; 

 
 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 
 
 4<th March, Puza. Next day we marched to 
 Puza chaparkhana or post-house. The first 
 three miles are traversed by the aid of a stone 
 causeway and bridges, carrying the road over 
 the flooded plain. All the rest is level dry clay, 
 with but one incident to interrupt its monotony, 
 a poetical sort of incident, namely, the calm 
 Bendemeer, with its roses and nightingales. 
 This delightful river is nowadays indistinguish- 
 able from the ordinary Indian mdlah in the 
 rains. The water is muddy, and flows with 
 tortuous course between muddy banks. As for 
 the rose and the bulbul, " one might as well 
 hunt half a day for a forgotten dream." 
 Crossing the river by a stone bridge, and 
 marching ten miles across the plain of Marv- 
 dasht, we came in sight of Persepolis two miles 
 on our right, while the tombs could be seen in 
 the face of the rocks four miles to our left 
 front. From the Bendemeer, Puza chaparkhana 
 seems to be five miles distant. It is really 
 twelve. The clear, dry air of Persia has a mar- 
 vellous effect in shortening distances to the 
 eye. 
 
 The tombs and Persepolis are on opposite 
 sides of the plain, which here begins to narrow 
 between spurs of the mountains which bound 
 it on the north. Persepolis stands at the foot
 
 58 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 of the eastern spur. The tombs are carved in 
 the face of the cliffs of the western spur. In 
 the upper part of the spur these cliffs are 500 
 feet high ; but the lower portion, in which the 
 tombs have been excavated, sinks from 200 
 feet to 90. The tombs are five in number. 
 The door of each is forty feet from the ground, 
 but the cutting into the rock extends twenty 
 feet below the door, and twenty feet above. 
 In preparing their sepulchres the first thing 
 the old Persian monarchs did was to carve a 
 huge cross on the face of the cliff, with its 
 lateral arm rather longer and broader than the 
 upright one. The cutting, at the base of the 
 cross, is six feet deep ; where the lateral arm 
 crosses the upright it is three feet deeper; 
 and the rock overhangs the head of the cross 
 in heavy masses, and juts out along the sides. 
 The foot of the cross is twenty feet from the 
 ground. One can scramble up to this point, 
 where the six-foot ledge affords ample resting- 
 place; but to climb twenty feet more to the 
 three-foot ledge before the door of the tomb is 
 not such an easy matter. Only one of the five 
 tombs is accessible, and that by the help of a 
 rope. As we were looking up in perplexity, a 
 villager came and offered to pull us up for a
 
 Persepohs. 59 
 
 consideration. He himself climbed the face of 
 the rock, and, letting down his black rope of 
 camel's hair, hauled up Gray first, as being the 
 lighter, and then Gray and he landed me also 
 on the ledge, and we were free to enter the 
 tomb. The doorway is six feet by three. 
 Inside, a transverse gallery extends five yards 
 to the right and fifteen to the left, and opening 
 back from it are three recesses, each of which 
 was the resting-place of three kings. The 
 bodies of the kings have long been taken away, 
 and the broken slabs that covered them lie on 
 or in each empty sarcophagus. The gallery is 
 dark and full of bats. From the ledge outside 
 one looks over the wide plain, stretching beyond 
 the mountain-spurs as far as eye can see. 
 Behind, to the right hand and the left, extends 
 the smooth wall of rock ; and above, near the 
 top of the cross, stands the graven effigy of a 
 king, bow in hand, worshipping fire burning on 
 an altar. The sun hangs over the altar, and 
 midway between the king and the fire a winged 
 figure hovers in the air. Over all broods the 
 spirit of silence and immemorial desolation. 
 No sign of life or movement can be discerned 
 on the plain below, any more than in the rock- 
 hewn and tenantless chambers of the dead.
 
 60 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 It was a relief to stand on the ground again, 
 and turn to the tablets sculptured along the 
 foot of the rocks. These represent equestrian 
 combats, on a gigantic scale, most spiritedly 
 executed ; and one huge carving portrays the 
 submission of Valerian to Shapur. The Persian 
 King is mounted, while the humbled Roman 
 kneels before him, arrayed in true Koman garb, 
 the tunic with cloak fastened by the fibula over 
 the shoulder. A long inscription in Pahlavi 
 seeks to perpetuate the victor's triumph; but 
 it has never, I believe, been deciphered, and is 
 partly illegible now. A still less legible legend 
 in Greek is inscribed below the charger; one 
 can spell out ABPA, and two 6 ; the rest is 
 blurred and lost. 
 
 A few yards from the foot of the cliff stands 
 a square building of white marble, thirty-five 
 feet high, containing a single square chamber, 
 entered by a door eight feet above the ground. 
 It is marked on the exterior by oblong inden- 
 tations, carved apparently for ornament. They 
 are a foot in vertical length, and about three 
 inches broad, and cover the walls, giving the 
 building a strange appearance from a distance. 
 The large marble blocks of which this ancient 
 fire-temple is composed are admirably hewn,
 
 Persepolis. 6 1 
 
 and most neatly compacted together. Two 
 huge slabs, twenty-one feet long by seven 
 broad, form the ceiling of the room ; but the 
 upper surface of the roof is composed of four 
 such slabs, each five feet broad and a foot thick. 
 One of these was partly displaced by an earth- 
 quake ten years ago. Its edge now overhangs 
 the roof to the breadth of eighteen inches. In 
 no other respect does the building show any 
 damage save below the door, where the destroy- 
 ing hand of man has dug out some of the 
 marble blocks. So new and fresh does this 
 strange temple look, that on first approaching 
 it, before its antique massiveness has been per- 
 ceived, one thinks it a watch-tower or guard- 
 house, built recently for some custodian of the 
 tombs. As evening fell we turned away from 
 these monuments of forgotten priests and 
 kings, and walked back to the chaparkhana, 
 passing on our way a marble platform on the 
 plain a halting- place, perhaps, in funeral 
 processions of royalty two thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 Next morning we rode to Persepolis. The 
 ruins of Persepolis have been described by 
 skilled antiquarians, so that any attempt of 
 mine to give a scientific account of them would
 
 6 2 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 be at once unnecessary and presumptuous. Still, 
 I may perhaps try to explain what the casual 
 visitor may expect to see in this famous place. 
 It has already been said that Persepolis stands 
 at the foot of the rocky spur which confines the 
 northern end of Marvdasht plain on its eastern 
 side. This spur sinks into the plain, a shelving 
 slope of brown rock. From the foot of the 
 slope a huge stone platform has been built out 
 into the plain. It is 312 yards broad, and 
 extends 500 yards along the foot of the hill. 
 The surface of the platform being level, its 
 height above the ground varies according to 
 the configuration of the broken country on 
 which it stands. On the north side the ground 
 rises so nearly to the level of the platform, that 
 by the help of ruins and debris which have filled 
 up the interval, a horse is able to scramble up. 
 But on the western side, one looks down forty 
 feet of sheer wall, and the height is even greater 
 on the south. The western face is rendered 
 accessible at its highest point by a magnificent 
 double staircase. Each step is seven yards 
 broad, and so gentle is the ascent, that a horse 
 can be ridden up or down. It is these royal 
 stairs which have won the largest tribute of 
 admiration from writers on Persepolis ; but
 
 Persepolis. 63 
 
 they seemed to us less remarkable than the 
 remains of ancient grandeur to be seen on the 
 platform itself. The stairs lead up to the 
 grand portal, between two gigantic marble 
 bulls, whose pedestals bear names without 
 number, some of note, as Malcolm, Pottinger, 
 Ferrier, or even Stanley, New York Herald, 
 1870. It would be well if these were the only 
 defacements and indignities which the ruins of 
 Persepolis have had to suffer. Passing between 
 the bulls, one comes to a space which had four 
 marble columns. Two only are standing. 
 Beyond them is another pair of bulls, facing the 
 opposite way, that is, towards the hill-side. This 
 is all that remains of the grand portal. It gave 
 access to a double flight of steps, leading up a 
 second platform, which rises nine feet above the 
 main platform, and presents a face richly 
 adorned with triumphal and sacrificial proces- 
 sions, sculptured in the smooth black syenite. 
 At the top of the steps stood a transverse 
 colonnade of twelve marble pillars, in two rows 
 of six each; behind that a wall with gates; 
 and then a hall fifty yards square, its roof sup- 
 ported by thirty-six pillars in six rows of six. 
 On the right hand and the left were colonnades 
 of twelve pillars. Of these seventy-two pillars
 
 64 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 twelve 2 only are standing, and not one of 
 the twelve is perfect, yet they stand sixty feet 
 high, and though their symmetry is sometimes 
 severely tried by capitals of undue depth and 
 heaviness, still the stateliness and beauty of the 
 fluted shafts of white marble rise victorious 
 over defects of conception and ravages of time. 
 This was the great hall, the chief glory of the 
 Persian kings. Moving from the grand portal 
 the traveller crosses the great hall in a direc- 
 tion parallel to the hill-side, and finds himself 
 before a third step in the platform, which being 
 ascended, he enters the ruins of the hall known 
 as that of Darius. 3 Here there are no traces of 
 
 2 Mr. Binning, of the Madras Civil Service, who visited 
 Persepolis in 1852, found thirteen pillars standing. The 
 capital of one so far overhung the shaft that Mr. Binning 
 was half afraid it would topple over on him while he was 
 taking his measurements. Since then the earthquake shock 
 which displaced part of the roof of the fire-temple at the 
 tombs has thrown down the thirteenth pillar, but the over- 
 hanging capital still remains " wonder to all who do the 
 same espy." 
 
 3 Mr. Binning gives the dimensions of the various halls. 
 The breadth of the great hall, taken at right angles to the 
 bill-side, is stated as 127 yard?. I could reckon only 98 
 yards from edge to edge of the outer colonnades, but Mr. 
 Binning probably measured to the edge of the platform. 
 The central group of 36 pillars, which seems to have had a
 
 Persepolis. 65 
 
 columns, but the walls which surrounded the hall 
 are still standing. They are of massive black 
 syenite. The stone bears a high polish. One 
 of the many blank windows of this hall has been 
 polished till it reflects images like a mirror. 
 Going on in the same direction, and surmount- 
 ing another step or grade in the platform, the 
 traveller reaches the hall of Xerxes. The walls 
 are partly standing, and the bases and founda- 
 tions of columns can be traced on the floor; 
 they were thirty-six pillars, in six rows of six. 
 But these were much smaller than the lofty 
 columns of the great hall. Judging by the walls, 
 the roof could not have been much more than 
 twenty-five feet high. They were of black 
 syenite. From the edge of the platform on 
 which this palace stands, one looks down on 
 the floor of the main platform, twenty-five feet 
 below, and wonders at the height to which one 
 has insensibly mounted, and at the marvellous 
 masonry which looks almost as fresh and sound 
 as if the giant stones had been laid yesterday. 
 
 Hitherto we have supposed the traveller to 
 be moving parallel to the hill-side. If he turns 
 
 roof of its own, measures 50 yards square. The hall of 
 Darius is shown by Mr. Binning as 60 yards long and 32 
 broad ; the hall of Xerxes as 33 yards square. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 66 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 now, and moves towards the hill-side, that is, 
 towards the back of the main platform, he will 
 enter the hall called that of the hundred columns. 
 This was a square of ten columns by ten. Each 
 side of the square measures about eighty yards, 
 and the remains of the walls which enclosed it 
 suggest a height of about forty feet for the roof. 
 Last year the Ihtisham ud Daulat, 4 urged by 
 the well-known Persian scholar and antiquarian, 
 Dr. Andreas, made extensive excavations in this 
 part of Persepolis, laying bare the bases of all 
 the hundred columns, and revealing the remains 
 of their shafts and capitals, broken and buried 
 in earth. The columns stood on inverted lotus- 
 flowers, beautifully carved. They have pre- 
 served all their smoothness and freshness under 
 the ruins of a thousand years. The hard black 
 stone renders faithfully every graceful curve 
 and clear-cut line entrusted to it by the chisel 
 of the fire- worshipping stonecutter. Nay more, 
 behind this hall, up the hill-side, one finds the 
 stonecutting yard itself, with the quarry above. 
 The slope is covered with chipped fragments. 
 Above this again is the reputed tomb of Darius. 
 
 4 Or " Majesty of the State." He is the son of Prince 
 Firuz Mirza, late Governor of Shiraz, and was Governor of 
 Bihbahan during his father's administration.
 
 Persepoiis. 67 
 
 It is like those on the opposite side of the plain, 
 but easily accessible. An admirable view of 
 Persepoiis can be had from its gloomy portal. 
 The lines of the ruined halls can be traced, the 
 very pillars counted, and the whole plan of the 
 place lies open to the eye. 
 
 The face of the minor platform which sup- 
 ports the hall of Darius is profusely adorned 
 with figures, executed with no mean degree of 
 art. Where protected from the barbarity of 
 Mussulman zeal, they are as bold and distinct as 
 if they were the work of to-day. Especially 
 noticeable are a horse and chariot, a two- 
 humped Bactrian camel, and a sacrificial pro- 
 cession of bulls and rams, with a led horse 
 bringing up the rear. The chief priest mounts 
 the steps of the shrine with a kid in his arms ; 
 his attendants follow, bearing baskets. In the 
 doors and on the walls are figures of kings and 
 warriors larger than life of priests in cere- 
 monial robes, or of winged spirits. Everywhere 
 the stonework is of the most massive and 
 perfect description. A polished corner-stone 
 of the hall of Darius is eight feet by four feet 
 by five, and it is joined to its fellow with a 
 neatness of which modern architects might be 
 proud. Conscientiousness and solidity of work 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 characterized the builders of Persepolis. Mr. 
 Arthur Arnold in his work " Through Persia 
 by Caravan," expresses a doubt whether the 
 columns of Persepolis were not hollow, or filled 
 with wood. Mr. Arnold had not the advantage 
 of seeing the recent excavations, which, by un- 
 earthing countless fragments of columns, have 
 proved conclusively that there was no hollow- 
 ness of the kind. The thorough goodness of 
 the work is testified by the clearness of the 
 arrow-headed inscriptions on a fallen block 
 from the hall of Darius. They seem to be fresh 
 from the chisel. On one of the panels of the 
 hall are two long inscriptions in praise of Nasir 
 ud Din Shah, cut three years ago by order of a 
 loyal money-changer of Shiraz. They are less 
 clear and bold than the record carved in praise 
 of King Darius. 
 
 In situation, Persepolis is most forlorn. 
 Before it is the wide emptiness of Marvdasht ; 
 behind it, the desolation of the bare hill-side. 
 Though designed on so huge a scale, it has to 
 be searched for in the vast landscape of which 
 it is the smallest feature. As if by the irony of 
 Nature, the work of monarch s is dwarfed and 
 outbraved by three castles of Nature's building, 
 planted on the distant plain. They are three
 
 Persepolis. 69 
 
 hills, 5 rising 700 feet with steep smooth slope, 
 and then crowned with a wall of crags 300 feet 
 high. It is these gigantic objects which seem 
 the proper guardians of Marvdasht; and to 
 look towards them from Persepolis awakens 
 thoughts of the vanity of human greatness. 
 Commonplace moralizing is distasteful enough ; 
 but even the most commonplace person could 
 hardly visit Persepolis without feeling some 
 touch of genuine pity and reverence. The 
 immense solidity of the ruins, and yet their 
 fragility ; the clear-cut and beautiful inscriptions, 
 vainly trying to tell their tale in a language 
 once used by the rulers of half Asia, but long 
 since silent and forgotten ; the stately effigies 
 of kings sunk ages ago in " death's dateless 
 night;" and around all the vast silence of the 
 plain, and the snowy mountain-tops, unchanged 
 themselves, the secular watchers over so many 
 changes all these send their influence forth, 
 and unconsciously subdue the soul. Keats 
 sought to express the sensations stirred in him 
 by the sight of the Elgin marbles in the sonnet 
 beginning, 
 
 5 Binning gives their names as Istakha, Shahrak, Kuni- 
 Firuz. The only names I could ascertain for two of them 
 were Ghila and Ghilau.
 
 7O Six Months in Persia. 
 
 " My spirit is too weak ; mortality 
 Weighs heavily on me, like unwilling sleep " 
 
 and it is some such feeling as this which steals 
 over the mind of the wanderer among the fallen 
 columns and broken walls which cover the noble 
 platform of Persepolis.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SHIRAZ TO FIRUZABAD. 
 TWENTY FARSAKHS ; FOUR DATS. 
 
 6th to Wi March, Shiraz By this time I had 
 settled upon a route for my future travels. I 
 would march from Shiraz to Lar, by way of 
 Firuzabad, and from Lar directly to Karman. 
 This promised to include some country im- 
 perfectly laid down in my maps. 1 
 
 Mules were not easily found. The Indian 
 Government had been buying up mules for 
 transport service ; and the season of the year 
 was one when muleteers prefer to loiter along 
 the road to Bushire, letting their cattle graze 
 on the rich grass of the roadside. At last I 
 got five mules for 15 francs (qirans) a day. 
 
 1 My maps were that of the Surveyor-General of India, 
 showing the countries between India and Asiatic Russia, 
 corrected up to 1878, and Colonel St. John's large map of 
 Persia, published by the Surveyor-General in 1876. The 
 former is on a scale of thirty-two miles, the latter on one 
 of sixteen miles to the inch.
 
 72 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 9th March) Deh-i-Nau, 4ifarsakhs ; 1 .20p.m. to 
 5.20 p.m. On the 9th of March I bade farewell 
 to Dr. Odling's hospitable house, and started 
 with five mules for Deh-i-Nau. The prince had 
 provided me with a ghulam or mounted and 
 armed attendant an old man whose life had 
 been passed in such service, and whose horse 
 and arms were apparently coeval with himself. 
 His steed was white and devoid of spirit ; by 
 great exertions, however, it could be shaken 
 into a kind of shuffling trot. His arms were a 
 brace of pistols, and a single -barrelled gun with 
 a round Persian stock. Besides this worthy, 
 whose name was Zaki Beg, I had two Persian 
 lads as cook and groom. The two muleteers 
 raised the number of my train to five ; and last, 
 but greatest, came the portly Sayyid Ali, now 
 my only travelling-companion. He had already 
 begun to exercise his wit by giving the name of 
 the modern Joseph to the younger muleteer, a 
 singularly ill-favoured youth ; Joseph being pro- 
 verbial among Musalmans for his miraculous 
 beauty. 
 
 Having only four farsakhs 2 to march, we did 
 not set out till the afternoon. The road runs 
 
 2 A farsakh is about four miles. About Bushire, and in 
 other parts of the south, it is three miles only; but, as a 
 rule, it may be reckon ed at four miles, and sometimes is 
 more nearly five. From Isfahan to Teheran is a distance
 
 The Shiraz Plain. 73 
 
 very nearly south, across the plain of Shiraz. 
 Villages and gardens enclosed by high mud 
 walls are seen at various distances. After 
 eight miles the plain began to grow swampy. 
 Its drainage is towards the salt lake (Darya-i- 
 Mahalu) which forms its eastern border ; but the 
 water collects also in a hollow under the hills 
 which limit the plain on its western side, and 
 the heavy winter rains had left more water here 
 than usual. The edges of this swamp abound 
 with snipe. Dr. Odling told me he has shot as 
 many as twenty couple in an afternoon. Ducks 
 are plentiful in the interior, but the reeds and 
 underwood render shooting difficult. Leaving 
 the swamp on the right hand, the road crosses 
 the stream by which its overflow reaches the 
 lake. Beyond the bridge the road divides. 
 One branch goes westwards to the margin of 
 the lake, here some six miles distant, and 
 thence south-westwards, between the lake and 
 the Mahalu mountains, to a place called Fasa, 
 which, though seventy miles distant, has given 
 its name to the bridge. The other, which was 
 our route, holds on in a direction nearly south, 
 keeping the Mahalu range on the east, that is, on 
 
 of 268 miles by the telegraph line. The road, which is 
 not so straight, is reckoned at seventy farsakhs, i.e., almost 
 exactly four miles to the farsakh.
 
 74 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the left hand. The point of divergence of the 
 Fasa and Firuzabad roads, in fact, is at the 
 head of the Mahalu range, where the mountains 
 sink into the plain in the shape of stony hills 
 capped by solitary rocks, which some process 
 of weathering has worn into the shape of an 
 inverted egg-cup. 
 
 We reached Deh-i-N"au an hour before sunset. 
 It is a walled village of the type common in 
 Persia four mud walls and four mud towers, 
 one at each angle. The length of a side is 
 about 100 yards. Entering by the eastern gate, 
 through a long passage built over by upper 
 rooms, the only thing I could see at first was 
 the splendour of the purple evening sunlight on 
 the lofty and rugged sides of the Sabz-Poshan 
 mountain, directly west. The effect was en- 
 chanting for a moment ; one seemed to be 
 riding into a vast shadowy vault. But these 
 sky-born glories soon gave place to the mud- 
 built squalor of the village, and as we emerged 
 from the gateway, a chorus of dogs protested 
 against our intrusion. The Persian village dog 
 is not unlike a shaggy and short-nosed Scotch 
 collie. The animals having been quieted, 
 Sayyid Ali called for the headman (Kadkhuda), 
 and producing the letter which had been given
 
 Deh-i-Nau, 75 
 
 me by the prince, demanded lodgings for the 
 night. The Kadkhuda looked blank enough, 
 till it was explained to him that we meant to 
 pay for everything. He gave me an upper 
 room, nine feet square by six and a half high, 
 and found me a couple of chickens for dinner. 
 I had also the pleasure of a conversation with 
 him and his satellites a doleful discourse on 
 the tyranny of the Governor of Shiraz, and of 
 the Qavvam, who owns most of the villages 
 hereabouts. In most large cities of Persia, 
 there will be found a titled individual who, 
 though not in fact an official, combines the 
 characters of large landowner, farmer of the 
 public revenues, and man of local influence. 
 Such men become for a time the virtual 
 governors of a province or part of a province. 
 They are then squeezed, or their power passes 
 away by death; and another arises to follow 
 their fortune and their fate. Such was the 
 Mushir of Shiraz in a bygone generation. He 
 has left memorials in the bridges and noble 
 caravansarais on the Bushire and Shiraz road, 
 and in a fine caravansarai adjoining the main 
 bazaar of Shiraz city. In his place, at present, 
 is the Qavvam. 3 "I paid 500 tomans to the 
 3 Mushir means " Counsellor; " Qavvam," Upholder."
 
