all empty and uninhabited. A little lake, locked in by the untrodden hills, helps to heighten the sense of loneliness. At length Dasht-Arjun comes into view. It is a plain sixteen miles long by ten broad, lying 6600 feet above the sea-level, and shut in by moun- tains, of which the great ridge of Pirazan (7400 feet) rises the highest, while those at the opposite end are not more than 300 feet above the plain. The centre of the plain is filled by a reedy swamp, which the winter rains had made into a lake of no mean dimensions, and the extreme blueness of its waters called forth admiration from all of us, as we halted for a moment to survey the scene suddenly disclosed at our feet. The plain seemed quite tenant- less ; but on looking closer we discovered Kala Mushir, a grey mud fort, nearly midway on its level surface, and Dasht-Arjun village was dimly seen at the farther end. Night fell before we reached the telegraph-station. The weariness of the last eight miles was beguiled by watching the light fade behind the snowy mountain-tops, while the stars came out large and full. We were hospitably welcomed in the tele- graph- office, and rejoiced in a warm fire and a good dinner. It froze hard during the night. Dasht Arjun. 43 As we had only twelve miles to march next day, we had time in the morning to see some of the beauties of Dasht- Arjun. 5 A fine spring breaks out at the foot of a cliff 200 feet high, half a mile from the village. It is associated with the name of a saint, one Shah Mansur, whose shrine stands by the water, under the shade of some tall plane-trees. Some forty feet up the cliff is a small cave, accessible by a ledge. We climbed up, and found it stuck all over with little tin sconces, which had con- tained votive tapers. I called on the kadkhuda or headman of the village, and was entertained by him with tea and bread and honey, while he answered my questions as to the revenue and agricultural affairs of the village. He told me the well-known story of Colonel St. John's adventure with a lioness on the road down the Pirazan. The beast attacked his horse, and Colonel St. John, after waiting in a tree till the coast was clear, made his way on foot to Kala Mushir. The horse was recovered next morn- ing, with the marks of the brute's claws on his 6 The name means " plain of wild olives." The arjun- tree, or rather shrub, is common in the south of Persia at elevations of 5000 to 6000 feet. It fringes the margin of the lake or swamp in Dasht-Arjun. 44 Six Months in Persia. hind-quarters. Having told this story, the kadkhuda proceeded to narrate some experi- ences of his own ; among others, of a tussle with a lion, in which he had been bitten in the thigh ; and, rolling up his wide Persian trousers, he showed me the scars, which were unmistakable enough. The Persian lion is much smaller than the African lion. It is said to be common enough in the oak forest above Dasht-Arjun. We were told that, two days before, a foot traveller had been turned back by the sight of two of these animals. 24th February, Khan-i-Zanyan, 3 farsakhs ; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We started for Khan-i- Zanyan in a snowstorm. The road ascends into the mountain-tops, and winds among them. Under the grey sky, the rounded slopes and summits reminded me of Irish hill-tops of bog and heather. Five miles from Khan-i-Zanyan the road comes down on the Qara-Agach 6 river, 6 The name is Turkish, and signifies " black tree." Pos- sibly it may have been suggested by the dark branches of the willows which fill the stony bed of the stream. It is one of the largest rivers of Southern Persia. I crossed it twice again on my way to Lar, the last time almost at the end of its explored course, before it enters the unknown country through which it finds its way to the Persian Gulf. Shiraz. 45 and crosses it by a stone bridge. The blue and green shades in the water of this swift moun- tain stream were most vivid and beautiful. Khan-i-Zanyan caravansarai is large and in good repair. We found an excellent room upstairs, with a courtyard. The situation is bleak and exposed, at a height of 6100 feet above the sea-level. 25/& February, Shiraz, 8 farsaMs ; 5.