 76 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 Qavvam last year," said the Kadkhuda, " all 
 pure extortion. I have not the value of three 
 tomans in my house. The land is good enough, 
 if it were not for tyranny. Whom have we to 
 appeal to ? Ears has been ruined since the 
 Mutamid ud Daulat came to Shiraz." The 
 Kadkhuda proved to be pretty well up in 
 domestic politics, though entirely ignorant of 
 the Afghan war, and, indeed, of the existence 
 of Afghans. He asked me the latest news of 
 the quarrel between Shaikh Obaidullah and the 
 Shah (the Kurdish inroad of 1880-81), and 
 whether it was true that the Zill us Sultan 
 was coming to Shiraz in Prince Firuz Mirza's 
 place. I had heard something of the latter 
 rumour from Dr. Odling; it subsequently 
 proved to be correct. 
 
 liQth March, Kavar, 6 farsakhs ; 9 a.m. to 4 
 p.m. They unbarred the gates of Deh-i-Nau at 
 six o'clock next morning, and drove their cattle 
 afield poor black cattle ; I have hardly seen 
 poorer in India. The ground was covered with 
 hoarfrost, and the air very cold. Our caravan 
 did not get under way till half-past eight. Our 
 road still pointed southward. We marched 
 seven miles through the southern end of the 
 Shiraz plain. Irrigation here is from wells a
 
 A Man in mortar. 77 
 
 rare thing in Persia but the accumulated 
 drainage, as the plain sinks lower, brings the 
 water to within a few feet of the surface. 
 
 The Mahalu mountains were still on our left. 
 Seven miles from Deh-i-Nau, they throw out a 
 low spur, which divides the plain of Shiraz from 
 that of Kavar. It is crossed by a road called 
 Baba Haji's Pass 4 (gardana i Baba Haji), and 
 there is also an easier road which turns the 
 point of the spur, and which is used by the 
 Qawam's carriage, when he takes his drives 
 abroad. His son had lately been shooting in 
 Kafr and Jahrum, and the tracks of his carriage 
 wheels were still visible on the road. Following 
 the upper road, we passed a ruined caravansarai 
 with some fine elm-trees, and beheld above us a 
 pillar of lime, the size of a man. Zaki Beg 
 hastened to inform us that the pillar contained 
 the mortal remains of one Ali Dad, a notorious 
 robber, whose career was cut short by his being 
 encased alive in mortar on this spot, by order of 
 the prince, the year before last. He stands 
 
 4 I regret that I failed to discover who this worthy was. 
 The difference between a gardana and a kotal usually is, 
 that while the kotal goes straight up a mountain, the gar- 
 dana deals chiefly with low hills, and if it has to cross a 
 mountain, works its way obliquely along the side, and 
 dodges over some convenient saddle-back.
 
 78 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 there now like Lot's wife turned into a pillar of 
 salt. While utterly repudiating the theory 
 sometimes advanced even by European residents 
 in Persia that the country could not be kept 
 in order without recourse to such inhuman 
 punishments, I am nevertheless bound to admit 
 that it was much pleasanter to meet with Ali 
 Dad in that harmless and picturesque position 
 than if he had stopped the road of my caravan 
 with his ragged rascals. Let me also say, 
 however, that for the European traveller in 
 Persia the roads are almost invariably safe, and 
 that brigandage generally is much exaggerated 
 by rumour. It will be seen hereafter how 
 groundless were the rumours of robbers which 
 were heard at a few points in my travels. 
 
 Crossing the gardana, which may be 150 feet 
 high, we descended into the plain of Kavar. 
 This is watered by the Qara-Agach river, the 
 same as we had crossed near Khan-i-Zanyan, 
 on our way to Shiraz. But the river is barred 
 from Shiraz by the mountains which guard the 
 Shiraz plain on the west ; so it turns south- 
 eastward, and, flowing under these mountains, 
 at last reaches the end of the range, bends 
 eastward, and enters the Kavar plain through 
 a defile between the end of this range and the
 
 Kavar Plain. 79 
 
 beginning of another. Here, from time im- 
 memorial, a stone dam has supplied water to the 
 the canal which irrigates the Kavar plain. 
 The legendary and heroic monarch Bahman 
 is said to have been the original maker. In 
 Fath Ali Shah's time (early in the present 
 century) the dam was carried away, and was 
 rebuilt for 4000 tomans. This, of course, 
 represents principally the price of materials, 
 most of the labour being obtained free from the 
 villages that live by the water. This winter 
 the dam had broken again, and all the water- 
 channels were dry. The Qavvam had already 
 begun to repair the damage. Neither dam nor 
 river can be seen from the road ; the mouth of 
 the defile is six miles distant on the right, and 
 the river is so deep sunk as to be invisible till 
 its banks are reached. The plain is level, and 
 studded with camel-thorn, and has villages at 
 long intervals. The southern part collects the 
 drainage and produces rice. We turned aside 
 to a village fort to eat our mid-day meal, 
 sending on Zaki Beg to provide a place swept 
 and garnished, and some drinking-water. At 
 the gate we were met by Zaki Beg, in perplexity. 
 " The sons of burnt fathers," he said, " have all 
 run away ; I can find only an old woman." 1
 
 8o Six Months in Persia. 
 
 found my way into a stable, and while I was 
 eating my lunch there, some of the inhabitants 
 took heart and returned, and brought me water. 
 They complained bitterly of oppression, and 
 foretold ruin to the crops from the breaking of 
 the dam. 
 
 Kavar itself was eight miles farther, a large 
 village surrounded by orchards. I went to the 
 caravansarai, but was immediately invited by a 
 landlord of part of the village to put up in a 
 house which he was building. I found my new 
 quarters exceedingly comfortable, and my host 
 talkative and friendly. He gave me an excellent 
 dinner. He lamented the state of Persia, the 
 absence of public works, the corruption of the 
 officials, the neglect of education, and the 
 condition of the army. England and Russia, 
 he said, might divide Persia between them 
 whenever they pleased. 
 
 There is a small cluster of villages in the 
 neighbourhood of Kavar, but by far the greater 
 part of the plain it is twenty miles long by 
 twelve broad is uncultivated and desolate. A 
 river in Persia by no means implies irrigation. 
 Most Persian rivers, like the Qara-Agach here, 
 are so deep sunk that the water cannot be 
 brought to the level of the fields.
 
 A Persian Police-inspector. 81 
 
 \\tJi March, Jawakan, bfarsakhs; 8.30 a.m. 
 to 3.30 p.m. Next morning we turned directly 
 south, and crossed the river, here running 
 south-east, by a stone bridge thirty feet above 
 the water. The Qara-Agach here is a mountain 
 stream, barely fordable ; but it has less water 
 in ordinary seasons. On the farther side rises 
 the Safidar range, 2000 feet high, still capped 
 with snow. This we crossed by a defile opening 
 unexpectedly between cliffs 150 feet high. It 
 is called the pass of Gur Bahman, or Bahman's 
 tomb. The tomb is a barrow of stones in the 
 mouth of the defile. Our party to-day had 
 been augmented by a Zabit of tufangchis, a kind 
 of uncivilized police officer, who was journeying 
 to our next stage, Khwaji, He was a smart 
 and rather handsome youth, well armed and 
 accoutred, mounted on a half- Arab pony, and, 
 as Sayyid Ali remarked, considered himself a 
 second Rustam. He entertained us with stories 
 of blood-feuds, illustrating the desperate and 
 implacable character of the tribes he had to 
 keep in order; with panegyrics of the valour 
 and enterprise of various robbers, including the 
 mortared Ali Dad ; and with the praises of his 
 own thirty tufangchis, each of whom was equal 
 to ten ordinary men, and also possessed the 
 VOL. i. o
 
 82 Stx Months in Persia. 
 
 valuable faculty of walking up perpendicular 
 rocks. Two of these ragged fellows we saw as 
 we entered the pass. They stood 200 feet 
 above us, on the rugged slope of the hill, and 
 discharged their rusty guns, to which the Zabit 
 replied by letting off his. The pass gradually 
 widened as we ascended, and finally opened out 
 on the mountain ridge, and disclosed a tiny 
 valley on the farther side, two miles long by 
 three quarters of a mile broad. Like the 
 mountain-side sloping down to it, this dell was 
 covered with almond, wild olive, and mastich- 
 trees (bana). A solitary fort stood in the 
 middle, recently built for a garrison of ten 
 tufangchis, who cultivate a little wheat, and 
 receive precarious pay. The Dasht-i-Muak (so 
 this dell is called) is watered by a spring which 
 breaks out of a cleft in the rocks a little to the 
 left of the road by which we descended. The 
 brook makes its escape at the farther end of the 
 dell. Above the dell, embosomed in mountain- 
 tops, wide green valleys stretch aloft in un- 
 trodden loneliness. Beyond the Dasht-i-Muak 
 the stream falls into a ravine, under a huge 
 precipitous hill. The road follows the water. 
 We lunched at the mouth of the ravine, near a 
 tower held by a few tufangchis, and then
 
 Jawakan. 83 
 
 entered the ravine. The road soon disappeared, 
 and we had to make our way down the channel 
 of the stream, among pools, waterfalls, and 
 blackberry bushes, and between overhanging 
 cliffs 200 feet high. It was pleasant and 
 cheerful work, though I was not without anxiety 
 for the mules. We came out above the Khwaji 
 plain, passed Zanjiran on our right a well- 
 built mud fort on a stony mound and sought 
 quarters in Jawakan, the nearest village on the 
 plain. The Kadkhuda lodged us in a suite of 
 empty rooms, well plastered, and furnished with 
 doors ; I believe they were used for religious 
 services during the Muharram and on holidays. 
 I was very glad of a fire. After dinner the 
 Kadkhuda came in and smoked a pipe, aud 
 talked about revenue matters. 
 
 I2th March, Firuzabad, 6 farsaJchs ; 8.30a.m. 
 to 5 p.m. The next day's march was to take 
 us to Firuzabad. The road passes through two 
 defiles, cloven by the river in a rocky ridge 500 
 feet high, called the Knife-edge (par-i-Kdrd), 
 and in a mountain-range beyond. The inter- 
 mediate valley sends two affluents to swell the 
 stream, which has already been augmented by two 
 more in the Khwaji plain, and the result for us 
 was that the second defile was full of water and 
 
 G 2
 
 84 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 impracticable, and we were obliged to climb over 
 the mountains, instead of goin g through them with 
 the river. I was sorry, for the defile has some 
 fine scenery, besides many specimens of ancient 
 rock- sculptures. But the disappointment was 
 partly compensated by a fine view from the top 
 of the mountain. Behind us were snowy summits 
 and unpeopled valleys, a broad domain of grass 
 and rock, swept by mountain-winds ; but before 
 us and far below us spread the spacious plain of 
 Firuzabad, a summer scene of gardens and 
 villages, and fair green fields. We descended 
 thitherward over rocky slopes paved with great 
 flat slabs, often strangely resembling the work of 
 human hands, and forming natural roads eight 
 or ten feet broad, with the shelving hill-side 
 above, and a small precipice below. All that 
 had been done by man was to clear away the 
 loose stones. At length we came on the green 
 levels of the plain, and rode four miles past 
 broad fields of wheat, and by the side of water- 
 courses. In the genial afternoon sunlight the 
 well- cultivated plain looked smiling and happy. 
 We noticed how much farther advanced the 
 wheat was here than in Shiraz ; and yet Firu- 
 zabad is only 225 feet lower than Shiraz, and 
 one degree farther south.
 
 Firuzabad. 85 
 
 Zaki Beg, flagellating his ancient and hoary 
 charger, rode on in advance, and told the 
 Ilkhani of our coming. Quarters were assigned 
 us in a new house within a newly-planted 
 garden. I had an upper room, elegantly painted 
 and carpeted. It was fourteen feet square by 
 nine feet high, and one side was taken up by a 
 large window constructed of small panes of red 
 and yellow and blue and green glass. The 
 Ilkhani soon came to see me. But he and his 
 dominions deserve a separate chapter.
 
 86 Sue Months in Persia. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 FIEUZABAD. 
 12TH TO 14-TH MARCH. 
 
 SULTAN MUHAMMAD, Ilkhani of Firuzabad, ought 
 to be the head of the Iliat or nomad tribes 
 of this district, as his father was before him. 
 But in Persia more than elsewhere it is a 
 misfortune to be " left an early orphan, and a 
 selfish uncle's 1 ward;" and the headship of the 
 clan has passed to Sultan Muhammad's first 
 cousin, Darab Khan, who seems to be a kind of 
 brigand on a magnificent scale. There remains, 
 however, the title of Ilkhani, and the hereditary 
 domain of Firuzabad, a fair property to any one 
 who knows how to manage it. The plain is 
 well- watered, and bears rich wheat and famous 
 rice. It had thirty villages as many years ago, 
 
 1 The Ilkhani's uncle is the redoubtable Qavvam, whose 
 sister is the Ilkhani's mother. The Qavvam appropriated 
 most of the personal property of his deceased brother-in- 
 law.
 
 Firuzabad. 87 
 
 but neglect and misgovernment have reduced 
 their number to thirteen. The fault does not 
 lie with the Ilkhani, who has been doing his best, 
 since attaining his majority, for the improvement 
 of his property; but in Persia villages are 
 easily ruined, and restored with difficulty. 
 Firuzabad suffered severely in last year's 
 drought, when the river on which the plain de- 
 pends for water became a bed of gravel and 
 dust. Meanwhile, the Ilkhani has still some 
 relics of his father's fortune, and entertains a 
 chance European guest in the most splendid 
 style of Oriental hospitality. Hardly had I un- 
 folded my humble camp-chair upon the carpets 
 of the room set apart for me, when servants 
 came bearing trays with apparatus of sherbet 
 and tea, the like of which I had never seen 
 before. Gravely did the tea-maker spread before 
 him a Persian rug, and place upon it in seemly 
 order the bright samovar, the silver saucers, 
 and the gay china cups. With like solemnity 
 were the bowls of sherbet, the vases of lemon- 
 water and rosewater, and the baskets of ice, 
 arranged by the functionary in charge of that 
 department. The whole presented a pleasing 
 array of bright colours neatly disposed. 
 
 After refreshment, the Ilkhani was an- 
 nounced. He is a man of about thirty years,
 
 88 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 with a handsome face and very pleasant man- 
 ners. A look of dreamy melancholy gives his 
 face an interesting expression rare in Oriental 
 physiognomy. He is fond of talking politics, 
 and certainly seemed to be a well-wisher of the 
 English ; yet I found that he had by no means 
 that adequate notion of the might of England 
 which one would desire to see among educated 
 Persians. " Why are you leaving Candahar ? " 
 he asked. I explained that the country was not 
 worth holding (the moral argument, that we 
 had no right to be there, would not have been 
 understood by a Persian). He accorded a 
 polite assent, but plainly believed the true rea- 
 son to be our incapacity to retain our conquest. 
 
 " Could you fight Russia ? " he asked next. 
 
 " Yes, of course we could." 
 
 " I doubt it. You might, if France or Prus- 
 sia helped you, but not alone. How many 
 soldiers have you, and how many soldiers has 
 Russia ? " 
 
 The enumeration of the respective military 
 forces confirmed the Ilkhani's opinion. I re- 
 ferred to the Crimean war and its battles. 
 
 " The Crimean war (jang-i-Sistapul) ? You 
 did nothing. You were four to one, and you 
 effected nothing at all."
 
 Firuzabad. 89 
 
 Another point on which I could not get 
 correct ideas into his head was British rule in 
 India. I have seen many similar instances of 
 educated Persians who evidently disbelieved the 
 universal and paramount nature of our rule in 
 India. One of the Ilkhani's attendants asked 
 whether the native Princes were friendly 
 towards Russia. The Ilkhani himself was 
 firmly persuaded that we exacted a tribute 
 from India. Perhaps, in a sense, he was not 
 far wrong. In our second interview, next day, 
 the Ilkhani again showed himself much im- 
 pressed with the power and greatness of 
 Russia. Having no fear of Russia myself, I 
 listened with some amusement. Next day the 
 Ilkhani invited Sayyid AH to dinner. Knowing 
 Sayyid Ali to be a genuine admirer of British 
 rule in India, and extremely fond of narrating 
 to a Persian audience the wonders which it 
 has wrought in that country, I expected an 
 account of the entertainment with some curi- 
 osity. It turned out that the Ilkhani, while 
 the wine went round, bitterly upbraided the 
 English for their lamentable supineness and 
 indifference to their interests in Persia; the 
 country had been allowed to sink under Russian 
 influence; nevertheless, the English might
 
 go Six Months in Persia. 
 
 annex Shiraz to-morrow, if they had only the 
 spirit ; they would be welcomed by the inha- 
 bitants ; and so on. 
 
 I have dwelt so long on the Ilkhani's opinions 
 because they are those of an educated Persian, of 
 more than average intelligence, living in a part 
 of the country which one would suppose more 
 accessible to English influence than Russian. 
 
 The day after my arrival in Firuzabad had 
 been wet, but on the following morning I was 
 able to visit the ruins of old Firuzabad and the 
 fire-temple. The Ilkhani's carriage took me 
 to the old city, about four miles north of the 
 modern town. We entered the walls through 
 a gap where a gate had been. The wall and 
 ditch can be traced distinctly, a circle of grass- 
 grown mounds with a diameter of about three 
 quarters of a mile. Inside are ruins of small 
 stone-built houses, and in the centre a minar or 
 solid stone pillar, twelve feet square, and fifty 
 feet high. It had a staircase running round it 
 outside, which was practicable till within the 
 last ten years or so, but has mostly fallen away 
 now. The tower is built of unhewn stone. 
 Near it are the remains of a platform of hewn 
 stone, and of two deep tanks once faced with 
 stone. One tank is twenty feet deep ; the size
 
 Firuzabad. 9 1 
 
 of the stones is four feet by two by two, and 
 the material apparently white freestone. Both 
 the city and the fire-temple are ascribed by 
 tradition to Gushtasp, one of the earliest heroes 
 of Persian romance. The Firuzabad river, 
 which we had tracked from its source in the 
 Dasht-i-Muak, after penetrating the northern 
 mountains by the gorge I was unable to enter, 
 crosses the plain, and makes its exit through 
 the southern mountain-wall by a gorge of more 
 majestic dimensions. Alexander the Great (so 
 the legend says) built a dam at the mouth of 
 this latter gorge, and the pent-up water flooded 
 the plain, and destroyed the old city of Firuza- 
 bad. The holes in the rock are still to be seen 
 at the mouth of the gorge, where Alexander 
 fixed the iron spikes or clamps that held his 
 dam together. In a later generation Firuz 
 Shah broke the dam, drained the plain, and 
 founded the modern town, called after his own 
 name. It may have 4000 inhabitants. 
 
 The fire-temple, which stands high, had 
 escaped the flood, but met its doom from Mu- 
 hammad. When the prophet was born, the 
 sacred fire went out, and in its place arose a 
 spring of water, which may be seen to this day. 
 We went to the spot. The temple stands close
 
 92 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 by the mouth of the northern gorge, where the 
 river debouches on the plain. It is a strange 
 building, in good preservation, though every 
 year nibbles away a bit of it. Like the tower, 
 it is built of unhewn stone, and very solidly ; 
 the walls are at least ten feet thick. Three 
 domes, thirty feet in diameter and forty feet in 
 height, formed the body of the temple. One 
 wing consisted of a courtyard with covered 
 buildings and passages ; the other of lofty 
 vaulted halls, the antechambers of the shrine. 
 Two of the principal domes are entire, save for 
 small gaps, and rents near the top; the third 
 has half fallen ; and the domed or vaulted roofs 
 of the antechambers, which were not less than 
 thirty feet high, have entirely disappeared. 
 The walls are pierced by a gallery running 
 round the central domes half-way up. It is 
 impossible for a casual visitor to conjecture the 
 meaning and purpose of these and other strange 
 narrow passages that lead to nothing, or of the 
 vaults which extend under the temple. I 
 thought of the Guebres and their sun-worship, 
 and looked towards the east ; but the building 
 faces no one cardinal point of the compass, 
 being irregularly built north-east and south- 
 west. A rough plan is subjoined.
 
 Firuzabad. 
 
 93 
 
 A, B, C, three domed chambers. Half the 
 dome of C has fallen in. 
 
 D, the courtyard ; it was divided into several 
 rooms, probably roofed. 
 
 I, J, K, passages between courtyard and 
 domes. 
 
 L, M, N, 0, P, antechambers (aiwari) ; they 
 had vaulted roofs, now fallen in. 
 
 Q, R, chambers outside the wall of the court- 
 yard ; these also had vaulted roofs. 
 
 From east to west the building and court- 
 yard are about sixty yards wide. The rooms 
 under the domes are square, with a side of 
 about thirty feet. Part of the old plaster, one
 
 94 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 and a Half inches thick, is still adhering to the 
 walls. The domes and their adjoining chambers 
 intercommunicate by doors. 
 
 East of the temple is the spring which gets 
 credit for having been the original shrine of the 
 sacred fire (atash-kadah). It is a beautiful 
 blue pool, and sends out a stream strong enough 
 to turn a mill. In summer, when the water is 
 low, the facing of a well can be seen at the 
 bottom of the pool, and evidently the well was 
 the reason why the temple was built there. A 
 profusion of myrtle-bushes surrounds the 
 spring. 
 
 Having viewed the temple I went into the 
 mouth of the gorge, and saw some of the rock- 
 carvings. Three knights in armour are tilting 
 at full gallop; one has struck his adversary 
 through the chest, the other through the head ; 
 the third seems to be pursuing a flying foe, well- 
 nigh withdrawn from his rage by the saving (or 
 destroying) hand of Time. Each victorious 
 warrior bears that strange globular crest upon 
 his helm which one notices on the carven kings 
 of Persepolis. The figures are gigantic, and 
 most spiritedly executed. Remains of an old 
 causeway and staircase leading to them could 
 be traced along the face of the cliff. There are
 
 Firuzabad. 95 
 
 other carvings higher up the gorge, but I had 
 no time to visit them. 
 
 During my three days' stay in Firuzabad, I 
 and my people were guests of the Ilkhani. On 
 our departure he gave us a sack of Firuzabad 
 rice, bread, oil, dates, and some bottles of wine 
 for myself. I shall always have a kindly 
 remembrance of his hospitality and courtesy. 
 All I had to give in return were two small 
 bowls of Moradabad metal- work.
 
 g6 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 F1RUZABAD TO LAR. 
 
 FORTY-NINE FARSAKHS ; NINE DATS. 
 
 I WAS nearly detained one day more in 
 Firuzabad. The Ilkhani and Sayyid Ali cele- 
 brated the last night with festivities ; nobody 
 was up at six o'clock in the morning, and it was 
 not till ten that the caravan got under way. 
 Here it may be observed that the traveller in 
 Persia must get up first and wake all his people, 
 if he wishes to start early. Persian servants 
 are in no wise to be trusted in this respect ; in- 
 deed, they are next to worthless in all respects, 
 but of this more anon. Between Bushire and 
 Shiraz the reveille used to be sounded by the 
 Rev. Mr. Bruce ; through the rest of my 
 travels I had to do it for myself, and gradually 
 grew accustomed to the operation. 
 
 15th March, Kashkai tents, 7 farsakhs ; 10 
 a.m. to 6 p.m. Bidding good-bye to the Ilk-
 
 Tihdasht. 97 
 
 haul with many friendly expressions on both 
 sides, we marched to the south-eastern end of 
 the Firuzabad plain. " The plain was grassy, 
 wild, and bare," five miles wide, with a rocky 
 mountain-ridge on either hand. That on the 
 left, rising 1500 to 2000 feet, was split here and 
 there by great gaps running parallel to the 
 summit, as if in prehistoric ages the redhot mass 
 had broken in cooling, and the lower portion 
 had sunk down, leaving a long crevasse with 
 sheer sides 250 feet deep. These crevasses 
 were dark in shadow, while the rest of the hill, 
 in colour a light yellowish brown, seemed to 
 reflect the bright sunlight. The eye travelled 
 up the lighted slope, met the intense and 
 brilliant blue of the sky above, and returned 
 dazzled to the duller tints of the plain, half- 
 green, half-brown. At eight miles from Firu- 
 zabad, we came to a small village called Tihdasht 
 (the foot of the plain), situated immediately 
 under the mountain, and backed by semicircular 
 galleries of tabular rock a natural amphi- 
 theatre of stone. Ruins of two other villages 
 lie in the plain below. Tihdasht is built of 
 stone, in an exceedingly dirty and narrow style 
 of architecture. I asked an old inhabitant why 
 such a situation had been chosen, against the 
 VOL. i. H
 
 98 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 southward-facing wall of rock, which must 
 glow like an oven in summer. " God," said he, 
 " has assigned us this place wherein to live." 
 
 Four miles further on we turned more south- 
 ward, left the mountain range behind, and 
 entered a broken region of little hills. On our 
 right we caught a glimpse of the river, six 
 miles distant ; its course ran parallel to ours 
 for a few miles, and then, turning abruptly 
 southwards, it was lost in the huge mouth of a 
 ravine which pierces the dark and lofty range 
 that bounds this region on the south. This is 
 the fifth mountain-cleft through which the 
 adventurous river forces its way, and it is much 
 the grandest of all. "We could see the cliffs, 
 500 feet high, at its mouth, and could 
 trace the zigzag windings of the cleft in the 
 face of the mountain. A road crosses the 
 mountain and meets the river again in the 
 plain of Babonej. I might have marched that 
 way, but had preferred our present route, as 
 passing through an unknown country. 
 
 We were in search of an ahshdm l or encamp- 
 ment of the Nafar tribe of Kashkai Turks, 
 
 1 The word is the plural of the Arabic JiasJun. It is 
 used in Central and Southern Persia. I never heard the 
 Turkoman word yurt till I reached Teheran.
 
 Kdshkai Tents. 99 
 
 whose flocks graze in this hilly region during 
 the early spring. It was quite uncertain where 
 we should find them. About two o'clock we 
 halted for lunch in a grassy hollow, gay with 
 wild flowers. Some miles farther on we fell in 
 with grazing cows and random patches of culti- 
 vation ; and at last, near sunset, we discovered 
 the welcome tents. They were black blankets 
 stretched over four sticks. Half a dozen 
 families were thus encamped on a level space 
 above a small stream. Their headman received 
 us kindly, spread a carpet for me, and sur- 
 rounded it with a fence of matting, as they had 
 no spare tent. After sunset the goats and 
 sheep came home, pouring noisily over the low 
 hills, amid much barking of dogs. The stars 
 came out, the household fire was kindled before 
 each tent, and from a little distance came the 
 tinkle of the mule-bells, and the whinnying of 
 the mules over their barley. Below us was the 
 murmur of the stream ; above, and on the left 
 hand, high mountain-ridges showed dark against 
 the deep blue with its stars. I drew a water- 
 proof sheet over the edge of my enclosure, to 
 make me a kind of tent. In the morning it 
 was covered thickly with hoarfrost. 
 
 These nomads own allegiance to Darab Khan, 
 H 2
 
 ioo Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 then in Bibahan with the bulk of his tribe, in 
 the train of the Ihtisham. They pay him 
 revenue in the shape of a poll-tax on cattle, 
 and he pays the provincial governor. Like 
 most of the Persian nomad tribes, they have 
 their winter and summer quarters (qishldq and 
 ildq); the latter are among the high moun- 
 tains west of the Shiraz and Isfahan road, and 
 are visited from the end of spring to the end of 
 autumn. Soon after the nauruz or first day of 
 the Persian astronomical year the time when 
 
 The yonge sonne 
 Hath in the Lambe his halfe course yronne 
 
 the Kashkais begin their march towards the 
 cool altitudes of snow-clad Padina. They leave 
 some men behind them to reap the scattered 
 fields which they have ploughed and sown in 
 their Firuzabad qishldq or winter haunts. The 
 grain is buried in pits against the return of the 
 tribe next winter. They spoke well of Darab 
 Khan, as being a better administrator than the 
 Ilkhani. It is possible ; the latter is perhaps 
 too refined for a leader of nomads. Darab 
 Khan got his appointment five years ago. 
 
 16th March., Shaludan, 7 farsalchs ; 8 a.m. to 
 6 p.m. We started early next morning, and 
 marched four miles among the tangled low
 
 A Valley of Flowers. 101 
 
 hills to an ascent of 200 feet, which lifted us 
 into a narrow plain. After five miles more 
 this sank into a network of ravines, all dry, and 
 paved with white stones that dazzled the eye 
 under the bright sunlight. Wandering up and 
 down and along these, we came by one o'clock 
 on the source of a stream, and halted for lunch 
 on its banks. The sun was hot, but the water 
 restored freshness to man and beast. Our 
 route followed the stream. Gradually the 
 minor ravines disappeared, and the confused 
 tangle of heights and hollows shaped itself into 
 a valley, which grew narrower as we advanced. 
 On the left was a steep wall of rock, 500 feet 
 high (they call it the black wing, par-i-siyah) ; 
 on the right, precipitous headlands alternated 
 with level bays of verdure and flowers. At 
 last the valley narrowed to 400 yards, and we 
 were marching in the meadows beside the 
 stream, where the grass was knee-deep, and 
 the clover ankle-deep, and flowers grew in 
 profusion daisies, dandelions, small celandine, 
 marsh-mallows, scarlet poppies, vetches, vero- 
 nica, blue and white hyacinths, nightstock, yel- 
 low mustard-flower, the white bells of the camel- 
 thorn, and the blue stars which are slandered 
 by the name of squills. I had never seen such
 
 IO2 Six Mont /is in Persia. 
 
 a land of flowers. Late in the afternoon we 
 passed the village fort of Raikan high on the 
 left ; then we dipped into the bed of the stream, 
 through marshy ground and willows, and tall 
 reeds ; finally, we caught a welcome glimpse of 
 a small fort, showing white against a green 
 brae, and knew it for Shaludun, our halting- 
 place for the night. 
 
 Wild rhubarb grew plentifully under the 
 cliffs on the right bank of the stream. I 
 gathered some, but it proved bitter and useless. 
 Sayyid Ali stayed behind to collect more, lost 
 his way, and did not come in till after dark. 
 Meanwhile we alighted at the door of the little 
 fort, and asked for shelter. An inspection of 
 the interior tended to confirm the kadkhuda's 
 assurances that the place swarmed with fleas. 
 We decided to camp on a level space outside, 
 where a black tent was pitched for rne. I ran 
 down to the stream, and had a glorious bathe. 
 A cuckoo began to call as the setting sun 
 threw his rays against the western wall of rock. 
 As the daylight died, the tiny valley seemed 
 more than ever remote and secluded from the 
 world. 
 
 Shaludun means "rice-holding," and there 
 was in fact a good deal of rice in terrace fields
 
 Shaludun. 103 
 
 along the stream. A good garden of lemons 
 lay behind the fort ; it belongs to the landlord, 
 an Arab Sayyid in the service of the heir 
 apparent, then governing (or misgoverning) 
 Azarbaijan. The Sayyid was accustomed to 
 have the lemons converted into lemon-juice, 
 bottled in Kir, and sent to Tabriz for his 
 august master. As for the tenants, with whom 
 I had a friendly chat round a fire after dinner, 
 the narrow circumstances of the village do not 
 afford much scope for improvement. The 
 eight families who inhabit the fort know little 
 of the world beyond their own valley, where 
 they maintain a squalid struggle for existence. 
 Still, they were well nourished, and fairly well 
 clad, and the fields showed traces of labour and 
 ingenuity. "We talked of the heat of summer, 
 which must be pretty severe in this valley, but 
 the people assured me that they preferred the 
 summer, and would rather bear heat than cold. 
 I remember receiving the same answer from a 
 field labourer in the north-western provinces 
 of India. "Are there any melons grown here ?" 
 I asked. " yes," said the kadkhuda, " we have 
 some asses and goats." He had mistaken khar- 
 buza (a melon) for khar and buz (an ass and 
 a goat), and so answered beside the point, and
 
 IO4 Six Mouths in Persia. 
 
 gave us all a laugli. The kadkhuda was an 
 elderly man, but had never been so far as 
 Shiraz. He told a story of some man of 
 Shaludun who made that long journey years 
 ago. On his return, a fellow-villager asked 
 him whether in Shiraz he had not said his 
 prayers (iiamdz khivdndid). "Certainly," he 
 replied, mistaking kliwandid (recited) for 
 Jilmrdld (ate), "late natnaz and many other 
 gook things in Shiraz." He did not know the 
 meaning of the word namaz, prayers ; and most 
 of the Shaludun folk, I was assured, were 
 unable to say their prayers, though they have 
 a little mud-built saint's shrine under the 
 village, where they celebrate religious ob- 
 servances of some sort. Yet for all their 
 ignorance, these remote rustics knew (what 
 struck me greatly) the names both of Russia 
 and England. Had the Russians, they asked, 
 lately captured a strong place in the north ? 
 This looked like rumours of the second Tur- 
 koman campaign. From curiosity, I asked 
 them which they thought the greater, Russia 
 or England? " England," said the Kadkhuda, 
 "was a small thing (chizi Jcuchafy, of which they 
 had heard ; but Russia was always known, and 
 famous, and bigger and stronger." In the midst
 
 The flowery Road to Kir. 105 
 
 of this high political discourse, suddenly a man 
 in the corner broke silence. " Our city," said 
 he, " our city is Kir." This was the signal for 
 universal hearty laughter, it came in so ab- 
 surdly. We saw enough of the " city " of Kir 
 next day. 
 
 \ltli March, Kir, 5 farsakhs ; 8 a.m. to 
 3 p.m. Hitherto we had been marching south- 
 eastwards, but Kir is nearly south of Shaludun, 
 and behind a range of mountains. The first 
 half of the road runs up a long strath in the 
 hills, ending in a saddle-back over which is 
 nothing but blue sky. The richness and 
 beauty of the mountain slopes were admirable. 
 
 The lawns and meadow-ledges half- way down 
 Hung rich in flowers. 
 
 And such plenty and perfection, too, of grass 
 and clover, and all manner of herbage and the 
 almond-trees were in full bloom, like the blos- 
 soming hawthorn 2 on an Irish hill-side. Whole 
 beds and bands of yellow, and blue, and blazing 
 scarlet, shone along the foot or up the slopes of 
 the hills. Far away, on our left front, the high 
 
 2 " And the almond-tree shall flourish." One understands 
 that text after travelling in these parts of Persia, where the 
 almond-bushes are hoary with bloom ir. the spring.
 
 io6 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 dark mountains of Jahrum rose against the 
 horizon. Over all shone one might almost 
 say sparkled the marvellous brilliancy of the 
 Persian sky. At last we reached the saddle- 
 back, and saw before us a steep and narrow 
 pass between high walls of rock, and at the 
 bottom a glimpse of green fields, a corner of 
 the plain of Kir. We were an hour and a half 
 in descending to an abambar or roofed cistern 
 of water, in a little meadow, where we held our 
 noonday halt. Thence the downward road 
 winds round the sides and spurs of the hills, 
 coming out finally on a long rocky slope which 
 has been the scene of a miracle. Ali rode over 
 it on his horse Duldul, and the hoofmarks of 
 Duldul can be seen in the solid rock to this day. 
 Most of them are reverentially surrounded with 
 circles of small stones. The wells of a qanat are 
 also to be traced in orderly succession along the 
 rocky expanse, and probably the hoofmarks 
 have some connexion with them, and were 
 useful in marking distances. Apart from these 
 memorials, the bare slope of brown rock itself 
 is worth seeing. Rock takes strange forms in 
 Persia, whether massed into mountains or 
 broken into cliffs, or ranged in broad shelves, 
 or set on end like a huge wall of masonry, or
 
 Kir City. 107 
 
 recumbent and traversable as it is here. The 
 qanat is of unknown antiquity, yet perhaps it 
 works still ; at least, a spring breaks out at 
 the foot of the slope, and helps to water Kir. 
 We rode along the water-channel, in the warm 
 afternoon air, through flowery meadows, past a 
 little marsh with tall yellow iris, between fields 
 where the young corn was already high, and 
 under the walls of gardens thick with orange- 
 trees and pomegranate. Women were bathing 
 in the streamlet ; one, quite naked, turned her 
 back to us and regarded us not. Men met me 
 on the road, looked at the strange figure, and 
 gave friendly greeting. We entered Kir, and 
 found it a large village, much in ruin, with 
 three or four poor shops. The ruler of the dis- 
 trict was absent, nobody had been left in his 
 place, and we sought quarters in the caravan- 
 sarai, where I immediately became the centre of 
 an inquisitive crowd of traders, camel-drivers, 
 and loafers of the street. 
 
 I got a pretty fair upper room, with doors. 
 The kadkhuda came to see me before long a 
 tall, red-bearded man, with a squint. After talk 
 about revenue matters, he professed himself 
 anxious to ask my advice. He has a date-grove ; 
 it was planted by his father, but the governor
 
 loS Six Months in Persia. 
 
 of the district takes the dates. Appeal to 
 Shiraz is useless ; the Mutainid is bribed, and 
 will not grant redress. He thought of going to 
 Teheran with his complaint, but the governor 
 stopped him. I gave him my sympathy, and 
 could do no more. But why was I travelling 
 about the country? This, as I often found, 
 was a point on which the Persian mind refused 
 to be enlightened. To a Persian it is incredible 
 that any man can be such a fool as to waste his 
 money in searching for information on geo- 
 graphical and revenue matters ; he must be 
 paid for his trouble by somebody; he must 
 have some deep purpose of making money by 
 the business. After sunset I went out, and 
 became the centre of a crowd. They complained 
 that they were hungry, that it was impossible 
 to earn one's living ; and asked whether there 
 were beggars in Europe (Farang). The fact 
 was, I had now reached the edge of the famine 
 tract. Among the crowd I found a man who 
 had heard of Bombay, but nobody knew of 
 England, nor had ever seen an Englishman. 
 Some of them talked Turki. 
 
 The plain of Kir is about twenty-five miles 
 long, and lies nearly east and west. It is said 
 to contain thirty villages. Most of it is watered
 
 Kir Plain. 109 
 
 from the Qara-Agach. It is fertile when the 
 water is in sufficient quantity, and produces 
 corn as tall as a man. So, at least, said 
 the kadkhuda. He asked me, by the way, 
 whether the Sultan had any quarrel with Persia 
 (Sultan i Rum bd Iran harfi ddrad), referring 
 evidently to the Kurdish invasion, and the 
 encouragement of the Kurd Obaidullah by the 
 Turkish authorities. 
 
 An earthen fort stands in the plain above the 
 town. In the reign of Muhammad Shah (before 
 1852) it was he]d by 200 men against the 
 father of the Ilkhani of Firuzabad, who be- 
 sieged it with 10,000 horse (sic) and two guns. 
 The owner of the fort was outside, and commu- 
 nicated with the garrison, with a view to raising 
 the siege. One of his letters was intercepted, 
 and he and his followers were waylaid by a 
 superior force. He cut his way through, and 
 fled to a mud fort, but was soon starved out, 
 and, with thirteen of his people, was paraded in 
 chains in sight of the Kir garrison, and put to 
 death. The garrison, however, held out, and 
 the Ilkhani being evidently useless, a Jahrum 
 man was commissioned to try his luck, who 
 succeeded in making terms, let the garrison 
 depart in peace, and then dismantled the fort,
 
 no Six Mont /is in Persia. 
 
 which has never since been repaired. Persia 
 has made some progress since those days. Such 
 difficulties could hardly arise now. 
 
 An amirzada, or Persian nobleman, who had 
 recently passed through Kir, did me an unin- 
 tentional disservice by feasting all the beggars 
 in the place, that is, three-fourths of the popu- 
 lation. He had a thirty-mow 3 pilau prepared, 
 that is, two hundredweight of rice and flesh, 
 and afterwards threw twenty-five tomans in 
 copper among the crowd, byway of largess. In 
 return, he was furnished with a guide who 
 undertook to take him to Firuzabad in one day, 
 across the mountains, the result being that the 
 whole party were belated in the wilderness, and 
 spent the night in much discomfort. At the 
 door of the caravansarai, as we were starting, 
 Sayyid AH paid some trifling rewards for 
 attendance. Forthwith he was surrounded by 
 a crowd of beggars, who pressed on him and 
 went near to snatch the purse out of his hand. 
 I, safe on horseback, watched his face growing 
 rapidly longer. Pulling out a handful of 
 coppers, he threw them over the heads of the 
 
 3 The Tabriz man is equivalent to about 6| Ibs. The 
 shahman, which is the Isfahan standard of weight, is twice 
 as heavy.
 
 The Bride's Bridge. 1 1 1 
 
 crowd; the beggars turned on the spoil, and 
 Sayyid Ali nimbly mounted his charger. 
 
 18/i March, Sargah, 10 farsakhs ; 7.30 a.m. 
 to 9 p.m. We had now descended into a 
 warmer region, where date-palms and cactus 
 betrayed a semi-tropical climate. The nearest 
 regular stage was Harm, nearly fifty miles 
 distant, but our guide proposed that we should 
 camp by a pool in the wilderness, and reach 
 Harm next day. The road runs behind low 
 hills bordering the Kir plain on its right or 
 southern side, and proceeds nearly due east for 
 twelve miles, till it comes down on the Qara- 
 Agach, here flowing in a southerly direction. 
 A very quaint old bridge crosses the river. It 
 is called the Bride's Bridge (pul i arus), but 
 nobody seems to know who built its high stone- 
 arches, laid the zigzag roadway across them, 
 and constructed the towers and vaulted rooms 
 in its piers. It is the queerest structure, in 
 the way of a bridge, that I ever saw in picture 
 or reality ; it is zigzag in shape, and two storied, 
 the roadway being in the second story. The Qara- 
 Agach flows between high banks, with a strong 
 turbid stream sixty yards broad; the centre 
 of the bridge stands fully forty feet above the 
 stream, yet the floodniarkis half way up the piers.
 
 1 1 2 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 We now entered broken country with low 
 rocky hills, which gradually sank into a long 
 plain, sloping to the south-east, enclosed between 
 two low rocky ranges three miles apart, and 
 covered with wild oats and thin grass, shot 
 through with flowers. For all its greenness 
 this desert was perfectly waterless, save a few 
 holes which the winter rain had filled. At the 
 outset we passed some of these of considerable 
 size, with bushes and cactus shrubs near the 
 water, reminding me of Indian scenery; but 
 the water was brackish. We passed also a 
 party of Kashkai * Turks, reclining under the 
 shade of kunar bushes, beside an old brick 
 tank. These Turks were bound for Bidshahr 
 with revenue for the governor Lutf Ali Khan. 
 An hour and a half later, as we were halted for 
 breakfast near a pool, the Turks came up, and 
 proposed that we should ride with them to 
 their tents, which were represented as a few 
 farsakhs distant. We went together over the 
 green but arid plain, which seemed endless. 
 The day was hot, and we vainly turned aside 
 to the ruins of various old stone cisterns, in 
 
 4 Kashkai means profuyi, from the Turki qdchmaq, to 
 flee. The ancestors of the tribe took refuge in Persia 
 centuries ago.
 
 Antelope-shooting. 113 
 
 the hope of water which was not there. Flies 
 were abundant, and troubled the horses. It 
 was not till two hours before sunset that we 
 reached a water-hole, with muddy water, full 
 of tadpoles. Sayyid AH had ridden on in 
 advance, with the principal Turk. His stout- 
 ness made him feel the heat more than another, 
 and I found him reclining under a bush in a 
 state of thankfulness for deliverance from death 
 by thirst. "We drank freely of the muddy pool, 
 and having smoked the necessary qalyan, and 
 seen the mules arrive, we set out again in 
 search of the Kashkai tents. The plain ended 
 in a pass between low rocky hills. Some 
 antelopes were seen in one of the recesses of 
 the plain between the hills on our right. Off 
 went three of the Turks at full gallop over the 
 stony ground ; presently we heard two shots, 
 and in half an hour the chief man rejoined us 
 with a dead antelope slung under his horse's 
 belly. Persians are accustomed to shoot from 
 horseback, and to ride at full speed over the 
 worst ground. 
 
 This diversion beguiled the way a little. 
 From the low pass we looked down upon a 
 green plain, with a large sheet of shallow 
 water in the middle. In the descent, one of 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 ii4 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the Turks took to singing selections from the 
 Shahnama, in a lamentable voice. The praises 
 of Rustam are dear to the Persian heart, and 
 my Kashkai chanted with great gusto the 
 hero's words to the prince whom he had loyally 
 fought for and crowned. 
 
 Agar man paziraftami taj o talcJit, 
 Na ludi tura in buzurgi o raklit. 
 
 " Had I accepted the crown and throne, tliou 
 wouldst have had none of this greatness and 
 pomp." 
 
 Meanwhile, daylight died, and no tents were 
 visible. The Turks had a mare running loose ; 
 she disappeared ahead in the darkness, seeking 
 the camp, and the Turks rode after her, bidding 
 us wait their return. Left alone, we took the 
 advice of our guide, and turned aside to a village 
 at the foot of the hills on our left. It was dark 
 when we reached the walls and found the place 
 deserted a date-grove with ruined houses. A 
 heavy dew was falling, the mules were wading 
 knee-deep in the luxuriant vegetation of the 
 plain, we had no fuel, and could find no water. 
 All the air was faint with the odour of the 
 night- stock (shab-bu or night-blowing ceres) 
 which grew thick among the grass. Our guide 
 was confident of the existence of a village, and
 
 Sargah. 115 
 
 after casting about, he lighted on a path which 
 took us to a small village fort. Through the 
 open door we could see the light of a fire 
 burning in the courtyard. Suddenly the light 
 went out ; the inhabitants had heard us coming, 
 and shut the door against possible robbers. In 
 vain did we knock and expostulate ; we were 
 received at first by silence, and then by advice 
 to go elsewhere. There was no other village 
 within six miles, and we could not find our way 
 in the dark. The situation was ludicrous 
 enough, and the energetic eloquence of Sayyid 
 Ali heightened its absurdity. " We have come 
 from his Highness the Governor of Shiraz," 
 cried he, in an elevated tone of voice, " and bear 
 written orders from him, which you will disobey 
 at your peril. We have a ghulam of his 
 Highness with us, who possesses a tongue, 
 though you mightn't think it, for he doesn't 
 choose to use it, apparently " (this by way of 
 reproof to poor old Zaki Beg, who stood by, 
 holding his ancient steed, quite flabbergasted). 
 " You are afraid of robbers, are you ? Have 
 the goodness to get up on the wall, and look at 
 us. Do we look like robbers ? Pray observe the 
 laden mules. See the Sahib himself, one of the 
 grandees of Farangistan, whom you had better 
 
 i 2
 
 1 1 6 Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 treat with due respect, or it will be the worse 
 for you." Presently a man with a long gun 
 appeared on the wall, and provoked a general 
 chorus of muleteers, servants, and all ; but the 
 garrison showed little sign of yielding. Then 
 it occurred to me to step forward and try my 
 persuasive powers. " Contemplate me," I said ; 
 " I am a Farangi, and no robber. See the 
 fashion of my clothes ; this also is my hat " 
 (waving a huge white pith hat, which glimmered 
 ghostly in the starlight). The hat carried con- 
 viction with it, and the door was unbarred. 
 The mules, poor beasts, were glad to be un- 
 loaded after their march of forty miles ; and we 
 all welcomed the shelter of the fort, poor as it 
 was. I spread my bed in a niche of the gateway, 
 frequented by early-rising cows. 
 