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Next morning early, we saddled our horses for Shiraz. We had thirty-two miles to march, and the road, winding among bare mountain-tops, proved less interesting than any stage since Burazjan. The morning air, how- ever, was very pleasant, keen, and frosty ; and the snowy mountains behind us remained in view for the first ten miles, girdling the horizon with a magnificent ring of white peaks. The first view of Shiraz is not striking. The broad, green plain, covered with cultivation, is a welcome sight after the comparatively desolate scenery of the last few days ; but the city itself presents nothing to catch the eye. Its three blue domes are not large enough for this pur- pose. Later in the year the gardens and vine- yards which surround the city must help to mark it out from the plain on which it stands ; 46 Six Months in Persia. but when we looked down on Shiraz none of the trees were in leaf. Beyond the plain rise the dark bare mountains, snow-crowned. The knowledge that we beheld an ancient and famous city, that we were approaching a great mart, where all things needful could be bought, and that in a couple of hours we should be welcomed by English people, made up for any want of picturesqueness in the view. We breakfasted in the caravansarai of Chinarada, and rode rapidly over the last eight miles to Shiraz. Outside the wall we were met by Mr. Fahie of the Telegraph, and by Dr. Odling. Mr. Bruce and I were to be Dr. Odling' s guests. The road from Bushire to Shiraz may be roughly described as running northward as far as Kamarij, and thence eastward to Shiraz. We made seven marches of it, besides one day's enforced halt in Qazran. It has been travelled in three days, but five days are little enough, with stages as follows : Burazjan 25 miles, Kunar Takhta 30 miles, Qazran 32 miles, Dasht-Arjun 32 miles, Shiraz 42 miles. 26th February to 3rd March, Shiraz. At the time of our visit, Shiraz was governed by one of the Shah's uncles, Prince Firuz Mirza, with Skiraz. 47 the title of Mutamid-ul-Mulk, or Supporter of the Kingdom. By the intervention of Nawab Haidar Ali Khan, who is acting 1 as British Agent and interpreter to the telegraph depart- ment, a day and hour were fixed for an inter- view with the prince. We were ushered into an upper room of the citadel, where the prince was accustomed to transact business. It was almost bare of furniture; chairs, however, were provided for us, and the prince himself took his seat upon a cane-bottomed chair of the humblest description. He was an old man, enveloped in a fur cloak; his manners were extremely courteous, and calculated to set visitors at their ease. The interview lasted about half an hour. The prince questioned us about the state of Europe, the Turkish and Greek questions, and the armaments of the different Powers, in a way which showed con- siderable acquaintance with these topics on his part. The future of Candahar, the Irish question, Indian superstitions, the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions were all touched upon. The prince was even familiar with the name of Martin Luther. As to Can- dahar, he evidently thought that it was relin- quished on account of the military difficulty of 48 Six Months in Persia. retaining it. The conversation was entirely in Persian. After the usual tea, qalyan, and coffee, we took our leave. Prince Firuz Mirza has the reputation of being a severe governor. The old man's face had lines in it which seemed to express energy and resolution. It is perhaps hardly fair to draw his character from such imperfect inform- ation as I obtained, chiefly from his subjects and his enemies. Still, a brief sketch of a Persian Governor may possess some interest, though it ought to be taken with charitable qualifications. The province of Fars was in a disturbed state when Firuz Mirza assumed the government of Shiraz. He reduced it to order by measures of great but perhaps wholesome severity. After many real or reputed robbers had been crucified or buried in mortar-pits, the roads became safe, and have remained safe during his administration. But in revenue matters, perhaps the prince has been less successful. The peasantry, at least, wherever I spoke to them on the subject, were loud in their com- plaints. Since Firuz Mirza's accession, they said, Fars tamdm sliud, the province had been done for. The revenues, exacted with rigour in years of famine, have been spent on the Shiraz. 49 shrines of Karbala and Qazimain near Baghdad. Besides, the prince is said to have vastly in- creased his private fortune during his term of government. Since his recall he has been detained in Teheran on a charge of arrears in the provincial revenues. The story of Shaikh Mazkur, of Kaugun, illustrates the alleged severity and greed of the prince. Kangun is a small maritime settle- ment on the coast of Persian Biluchistan. A friend of the Shaikh got into trouble, and the Shaikh was invited to ransom him. He did so, but the man was nevertheless put to death. Next year, the Shaikh, deducted the amount of the ransom from the revenue paid by him to Shiraz. The prince sent his servants to collect the revenue in full. They seized and carried away a boy of the tribe, for purposes familiar to Persians. The Shaikh recovered the lad by force. He was now declared a rebel, and after sustaining a long siege in his hill-fort, he surrendered himself on a promise of personal safety, confirmed by an oath on the Koran. The oath, of course, was violated ; the Shaikh was carried to Shiraz, and brought into the city on an ass, with every circumstance of ignominy and insult, in