 They call this place Sargah. It has suffered 
 much from robbers of late years. The delay in 
 admitting us was excused by the fact that some 
 time before, a robber had got in on pretence of 
 being a Government servant with his retinue, 
 and had walked off with their cattle. Sargah 
 has also been short of water for the last four 
 years. It has now been bought by a man of 
 substance, who has repaired the qanat on 
 which the village depends.
 
 Harm Plain. 117 
 
 "We had been in the fort half an hour, when 
 the Turks came in, profuse in apologies for 
 having left us. They wanted me to visit their 
 tents next day. They were not bad fellows, 
 but profoundly ignorant of the existence of 
 England or India. Talking about their summer- 
 quarters, the chief man assured me that a 
 Russian officer (Urusti) had come among them 
 last summer, and won admiration by his straight 
 shooting and his powers of endurance as a 
 mountaineer. Now, this Russian was no other 
 man than Captain Durand, assistant political 
 agent at Bushire. I thought it a strange testi- 
 mony to the familiarity of the Russian name, 
 that an English officer should actually be mis- 
 taken for a Russian by people among whom he 
 had lived for some weeks. I myself was taken 
 for a Russian by the street-boys of Isfahan. 
 
 ~L9th March, Karyun, 2 farsakhs. Next 
 morning we marched five miles to Harm, and 
 three miles more to Karyun. We crossed a 
 muddy part of the plain, by the borders of the 
 shallow water, where a few egrets were standing, 
 and some terns were flying overhead. The air 
 was hot and moist, the plain luxuriantly green 
 with grass and herbage, and wild oats. Nothing 
 I ever saw in Persia reminded me so strongly
 
 1 1 8 6V,r Months in Persia. 
 
 of India. Unfortunately there were other points 
 of resemblance. I had seen a famine in India ; 
 I was now, for many days, to see the effects of 
 drought and famine in Persia. Harm is a large 
 village, with extensive date -groves, and perhaps 
 two hundred houses. It was deserted and in 
 ruins ; we could find no quarters there. Karyun is 
 still larger ; it must have had a population of 
 2000 souls, but we could find only three families 
 in the whole place. We rode about nearly half 
 an hour, vainly seeking an inhabitant who might 
 guide us to a house. Sayyid Ali was for putting 
 up in a mosque, but I thought the mihmankhcma 
 or public rest-house, though ruined, would suit us 
 better. I got a fair upper room, without doors, 
 and quarters were found below for all my people. 
 We were now within the district of Lutf Ali 
 Khan, of Bidshahr, the revenue-farmer and 
 governor of Bidshahr and Harm, with their 
 dependencies. His tufangchis refused us 
 admission into the mud fort outside Karyun, 
 on the ground that Lutf Ali's harem was there. 
 Two other forts stand in the plain, a mile east 
 of Karyun. One is the Mud Fort (Q,ala-i-Gili), 
 built when Karirn Khan was reigning in Shiraz 
 (1780); it is a square earthwork with a side 
 of 120 yards, and had a tower every twelve
 
 Story of Shah Karan. 1 19 
 
 yards. The other is the fort of the Fire-well, 
 so called from the discovery of naphtha in a well 
 hard by ; it is a tower girt with a wall, on a 
 mound. Forts and well are in ruins now. 
 Karyun stands in the middle of three rocky 
 hills, and these, also, are said to have been 
 fortified. I went up one hill with some men of 
 the village. They stopped at the foot, picked 
 up bones, and said, " These are bones of men," 
 and proceeded to tell me the following story : 
 Shah Karan was besieged here by 12,000 
 Mussalmans, when the Arabs first invaded 
 Persia. While they were at their prayers he 
 sallied out. They would not leave their prayers, 
 and he slew them all without resistance. In 
 the Mussalman camp were forty virgins, who 
 thus fell into the hands of Shah Karan. These 
 young women, being of virtuous principles, 
 besought deliverance from Heaven, and accord- 
 ingly the earth opened and swallowed them all 
 up except three who fled, with Shah Karan 
 and his men after them. One maiden ran across 
 the plain, and up the northern mountains, and 
 was now on the point of capture, when a cave 
 disclosed itself in the mountain-side; she ran 
 in, and was lost. The cave is called the Ghar 
 Bibi, or Lady's Cave, to this day, and is well
 
 I2O Six Months in Persia. 
 
 known to have no end. The second maiden 
 fled to the mountains of Khunj, far to the south, 
 and died there of exhaustion. Her shrine, 
 called that of the Bibi darmanda, or Tired-out 
 Lady, is a famous place of prayer for childless 
 wives. The third maiden disappeared in some 
 other mountain-side, and water has trickled 
 from the cleft ever since. 
 
 Word of this catastrophe was brought to 
 Hajat, who had conquered Kir. He came over 
 with an army to avenge his brother, but could 
 not take the fort. At last Shah Karan's wife 
 cast eye upon Hajat, and fell in love with him. 
 He promised to marry her if she would betray 
 the fort. She endeavoured, Delilah-like, to 
 wheedle her husband out of the magic secret 
 which made him unconquerable. He, too, like 
 Samson, seems to have had a plentiful crop of 
 hair, not, however, confined to his head only. 
 He bade her cut hair from his breast, and bind 
 his thumbs and great toes together with it. 
 She did so, and cried, " The Mussalmans be upon 
 thee, Shah Karan." But he broke his bonds, 
 and the assault failed. Further coaxing per- 
 suaded him to tell her that she ought to have 
 poured water on the fastenings, and when 
 she had tied him up again and done so, his
 
 Karyun. 121 
 
 strength and soldiership departed, and the fort 
 was taken. Hajat married Shah Karan's wife, 
 and immediately cut off her head, remarking 
 that he didn't wish her to betray him, too, on 
 some future occasion. He then began to search 
 for Shah Karan's buried treasure. Being divinely 
 (or diabolically) informed that the way to find 
 it was to cause blood to flow down the hill-side 
 like water, he conducted the population of 
 Karyun to the top of the hill, and there pro- 
 ceeded to cut their throats. This went on 
 several days, without revealing any treasure, 
 till it came to the turn of an old woman and 
 her two sons. The old woman offered to show 
 Hajat a better way. " In the vaults," she said, 
 " there is great store of wine, the blood of the 
 grape. Pour that over the rocks, and you will 
 find the treasure without all this blood-guilti- 
 ness." Hajat did so ; and when the last jar of 
 wine was removed, the door of the treasure- 
 house appeared behind it. 
 
 Such, condensed, is the legend of Karyun. 
 Shah Karan was, of course, a fire-worshipper/ 
 and seems to be a semi-historical personage. 
 He is credited with having made sixty qanats. 
 
 5 The Chah Tashi (atashi) or fire-well, was perhaps a 
 holy place in Shah Qaran's time.
 
 122 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 It is probable enough, too, that Karyun may be 
 an ancient place. In a country like Persia, 
 where the habitable spots have been marked 
 out by Nature from the beginning of the world, 
 the smallest human settlement in the desert 
 may date back thousands of years. It is at 
 least true of Karyun that the ruins of a fort do 
 actually stand on the hill, and that bones are 
 plentiful in the dry torrent beds. 
 
 What with relics of mortality, ruins, and rob- 
 bers, Karyun was an eminently cheerful place. 
 From the hill-top one looked down on the ruins 
 of the village. My guides said there were twenty 
 inhabited houses ; I doubt it. The place was 
 once flourishing and well-built. Conical domes 
 of abambars (water-cisterns) rose among the 
 houses, testifying to a large water-supply and 
 a large population in former years. My guides 
 complained much of robbers, and of the mis- 
 government of the Qajars, i.e. the present royal 
 family. The day before my arrival a band of 
 robbers had sacked a village of Bidshahr. 
 Karyun itself had been desolate these twenty 
 years, so they said, but their complaints were 
 exaggerated. Of supposed insecurity of pro- 
 perty, I had, however, some proofs. The 
 herdsmen on the hills were armed with
 
 Bidshahr. I 23 
 
 guns, and through the night I was awakened 
 by the firing of armed watchmen in the streets 
 the oriental way of showing that one is on 
 the alert. 
 
 Karyun and Harm are owned by Lutf Ali 
 Khan, who also owned Sargah, but had to sell 
 it to pay his debts. In good seasons, the plain 
 where these villages (and a few others) are 
 situated ought to be extremely rich. I saw 
 some very fine wheat under Karyun. An 
 ancient qanat waters Karyun, and an un- 
 successful attempt has recently been made by 
 Lutf Ali Khan to strike out another. But we 
 were now sinking below the region of qanats, 
 and entering that of cultivation dependent upon 
 wells, or on the rain from heaven. 
 
 The most momentous event for me on this 
 day, the 19th of March, was one which I omitted 
 to chronicle, because I was not aware of it. It 
 happened in the Antipodes. 
 
 20th March, Bidshahr, 6 farsakh-s ; 6.30 a.m. 
 to 2.30 p.m. Our march to Bidshahr 6 next day 
 took us over the tops of low hills, covered with 
 camel- thorn, which looked not unlike Irish bog 
 and heather under the cloudy sky. Between 
 
 6 "Willow-city." There are far more tamarisks than 
 willows in the Bidshahr plain nowadays.
 
 124 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the hill-tops were little plains, and finally we 
 climbed up a rocky pass, and saw the Bidshahr 
 plain at our feet. It was wide and green, with 
 groves of date-palms and clumps of tamarisks 
 large as full-grown willow- trees. On our left 
 the plain sank into a shallow salt lake. We 
 were now entering the salt country. The 
 water-holes which we passed on our march 
 held brackish water. There were several 
 abambars on the road; one of these held 
 water, and we breakfasted beside it. 
 
 Under gentle rain we entered Bidshahr, and 
 found it as large as Karyun, and nearly as 
 desolate. Lutf Ali Khan's fort was a tumble- 
 down mud edifice, and our quarters in the 
 mihmankhana were not much better than those 
 of the day before. We found our friends the 
 Turks there ; they were in light marching order, 
 and had gained a day on us. They brought 
 225 tomans for Lutf Ali Khan, in silver, a 
 queer mixture of coins, including old English 
 crown-pieces and gigantic Spanish doubloons. 
 Lutf Ali Khan came to see me, looked at my 
 guns, and asked me if I was not afraid of 
 robbers, and whether I should resist if they 
 stopped me. He lamented the ruined state of 
 the country, and desired to know why I was
 
 Kaura. 125 
 
 travelling. I told him the reason was, to see 
 Persia; which he did not believe. At dinner- 
 time the Turks came in and asked leave to see 
 me eat ; so I showed them the uses of a knife 
 and fork. 
 
 Bidshahr plain has never had a qanat. 
 Wells can be sunk anywhere, but the water is 
 brackish. Good wheat is grown, but the most 
 paying crop is tobacco, for which the saline soil 
 is well adapted. The tobacco of Hirum, on the 
 north-eastern border of the plain, beyond the 
 salt lake, is famous as far as Teheran. Last 
 year all the abambars (which are very nu- 
 merous) ran dry, and the people had to drink 
 well-water. 
 
 2Ist March, Kaura, one farsakh. Next 
 morning dawned inauspiciously with clouds 
 and rain, and Sayyid Ali had fever. Lutf Ali 
 Khan sent me over a good breakfast, and as the 
 day cleared I determined to march four miles 
 to Kaura, on the southern side of the plain. 
 Lutf Ali was very anxious that I should give 
 him my shot-gun, but that, of course, was out 
 of the question. He was good enough to say 
 that he had been much pleased with me ; I bade 
 him good-bye, and we reached Kaura in an 
 hour. Finding no quarters in the fort outside
 
 126 Siu Months in Persia. 
 
 i 
 
 the village (this fort is notable as having a 
 ditch round it) we went to the house of a man 
 whose father had been the chief person in 
 Kaura. This worthy was sixty years old, had 
 never seen a European before, and evidently 
 was not quite easy in his mind as to my in- 
 tentions. He became reassured after a little, 
 and talked. His father had been in service in 
 Tabriz, and having saved money, and pur- 
 chased, no doubt, the farm of the revenues of 
 Kaura, came to his native village, built a fort 
 on the hill above it, and made himself comfort- 
 able. The grandfather of Lutf Ali Khan took 
 his fort, killed him, and spoiled his goods. The 
 son retained only part of the family lands, and 
 these are passing from him. One could not 
 expect a man with such a history to be en- 
 chanted with the present regime. " Pars 
 tamam shud" he said, " the province is done for ; 
 every one is at the mercy of his more powerful 
 neighbour (har Tci zur-ash ba digari mirasad). 
 The revenue demand is excessive (Diwan ma- 
 liyat-i-ziyada migirad), and the ryots have 
 fled away." Yet it seems that this deplorable 
 state of things has arisen only since the death of 
 the old governor of Bidshahr, one Bakir (pro- 
 bably a friend of my host), eight years ago.
 
 Persian Wells. 127 
 
 I went up the hill, visited the ruins of the 
 fort, and got a good view over the plain. 
 "While there, we saw a rider with a couple of 
 mules enter the village. This was an officer 
 from Shiraz, sent to settle a dispute about 
 tobacco. A merchant of Jahrum had bought 
 4000 mans of tobacco from the villages of 
 Bidshahr ; some of it turned out bad, and the 
 ryots were now to replace it or return the price. 
 I called on this officer, and desired him to 
 present my respects to the prince on his return 
 to Shiraz. He was a comparatively enlightened 
 person, knew the name of England, and sur- 
 prised me by asking whether we were at war 
 with Russia. He remarked that Russia had 
 become very powerful of late years (a jab dasta- 
 wezi paida Icarda ast). 
 
 Kaura ought to have 500 inhabitants, but 
 only ten houses were actually occupied. The 
 wells were noticeable objects. They are 
 worked, as in India, by bullocks driven down 
 an inclined plane, which draw up a leather 
 bucket by a rope passing over a pulley ; but the 
 whole contrivance is on a larger scale than in 
 India, the uprights are pillars of mud support- 
 ing the axle of the pulley at a height of fifteen 
 feet, and the sloping bullock-walk is longer and
 
 128 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 deeper. The water level is about forty feet 
 from the surface. 
 
 22nd March, Iwaz, 5 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 2p.m. 
 The night was so chilly that I called for a fire. 
 Marching next morning at dawn, I found my 
 hands slightly numb till after sunrise. The 
 road entered a wide pass between the south- 
 eastern hills, and came out on a plain between 
 low mountain-ranges. Since leaving Firuzabad, 
 wehad watched the mountains gradually decrease 
 in height. They are all disposed inparallel ranges, 
 running north-west and south-east, with low 
 transverse spurs connecting them, and as one 
 marches south-eastwards between two of these 
 parallel ranges, and crosses the spurs into plain 
 after plain, each lower than the last, one finds 
 that the mountains too sink lower, till from the 
 Pidanau and Aigar ranges, rising 2000 feet on 
 the left hand and the right of the Firuzabad 
 plain (itself 5000 feet above the sea), they sink 
 into the Mahruzi and Darbast hills, scarce 600 
 feet high, enclosing a narrow plain perhaps 
 300 feet above the sea. The vegetation also 
 changes. Mastich (bana) and almond-trees and 
 wild olive give place to kunar and tamarisk, 
 and gardens of plane-trees are changed for 
 groves of date-palm. The flowers grow fewer ;
 
 Suspicious Travellers. 129 
 
 in to-day's march we saw hardly anything but 
 night-stock, which covered some of the low hills 
 as with a pale purple carpet. As the hills sink, 
 they become steeper, and in the first half of the 
 march from Kaura to Iwaz they present a face 
 of sheer black cliff 600 feet high at one point 
 on the left. 
 
 In the plain which we had now entered stand 
 the ruins of three villages, and one village with 
 a tower and ten inhabited houses. The plain is 
 cultivated in good seasons, but four years of 
 drought had left the people no seed to sow after 
 last winter's plentiful rains. Crossing dry salt 
 hollows at the lower end of the plain, the road 
 enters salt hills marked by the usual variety of 
 form and colour flat- topped, conical or round, 
 light green, red or blue, grey or rich brown. 
 We crossed a stream of limpid water, the 
 bitterest I ever tasted, and halted by an 
 abambar in a small lev^el space, covered with 
 rich grass and flowers, and surrounded by 
 grey peaks. On one of these a ragged fellow 
 appeared with a gun, and shouted. Zaki Beg, 
 informing me that he had carefully loaded his 
 gun with ball that morning, urged his white 
 animal forward to reconnoitre. (I subsequently 
 became acquainted with his style of loading; 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 1 30 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the charge of powder might possibly propel the 
 bullet twenty yards.) Two or three more men 
 appeared, and they all turned out to be shep- 
 herds, anxious to know what we meant to do. 
 We reasoned with them, but could not induce 
 them to come near. Marching again, as we 
 topped a hill, a caravan of donkeys appeared on 
 the hill opposite, coming our way, and escorted 
 by some tufangchis, whom the sight of us 
 threw into momentary excitement. When we 
 met, one of the drivers asked me with apparent 
 anxiety whether I had heard of robbers in 
 Bidshahr. I told him of the reported sack of a 
 village a few days before. 
 
 Winding round hill after hill, we came at 
 last to a low saddle-back, over which the fort 
 and houses of Iwaz stood out white upon a 
 narrow green plain. The houses looked taller 
 and better than any we had seen for some days, 
 and we got capital quarters in the hall of the 
 kalantar's house. The village has a population 
 of about 1000, though it is partly uninhabited. 
 It is full of abambars, some of which are very 
 large, with high-domed roofs of stone. The 
 well-water is brackish. The kalantar told 
 me of the sufferings* of the people in last 
 year's famine, after three years of insufficient
 
 Iwaz. 1 3 1 
 
 rain. Many died, others wandered away, 
 and the poor who remained were reduced to 
 eating the ground shells of the wild almond 
 (ahluJc) . 
 
 Among the crowd which gathered at the door 
 to gaze on the Farangi, I saw two youths in 
 semi-Indian dress. They were dealers in Eng- 
 lish printed goods, and had been to Bombay, 
 where they had picked up much impudence and 
 a very little Hindustani. They praised Bombay 
 and the English Government, and wanted to 
 sell me a horse. There are a few merchants' 
 houses in Iwaz, and on the whole the place is 
 comparatively flourishing. 
 
 The kalantar gave me a capital dinner, and 
 informed me of recent events in Jahrum. 7 Six 
 months ago the governor of that place had 
 occasion to punish a luti, that is, a professional 
 blackguard. The man's comrades laid wait for 
 the governor, and shot him at the gate of a garden 
 where he had been enjoying a picnic. For this 
 the Mutamid ud Daulat sent orders from Shiraz 
 that Jahrum should be levelled, and the plough 
 passed over the site ; but means were found to 
 
 7 Jahrum lies seventy miles north of Iwaz, and seems to 
 be an artistic city. Lutf AH Khan's walls in Bidshahr are 
 adorned with pictures in a bold style of design and colour- 
 ing, the work of a man of Jahrum. 
 
 K 2
 
 13-2 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 allay his fury. One of the murderers has been 
 executed, and three are in prison in Shiraz. 
 
 2.3rd March, Lar, 6 farsakhs ; 6.30 a.m. to 
 2 p.m. The Iwaz plain is twenty miles long, 
 and little more than a mile wide. We marched 
 down it next day, and halted to breakfast near 
 an old shrine surrounded by ruined abambars, 
 and by kunar and tamarisk- trees. A larger 
 shrine, in good repair, lifts its white dome above 
 a thick grove of these trees, two miles further 
 on, and appears glorious as an enchanted palace 
 from afar to the traveller toiling over the hot 
 and shelterless plain. We did not visit it, but 
 turned to the right among limestone hills. 
 Patches of wheat grew in their hollows, and a 
 small watercourse betrayed the proximity of Lar. 
 At length we passed between two hills, and 
 discovered Lar on our right front. The hill on 
 the right was fortified, or had been fortified ; 
 that on the left had a hermit's house built 
 against its steep white side, near the summit. 
 
 We took up our quarters in the Bagh-i-Nishat, 
 or Pleasant Garden, half a mile outside the city. 
 The gardener's family, who were in charge of 
 the garden-house, swept the rooms for us, and 
 we made ourselves comfortable, sending Zaki 
 Beg to give notice of my arrival to Fath Ali 
 Khan, the Governor of Lar.
 
 133. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LAR. 
 23ED TO 25TH MARCH. 
 
 FATH ALI KHAN came to see me in the after- 
 noon. He is a tall and powerfully-built man, 
 with a black beard; a dignified and orthodox 
 man, the very impersonation of all the gravity 
 and straitness of Islam seemly in person, 
 decorous in apparel, stately in speech, courteous 
 yet reserved in demeanour, and so religious that 
 he fills up the intervals of conversation with 
 pious ejaculations and the telling of beads. 
 His dress was half Arab ; he wore a large silk 
 turban and an Arab cloak. With him came 
 one Safa Ali, who called himself the Prophet of 
 Thieves (paighambar iduzdan). I found out 
 something about this worthy in the course of 
 my travels. He seems to be a native of 
 Mahun, near Karman, and to follow the trade of 
 wit, poet, and panegyrist. The uncle of the 
 Shah (the Hisam us Sultanat, or Sword of the
 
 134 Si* Months in Persia. 
 
 Empire, late Governor of Khurasan), who 
 appears to have a liking for such people, took a 
 great fancy to him, and was his patron for some 
 time. How he came to Lar I could not exactly 
 ascertain; but at any rate Fath Ali found 
 his society so agreeable that Safa Ali could not 
 get permission to go elsewhere. His wife came 
 from Karman for him not long ago, and had to 
 go back without him. The strange thing is that 
 such a man as Fath Ali should tolerate the 
 daring jests and loose tongue of the prophet 
 of thieves, who does not scruple to mock 
 at heaven and hell, and even to travesty the 
 Koran. 
 
 Besides Safa Ali, the captain of the artillery 
 corps of Lar accompanied Fath Ali Khan. He 
 wore his uniform, and looked like the generality 
 of military officers in Persia, an underpaid dis- 
 appointed man. 
 
 Fath Ali's bigotry could not help showing 
 itself through his studiously polite manner. 
 He talked little, and for the most part about 
 religion. "Was I a Catholic or a Protestant ? 
 he asked, somewhat to my surprise. The pro- 
 phet took up the running, and wanted to know 
 whether I had any reverence for Mecca, and 
 whether I believed in Omar, Abu Bakr, and the
 
 Lar. 135 
 
 rest. Questions like these are occasionally put 
 to the traveller in Persia, and are rather puz- 
 zling to answer. One does not wish to be rude ; 
 yet with all imaginable liberality in matters 
 religious, it is impossible to say that one believes 
 in the saintliness of these calamitous characters. 
 Later on, I found, or thought I found, a way 
 out of the difficulty ; but in the present case I 
 only said that Englishmen were taught to 
 respect every one's religious belief, and that 
 indeed the greatest Persian poet preached the 
 same doctrine, for Hafiz had written, 
 
 Hama Teas tdlib i Ydr and, cha hushydr o cha mast ; 
 Har jd khana i ishq ast, cha masjid cha kinisht. 
 
 " All seek the Friend, be they drunk or 
 sober ; every place is the house of Love, be it 
 mosque or tavern." He professed himself im- 
 mensely struck with the aptness of this quota- 
 tion. Next day Fath Ali asked me to come and 
 see the marriage festivities of his son. I found 
 the party sitting in a room adorned with mirrors, 
 and with pictures taken from rolls of piece- 
 goods, and set in the white plaster of the walls. 
 The Persians can make capital stucco, hard and 
 smooth as marble ; and they frame pictures and 
 mirrors in this, and cut out floral designs in it,
 
 136 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 often with great taste and beauty. The walls 
 of the Bagh-i-Nishat are very handsomely 
 adorned with carvings of this kind (gachburi). 
 Among the pictures in Fath Ali's house were 
 several of the Queen and of the Prince and 
 Princess of Wales. I pointed these out, and 
 answered questions about the royal family, the 
 law of succession, and the number of wives 
 permitted to a King of England. " Do you 
 mean to say," asked the prophet, " that when 
 your wife grows old and loses her beauty, you 
 can't take another ? " I assured him that such 
 was the melancholy fact. The prophet then 
 dilated upon his proper function, and explained, 
 in verse, that with his permission the desert 
 was safe for the traveller as a royal palace, but 
 that if he gave the word for plunder, not ten 
 thousand soldiers could protect the caravan ; 
 that when his congregation started on a raid, 
 the heavens were too low for their feet to tread 
 on, &c., &c. Fath Ali smiled, and told his 
 beads. Talking about Islam in India, I men- 
 tioned Lucknow as a stronghold of the Persian 
 or Shia faith, and spoke of the Najaf 
 shrine there, named after the Najaf of pilgri- 
 mage, near Baghdad. Fath Ali broke silence. 
 " Khub nist" he said, " it is not good ;" he would
 
 Lar. 137 
 
 tolerate no mock shrines. We had sweetmeats 
 and sherbet, and of course a qalyan, while 
 dancing and singing were going on in the court- 
 yard on which the room opened. The per- 
 formers were boys, and the performance was 
 perhaps one degree better than an Indian 
 nautch; yet the audience listened with that 
 rapt attention which is so inexplicable to a 
 European. The prophet told me that in Seistan 
 he had heard little Cabuli girls of nine or ten 
 singing all night, on some festive occasion. 
 All the company were lapped in motionless 
 ecstasy till the dawning, when one of the little 
 maids turned towards the east and sang, 
 
 Ai subli ma ai, Jci Tianuz ast wayt i raz 
 Qissa i ashigan ta hanuz ast daraz ; 
 
 " Dawn not, morning, for it is the hour of 
 secrecy still ; the lovers' story is not half ended 
 yet." Whereupon the whole company burst 
 out weeping. It would be a powerful singer 
 who could produce such an effect at a concert 
 in London, for example. 
 
 The day after, in the evening, I called to 
 bid Fath Ali good-bye. He was at his prayers, 
 but the prophet welcomed me, and talked per- 
 haps more freely than in his patron's presence. 
 He told me of a friend of his, who had written
 
 T 38 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 to ask him for a rule of life, and lie read me out 
 his answer. It was in verse, and to this effect : 
 " You can go either to heaven or to hell, ac- 
 cording as you choose your society. If you care 
 for the company of straitlaced mullas and frouzy 
 saints, you can find plenty of them in heaven. 
 But hell is peopled with bold fellows, brave 
 spirits, who have some fun in them. So make 
 your choice. If you prefer heaven, go and sit 
 with Muhammad and Ali (birau, bd Muhammad 
 o Ali nashin) beside the stream of Kausar, and 
 drink its brackish water till you're tired (bakhur 
 har cha khivdhi az an ab i shur)." Various other 
 irreligious jokes were interspersed, over which 
 the prophet laughed heartily, to my no small 
 amazement. He recited verses cleverly and 
 well ; among others, a parody of his on an ode 
 of Hafiz, where the love-lines of Hafiz alter- 
 nated with interpolated lines of the prophet, 
 perverting the praises of Hafiz' mistress into 
 the praises of the prophet's thieves. Then the 
 conversation turned on religion again, and I had 
 to translate for him some of our prayers ; I 
 chose the Lord's Prayer, and the prayer for all 
 sorts and conditions of men. Hereupon Fath 
 Ali came in, and the prophet hastened to inform 
 him that we Christians acknowledged the unity
 
 Lar. 139 
 
 of God that the prayers I had quoted were 
 tauhid i Ichalis, pure confession of God's one- 
 ness. But the upright Fath Ali was not so 
 easily convinced. " Saint Jesus," said he, 
 " never left you any prayer. I know ; I have 
 read your New Testament through, and there 
 are no prayers prescribed in it, nor any system 
 of religion (shariat). Now, what do you believe 
 concerning Saint Jesus ? Do you believe Him 
 to be God or man ? " " We believe Him to be 
 God," said I, " but there is a small sect who 
 believe Him to be man only." "They believe 
 right," said Fath Ali. ** And what is your view 
 of the crucifixion ? Do you believe that Saint 
 Jesus was crucified, or only a simulacrum 
 (surat) of Him ? " I felt I was getting rather 
 out of my depth in theology, but proceeded to 
 state what I considered the orthodox doctrine. 
 " That's wrong," said Fath Ali. " It was only 
 a simulacrum that was crucified, while Saint 
 Jesus ascended to heaven there and then, not 
 after His pretended resurrection, as you vainly 
 talk. Nay, we have a higher reverence for 
 Saint Jesus than you, who say that He was sub- 
 jected to crucifixion." The conversation after- 
 wards turned on India, and here again I found 
 it impossible to convince Fath Ali that I was
 
 140 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 right in believing India to be part of the British 
 possessions. 
 
 An old eunuch lighted me home. He was a 
 travelled old fellow, and seemed anxious to 
 apologize for his master's religious straitness. 
 He had been to Bombay with Fath Ali's son, 
 who went to consult an English doctor about a 
 chronic complaint. They stayed there six 
 months. The doctor used to call his patient a 
 barbarian (jangali admi) ; I saw the young 
 man myself, and do not wonder at it. 
 
 Sayyid Ali was unfortunately ill while he was 
 in Lar; otherwise, being a kindred spirit, he 
 might have fraternized with the prophet. He 
 wrote the prophet a letter, to which the latter 
 replied by an amusing medley of prose and 
 rhyme, including a sacrilegious travesty of a 
 verse of the Koran, 1 and ending by lamenting 
 his own fate, to be in the hands of donkeys 
 (dar dast % khardn), an allusion to Fath Ali, 
 who had kept him two years. 
 
 In truth, Lar is not the place for a man of 
 education. The principal topic of conversation 
 
 1 The prophet explained to me with great glee how he 
 had named his old wife " Mother of Robbers " (ummu- 
 sdriqin) in imitation of the title, Mother of the Faithful, 
 bestowed on the wife of Muhammad.
 
 Lar. 141 
 
 seems to be highway robbery. It is difficult to 
 estimate how far this sort of talk is warranted 
 by facts, and how far it is mere bravado. The 
 number of soldiers seems to indicate an un- 
 stable state of security. Lar has a garrison of 
 thirty artillerymen, with six guns. The guns 
 were stowed in the verandah of the Bagh-i- 
 Nishat, so I had opportunities of inspecting 
 them. They are one 12-pounder, one 9-pounder, 
 and four 6-pounders ; all bronze guns. Four 
 were cast in Tabriz, and two in Enzeli by 
 a Tabriz workman. The 9-pounder is in a 
 parlous state of dissidence at the mouth. The 
 captain marshalled his men to do me honour. 
 Far more numerous, however, are the irregular 
 forces of Fath All Khan. The Lar men pride 
 themselves on being zaring a word which may 
 be the same as the classical Persian zirak, 
 sharp or alert and boast that Fath Ali needs 
 no regulars, being always able to raise an 
 adequate force on the spot. And certainly Lar 
 is full of tufangchis " every man with his flask 
 of powder, and his firelock on his shoulder " 
 who stalk around as if each man were a host 
 in himself. Their weapons are almost all per- 
 cussion, and sometimes double-barrelled. Their 
 discourse is of robbers and robbery.
 
 142 Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 On the other hand, the state of trade shows 
 that the roads cannot be very unsafe. A 
 caravan of 500 camels was expected in Lar the 
 day after my departure. Lar has trade with 
 Bombay through the three ports of Linga, 
 Bandar Abbas, and Tahiri. I met a man who 
 spoke some Hindustani ; and a rude drawing of 
 a ship on the walls of the Bagh-i-Mshat testified 
 to the familiarity of the Lar youth with the 
 idea of a sea- voyage. There are some well-to-do 
 merchants in the city. One of them sent letters 
 for me safely to India via Bandar Abbas. 
 
 The sights of Lar are as follows: (1) The 
 principal mosque, a stone building 30 feet 
 high, enclosing a courtyard about 30 yards 
 square, and having its walls decorated with 
 plain blue tiles. (2) A small stone caravan- 
 sarai, now in ruins. (3) The fort on one of 
 the two hills behind the town. It is a steep 
 limestone hill, 150 feet high, and once was 
 girdled by fortifications ; but there remains 
 now only a small mud fort on the crest, 
 garrisoned by a single family of tufangchis. 
 A small broken cannon lay before the door. 
 On the hill-side, below the fort, stands a small 
 square building, stone-built, with a dome ; this 
 is said to be the tomb of Nadir Shah's mother.
 
 Lar. 143 
 
 So mighty a conqueror might have built his 
 mother a statelier monument. Near this are 
 two Persian baths excavated in the rock, also a 
 third underground room, apparently for stores, 
 and a well sunk 200 feet deep through the 
 limestone. (4) The qadamgah or shrine on 
 the opposite hill, with its abambar built to 
 catch the drainage from the hill- top. (5) The 
 old market, said to have been built by the same 
 architect as designed the existing bazar at 
 Herat. This has been commended as equal 
 to the bazar of Shiraz, but really falls far short 
 of it in design, and is entirely desolate at 
 present. The shape is the usual one of four 
 equal arms radiating from a circular and domed 
 centre. Each arm is 60 yards long by 14 feet 
 broad, and its vaulted roof is about 22 feet 
 high, while the dome may be 10 feet higher. 
 On each side was a row of shops, on a plinth 
 raised some four feet above the roadway. 
 Each shop had a depth of about six feet, and 
 behind it was a closet which served as a store- 
 room. The arrangement of the shops in each 
 of the four arms was, of course, precisely the 
 same. The arms are built of unhewn stone, the 
 dome of hewn stone, and round the inside, just 
 under the springing of the dome, runs a long
 
 144 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 inscription, mostly illegible ; but the verse con- 
 taining the date can be made out as follows : 
 
 Tarikh-ash az khirad talabidand ; jawab guft 
 Ddr ul amdn i Lar ihyd shud az in binai. 2 
 
 The bazar is now wholly untenanted, and 
 the roof of one arm has partly fallen. Near it 
 stands a roofed cistern of water, in the shape 
 of a cross. The Lar folk are very proud of 
 these relics, and believe that similar cisterns 
 stood at the end of all four arms in courtyards 
 where camels could cast their loads; but I 
 doubt if the design was ever completed. They 
 say also that Lar had a race- course, and there 
 are, in fact, certain pillars on the plain south of 
 the town, which may have served to mark out 
 a course. 
 
 Lar is said to have about 1200 inhabited 
 houses. The population may be 6000. 
 There is one slender qanat, with brackish 
 water, and the well-water is also brackish. 
 The wells have usually two, and sometimes 
 three pulleys on one axle, and two or three 
 pairs of bullocks working together ; the water 
 lies sixty to seventy feet below the surface. It 
 
 2 The meaning of the couplet is, " They asked its date of 
 wisdom ; she made answer, ' Lar's house of safety was re- 
 suscitated by this building.'"
 
 Lar. 145 
 
 is perhaps needless to say that the town is full 
 of abambars. Some of the merchants' houses 
 are well-built and comfortable enough, but all 
 present an exterior of mud, and the whole 
 town, viewed from the limestone hills, looks 
 low and grey. It has had a poor mud wall, 
 which has now fallen away for the most part. 
 
 My quarters in the Bagh-i-Nishat were very 
 comfortable. They faced a broad courtyard 
 and garden, with a fine tank. Fath Ali sent 
 provisions for me and all my people during the 
 first day of my stay ; but I determined to pay 
 for my food on the second day. I bought 
 three bottles of wine, which on being opened 
 subsequently proved to be excellent vinegar. 
 
 The truffles of Lar are very good eating; 
 they are found in the plain, under little heaps 
 of earth, which give them their name of dumbal 
 i-zamin or earth-boils. They are also called 
 aghiT) a local name. 
 
 Sayyid Ali having consulted a doctor, pro- 
 fessed himself ready to start. His ailment was 
 simply super-abundant fat, aggravated by 
 compulsory walking exercise on the bad roads 
 of the last few marches. We left Lar at dawn, 
 with the pleasing certainty of a long and hot 
 march before us. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LAR TO SAIDABAD. 
 
 SIXTY-FIVE FARSAKHS: TEN DATS. 
 
 26th March, Kahna, 8 farsaJchs ; 7 a.m. to 
 5 p.m. I awoke at four in the morning, roused 
 the servants, and returned to snatch an hour's 
 sleep while the mules were packing. The 
 servants immediately went to sleep again, as is 
 the habit of Persian servants when the master's 
 eye is withdrawn for a moment. "We did not 
 start till seven. The Lar plain runs nearly 
 east and west, between low mountains, black 
 and impregnated with salt; it is four miles 
 wide, stony, and barren. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Lar are a few villages. At twelve 
 miles we passed the ruins of Tanguni, with a 
 small but well-built caravansarai, now un- 
 tenanted; the qanat which gave life to the 
 place has been choked some years. Here 
 the plain proper ends in a tangle of dry water- 
 courses and ravines, which extend ten miles,
 
 Kahna. 147 
 
 and then smooth themselves out into the plain 
 of Aliabad, a circular area surrounded by black 
 rocky hills, with Aliabad village in a tamarisk 
 grove in the middle. Here the Forg and 
 Hormuz roads diverge : we left Aliabad three 
 miles on the right, and turned northward, after 
 breakfasting beside an abambar, whence we 
 could see the great dark mass of Hormuz 
 mountain far to the east, and the nearer cliffs 
 of Karmasta, streaked with salt. We entered 
 the basin of a salt river, and presently caught 
 sight of Kahna from afar, a black date-grove 
 against a low range of limestone hills. The 
 village fort contains about fifteen families. It 
 belongs to Fath Ali, who bought it ten years 
 ago, and has spent money in repairing the 
 qanat. The wall of the fort is in good repair. 
 We found the interior crowded with tufangchis, 
 bringing revenue from Forg. They were loud 
 on the subject of robbers, the insecurity of the 
 road, and the extraordinarily daring and 
 desperate character of the population here- 
 abouts ; altogether, an evil and unsavoury lot 
 of rascals. My quarters were in a dilapidated 
 straw shed. Sayyid Ali was partly in a state 
 of collapse, believing that the atmosphere of 
 the salt country aggravated his ailment. 
 
 L 2
 
 1 48 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 27thMarch, Shahghaib, 7farsakhs; 5.30. a.m. 
 to 2.30 p.m. We were off next morning an hour 
 before dawn. I vainly tried to induce some of the 
 tufangchis to accompany us for a reasonable 
 reward. We had to march four miles to the left, 
 to turn the limestone hills ; then we entered a 
 narrow valley full of ravines and knolls of lime- 
 stone, and with three or four little streams of bitter 
 water. This lasted ten miles, till we crossed 
 the northern ridge of the valley, and after a 
 couple of miles among low spurs and bluffs, 
 coloured white and red, we came upon a small 
 green table-land, and beheld an extraordinary 
 prospect. Before and below us, from left to 
 right, stretched a plain five miles wide, backed 
 by black mountains seamed with glittering 
 veins of salt, and breaking at their bases into 
 little hillocks and runlets of pure salt, sparkling 
 in the sun. A broad white stream of salt ran 
 down the middle of the plain, and towards the 
 right hand it expanded into a lake, the intense 
 whiteness of which was heightened by contrast 
 with the black rocks beyond. The utter deso- 
 lation of the prospect had a strange charm of 
 its own. Perhaps it was this very wildness and 
 remoteness from humanity that persuaded the 
 holy man, Shah Ghaib, to choose the margin of 
 the salt lake as his home in life and death.
 
 Salt country. 1 49 
 
 His shrine was to be our resting-place that 
 night ; and after a brief meal beside the abam- 
 bar on the table-land (it is wonderful how cool 
 and good the water keeps in these abambars) 
 we descended and followed the border of the 
 lake for eight hot and windless miles. The 
 blue dome of the shrine shone against the dark 
 background, and a scrap of Tennyson haunted 
 me, keeping time to the paces of my horse, as 
 rhymes will do when one is weary : 
 
 And underneath the blazing vault, 
 Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 
 The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 
 
 The keeper of the shrine received us hos- 
 pitably. We were a numerous party, for we 
 had picked up tufangchis on the road. In the 
 middle of the ravines, a poor pedestrian who 
 had attached himself to my caravan for safety, 
 came running back with uplifted hands, vowing 
 that mounted Turks stopped the way. My 
 muleteers, however, remained profoundly undis- 
 turbed ; so, taking heart of grace, I rode on, 
 and found seven men with guns, not mounted 
 at all, and no Turks, but some of Path Ali's 
 tufangchis, who were going to Murz to bring 
 back cattle of his to Lar. As they were going 
 our way we easily induced them to join us.
 
 1 50 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 The alarmist, of course, was unmercifully 
 chaffed. He had, however, done some service 
 in suggesting to me an answer to the puzzling 
 question where can the robbers come from ? 
 Possibly the small and sparsely-scattered vil- 
 lages of this unpeopled region may harbour a 
 few bad characters ; but it seems that the 
 nomad Kashkais are the chief object of dread. 
 They get the credit of making raids at great 
 distances from their pasture-grounds; and the 
 unsettled habits of the tribe render it easy, 
 no doubt, to set up a good alibi. 
 
 Shah Ghaib's shrine is an oblong stone build- 
 ing, 16 feet high, by 24 long and 15 broad, with 
 a conical blue-tiled dome at one end, which 
 raises the height of the building to 35 feet. 
 Shrine and dome are in good repair, thanks to 
 Fath Ali. The space before the shrine is paved 
 with the tombstones of persons whose bodies 
 have been brought, after death, to lie near that 
 of the saint. Some of these tombstones are of 
 green marble, with rhyming inscriptions hand- 
 somely cut. Shah Ghaib was brother of Shah 
 Chiragh of Shiraz, and thus related, in what 
 degree I know not, to one of those extremely 
 holy persons, the Imams. 
 
 The mutawalli or guardian of the shrine is 
 not badly off. He has a number of goats and
 
 Shah Ghaib. 151 
 
 cows, and a small cornfield. An abambar gives 
 him water. Last year it ran dry, and he and 
 his family had to drink the brackish and sicken- 
 ing water of a well. Remains of a qanat, 
 choked twenty years ago, can also be traced. 
 The neighbourhood of the shrine is clothed 
 with tamarisk and kunar. From the edge of 
 this little space of level ground, a nearer view 
 is obtained of the salt lake, the salt hills, hazy 
 with heat, and one high mountain beyond, 
 whose lower slopes discharge themselves into 
 the lake in a torrent of peaks and ravines. Our 
 host complained of raids by cattle-lifting Turks, 
 but acknowledged that he had not been troubled 
 in this way for the last two years. He had 
 never left the shrine since the day he succeeded 
 his father as mutawalli. In the summer months, 
 when the abambars on the road are dry, weeks 
 often pass without a visitor to this lonely spot. 
 Yet, though thus cut off from the world by 
 necessity and religious duty, the man was no 
 fanatic. He talked with me freely and intelli- 
 gently, gave me the best room in his house (it 
 was a high open archway), and his wife brought 
 me buttermilk and cooked my dinner. They 
 killed a couple of kids for us, and I never tasted 
 better meat in my life. 
 
 28th March, Fadumi, 9 farsakhs ; 5 a.m. to
 
 152 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 5 p.m. An hour and a half before dawn we 
 began the descent to the salt lake, crossed the 
 stream that flows from its lower end, and 
 marched to the foot of a black mountain range. 
 Leaving this on the left, the road wound among 
 low spurs, and came down on a little river, full 
 of clear water coursing over stones covered 
 with salt crystals. Crossing this we ascended 
 into a small green plain, a welcome sight after 
 the desolation of the last two marches. On our 
 left, in a hollow of the black mountains, the 
 fields and houses of Chahnar could be seen. A 
 roofless abambar stood in the plain. We filled 
 our bottles, crossed the plain, and entered the 
 salt hills again. The road twisted curiously 
 among ravines and stony knolls, between moun- 
 tains higher than we had seen since leaving 
 Lar. In one place, we marched along a nar- 
 row spur, with a gulf 100 feet deep on either 
 hand. " Hell and Heaven " they call it (du- 
 zakh o bihishfy, in allusion to that razor-edged 
 bridge of Sirat, by which the faithful have to 
 cross the infernal abysses and enter Paradise. 
 Gradually ascending, we crossed a saddle-back, 
 and saw a long plain sloping away from us, 
 covered with grass and flowers, and green with 
 tamarisk and kunar at its farther end. In the 
 middle of the salt-hills we had found two pools
 
 Fadumi. 153 
 
 of rainwater, 1 in a hollow of the rocks, but we 
 were all thirsty again by the time we reached the 
 end of the plain and came upon a dry river-bed, 
 which nevertheless contained a water-hole with 
 brackish water. Four miles more over broken 
 ground brought us in view of the wide plain of 
 Murz, with its spacious date-groves. We put 
 up in the village of Fadumi, tired with a march 
 which had lasted nearly twelve hours. 
 
 There was a difficulty in getting bread. The 
 people declared that they had been living on 
 the green herb of the field for months past. 
 Certainly they were very clamorous in com- 
 plaint. I invited some forty of the male popu- 
 lation under the thatch which served me for 
 shelter. My great pith hat, as usual, was the 
 first curiosity for inspection ; they thought it 
 weighed ten pounds, and it hardly weighed as 
 many ounces. Then the questioning began. 
 Why was I travelling ? Would I not tell them 
 the real reason why I undertook all this trouble 
 and expense ? One or two old men, who had 
 been to the coast, had heard the name of 
 England. Of Russia they seemed to know 
 nothing. They complained bitterly of mis- 
 government. "Oppression," said one of the 
 
 1 They call rainwater db i rahmat, water of mercy ; an 
 epithet suggestive of a rainless country.
 
 154 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 elders, " has gone on rising like a flight of steps 
 (pila mikhurad ta bala mirasad). We were 
 never so misgoverned in the old days ; what have 
 we done to be so afflicted now ? Perhaps no 
 country in the world is so badly governed as this. 
 Why, when we look at your caravan and your 
 goods (dastgah), we marvel how you have come 
 here safely through the thieves." And then 
 I was asked to represent the facts to the Shah, 
 when I reached Teheran. Complaints to the 
 Mutamid, they said, only made matters worse. 
 At last the most respectable inhabitant said, " I 
 wish your people would come up from the sea 
 like a flood, and take the country. We should 
 all be content." I promptly disavowed any inten- 
 tion of annexation, and presently the assembly 
 broke up, one lad remarking, as he turned away, 
 " So that' s a Farangi ; and that's his hat." 
 