the presence of the VOL. I. E 50 Six Months in Persia. whole of the garrison, and of the populace. A few days later he was strangled in the parade- ground of the citadel, and the body was sus- pended by hooks under the chin to a gallows erected in the square, and derisively inscribed with the name of the Shaikh's fort. The gallows was standing while I was in Shiraz. The prince advised me to travel to Kangun, to " the fort he had conquered," if I wanted to see an interesting part of the country. Two days suffice to exhaust the sights of Shiraz. The bazaar built by Karim Khan, about a hundred and fifty years ago, is in the form of a cross, with a dome at the intersection of the arms. The length of the main branch is 500 yards; that of the cross-branch 120. The roof is vaulted, and 22 feet high ; the roadway 12 feet broad ; and the shops which open back from the masonry platforms on either side are neat and well stocked. It is a better bazaar than can be found in many Indian towns of much greater size. The Masjid-i-Nau, though called the new mosque, is the oldest mosque in Shiraz. It consists of flat-roofed cloisters built round a fine courtyard paved with stone ; the lower course of the cloisters are also of stones. The mosque of Shah Chiragh is conspicuous by its S/iiraz. 5 1 blue dome, the lower portion of which is adorned with, conventional patterns in black, white, blue, and yellow. The height of the building, from base to finial, is about 110 feet. Sayyid Husain's mosque, in the western quarter of the city, is of about the same size, but in worse repair. Shah Chiragh has rich endow- ments. An English lady recently had the courage to enter this mosque, disguised like the Persian woman who accompanied her. The interior is rich with lamps of gold and silver, doors plated with those metals, &c. On the gateway of the Vakil's mosque, and of an old college, there still remain beautiful specimens of flowering designs in enamelled tiles of the old style. The art has partly been lost. Nothing could exceed the grace and beauty of form and colour shown in this workmanship of a century ago. Outside the city are various gardens, which we visited, though all the trees, except the cypress, were bare. The best is the Bagh-i- Takht, or terrace-garden. It is built in terraces against the slope of a hill. Its upper end is crowned by a two-storied building, fantastic and not ungraceful. The grounds fall away from the portal in a succession of broad E 2 52 Six Months in Persia. terraces, down which a stream with waterfalls used to flow in a stone-paved channel, filling a large stone basin or tank on one of the terrace levels. But the property it belongs to the Shah has been much neglected ; the house is falling to ruin, and the stream and tank are dry. Neglect and decay are indeed the common features of crown property all over Persia. The most remarkable relics of antiquity near Shiraz are three wells on a rocky hill, two miles north-east of the city. Nobody knows who made them. Probably they are older than the Mohammedan conquest. The hill is about 500 feet high, and very steep. It seems to be composed of sandstone and limestone. Two of the wells are on the side facing the city. These are the deepest. The mouth of the larger of the two is about seven feet by five, and its depth is nearly 500 feet. 7 The shaft evidently sinks through the whole depth of the hill. It is hewn in the solid limestone, and very smoothly cut ; the sides are perfectly plumb, and a stone dropped from the centre of the mouth will reach the bottom without 7 Repeated experiments showed that a stone took just six seconds to reach the bottom. Allowing half a second for the sound to come up, the depth would be 484 feet. Shiraz. 53 striking anywhere on its way. Far down, one hears the cooing of invisible pigeons, and a shower of stones makes them flap about with a noise like distant thunder. The third well, at the back of the hill, has seats or ledges cut in the rock above it. Remains of old fortifica- tions encompass the summit of the hill. From the topmost peak the whole plain of Shiraz can be seen, and the salt lake of Mahalu, twenty miles to the east. The plain is well watered, fertile, and green, and miles of orchards cover its western end. Shiraz city is a compact brown area in the green landscape, overhung with smoke, and adorned by three blue domes. While in Shiraz, I had the good fortune to be invited to an Armenian banquet. It was a magnificent entertainment. We sat down, thirty in number, on either side of a long table- cloth, spread on the floor, and covered with various kinds of pilau and other dishes, in- cluding a lamb roasted whole. Beer and Shiraz wine flowed freely. The dinner was followed by drinking of healths. A dignitary of the Armenian church, second in rank (I believe) to the bishop, who had come from Isfahan to grace the occasion, was the principal 54 Six Months in Persia. \ speech-maker. He preferred cherry brandy of terrific strength, and with the decanter affectionately grasped and held in his ample lap, among the folds of his black cassock, while the other hand held the glass ready for the generous liquor, he delivered several speeches in Armenian, with evident eloquence, and not without dignity and grace. The custom is that the person whose health is pro- posed should acknowledge the honour in a song while the company are drinking, and afterwards return thanks in prose. Armenian songs are not unlike Gregorian chants. Our ecclesiastical dignitary kept up a deep running bass that would have done credit to the drones of a couple of bagpipes. The whole thing was excellent fun, and had that heartiness and kindliness about it which mixed Indian enter- tainments so woefully want. 55 CHAPTER III. PERSEPOLIS. 3rd March, Zarghun. As my route from Shiraz would not lead in the direction of Per- sepolis, and as it seemed a pity to let slip an opportunity of seeing such a famous place, I determined to spend four days in an excursion thither, the more so as I should fortunately have a companion in young Mr. Gray. We left Shiraz on the 3rd of March, and halted at Zarghun, which is twenty miles from Shiraz, and half-way to Persepolis. The road winds among the mountains which form the northern wall of the Shiraz plain. They are stony, and the road is stony; there is no view, and we were glad to come at last upon the descent to the plain of Bajgah. 1 This is only a mile in 1 Videlicet, " taxing-place." There is a caravansarai here, but I am not sure whether the toll-house which gave the place its name exists still, or whether the tolls are taken at Shiraz gate. 56 Six Months in Persia. breadth, and the ascent on its farther side leads to the lower slopes of the hills which border the plain of Zarghun. After some six miles among these stony undulations, the whole plain discloses itself, with Zarghun town most quaintly situated at the foot of a great ridge of rock, a thousand feet high, brown and bare, and seemingly inaccessible. In fact, however, it can be ascended anywhere with but little difficulty, and the view repays the labour of the climb. The plain immediately below, occupied by the well-watered fields of Zarghun and its villages, is good cultivated country, and the slopes of the lower hills are dotted with vine- yards. To the left the plain runs up into a bay between narrowing mountain-ranges; to the right it stretches away in a broad expanse, which, when we looked upon it, was a great sheet of water, made by the winter rains. A ring of snowy ridges hemmed in the prospect all round ; their sides and summits flushed red in the sunset, and then turned white, while the water showed a cold steely blue. The few villages, in their mud-built brownness, were lost in the widespread bareness of the plain ; and if the eye turned from these vast empty spaces, it rested on th rocky ledges of the broad hill-side. Persepolis. 5 7 4farsakhs ; 7.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. So much for Taft. We marched next day up the bed of the river, between walls of rock which gradually closed in on us, till we had precipices 250 feet high on either hand. An isolated tower of rock was pointed out as the fort of one Badi, a pahlwdn or mighty man of valour in those parts. He seems to have been an historical personage, and to have been hunted down and killed near the old fort of Taft. Our guide looked with pride on the precipices, and called my attention to their impregnability. The young men of Taft had unfortunately shared his sentiments four years ago, and had created some disturbance, for which they were killed, imprisoned, or trans- ported to the Garmsir between the Shiraz mountains and the Persian Gulf. I could get no correct account of this little rebellion, which seems to have been suppressed with vigour. 278 Six Mont/is in Persia. Taft, however, has suffered more from famine than from the sword. At a census taken four- teen years ago, its population was 11,745 ; a second census six years ago showed only 3353. The famine of 1869-70 had come between. The present population of the place is about 5000. I had been told of a wonderful waterfall at the head of this ravine, 180 gaz in height, or about 500 feet. As we ascended the ravine, the Taft watercourse merged in a natural stream flowing pleasantly over stones and among boulders. Turning into a fork which branched off to the right, we passed above a solitary house built on a ledge level with the stream, while the banks on either hand, for a quarter of a mile, were cut into little terraces of rice and wheat, and lined with walnut, mulberry, and sinjad trees, and with wild pomegranate and coriander bushes. It was a pretty sight. Scrambling over the rocks, we reached the head of the ravine, and found a slender stream of water falling thirty feet into a basin, and thence ninety feet to the bottom. This was the famous waterfall. In a hollow of the rock, some forty feet above the bed of the ravine, a picnic party were drinking tea and cooking A Mountain Village. 