 29th March, Forg, 3 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 
 noon. The Murz plain is watered from a 
 stream of sweet water which descends from the 
 plain of Forg, and falls into the salt river we 
 had crossed, rendering its water tolerable for 
 irrigation. There are only three villages in 
 the plain. We had the choice of two roads to 
 Forg ; one up the defile through which the 
 Forg water flows, and one round the eastern
 
 Road to Forg. 1 5 5 
 
 end of the mountain -range which that defile 
 intersects. We chose the latter, as the de- 
 file had an evil reputation. Our tufangchis, 
 being unable to go beyond Murz, were paid off 
 and dismissed. We called at Murz village on 
 our way, and asked the kalantar for a guard. 
 He gave us half a dozen tufangchis, and sent 
 his son also with us, mounted on a good grey 
 horse. I walked nearly the whole way ; it was 
 only twelve miles, and my horses had already 
 begun to suffer from sore backs. The eastern 
 end of the mountains is a great scarped 
 peak, 1000 feet above the road, called King 
 Nureddin's fort, but nobody knows who 
 Nureddin was, nor could I see any traces of 
 fortification on the summit. We crossed a low 
 ridge among stony hills, with a spring of bitter 
 water at the top, quite drinkable, but tasting as 
 if it were full of drugs. In the descent we saw 
 a man coming our way. So rare a sight threw 
 the whole escort into commotion. We crowned 
 the heights with horse and foot, and discovered 
 nobody, except this solitary pedestrian carrying 
 flour to Murz. Forg plain now lay before us, 
 well-watered and green, with high dark moun- 
 tains on its farther side, and the date- groves of 
 villages dotted over its surface.
 
 156 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 The town of Forg, so to call it, is surrounded 
 by a mud wall in the form of a square, with a 
 side of perhaps 400 yards, armed with round 
 towers at regular intervals. It had four tall 
 gates, and a governor's residence inside; but 
 these are all ruined and deserted now. Date- 
 trees and mud-houses, more or less dilapidated, 
 fill the space between the walls. We went to 
 the governor's house. He proved to be a 
 nephew of Fath Ali,and gave me good quarters in 
 a carpeted upper room, while my caravan found 
 room below. Near his house is an old Husainia 2 
 of unhewn stone, with a few mulberry-trees 
 and the remains of a tank. Forg has been a 
 place of some importance in past years. A 
 mile south of the town stands an old fort called 
 after Bahman, with three rows of walls and 
 ditches girdling a rocky hill, the summit of 
 which is crowned with towers and vaulted rooms. 
 The fort is built of stone, but is a ruin now. 
 Another fort occupies a flat space on the slope 
 of the hills six miles south-west of Forg ; it is 
 
 8 A Husainia is an enclosure, better or worse provided with 
 buildings, in which the people of the town or village as- 
 semble on certain religious occasions, notably for the miracle- 
 play on the anniversary of the deaths of Hasan and Husain. 
 It corresponds to the imambara of Indian Mussalmans.
 
 Forg. 157 
 
 called Shah Marz's fort, and has almost dis- 
 appeared ; but a stone platform where Shah 
 Marz used to sit is still in good preservation. 
 Forg itself seems never to have had guns, but 
 its mud fortifications are not contemptible. 
 The plain is sanctified by two shrines, one four 
 miles south-east, the other two miles east of the 
 town ; they belong respectively to Shah Muham- 
 mad, brother of Shah Chiragh, and to Zachariah, 
 brother of the Imam Riza himself. Both have 
 small blue domes, and are endowed with date- 
 groves and water. The plain gets a good 
 supply of water from a qanat from the eastern 
 mountains, and from the perennial stream of the 
 Tang i Abdu, towards the north. The governor 
 has jurisdiction as far as Ahmadi and Fin to the 
 south-east, and Gishkuh in the direction of 
 Saidabad. He was extremely friendly, gave 
 me a good dinner, and brought the notables of 
 the place to converse with me. They asked me 
 endless questions about England, which I an- 
 swered to the best of my ability in the space of 
 two hours. 
 
 30M March, Chagunu tents, 5 farsakhs ; 
 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. I could get no clear informa- 
 tion concerning the direct road to Saidabad, 
 except that it was a very bad one. The unani-
 
 j 58 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 mous advice of the assembly was that I should 
 go either via Tarum on the south-east, or 
 Rostak on the north-west ; but I had had 
 enough of salt and heat, 3 and determined to 
 ascend the Tang-i-Abdu and march across the 
 mountains. " You will repent it," said a grave 
 old worthy ; "the laden mules can never get up." 
 But having paid the muleteers up to date, and 
 given them a small advance to carry on with, 
 I found them quite prepared to face the diffi- 
 culties of the pass. The governor wanted me 
 to stay one day more in Forg ; but finding 
 that I had to go, he gave me tuf angchis, and we 
 marched for the redoubtable pass. "We tracked 
 the stream upwards to the mouth of the gorge, 
 passing two mills 4 on our way, and rejoicing to 
 see green banks and fresh water after so many 
 brackish waterholes and glittering streams of 
 salt. Inside the gorge we found a tumbled 
 mass of rocks, among which the stream made 
 its way, between cliff -walls 300 to 400 feet high. 
 
 * The heat by day was nevertheless far less vexatious 
 than in India at the same time of the year; and the nights 
 were always cool. 
 
 4 Persian mills are on the turhine plan so familiar in the 
 Indian hills, until one gets as far north as Isfahan, where 
 the upright breast wheel comes in. The diameter of the 
 wheel never exceeds four feet.
 
 A mountain gorge. 159 
 
 The musical joyous water, the fresh mountain 
 breeze, the sunlight and shade on rocky pin- 
 nacles and steeps, the jangle of the mule-bells, 
 and the very effort of climbing towards cooler 
 regions, all tended to raise one's spirits and 
 awaken a lively sense of present pleasure. 
 Along the side of the cliffs could be traced the 
 remains of a road, which we had to follow in 
 one place for a few yards. Here one of the 
 mules came down, and almost went over the 
 edge with his load. The fall would have been 
 forty feet. One of my horses, which was fol- 
 lowing the caravan, had a similar escape. The 
 pass narrowed as it rose, and ended in a slant- 
 ing path up a steep incline of rocky detritus, 
 crowned by 200 feet of sheer cliff. At the foot 
 of the cliff is a small spring, called Ali's Well. 
 Here we halted, unloaded, and carried the loads 
 up a natural flight of stairs (and very irregular 
 stairs too), 150 feet high, in the face of the cliff, 
 to a ledge where it was possible to load up 
 again. While the mules were loading, I enjoyed 
 the fresh air and the view. The stream seemed 
 to sleep in lucent blue pools 300 feet below us, 
 shut in, like ourselves, by great walls and towers 
 of rock. On our right the cliff rose highest, 
 and at its foot an isolated spire of rock, which
 
 1 60 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the country people call All's pulpit. They 
 believe that Ali used to say his prayers here 
 after bathing in one of the pools below, which 
 goes by the name of his hammam. But the 
 beauty of the place can stand on its own merits, 
 and defy the son-in-law of the Prophet. 
 
 After this the road rises over the mountain- 
 tops, among camel-thorn and almond bushes, 
 with here and there a stunted mastich-tree. 
 The rounded heights and shelving valleys afford 
 a wide prospect of little variety, but breathed 
 over by fresh invigorating air. We were in 
 search of an encampment of nomads, and, as 
 usual, we failed to find it till near sunset. The 
 place is called Chagunu, and the nomads are 
 not Turks, but Persians ; indeed, they are 
 dwellers in tents rather than nomads, for they 
 have no separate and distant summer and 
 winter quarters, but remain on these half-way 
 mountain-tops all the year round, in what 
 might be called a temperate climate. They 
 have orchards and vineyards on the southern 
 slopes; we passed some on our way. The 
 difference between these people and the Turks 
 is noteworthy. They are much more inqui- 
 sitive than Turks, more talkative, forward, fond 
 of joking, and somewhat given to braggadocio.
 
 Pastoral Tents. 161 
 
 But they were most hospitable to me and my 
 party, pitched a good white tent for me, and a 
 black tent for Sayyid Ali, and gave us all a 
 capital dinner of kid's flesh. After dinner 
 the men crowded into the tent to "interview " 
 me. There was not much to be learned from 
 their conversation, and they evidently disbe- 
 lieved most of what I had to tell them. It was 
 plain, however, that they were contented, and 
 had no complaints to make. Sayyid Ali told 
 me next day that he had been much gratified by 
 their expressions of loyalty to the Shah a sub- 
 ject on which, of course, I had not attempted to 
 sound them. The yoke of government (or mis- 
 government) sits much easier on the nomad than 
 on the villager, who is tied down to his fields, and 
 may find himself at the mercy of a petty tyrant. 
 
 31st March, Dehistan, 5 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 
 2 p.m. Next day we descended the back of the 
 mountains, down a long gently- sloping plateau, 
 to a small half-brackish river which waters 
 three small villages, with the help also of a 
 qanat led from the northern heights. Riding 
 on in advance, I called at one of these vil- 
 lages, in the belief that it was our destined 
 halting-place. I was wrong; but the villagers 
 insisted on my staying to smoke a qalyan. 
 
 VOL. i. M
 
 1 62 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 They brought me breakfast also soup, bread, 
 dates, and buttermilk, in return for which I 
 had to tell them all I could about Farangistan, 
 and to listen to their grievances. It was the 
 old story of undue revenue exactions, and I was 
 struck by their using the same figure of gradu- 
 ally ascending stairs which had been used by 
 the men of Fadumi. Hospitality is common in 
 Persia, but here was a case where its genuine- 
 ness could hardly be questioned, for I was alone 
 and at some distance from the road. I over- 
 took the caravan at the gates of our halting- 
 place, and found Sayyid Ali in a state of disgust. 
 The kalantar did not want us, pleaded insuffi- 
 ciency of provisions, and paid no respectful 
 attention to our letters from Lar and Forg. 
 We were advised to go to Dehistan, two miles 
 further on, a place represented as well-stocked 
 and charming. Marching through a little 
 gorge, the sides of which were lined in parts 
 with apple and pear trees in luxuriant bloom, 
 we came upon a tiny plain covered with date- 
 palms, in the middle of which stood the village 
 fort. Here we met a Persian gentleman bound, 
 like us, for Saidabad, but by a different route. 
 We asked and answered some questions, and 
 then entered Dehistan. The kalantar proved
 
 Dehistan. 163 
 
 disobliging, though not openly uncivil; he 
 would do nothing to help us to provisions or 
 quarters, and we had to put up in the house of 
 the Mulla of the village a man of Karman, 
 who had some education and much liberality. 
 Poor Sayyid Ali enjoyed little peace in this 
 place, where nothing was to be bought but 
 after desperate haggling. I watched him bar- 
 gaining for eggs with a preternaturally sharp 
 urchin of seven years, who exacted twopence 
 halfpenny per egg, gave us bad money in 
 change, and disappeared. We had to lay in pro- 
 visions for three marches, and to engage a 
 guide to take us across the mountains. And 
 thereby hangs a tale. 
 
 Sayyid Ali had succeeded in making terms 
 with a promising sort of man, who carried a 
 gun and represented himself as a warrior of no 
 mean repute, and who at any rate appeared to 
 know the country thoroughly. But he was to 
 be no guide of ours, so the Fates willed it ; for 
 in half an hour a messenger called him away to 
 do battle for his lord. I had heard a few shots 
 while I was writing, but thought nothing of 
 them. The fact, however, was that two men 
 had quarrelled over the ownership of a date- 
 palm, and one had shot the other in the throat, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 killing him on the spot. The man thus killed 
 belonged to the same village as my guide, and 
 his kalantar espoused the quarrel, and took 
 the field with his tufangchis to demand sur- 
 render of the murderer, who had fled to his 
 own village of Behnu. So my guide was sum- 
 moned away to join this expedition, and Sayyid 
 AH had to enlist a ragged fellow of doubtful 
 capabilities. As it turned out, however, we 
 were to want neither guide nor provisions. 
 
 \si April) Kaha, 5 farsdkhs ; 8 a.m. to 2.30 
 p.m. Next morning we marched to Behnu. 
 The road descends the Dehistan gorge (which 
 contains a small stream, whence the Dehistan 
 fields get their water) but soon crosses the 
 ridge on the left, and enters a long plain, where 
 stands the village of Behnu, watered by 
 channels from the river we had seen the day 
 before. A mile outside the village we met a 
 party of sixteen armed men. They were the 
 avengers of blood, who had been unable to 
 break sanctuary ; in other words, the kalantar 
 of Behnu had shut his gates upon them, and 
 now they talked of appealing to Fath Ali. The 
 father and brother of the deceased were with 
 them. The old man was weeping; the son's 
 face showed chiefly a sullen consciousness of
 
 A Siege. 165 
 
 injury unavenged. " Such a fine youth ! " said 
 one of the party, referring to the deceased. 
 " He was worth 500 tomans." This reminded 
 me of the sailors' song that begins Five pound ten 
 for an able man ; but 500 tomans are about 2001.; 
 and indeed in Kavar I had heard of two slain 
 youths who were estimated at 1000 tomans each. 
 We marched on to Belmu, where the kalantar, 
 seeing the laden mules and our peaceful array, 
 opened his gates and came out with his mus- 
 keteers, and we got buttermilk and bread, 
 as well as the pleasure of a chat with the 
 garrison. "While we were eating, a servant 
 trotted in on a mule. He belonged to the 
 kalantar 's brother, who is a major in the Per- 
 sian army, and is also Ilbegi or chief of a tribe 
 of Afshar Turks, and who had been sent for 
 yesterday, and was now coming, to see fair play 
 in his brother's quarrel. We met the major 
 himself as we left Behnu. He promised to 
 overtake us that evening in Kaha, and to show 
 us the way to his tents. We went on up a 
 gorge which opens on the northern side of the 
 Behnu plain. An old watch tower marks the 
 place where tolls used to be collected thirty years 
 ago. After some miles we came on pools of 
 brackish water in the gorge, then a few scattered
 
 1 66 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 fields, a small village fort, and finally, built 
 against the side of a hill, our halting-place of 
 Kaha. I shall always remember Kaha as the 
 most humble village I saw in Persia. The 
 houses were like Irish hovels, built of the large 
 grey stones which covered the hill-side. The 
 best of these hovels was given to me. It was 
 poor enough, but infinitely better than the 
 kennel or burrow allotted to Sayyid Ali. 
 
 In the evening, I went out with some of the 
 gilded youth of Kaha, to see an old fort on the 
 top of a hill some 500 feet high. There were 
 the remains of a rude stone wall, and of two 
 water-cisterns, one of which had recently been 
 repaired. The fort, they said, belonged to a 
 Kafir monarch, and was taken by the Com- 
 mander of the Faithful (Amir ul Muminin), but 
 they evidently had no clear notion as to who the 
 latter sacred personage might be. In the cliff 
 below the fort there is a small cave, which is 
 credited with endlessness, like all other caves 
 in this country, 5 and is further remarkable for 
 
 6 M. Khanikoff gives a marvellous account of the cave 
 above Taft, from the story told him by a Persian who tried 
 to explore it. The cave at Shahpur is said to have an exit 
 at Persepolis, sixty miles away. As a matter of fact Dr. 
 Odling went to the end of it last spring, and estimated its 
 length at 400 yards.
 
 Kaha. 167 
 
 harbouring a dragon (azhdahd) who guards the 
 buried treasure of the deceased Kafir, and comes 
 down every Friday night to drink of the stream 
 in the valley (usually dry), and to kill and devour 
 any man he may happen to meet ; this done, he 
 returns to his cave. The Kaha boys were anxious 
 that I should exercise the well-known power of 
 Farangis, and discover the hidden hoard ; also, 
 that I should cure a little girl of epilepsy. But 
 I had to confess with shame that I was igno- 
 rant alike of medicine and divination. It was 
 pitiful to witness their disbelief in my disclaimer 
 with regard to the girl. They brought her to 
 me, and went on pleading that to cure her 
 would be an act of humanity (muruwwat) and 
 a good work (sawdb), as if religious scruples 
 held my healing hand. They questioned me 
 about my religion. How did I say my prayers ? 
 a question which one cannot easily answer 
 without losing some degrees in public esti- 
 mation, for Mussalmans, being wedded to a 
 ceremonial religion, are inclined to doubt the 
 reality of a religion which does not prescribe 
 fixed hours and postures and formulas for 
 private prayer. 
 
 The Kaha people, however, were evidently no 
 theologians. Their belief was in Hazrat Abbas
 
 1 68 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 and the Commander of the Faithful (whoever 
 he might be) ; the name of Muhammad they did 
 not seem to have heard. I was questioned as 
 to my belief in these two worthies, and explained 
 that Farangistan knew nothing of them, and 
 therefore did not repudiate them, but stuck to 
 what it believed to be the Gospel for the West, 
 leaving the Gospel for the East (mashraq 
 zamin) to stand on its own merits. From re- 
 ligion we came to matrimony. Was I married ? 
 Was it true that Farangi wives had their will 
 by night, on condition of submitting to the 
 husband's will by day ? Not being a married 
 man, I was unable to answer the latter question. 
 Then came politics. Was there peace between 
 my Shah and the Shah of Persia ? I assured 
 them that the mutual relations were most friendly. 
 If they were to fight, which side did I consider 
 likely to win ? I thought to evade this point 
 diplomatically, by observing that fortunately 
 there was no danger of a breach of friendship ; 
 but the Kaha militia had already formed their 
 opinion on the subject. " You won't be angry, 
 now," they asked, " if we tell you what we 
 think ? If we fought with your people, we 
 should win, because we are smarter (zirangtar) 
 than you, and one of us could kill seven or eight
 
 Kaha. T 69 
 
 of your men." " But remember," said I, " that 
 we have cannons." " The cannons don't 
 matter," was the reply, " we are so smart." 
 Fired by these warlike thoughts, one of the 
 band endeavoured to discharge his gun, but 
 after wasting three caps, and vainly trying to 
 clear the nipple with a straw, he gave up the 
 attempt. 
 
 The elders conversed more gravely, and com- 
 plained much of misgovernment. " Did you 
 ever see such a ruined place (Jchardba) ? " 
 they asked, pointing to their poor village. 
 What seemed to weigh most upon them (and I 
 had noticed the same thing elsewhere) was the 
 (alleged) impossibility of obtaining redress of 
 grievances. " To whom should we appeal ? 
 The Padshah knows nothing of this remote 
 village. Fath Ali has ruined the country ; he 
 takes everything, and does nothing. If my 
 brother were killed, and I demanded blood- 
 money or the surrender of the murderer, Fath 
 Ali would accept 100 tomans from my adversary, 
 and I should be dismissed as a liar." And then 
 came again the question which had surprised 
 me in Fadumi, " Why don't your people come 
 and govern the country ?" 
 
 The Ilbegi arrived before sunset. I went to
 
 1 70 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 see him, and drank tea there. He was anxious 
 that we should be his guests next day. " There 
 is a little danger," he said, " on the march, but, 
 inshallah, we shall arrive safely." The danger, 
 I fancy (such as it was), threatened him and 
 his people only; it was possible that the rela- 
 tives of the murdered man might seek to satisfy 
 the law of retaliation by lying in wait for the 
 life of the brother of the murderer's master. 
 Somebody in Kaha said of the Ilbegi, dushman 
 ddrad, " he has an enemy ;" but if the fact was so, 
 it did not seem to trouble him much. We 
 arranged that my caravan should set out before 
 dawn if possible, and wait for the Ilbegi' s party 
 at a place dalled Bagha, about ten miles on the 
 way. I warned the Ilbegi that my mules could 
 not keep pace with his light horsemen, but he 
 seemed to value my company more than ex- 
 pedition. It was with satisfaction that I learned 
 from him that the whole of the next day's march 
 was to be up a gentle slope, lifting us out of the 
 region of the date-palm. It was evident, indeed, 
 that we were now entering on a country of high 
 mountains. From Chagunu we had seen the 
 snowy outlines of the Kuh-i-Khabr on the north- 
 eastern horizon, and snow could be seen also in 
 patches on the dark mountains which seemed
 
 A Persian Landscape. 171 
 
 to start up in the far distance on the right hand 
 and the left, as we advanced farther into the 
 land. The hill I climbed at Kaha gave me a 
 good view of the Kuh-i-Siyah to the south, 
 black, jagged, and in shadow, and the Bukhun 
 mountains to the south-east, snow-crowned, 
 and lighted by the evening sun. To the north 
 extended long slowly-rising moors ; but it must 
 be remembered that on a Persian moor camel- 
 thorn 6 takes the place of heather, furze, or 
 broom, and stones take the place of grass. 
 
 Kaha is watered from a stream which descends 
 a long strath in these moors, joins the Behnu 
 river, and ultimately finds its way to the sea. 
 When I saw it, the bed was broad and stony, 
 and the water scanty. After an hour's rain 
 the upper courses began to fill, and the silver 
 gleam of the descending flood could be seen 
 from the old fort. The men with me called to 
 those below, in the sustained chanting tone 
 which sends the voice so far in mountain 
 regions of still clear air. Rudkhdna dmad, 
 they cried, " the river is coming;" but the 
 
 * It is like a tiny furze bush, but grey rather than green. 
 In spring it breaks out into the loveliest white bells, like 
 those of the convolvulus. It makes capital fire- wood, and 
 has a very pleasant aromatic smell.
 
 172 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 rain had been insufficient, and the river never 
 arrived. 
 
 2nd April, Tents at Naukan, 10 farsaJchs ; 
 6.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Before sunrise we were 
 marching over the moors. We had the end of 
 a range of hills on our left, and an isolated 
 hill on our right, behind which lay the village 
 of Gishkuh, 7 the last village of the Shiraz pro- 
 vince in this direction. Grishkuh, they said, 
 was deserted; its people had fled to Aliabad. 
 We now saw a broad moor before us, backed 
 by a high distant ridge. On its hither side a 
 tower and an orchard told us of Bagha and 
 breakfast. In the tower were three women, 
 who denied the possession of any earthly goods, 
 even of buttermilk. A tiny spring, whose 
 waters are collected into a pool, keeps alive an 
 acre of wheat, and the orchard of apple, pear, 
 apricot, and plum-trees which gives the place 
 its name. While breakfasting here we were 
 joined by the Ilbegi, who gave me some halwa 
 
 7 " Mountain of wild oleander." The shrub is said to 
 be poisonous. Muleteers bound from Saidabad to Bandar 
 Abbas take a branch of wild oleander when they come to 
 Gishkuh, and beat their mules with it, saying, gish,gish. The 
 result is that the mules abstain from cropping the poisonous 
 shrub, though they will eat almost anything.
 