279 soup. I climbed up, and had some tea and a smoke, but could not wait for breakfast. I had my own breakfast farther on, under a rock beside the stream. Our way led us up the left- hand branch of the main ravine, by a gradual ascent, to a plateau of level rock, where, never- theless, a small village-fort contrives to subsist on the produce of a few fields. We were now on a shoulder of Shirkuh, and a few miles more carried us into the heart of the mountain, where Deh Bala stretches up a long ravine that rises ever more steeply to the topmost snow- covered ridge. Unlike the passes through which we had been travelling all day, this ravine is nowise black and empty, but bright with terrace-fields on either side of a full sparkling stream, and overshadowed by all manner of goodly fruit-trees, in new leaf of the freshest, loveliest green. For six miles our road lay among scenes like this, under the shadow of apple, pear, and quince trees, white and red with blossom, of broad-leaved fragrant walnut trees, stately planes, and the lavish foliage of mulberries. The river, now on this side now on that, threw its clear snow-water over the rocks, or into bright shingly pools ; while in- numerable channels, taken off at higher points, 280 Six Months in Persia. after irrigating the terraced wheat and poppy, came pouring out in crystal showers through the stone walls which fenced the upper margin of the road. Behind the leafy screen great rock- walls rose, dark and impracticable ; while before us the gorge narrowed and closed against the huge snow-crowned rampart of Shirkuh ridge itself, suspended highest of all, like a white cloud in the blue air. "We found quarters in the house of a Haji, close by the river. The first thing I did on arriving was to go and bathe in a pool. The water was delightfully cold. A pile of granite boulders above the terrace-fields gave me a fine view of the long straggling village and the cliffs that shut it in and hold up the snow-covered summits of the mountain. I wished to cross Shirkuh by the head of this ravine, but everybody agreed that the road was blocked with snow, and I did not like to risk the mules. 8th May, Manshar, 4 farsakhs ; 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Accordingly, next day we marched to Manshar, descending the ravine and turning sharp to our right, passing on our way two little villages, and the large village of Tizarjan, the best of all those which Shirkuh hides in its well-watered recesses. Tizarjan has a river Tizarjan and Manshar. 281 somewhat smaller than that of Deh Bala, but a much wider area of field and wood, filling a broad hollow at the foot of the highest peak of Shirkuh a noble mountain capped with a crown of rock many hundred feet high. A broad band of snow lay at the foot of the crown, and its summit was deep in snow. The snow would disappear towards the end of summer, but in clefts and hollows of the rock (so I was assured) the accumulations of countless winters are stored up, safe from the sun. Passing this lovely valley with regret, we turned aside to Manshar, and found that it too lay in a hollow, less broad than that of Tizarjan, and watered by two small streams. It is the largest village of Shirkuh, has a mosque, and a few shops. Here again a Haji's house received us ; the old man took so much trouble on my account that I was quite ashamed. I picked up a guide here, who proved rather an amusing fellow. He came with me for a walk in the afternoon, up a hill-side where the gleam of water flowing over a shelving rock had caught my eye. I found the place lined with grass, through which the little streamlet made its way, and half-way up the hill was a small plateau planted with pollard 282 Six Months in Persia. willows, with a pool in the middle where the streamlet was dammed. They call a dam istalch or salkh, a strange word, seemingly old Persian. My guide was very anxious that I should bath in the pool, which possessed medi- cinal virtues, and was resorted to by patients from Yazd ; but I had bathed sufficiently in the river below. He then began to discourse freely about local affairs, complained of oppression, and said the kalantar would take ten tomans as his mudakhil or perquisite in consequence of my visit. This smote upon my conscience, but there was no remedy, and probably the sum was exaggerated. " The people," said my companion, " desire to be under your banner " (zir I alam i shumd), i.e., under British rule had they only a definite notion of England as distinguished from Farangistan generally. Then he proceeded to glorify the mineral products of Shirkuh. "Under the snows," he said, "are crystals (durr or qalam) as long as one's finger, which grow there like mushrooms." He himself had watched one grow. A boxful of them was collected and sent to Farangistan a few years ago. As for the village people, they are Babis, 1 1 The Bab or Gate was a native of Nirez who preached a communistic and mystical religion that had much in it to Nightingales. 283 and have community of wives and daughters (zan o dukhtar i hamdigar hildl middnand) ; of which custom my companion advised me to take advantage, as a remedy against loneli- ness during the rest of my stay in Manshar. I hastened to turn the conversation to less questionable subjects. "We sat and looked over the valley bathed in the quiet evening light. A cuckoo was calling as we descended the hill towards the groves and broad vine-trellises of Manshar. We crossed a swift brook flowing from the snows that rose against the sky on our right. I thought I had never looked upon a prettier scene. In the Haji's garden of apple, plum, and apricot trees, I enjoyed a qalyan and tea before dinner. I slept in an upper room overlooking the garden, and was wakened twice in the night by the rapturous singing of nightingales, whose wild music burdened every bough. 9th May, Sakhvid, 5 farsakhs ; 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Next day we marched across Shirkuh by the Manshar pass, a low saddle-back, just reaching to the level of the snow at this time of year. The country on the southern side of attract the free-thinking Persian mind. He was put to death in 1850. 284 Six Months in Persia.. the mountains is utterly unlike the valleys and ravines which nestle in their bosom on the side next Yazd. When we reached the crest of the pass, we saw a long bare slope, of the kind so familiar to the traveller in central Persia, ex- tending downwards till it sank into a desert plain broken here and there by hills, " mere ugly heights and heaps," which rose into jagged ridges in the eastern or left-hand part, and subsided into mere undulations towards the right. The top of the slope, as distin- guished from the actual mountain-side above it, lay considerably higher than the valleys on the Yazd side ; in fact, for all their southerly aspect, the walnut trees in the gardens of Nid and Sakhvid were only beginning to come into leaf. While the rest of the caravan descended the mountain-side and marched round a spur, I went with my guide by a mountain path which led us up a rocky peak, and thence down a ravine, where a snow-fed brook tumbled among rocks and grass. Coming down upon the road, we walked on, thinking the mules in advance, but in half an hour we heard a shot, and saw them two miles behind. We sat beside a water-channel and awaited their coming. A plane-tree gave us shade, and bushes of sweet The back of Sh irkuh . 285 briar perfumed the air all along the banks. When the mules came up, we marched along the slope as far as Nid, where, finding no quarters, we went on to Sakhvid, four miles further, and got good rooms in the Zabit's house. These villages at the back of the mountains have no such charms as Deh Bala and Manshar. They stand on the bare slope, overlooking the desert, and are watered by rivers or brooks much smaller than those which have scooped out the ravines on the northern side. One consequence of their exposed situa- tion is a comparative deficiency of trees. In the evening I went up a hill above Sakhvid, and surveyed the villages which dotted the narrow strip of qanat-irrigated land between the foot of the slope and the desert. These, with the villages on the slope, make up the Pusht-i-kuh district. One of them, by name Irnan, is distinguished by a quaint rocky hill which rises above it, some 800 feet high, scarped all round, and accessible (I was told) by one path only, and that not practicable for everybody. The hill is quite isolated, but does not seem to have been fortified, probably because it is waterless above, though there are some slender springs at its base. As we rode 286 Six Mont/is in Persia. past on the long slope, and looked at the village below us and fifteen miles distant, one of the party told a story of a yuzbashi of Karman, who, taking disgust at Government service, started with five companions to plunder Irnan, and succeeded in gaining possession of the fort, but was ultimately exterminated with his followers by soldiers from Yazd. This hap- pened four or five years ago. The exploit was spoken of in that tone of moral indifference which distinguishes Persian criticism of ban- ditti ; indeed, the yuzbashi was rather lamented as a loss to the country, being a man (they said) of a dauntless and desperate courage, who regarded the life of a man no more than that of a dog. 10^ May, Mirza Hasliim's hamlet, 4 far- sakhs. From Sakhvid we had to retrace our steps to the Manshar Pass. Wishing to make an easy march, I determined to halt on this side of the pass, in whatever hamlet we could find. We stayed by the way in Nid, to get wheat for the cattle and bread for ourselves. Here I had a second experience of the incon- veniences attending sursdt. The kalantar came to me privately and said we had taken stores to the value of fourteen krans ; which I paid Mirza Hashims Hamlet. 