 The Rafa. 1 73 
 
 that agreeably eked out my meal of bread and 
 dates. Thence we marched together over the 
 long undulations of the slope, towards the ridge 
 slowly drawing nearer. I looked back as we 
 began the ascent, and could retrace the day's 
 march over what now seemed a broad and level 
 plain. I was looking southwards ; on my left 
 the wide moors stretched away to the bases of 
 the Kuh-i-Khahr, whose huge irregular form, 
 robed in snow, had been seen by glimpses since 
 the morning, but now stood forth complete ; 
 while straight before me the sawlike ranges of 
 the southern mountains girt the horizon with a 
 black wall rising in successive tiers. It was my 
 last look over the lower mountain-lands of Fars. 
 We crossed the ridge, wound our way through 
 the broken country on its farther slope, and 
 suddenly, on the rounding of a hill, discovered 
 a novel, and to me very wonderful prospect. A 
 vast plain (1c a/a) lay before us, perfectly flat, utterly 
 bare ; it began at the foot of the hills, and lost 
 itself afar in the warm haze of the mirage. 
 Into this sea, as it were, the last mountains, 
 sullenly retiring westwards, threw out spurs 
 and promontories, enclosing harbours and long 
 creeks. We seemed to be riding down the 
 beach of some great tidal estuary, to which the
 
 1 74 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 waters should soon return. I almost looked to 
 see the wave-lines and seaweed at our feet. On 
 the horizon stood a lonely rock, an Ailsa Craig 
 in this dry firth. That marked Abbasabad, our 
 next day's stage ; but meanwhile where were 
 the Hbegi's tents ? We marched along the 
 shore for two hours before we overtook his 
 people, who were shifting their encampment. 
 The sun had sunk behind the black hills before 
 we reached the new camping-ground. The 
 Ilbegi gave us good tents and a good dinner, in 
 return for which I showed him my guns. He 
 was very anxious to buy one of them, offering 
 money, horses, mules, or camels in exchange. 
 His tribe was said to consist of 5000 families, 
 probably far too high an estimate. They were 
 on their march, by slow stages, to their summer 
 pasture-grounds in the mountains of Chahar- 
 Gumbaz and Lalazar. 
 
 Our march to-day lasted more than twelve 
 hours, and must have covered nearly forty 
 miles. 
 
 3rd April, Abbasabad, 5 farsakhs ; 8.30 a.m. 
 to 2.30 p.m. I bade good-bye to the Ilbegi 
 with hearty thanks, and set out soon after sun- 
 rise for Abbasabad. We marched across the 
 plain. At fourteen miles we came on a stream
 
 Kavir. 1 75 
 
 of fresh water, and breakfasted. I was dis- 
 appointed at not having to cross the kavir, but 
 at any rate we could see it, like a white strip 
 under the western hills. Perhaps it may be 
 well to explain what a Persian Jcauir is. It is 
 the result of the bareness of Persian mountains, 
 and the saline virtues of a Persian plain. The 
 mountains, being destitute of trees, brushwood, 
 or grass, have for centuries been wearing away 
 under sun, wind, and rain ; the crumbled rocks 
 extend in long smooth slopes down to the plain, 
 while a long smooth slope rises again to the 
 hills on the opposite side. Such a slope will 
 often be twenty miles broad. The rain and 
 snow of winter, descending from the hills in 
 streams small and great, lose themselves in 
 these porous slopes, and emerge again at the 
 lowest level of the plain, but in a far different 
 shape. The water has become full of salt, and 
 oozes up to the surface in patches of glittering 
 white. Thus a kavir must always follow the 
 drainage line of the plain in which it happens to 
 lie, and if the plain be a large one, the kavir 
 may be seen like a white strip stretching away 
 in the direction in which the plain falls, till plain 
 and kavir are lost in the sky. For the rest, the 
 quantity of water in a kavir varies at different
 
 1 76 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 times and in different places, so that you may 
 have either a mere saline efflorescence on good 
 firm clay, or a salt quagmire in which the laden 
 beast will founder if it strays off the track. 
 Small pools of brackish waters are not uncom- 
 mon, sometimes with a few tamarisk bushes ; 
 but the general aspect of a kavir is utter bare- 
 ness, unbroken by stone or weed. The smallest 
 object, they say, shows in vastly magnified pro- 
 portions ; if there happens to be a clod on the 
 surface, it looks like a hill. I have seen some- 
 thing like this, but not invariably, nor to the 
 extent related. 
 
 We were now in the Sirjan district, the 
 capital of which is Saidabad. It is a large and 
 flourishing district, at the head of the great 
 plain or valley which extends north-westwards 
 towards Isfahan. It is watered by qanats 
 drawn from the eastern mountains, and fed by 
 the snows of the distant and lofty ranges of 
 Chahar-Gumbaz, Hazar, and Lalazar, whose 
 white sides and summits were noble features in 
 the landscape to the east and south, as we 
 marched to Abbasabad and Saidabad. Beyond 
 Saidabad, the range of irrigation is exhausted, 
 and the plain becomes a desert. Abbasabad is 
 the most southern village of the district. We
 
 Abbasabad. 177 
 
 found it a very small place, with dome-roofed 
 houses, a style of building affected in the Sirjan 
 district and in many other parts of Persia, 
 perhaps by reason of the scarcity of wood. The 
 people were Turks reclaimed from nomadism ; 
 consequently, the women did not veil their 
 faces, and I had my first opportunity of con- 
 versing with the fair sex of the country. The 
 remains of my Muscat halwa served to put 
 matters on a good footing between me and the 
 children, and I was presently surrounded by 
 the whole female population of the place, eager 
 to see my table, chair, bed, clothes, and any- 
 thing else that I could show them. Two of 
 the young women were good-looking, and one 
 of the two (cetat 22) was recommended to me 
 as being very clever (zaring) ; so I gave her a 
 coat of mine to mend, which had been torn that 
 morning by a horse putting his foot on it as it 
 fell off the saddle. I lent her a needle and 
 thread, and she made a very workmanlike job 
 of the rent. She begged the gift of the needle 
 in return, and got it. Then 1 went out to 
 bathe. A woman showed me the way to the 
 qanat, and came back when I was dressing, to 
 express a hope that I had enjoyed my bathe. I 
 was quartered under a domed archway which 
 VOL. i. N
 
 178 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 formed part of the house of an old woman. 
 My hostess was most assiduous in her atten- 
 tions. Towards evening she came to me with 
 many apologies, and explained that one of the 
 carpets was needed for the children to sleep on, 
 if I could spare it. Of course the carpet was 
 promptly surrendered. Yet this estimable old 
 lady sold us a fowl which, on being opened, 
 proved to be blue and green inside, having, in 
 fact, been long known to be languishing under 
 mortal disease; and we could neither get 
 another nor recover our money. The men did 
 not come home from the fields till late in the 
 day. After dark I joined a party of men and 
 women round a fire, and was asked the same 
 question as at Kaha about the relations between 
 husband and wife in Europe. 
 
 4th April) Saidabad, 8 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 
 4 p.m. Next day we marched down the plain 
 to Saidabad, went to the caravansarai, and sent 
 Zaki Beg to the governor. He came back with 
 the news that quarters would be ready for us 
 in half an hour. They proved to be extensive 
 mud premises, considerably in disrepair. In 
 the evening I visited the governor, an amiable 
 youth with a cast in one eye. His father had 
 bought the farm of the revenue of Sirjan for
 
 A Persian Banquet. 179 
 
 2000 tomans, the revenue being 26,000 tomans 
 a year, exclusive of octroi. Arrears to the 
 amount of 2000 tomans were now due, and the 
 farmer (or governor) had gone to Karman to 
 try to set matters square, leaving this son of 
 his as governor ad interim. The young man 
 was much more bent on amusing himself than on 
 governing. He was a friendly and social speci- 
 men of the Shahzada, and particularly well 
 educated in music ; in all things else, entirely 
 ignorant. He was even unacquainted with the 
 geography of his district. 
 
 52/fc April, Halt at Saidabad. He returned 
 my visit next morning, and invited me to a 
 small and select entertainment after dinner. I 
 went. The manner of the entertainment was 
 as follows : A tray, placed on the floor, con- 
 tained a bowl of sour milk and spinach, some 
 bread, a few sweetmeats, and a bottle of arrack 
 with a dirty rag as stopper. The bottle had 
 once contained better stuff, to wit, Tivoli beer ; 
 and the tray also, by its tawdry colours and 
 outrageous pattern, proclaimed its connexion 
 with far Farangistan. Behind this regal array 
 sat a musician with a five-stringed instrument, 
 like a huge guitar. They call it tar in these 
 parts ; it is played with the finger, armed with 
 
 N 2
 
 180 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 a mizrab or small triangle of wire. The steel 
 strings were not unmelodious, but the voice of 
 the singer recalled those noises which make 
 night hideous on the occasion of Indian wed- 
 dings. My hopes of an ode of Hafiz, chanted 
 con espressione, vanished as soon as the singer 
 opened his mouth to bellow forth Amdn, Amdn, 
 and Ydr, Ydr, till the roof shrieked again. I 
 felt half inclined to say Persicos odi, puer, 
 apparatus, and take my leave ; but the rapt 
 countenances of the Shahzada and his brother 
 betrayed such an intense enjoyment as it would 
 have been cruel to interrupt. Presently the 
 princely hand withdrew the greasy stopper from 
 the bottle, and offered me half a wine-glass of 
 arrack. This is a colourless liquor made from 
 the grape, as strong as brandy, and powerfully 
 seasoned with aniseed. Having helped his 
 guest, the Shahzada poured for himself, and 
 afterwards for all the company, sending the 
 single wine-glass round with great gravity. 
 After drinking we ate bread with curds and 
 spinach, till once more " music arose with its 
 voluptuous swell." Sayyid Ali turned up at 
 this stage of the proceedings, and respectfully 
 
 8 " Mercy, mercy," and " Friend, friend." The word 
 friend, of course, has a mystical reference to the Almighty, 
 and an apparent reference to the singer's mistress.
 
 Saidabad. \ 8 1 
 
 asked the Shahzada to favour us with some dis- 
 play of his musical talent. The Shahzada, 
 delighted, turned up his cuffs, and laid hold of 
 a red and black drum, shaped like a stage goblet, 
 but half the size of a churn. Placing the stem 
 of this under his left arm, this representative 
 (somewhat remote) of Achsemenes and Chosroes 
 proceeded to finger the parchment with no des- 
 picable dexterity to a tune called the Russian, 
 faintly suggesting that high and moving com- 
 position which goes by the name of Lanigan's 
 Ball. I applauded, and shortly after took my 
 departure. When one has to march at sunrise 
 there is some inconvenience in waiting to see 
 the end of an Oriental soiree musicale. Sayyid 
 Ali remained, and kept it up with the Shahzada 
 till the small hours. 
 
 Saidabad town has some 8000 inhabitants. 
 It is in good repair, possesses a decent covered 
 bazaar, and has a comfortable and thriving 
 appearance which is highly satisfactory to one 
 coming out of poor famished Fars. The town 
 has improved of late years. The people are 
 well dressed, and are much fairer than those of 
 the south ; the children especially are rosy and 
 pretty. Here one sees the genuine Persian 
 dress a tunic with skirts reaching nearly down 
 to the knee, wide blue trousers, and a felt hat,
 
 1 82 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 which may be round and low, or cylindrical and 
 as high as the English " chimney-pot " hat. 
 The tunic opens as low as a dress waistcoat, 
 and shows the white shirt underneath. It is a 
 neat and seemly dress. The quiet orderly 
 habits of the people are proved by the fact that 
 in all Saidabad I saw but one tufangchi. In 
 Lar I could not step out of doors without 
 meeting half a dozen. As for the Sirjan 
 district, of which Saidabad is the capital, it may 
 be fifty miles long by twelve broad, and contains 
 perhaps twenty villages, dotted over the centre 
 of the plain, between the Kavir and the long 
 slopes through which the water filters from the 
 eastern mountains. While we were there, 
 snowy peaks could be seen on all four points of 
 the compass. To the north were the mountains 
 of Pariz (8000 feet) to the west those of Niriz 
 (7400 feet), to the south Lalazar (15,000), to 
 the east Chahar-Gumbaz (14,000). 
 
 There are two roads from Saidabad to Kar- 
 man, one by Saadatabad, the other by Pariz. The 
 former is well known ; and as the site of Pariz 
 is marked in the map with a note of inter- 
 rogation, I determined to visit the place, though 
 we should lose two days by taking that route.
 
 i8 3 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 SAIDABAD TO KAEMAN. 
 
 FORTY-FOUR FARSAKHS : SEVEN DAYS. 
 
 6th April, Kurran, 7 farsakhs ; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
 My second day in Saidabad had been rainy, 
 and for nearly a fortnight longer the weather 
 continued unsettled. We had not gone far on 
 our way towards Kurran, when we were over- 
 taken by a storm of rain and wind, which came 
 sweeping over the bare plain with such fury 
 that it fairly blew the mules to leeward, and 
 made them halt for half an hour. My mackin- 
 tosh kept me dry, but my hands and feet were 
 numbed with the cold. Poor Sayyid Ali, 
 enveloped in a thick but porous great-coat, 
 looked like a wet hen; and the rest of my 
 people, and the baggage, got thoroughly 
 drenched. The rain cleared off about eleven, 
 leaving a bracing cold air. In Kurran we 
 found good quarters in the kalantar's house,
 
 184 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 and fires to dry our things. The village is one 
 of eight which belong to the descendants of a 
 holy man, on whom they were bestowed in fee 
 by the then ruling power. The descendants 
 now number ninety-six souls. In the middle of 
 the village is an open space with mulberry 
 trees, where the water of the qanat comes out 
 from underground and runs sparkling down the 
 street. Some of the lanes are bordered by 
 mulberry and willow, with a watercourse 
 between. The village seems to have enjoyed a 
 long term of tolerable fortune, yet the people 
 said that the district was ruined (Saidabad 
 sukht). Kurran has a large orchard of apples, 
 pears, apricots, plums, pomegranates, and 
 grapes. It has also much poppy cultivation, 
 in fields enclosed by low walls, and very care- 
 fully irrigated. The crop has been introduced 
 only within the last five years. It pays better 
 than wheat, and now covers most of the old 
 wheat lands. Another new crop was potatoes, 
 but last year' s drought left nothing to sow. I 
 walked round the village with the people, led 
 by an old gentleman whom they called by the 
 title of Agha. They asked me whether I was 
 an Englishman or a Russian ; also about Shaikh 
 Obaidullah and the Kurdish war, and whether
 
 Paris. 185 
 
 the Sultan of Eum was not encouraging the 
 Shaikh in his war with Persia. They were 
 remarkably fair, well-built, and well-clothed, 
 and betrayed a natural and liberal curiosity 
 to see and speak with the Farangi. 
 
 7th April, Pariz, 3 farsalchs ; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
 I had a good bathe next morning in the tank 
 of the courtyard, under two noble plane-trees 
 (chinar), which were just beginning to put 
 forth leaves. The march to Pariz was a short 
 one, among the undulations at the base of the 
 Pariz mountains, which yesterday's weather had 
 clothed with an ampler coating of snow. To 
 the north, far away, the mountains of Maimanda 
 showed snowy white a noble object, though 
 their elevation cannot be great, and their 
 whiteness was probably due to a casual snow- 
 storm. We crossed some tiny rivulets among 
 the hills, which water little hamlets hidden in 
 fruit-trees. Pariz itself lies in a dell enclosed 
 by four low hills. We came on it all of a 
 sudden, and looked down with surprise on its 
 compact array of flat grey roofs. A stream 
 runs down the main street. Trees rise among 
 the buildings, and in the upper hollows of the 
 hills are orchards and vineyards. It is a 
 quaintly situated and pleasant place, but the
 
 1 86 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 water dwindles away sadly in summer. On 
 two of the highest hills above the village are 
 two round towers for tufangchis; and on 
 another is the ruin of a mud fort, square, with 
 a ditch. We had a little trouble in finding 
 quarters. Zaki Beg invaded the house of a 
 widow, which was neat enough, but small. The 
 people of the village recommended the Husainia, 
 where room was not wanting, if one could 
 dispense with roofs and doors. Sayyid Ali, 
 however, hearing of an Akhund or school- 
 master, went to that learned man, and speedily 
 persuaded him to take us in, while the mules 
 were disposed of in the Husainia. The Akhund 
 turned his women out, and gave me a very 
 comfortable carpeted room. His old father 
 had been to Baghdad and Mashhad several 
 times. What seemed to strike him most in 
 Baghdad was the tramway to Karbala. The 
 rails he called wa'Z, the same term as is used 
 for a horse-shoe. He asked me about European 
 railways and steamboats ; he himself had 
 travelled by steamboat to Baghdad. I was glad 
 to find that these outward and visible signs of 
 European civilization were not unheard of in 
 Pariz. Later on, Zaki Beg came to me with 
 much formality, and begged to represent that a
 
 Hospitality. 187 
 
 young person stood outside, desiring to consult 
 me on medical matters. Being introduced, she 
 proved to be a fine young woman, fair, and well 
 dressed. She kept playing with her veil, but 
 took care to let me see her face abundantly ; 
 it was decidedly good-looking. She wanted 
 medicine, she said ; any kind of medicine. But 
 for what sort of ailment? To this I got no 
 answer, except downcast looks and writing on 
 the floor with her toes. Sayyid Ali entered 
 upon an explanation. "This young person," 
 said he, "is now in her six-and- twentieth year. 
 She has had four husbands, who have succes- 
 sively died. She now desires a medicine which 
 will enable her to procure a fifth husband." 
 This soft impeachment the damsel did not 
 attempt to deny. I regretted that I had 
 neglected to provide myself with any medicine 
 of that nature ; and she retired in disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 The Akhund's wife and daughters cooked me 
 an excellent dinner, which was all the more 
 acceptable as I had not been able to get any 
 meat in Kurran, where the people had killed 
 and thrown away all their fowls, on account of 
 a real or imaginary worm in their stomachs, 
 which made them unclean. But in Pariz,
 
 1 88 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 besides a fowl, I had two puddings, one of 
 boiled rice, and one of ground rice, almonds, and 
 sugar thanks to these good women. They 
 came to the door to see me eat, and stood there 
 whispering in amazement during the half-hour 
 given to dinner. My habit of reading at dinner 
 never failed to excite the curiosity of any 
 Persian who witnessed it. Why did I read, 
 and what was I reading ? These Mussalmans 
 are so wrapped up in formulae and ceremonies, 
 that they are apt to attribute a religious signi- 
 ficance to every act of a European which seems 
 to them at all out of the common. 
 
 8th April, God-i-Ahmar, 5 farsdkhs ; 9 a.m. to 
 4p.m. We marched next day for God-i-Ahmar, 
 or the Red Deeps. We had to cross the Pariz 
 mountains, but not at their highest point; in 
 fact, we turned the northern end of the range, 
 and left the snow-covered peaks a mile or two 
 on our right. On our left hand was a confused 
 region of low hills. Behind us lay the broad 
 plain of Sirjan ; and before us, just seen for a 
 moment beyond the hilly country yet to be 
 crossed, was the plain of Rafsinjan. The belt 
 of mountains and hills between these two plains 
 is about fifty miles broad where we crossed it. 
 Eastwards it becomes much broader, till it
 
 Tlie Red Deeps. 1 89 
 
 merges in the region of high table-lands and 
 peaks of perennial snow which send waters 
 down to fertilize the head of both the plains. 
 Westwards it diminishes in breadth and in 
 height, and the plains also lose their waters, 
 and become empty and bare. We crossed 
 three or four tiny streams, each with its little 
 patch of cultivation and small orchard guarded 
 by a peasant's hut. Near the end of the march 
 we crossed a strong swift burnie flowing down 
 towards Sirjan, full of white snow-water, 
 deliciously cold. In its lower course the stream 
 becomes salt, and does no good to any one. 
 Farther on, we came to a river-bed, with some 
 water; this river also becomes salt, but its 
 course is to the plain of Rafsinjan. The hills 
 now began to show colours, in some places of 
 extraordinary brilliancy, red and rich brown, 
 and mauve ; and when we reached God-i-Ahmar, 
 we found it a hollow surrounded by red hills. 
 Here a pleasure-house had been built by one 
 Ismail Khan, some time a great man in Rafsinjan 
 and Pariz ; but he had died twelve years ago, 
 and his sons were wasting the property, as is 
 usual. The eldest, Husain Khan, is still Zabit 
 of the whole Pariz district. I heard no good 
 of him. The pleasure-house has been neglected
 
 i go Six Mont /is in Persia. 
 
 since Ismail's death ; it was left unfinished, and 
 is now beginning to want repair. It is on a 
 most extensive scale, with rooms enough to 
 lodge fifty people, with an andarun for the 
 women, a bath, and a capital orchard and 
 garden. The gardener lamented the good 
 days of Ismail Khan, who used to come 
 up here every summer. Husain Khan has 
 never been near the place. I was supplied 
 with excellent vegetables from the garden, 
 including lettuces raised from English seed. 
 I also had a good bathe in the liammam, 
 which Sayyid Ali got warmed for me. There 
 are four or five peasants' houses at God-i- 
 Ahmar, and a little cultivation watered by a 
 qanat. Outside the house I found an encamp- 
 ment of donkeys. They were carrying cotton 
 to Rafsinjan. On the march we had met a 
 man with three ass-loads of piece-goods, which 
 he was taking for sale in the little hamlets 
 scattered among the hills. Thus are the goods 
 of Manchester distributed over the farthest 
 corners of the East. 
 
 In the evening I went to the top of a hill 
 above God-i-Ahmar, and enjoyed the view till 
 the light failed. The air was clear and cold. 
 A waste of hills lay all around, dark and
 
 To Bahramabad. 191 
 
 formless, save towards the east, where two high 
 peaks, all white with snow, rose over the road, 
 and to the far north-west, where the mountains 
 of Maimanda could just be seen, white against 
 the horizon. 
 
 9th April, Bahramabad, 8 farsaJchs ; 8 a.m. 
 to 5 p.m. We had eight farsakhs to march 
 next day. The road descends the bed of the 
 river, winding among the mountain-tops, and 
 passes three villages at twelve, fourteen, and 
 sixteen miles from God-i-Ahmar. At the 
 last village we breakfasted, overlooking the 
 Rafsinjan plain, which was simmering and 
 shimmering in the hot air. The rest of the 
 march was one long descent towards Bahram- 
 abad a descent like riding into a misty region 
 of fairyland. We rode down, down, through 
 the dreamy afternoon, surrounded by mocking 
 mirages, towards houses and orchards that 
 swayed and danced above the ground. Even 
 the high sun, involved in the haze born of his 
 own beams, seemed like " a dragon's eye that 
 feels the stress of a bedimming sleep." It was 
 a long sixteen miles to Bahramabad. We sought 
 quarters in the Persian telegraph-office, but it 
 was too small, so we took the post-house 
 (chaparkhana) instead. This had a small upper
 
 192 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 room, where I found satisfactory accommo- 
 dation. 
 