287 him. The Khan who accompanied me got news of this, and promptly turned back and enforced repayment of the money. Thence we marched along the slope, looking down upon the hazy plain, with its white patches of kavir and its dark patches that mark villages, situated mostly at the edge of the salt, where the subterranean drainage from the mountains rises to the surface. We halted at a hamlet called after one Mirza Hashim, where we found only women. A respectable old lady placed her house at our disposal, and, with her hand- maidens, waited on us diligently. I went out in search of a bathing-place, and discovered a spout in a ravine, under which I sat ; the snow-water seemed to cut one in two. In the afternoon I went with my guide up a hill crowned with huge blocks of grey granite, piled on each other and weather-worn into hollow shapes a common feature in the skirts of Shirkuh. A smart shower drove us into the crevices for refuge, and afterwards the setting sun lighted up the desert with great distinct- ness, and showed us the snowy tops of the mountains of Baonat in Fars, nearly a hundred miles to the south-west. I had picked up some information concerning the routes across the 288 Six Months in Persia. intervening desert, which here is encroached upon by no such fringe of villages as below Sakhvid; we could see only bare stony plain, with ridges and hillocks here and there, and the thin white line of kavir threading it from left to right. The Prophet of Thieves in Lar had told me that the desert and kavir between Fars and Karman was the salvation of the latter province, which else had lain quite at the mercy of the bold spirits of Fars. Nevertheless, the desert is crossed by caravans bringing wheat from Baonat, and also, as in the recent affair at Karmanshahan, by bands of thieves. My guide called my attention from topographical inquiry to his own private affairs. He had for years followed the fortunes of a dervish, who conversed with animals. " I have myself seen him," said the ex-disciple, "engaged in con- versation with every species of animal " (suh- bat bd hama jur jdnwardn). When the time of the dervish's dissolution approached, he went with his disciple into the desert, sat down in a suitable place for dying, and bade his pupil gather a stone and a certain herb, and carrv them for tokens to a village which he Mr indicated. The man did so, and the elders of the village produced a shroud, and went in To Mahriz. 289 search of the dervish ; found him dead, shrouded him duly, and buried him in their village with honour. The unfortunate disciple might have emulated his master, but a woman got hold of him, as he said (gir-i zan shudam), and made him the father of seven children, whom he was unable to support. All this he narrated pen- sively to me as he sat on the top of the rock, holding his long gun across his knees; pre- sently he began to weep, and desired to enter my service. This being impossible, we returned to the hamlet, where I slept outside for fear of the insect tribe. TLth May, Mahriz, 5 farsakhs ; 6.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The back of Shirkuh looked cold and frosty next morning, with its thousand feet of dark precipice capped with snow. My guide offered to take me to the top by an easy road. " You wouldn't know you were ascending," he said, " and from the top you would see all the world." But we had no time for such ex- cursions. Re-crossing the saddle-back, and leaving Manshar on our left, we marched down a ravine as long as that of Deh Bala, but narrower, and filled with a larger river. Between the river and the cliffs, for the distance of six miles till the ravine falls too VOL. I. U 290 Six Months in Persia. steeply for cultivation, straggles the village of Goslia. We rode rejoicing under leafy shade, through stone-fenced lanes, past houses whose wooden gables and galleries recalled the tra- ditional Swiss chalet. But such happiness can never last long in Persia. After an hour and a half the dark cliff- walls closed in and took the river to themselves, while our road turned off to the right. All at once we seemed to leave the mountains behind us with their greenery, and to be condemned to brown, barren plains once more. The hill-side we descended was a slope of rock, and the julgah or dry stony strath between Shir- kuh and the Bohrak range lay at its feet, showing two little villages which tap the Gosha river ere it has well sunk into the shingle. Over this dreary julgah we marched ten miles, having Shirkuh on the right, and the unprofitable ridge of Bohrak on the left. Shirkuh pre- sented some noble views, though empty of human habitation. Under its south-eastern peak, perhaps the highest and snowiest of all, there is no village nor room for a village ; all is rock and ravine and precipice. Farther on, a cleft called the Dark Pass (Tang-i-tariJc) pierces the mountain. Some parts of the Gosha ravine, indeed, had almost deserved Mahriz. 291 that name, where we drew rein to admire the height and steepness of the cliffs, and the contrast of their sullen blackness with the brightness and life below. At a small shelter- house with an abambar we met a party of travellers breakfasting, and shared their bread and curds. At length Mahriz disclosed itself behind a low ridge of rocks. It occupies a plateau at the foot of Shirkuh, much like Taft, but somewhat higher and nearer the mountains. A space of two miles square is covered with mulberry trees, among which Mahriz lies hidden away. We went to the Zabit's house, and found him out, but he came back in hot haste before evening, from a village three farsakhs distant, where he had been collecting revenue. We talked together for some time before dinner. I slept on a Persian four-post bedstead, a gigantic structure, upon the roof, under magnificent moonlight, and in full view of Shirkuh, its blackness and its snows. I had never seen anything so romantic ; it was the " mondbeglanzte zaubernacht " in an Eastern land, where the topographical surveyor has still left some room for the imagination. Waking in the night, I seemed to be floating away through the wonderful prospect. u 2 292 Six Months in Persia. l'2th May, Yazd, 6 farsalchs. Next day we returned to Yazd. In Muhammadabad we halted to avoid the heat of the day. Our quarters were a garden-house ; I had the whole upper storey to myself, and the gardener brought me mulberries, Some merchants' sons picnicking here came to see me ; the father of one of them was in business in Baku. These young fellows seemed to be leading an indolent, easy life. As the weather grew hotter they would move on to Taft and the cool valleys of Shirkuh, where their fathers owned summer-houses. A great part of the Shirkuh villages thus belongs to merchants of Yazd. Some country bumpkins also came upstairs to see the stranger. I invited them to sit down, and discovered from them some- thing about the revenue system of the village. Late in the afternoon we marched on to Yazd. The evening sun was shining behind us as we drew near to the city, lighting up the plain and the black mountain-masses behind it and on either side. The air was fresh and clear after the rain of two days before. I turned in my saddle and looked with gladness over the wide view the golden-brown plain, the golden- green crops, the dark mountains, and the trees Mulberries. 293 and wind-towers of distant villages. The road was full of Yazd women riding away from the city on mules and asses, with servants male and female walking or riding after. My Yazd ghulam (the ghulam Sayyid had been sent back to Karman after my arrival in Yazd, with a letter of satisfaction) undertook to explain this female emigration. " They are going to eat mulberries," he said. "Married women fall sick of some mysterious ailment in the spring, and say to their husbands, ' My dear, I know I shall never be better till I have gone into the country to eat mulberries. In such and such a village my mother's sister-in-law's son owns a garden, and I am sure he will put me up for a few days ;' and the man is not her mother's sister-in-law's son at all, but some young fellow she knows. So the husband consents, and at the end of a few weeks his wife comes back to him, looking fresh and cheerful, having re- covered her good looks, which she was afraid of losing ; " and the old rascal grinned wickedly as he looked at the veiled figures riding by. As we entered the gates of Yazd, a cavalcade came to meet us, headed by Sayyid Ali, clean-shaved and in high spirits. The Khan came to see me at once, and said he had felt quite lonely since 294 Six Months in Persia. I left. An excellent dinner was waiting for me, and it was with satisfaction that I drank my wine and iced sherbet, and reflected on my excursion to Shirkuh. Next day was given to writing letters, and in the evening we packed our baggage once more for the road. The Khan gave me the ghulam who had ac- companied me to Shirkuh, and also a Shatir- bashi or kind of Commandant of the body- guard, a handsome and well-built young Turk, 'fruges consumere natus t who I foresaw would be a mere burden ; but there was nothing for it but to accept him with a good grace." He wanted to go to Isfahan, and thought this a good opportunity of doing so at the expense of other people, i.e., of the villagers from whom he was empowered to levy sursdt. END or VOL. i. LONDON : FEINTED BY GILBERT AND EITINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQFABB. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. L 005 277 160 7 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY ii i i ii in ii MI l| | I II I I 1 1 || A 001 150242 4