 Bahramabad has prospered much of late 
 years, on account of the increased trade between 
 Yazd and Karman. It is well supplied with 
 qanats, and has a watercourse running through 
 it. There is a covered bazar, inferior to that of 
 Saidabad. Cotton seems to be a great staple 
 here. The telegraph is managed by a Shah- 
 zada, on eight tomans a month, who invited 
 me to tea and a qalyan in the evening. He 
 is a man of some education, of a contented 
 mind, and of singularly subdued and deferential 
 manners. In Teheran he had learned a few 
 French and English phrases. Like all Persians 
 who ever spoke to me on the subject, he had 
 found French much easier than English. His 
 Persian was choice and elegant. I learned 
 from him something about Persian lines of 
 telegraph. The line to Mashhad was completed 
 a few years ago. The original estimates were so 
 large that the Shah abandoned the project, but 
 one of the Europeans in his service offered to 
 construct the line at a much smaller cost, and 
 did so successfully, in spite of the prevailing 
 terror of the Turkomans. The line between 
 Karman and Yazd was made last year by
 
 Kabutar Khan. 193 
 
 Colonel Schindler of the Shah's service; I 
 heard a good deal about him in Karman. This 
 line goes on from Yazd to Isfahan. The Dizf ul 
 and Shustar line is a year or two older. There 
 was much difficulty, at first, in keeping up the 
 line through Mazandaran. Snow, heavy rain, 
 and forest-boughs were continually breaking it, 
 and repairs were impossible while the roads 
 held mud enough to swallow up horse and man ; 
 so, on the whole, the telegraph used to work 
 only two or three days per fortnight ; and, being 
 judged not worth the trouble of maintenance, 
 it was taken down. But it has been recon- 
 structed; I saw it myself on my way to the 
 Caspian. 
 
 10th April, Kabutar Khan, 7 farsakhs ; 8 a.m. 
 to 4.30 p.m. Karman was now three stages 
 to the east of us. They are three monotonous 
 stages, over the Rafsinjan plain, with the 
 Dawiran mountains on the left hand, and the 
 mountains of Pariz and Saadatabad on the right. 
 The plain is about thirty miles broad, and rises 
 slowly towards Karman, Bahramabad being 
 4700 feet above the sea, Kabutar Khan 5100, 
 and Karman 5500. The plain is a bare expanse 
 of hard clay, covered with small splinters of 
 black stone, and looking not unlike a coke 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 pavement on a clay soil. It is proverbially 
 dry ; the Shahzada quoted a proverb that says, 
 " The packsaddle of a B/afsinjan ass is never 
 wet" (pdldn i Ichar i Rafsinjan tar na mish-avad) ; 
 but we were to see it under quite other con- 
 ditions. Dawiran had a little snow, fallen two 
 days before ; the Maimand mountains and a 
 couple of peaks of the Pariz mountains on our 
 right were white all over ; and Jupa before us, 
 and Kala-i-gav (cow's head) on our right front, 
 presented magnificent snowy masses in the 
 distance. Behind us stretched the plain, far as 
 one could see. For the first half of the march to 
 Kabutar Khan villages were to be seen, at inter- 
 vals of a few miles, on either hand ; after that, 
 mere plain, herbless, lifeless, save for little stone- 
 coloured lizards with erect tails and large flat 
 heads. Eighteen miles from Bahramabad is a 
 shelterhouse with an abambar, where we break- 
 fasted. The rest of our way was involved in a 
 storm of wind, dust, and rain from the south- 
 west. The tyranny of the wind is unchecked 
 over these shelterless plains. Kabutar Khan 
 has a good caravan sarai, newly built of stone. 
 We went to the chaparkhana, where the upper 
 room had no doors, and was consequently 
 uninhabitable during so high a wind. I had to
 
 The Abode of Wealth. 195 
 
 occupy the one spare room downstairs, while 
 Sayyid Ali took refuge with the family of the 
 master of the chaparkhana. 
 
 llth April, Baghin, 8 farsaJchs ; 8.30 a.m. to 
 6 p.m. Our next march was one of nine 
 farsakhs, to Baghin. It had rained in the 
 night, and the plain was partly under water. 
 We had to leave the main road and keep to the 
 skirts of the southern hills. After twenty miles, 
 we found ourselves opposite a small village 
 called Daulatabad. Here we were overtaken 
 by a storm of wind and rain, which came up 
 from the south-west with a certain grandeur, 
 overshadowing the mountain-tops, and involving 
 the plain in blackness. We fled to Daulatabad, 
 over flooded stretches of slippery clay. A 
 stream flowed between us and the village ; we 
 scrambled up and down its clay banks, and 
 entered Daulatabad the Abode of Wealth a 
 place which sadly belied its name. Ruined and 
 empty mud-houses were all we saw, except, 
 indeed, a cow or two. Zaki Beg's venerable 
 charger stood disconsolate before a tottering 
 gateway, with hanging head and rump turned 
 to the wind and rain. Presently part of one 
 side of the gateway came down with a run, and 
 shrill female voices from within proclaimed that 
 
 o 2
 
 1 96 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 Zaki Beg had invaded the sanctity of some 
 domestic hearth. Sayyid Ali's persuasive 
 powers, which are considerable, allayed the 
 tumult, and I was invited under a large archway, 
 with two rooms opening off the back. Here 
 were three women spinning, and two men, and 
 a couple of children, for whom Sayyid AH 
 produced sugar-cheese, purchased in Bahram- 
 abad. The women found bread, walnuts, and 
 raisins for me, but had neither buttermilk nor 
 curds. There was only one other inhabited 
 house in the place. In half an hour the rain 
 passed away, but we were overtaken by another 
 wind-storm before reaching Baghin. I walked 
 six of the nine farsakhs, and arrived tired and 
 hungry. The chaparkhana was a ruin, so we 
 went to a fine caravansarai of stone, just 
 outside the village. Baghin is a large village, 
 surrounded by the orchards which give it its 
 name; but its present condition is one of 
 dilapidation and decay. 
 
 12th April , Karman, 6 farsaJchs ; 7 a.m. to 
 3 p.m. The Jupa Mountains, with their snowy 
 summits 13,000 feet high, were a noble mark 
 on our right, as we marched next day to 
 Karman. We crossed the slopes of the northern 
 hills, rising some sixty feet above the plain, and
 
 Karman. 197 
 
 after eight miles we caught sight of Karman, 
 fourteen miles away, a green expanse of trees, 
 backed by high dark mountains, streaked with 
 snow above. The approach to the city lay 
 through muddy lanes, flooded and slippery; it 
 was the vilest marching. In drizzling rain we 
 entered Karman. The soldiers in the gate 
 presented arms ; we rode up the vacant street, 
 and found our way to the telegraph office. 
 Here was no accommodation, so passing through 
 the bazar we sought the principal caravansarai, 
 and hired two good upper rooms. I was glad 
 to have reached a large city, where we could 
 refit, and where some reasonable intelligence 
 might be looked for regarding the country 
 which lay between us and Yazd.
 
 1 98 Six Months in Persia . 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 KARMAN. 
 12iH TO I?TH APRIL. 
 
 ZAKI BEG went to the Governor's and returned 
 with the kadkhudabashi, or Mayor of Karman, 
 to whom was assigned the duty of ministering 
 to our necessities. We were offered a change 
 of quarters, but I preferred the caravansarai. 
 For two days I rested and wrote letters ; then 
 I went out and called on the kadkhudabashi, 
 who received me with much deference, gave me 
 sherbet and a qalyan, and some information 
 about Karman. After a while he offered me 
 wine, which I accepted with thanks. It was 
 light vin ordinaire, but he had better stuff in 
 his cellars, for Sayyid Ali next day brought me 
 a great baqqdra or glass vessel, containing about 
 three quarts of dark strong wine, which he had 
 purchased from the kadkhudabashi for five 
 krans. This wine was so strong that I had to 
 mix it with water. Moreover, Sayyid Ali
 
 Karman. 199 
 
 bought six' bottles of brandy, three for himself 
 and three for me, at three and a half krans per 
 bottle a magnificent bargain, for the brandy 
 proved to be very fair. It had come from 
 Bombay to a trader of Karman, who finding no 
 market for it in the city, was glad of this 
 opportunity of getting it off his hands. 
 
 Next day I called on the Vazir, who gets the 
 credit of governing the whole province. I 
 found him a comparatively young man, with a 
 reddish nose of ultra-Persian dimensions ; for 
 the rest, he spoke in a quiet tone of voice, and 
 was extremely civil. The room in which we 
 sat was adorned with the usual tawdry pictures 
 taken from bundles of piece-goods, and set in 
 the fair white plaster of the wall, alternating 
 with small mirrors similarly set, which make a 
 better show. We talked of the assassination of 
 the Emperor of Russia an astounding piece of 
 news which I heard here for the first time. 
 *' There are Nihilists in all countries," said the 
 Vazir ; " we have our Nihilists in Persia, whom 
 we call Babis." At a subsequent interview, I 
 tried to get news of our doings in Afghanistan, 
 and of the Russians in the Turkoman country ; 
 but the Vazir had nothing to tell me, save that 
 the Biluchistan mail would be in next day, and 
 that he would send me anything of interest
 
 2OO Six Months in Persia. 
 
 which it might contain. I never saw it; but 1 
 succeeded in procuring some copies of the 
 Akhtar, a Persian newspaper published in 
 Constantinople, which, though old, were better 
 than nothing. 
 
 The Prince Governor (Farman Farma) of 
 Karman, having appointed an evening for my 
 visit, I went to the palace, and was ushered into 
 a large plainly-furnished room, opening on a 
 courtyard with plane-trees and apple-trees, and 
 with three small fountains prettily playing. A 
 broad divan, covered with red cloth, occupied 
 part of one side of the room, and beside it, on a 
 high bedstead, sat the prince. He is very like 
 his brother the then Governor of Shiraz, but 
 older and feebler. He was enveloped in a great 
 fur cloak. His manners were courteous and 
 calculated to set one at one's ease. Having 
 visited Europe with the Shah in 1873, he has 
 much in common with Europeans, and there 
 need be none of those appalling gaps and flaws 
 in the conversation which render an Indian 
 mulaqat so peculiarly fearful. He asked about 
 the fate of Candahar, and could scarcely believe 
 that it was to be given up, after the expendi- 
 ture of so much blood and treasure. He 
 politely acquiesed, however, in my suggestion
 
 Karman. 201 
 
 that Candahar was of no use to us. Speaking 
 of India, he told me he had heard of the Naini Tal 
 landslip, and proceeded to explain the same to 
 his physician in an erroneous fashion, which I 
 did not consider myself called on to correct. 
 He had lately been marching in the high moun- 
 tain country to the east of my route from Forg 
 to Saidabad, in the hope of getting rid of his 
 gout, and had actually derived seme benefit 
 from the excursion, besides seeing what he 
 described as a charming country. "Six marches 
 from Karman," he said, " there is a defile of 
 stupendous and awful depth, opening on a 
 lovely country of woods and waterfalls a 
 fairyland which if Farangis could behold, they 
 would desert their Naini Tal, and build there." 
 I doubt it. Finally, the prince lamented that 
 he had the gout, and, pulling off his stocking, 
 showed me his gouty toe. I know not if this 
 was done in order that I might be able to give 
 the lie to the popular rumour which represents 
 the prince's malady as a gangrene a disease 
 which is attributed, probably without reason, to 
 the royal family in general. The present case 
 was clearly one of gout. I had half a mind to 
 make the prince a present of a bottle of chloro- 
 dyne, to give him sleep towards morning, when
 
 2O2 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 his toe is most troublesome; but on considera- 
 tion I found I had none to spare. After tea, 
 coffee, and qalyans, I took my leave, much 
 pleased with the gentlemanly affability of the 
 Farman Farma. " A qalyan isn't a bad thing," 
 he said, as he smoked with a relish. I noticed 
 that my qalyan had a tiny paper picture of the 
 Madonna and Child set in the gold, rubies, and 
 turquoises which embellished its top. 
 
 Karman city is about a mile long from north 
 to south, and three-quarters of a mile broad 
 from east to west. It is enclosed by a mud wall, 
 in good preservation, with six gates, and with 
 a ditch which is partly filled up. About one- 
 seventh of the city is outside the walls. Archi- 
 tectural monuments there are none. Yet the 
 city is ancient ; its site has been marked out by 
 Nature for the habitation of men since the 
 beginning of ages ; and certain relics of anti- 
 quity remain, though mean and ruined. The 
 Qubba-i-Sabz, or Green Cupola, is the most 
 commanding object in Karman, and catches the 
 eye as the first glimpse of the city presents 
 itself across the grey plain, fourteen miles away. 
 To those accustomed to Oriental ideas of colour, 
 it will cause no surprise to learn that the colour 
 of the Green Cupola is blue. It is a strange
 
 Karman. 203 
 
 cylindrical structure, covered by a dome ; the 
 height is about forty feet, and the diameter of 
 the tower about thirty feet. The domed roof, 
 covered with blue tiles, remains entire, and 
 traces are visible on the interior of blue- 
 tiled wainscoting and floral and starry designs 
 painted on white plaster, and indeed the blue- 
 and-gold frescoes of the ceiling are hardly 
 faded ; but great gaps and fissures deface the 
 walls, which, though exceeding thick, are built 
 of no costlier stuff than half-baked bricks of 
 clay. In the middle of the floor is a marble 
 tomb, chipped and worn; while high on the 
 wall, too high to be legible, is a small tughra 
 inscription, giving the date and the builder's 
 name. For want of a ladder these must remain 
 unknown. The building is said to be 700 years 
 old. A modern inscription records the fact that 
 straw was stored here for the army of Jaafar 
 Ali Khan, in 1273 of the Hegira twenty-five 
 years ago. The people say, of course, that the 
 dome was filled with straw to the very top. As 
 for other buildings, the Jami Masjid or chief 
 mosque is scarcely distinguishable from the 
 mud-plastered houses around. Dome and 
 minaret, those invariable features of the Indian 
 mosque, are usually wanting in Persia, and the
 
 204 Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 sacred character of the edifice is often revealed 
 only by its gaily-tiled door. But the Karman 
 tiles have little better to show than conventional 
 arrangements in blue, white, and green ; and 
 only one building recalls, and that distantly, 
 the lavish and lovely flower-patterns which 
 adorn so many old walls and gateways in Shiraz. 
 This building is the Madrasa of Ibrahim Khan, 
 a court-yard surrounded by two-storeyed apart- 
 ments, not high, but well-built of stone, with 
 bright and variegated faces reflected in the 
 tank in the centre. Some show of learning is 
 maintained here, and as the rooms of the 
 mullahs are well-carpeted and neat, and the 
 Mujtahid's house extremely comfortable with 
 its green jalousies, I presume the property left 
 in trust for the college is administered with 
 tolerable fidelity. An older Madrasa is that 
 called the Masumia ; it is narrow, gloomy, and 
 heavily built of stone. But perhaps the oldest 
 building in or about Karman is the ruined mud 
 fort attributed to Ardshir, which stands on two 
 steep hills of limestone, about 100 feet high, 
 half a mile north-west of the city. The walls 
 line the face of the hill, and some of the towers 
 still stand thirty feet high from the off-set of 
 their foundations on the steep white slope.
 
 Karman. 205 
 
 They are built of unbaked bricks, two feet 
 square by nine inches thick in the lower courses. 
 In this climate clay lasts like stone. A few 
 small vaulted rooms keep their roofs yet. One 
 gets a good view of the city from the ruined 
 battlements, which were swept, when I visited 
 them, by an ear-piercing wind, shrill, chill, with 
 puffs of dust. Old Karman can be seen south 
 of the city, an area of low mud ruins. Agha 
 Muhammad Khan is believed to have laid it 
 waste, and to have shifted Karman to its pre- 
 sent site. To the west, under a black hill, are 
 some ruins surrounding a domed edifice said to 
 have been a fire-temple destroyed by Ali. A 
 few gardens brighten the view in this direction ; 
 but Karman is not nearly so rich in gardens as 
 Shiraz. 
 
 Shah Niamat Khan, the holy man of Mahun 
 (a mountain village one day's march to the 
 south-west), who lived a hundred years ago, 
 and " gave information," as the Persians say, 
 " of a thousand years before and a thousand 
 years after," and who, moreover, foretold or 
 foreshadowed in some fashion the Indian 
 Mutiny has prophesied that the three chief 
 cities of Persia shall be destroyed as follows : 
 Isfahan by water, Yazd by sand, and Karman
 
 206 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 by horses' hoofs. Some morning the people of 
 Karman shall wake and see the Saidi hills, 
 north of the city, all white with tents ; and 
 then they will know that the end has come, that 
 the rule of the Qajars, as my guide observed with 
 joy, is over and done with. Whence the new 
 conqueror is to come, the holy man has not 
 stated; but it appears that the water which 
 shall engulf Isfahan has its source in the 
 Karman hills. In the reign of Nadir Shah, a 
 shepherd in the Kuh Pay ah, that lofty and 
 irregular mountain mass which forms a dark 
 background to the northern walls of Karman, 
 lost a goat, which had wandered into a cleft of 
 the rock. He followed, striking the sides of 
 the cavern with his stick in the darkness. On 
 a sudden, in answer to a random blow, a stream 
 of water burst from the rock, and swept him off 
 his feet and out of the cave, snatching his stick 
 also out of his hand. This was a grave loss, for 
 the stick, like that detected by Sancho Panza, 
 was hollow, and contained a store of coins. 
 Some time after, the shepherd had occasion to 
 go to Isfahan, and in the shop of an old rag- 
 merchant (simsdr or qarrdzi) he saw his well- 
 known stick. He bought it for a trifle, opened 
 it, and found his money. The shopkeeper now
 
 K arm an. 207 
 
 claimed the stick as his own, and the quarrel 
 came before the king. It was proved that a 
 man had picked the stick out of the Zaindarud 
 river, in Isfahan, and had disposed of it to the 
 rag-merchant. The water struck by the shep- 
 herd out of the mountain above Karman had 
 carried the stick all the way to Isfahan. Nadir 
 Shah at once marched to Karman, and had the 
 mouth of the cave built up in his presence, and 
 there the water is bottled up to this day ; but 
 when the hour comes it will escape, and wash 
 Isfahan into the sea. 1 Concerning which story 
 it may be remarked that any water starting 
 from Karman for Isfahan would find its resting- 
 place in the low levels of Yazd, half-way between 
 the two cities. 
 
 Ardshir's fort has also a story attached to it. 
 That monarch, or one of his successors, wished 
 to make his daughter marry somebody she had 
 not a mind to. She shut herself up in the fort, 
 and sustained a siege of twelve years, till a wise 
 man passed that way and advised the king to 
 stop the qanat which supplied water to the 
 fort ; whereupon the young lady surrendered, 
 
 1 This story about the shepherd and his staff is not the 
 peculiar property of Karman. I heard it told also of a 
 mountain above Qum.
 
 208 Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 but whether she married her objectionable lover 
 or not, I was unable to discover. There is a 
 well (they say) in this fort, which has subter- 
 ranean communication with the plain of Raf- 
 sinjan : I did not see the well, and in fact it is 
 said to be filled up. 
 
 When General Goldsnrid and the Perso- 
 Baluch frontier mission visited Karman ten 
 years ago, they were welcomed by the Vakil-ul- 
 Mulk, or Vicegerent, then governing in the room 
 of his deceased father, whose able administra- 
 tion had done so much for the prosperity of 
 Karman. The title is now extinct, and the 
 family are ruined. On the death of the Vakil- 
 ul-Mulk, his property was confiscated or de- 
 spoiled, and the province passed into the hands 
 of the present Prince Governor, who was the 
 Vakil's father-in-law. The memory of the old 
 Vakil is still cherished in Karman. It was he 
 who built the greater part of the covered bazar, 
 as also the caravansarai where I lodged. This 
 is one of the best I have seen in Persia. A 
 space sixty yards square is surrounded by two- 
 storied ranges of buildings, containing rooms 
 which, if small, are clean, comfortable, and in 
 good repair. The flooring of the courtyard, of 
 the rooms, and of the broad balcony before the
 
 Karman. 209 
 
 upper rows of rooms, consists of red tiles neatly 
 laid. In the courtyard are two tanks of clean 
 water. The gates in two sides of the square, 
 opening into the bazar, are adorned with blue 
 and yellow tiles ; and one of them has two 
 minarets, like square Italian towers, rising 
 about sixty feet high, and by no means devoid 
 of grace. In one tower is a clock, which keeps 
 Persian time, counting from sunset to noon, 
 and from noon to sunset. On the whole, I con- 
 sidered myself as very well off in the caravan- 
 sarai, though the curiosity of the people was 
 rather troublesome at first. They told me of 
 another Farangi who was living on the opposite 
 side. I went round to see him. He proved to 
 be a Greek of Smyrna, who knew no language 
 except Greek, Turkish of Constantinople, and a 
 little Portuguese, so it was hopeless to try to 
 cultivate his acquaintance. With him was a 
 Turk who spoke Persian and acted as inter- 
 preter. The business of the Greek was to sell 
 piece-goods and buy carpets. He had been 
 there seven months, and seemed to be doing 
 pretty well. Karman, as every one knows, is 
 famous for its manufacture of carpets. I went 
 to see a factory, reputed to be the largest in 
 the city, though employing less than thirty 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2io Six Months in Persia. 
 
 hands. The wretched weavers sat in two low 
 rooms, filled with a sour and sickening atmo- 
 sphere. Most of them were pale-faced, weakly 
 children of ten or twelve years, who hardly 
 looked up as I entered, but remained bent over 
 their work, picking up the threads with their 
 nails, which are kept long, and notched for the 
 purpose. The patterns are written out in 
 pamphlets, and painfully committed to memory, 
 and the children are taught very young the 
 younger the better. Their memories are 
 quicker than those of grown-up folk. So far 
 as I could understand the patterns, they seemed 
 to be written in much the same style as those 
 directions for knitting or crochet which one 
 sometimes finds on a lady's table knit two, 
 purl one, thread over, and knit two together. 
 There was also a youth employed in reading one 
 of the patterns aloud. I am utterly destitute 
 of taste in carpets, and gladly made my escape ; 
 nor had I the courage to enter a shawl manu- 
 factory to which I was next conducted. A 
 carpet about sixteen feet by ten can be pur- 
 chased in Karman for forty to fifty tomans 
 say 16Z. to 201. Some carpets take a year to 
 make, and a decently-good carpet will not be 
 finished in less than three months; thus,
 
 Karman. 2 1 1 
 
 although, there are several hundred factories in 
 and about Karman, the outturn of carpets is 
 in no way alarming. The Persians themselves 
 prefer Manchester rugs, hideous things bearing 
 the portraiture of a camel or a lion, Bay of 
 Naples, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the like. 
 
 There is room for other and more valuable 
 manufactures in Karman, if the Government 
 possessed enlightenment and integrity. Coming 
 through the mountains of Pariz, I was struck 
 with the highly metallic appearance of the rocks 
 in places. It seemed to me that the hills must 
 be full of iron. I heard vague tales of mines, 
 but in Karman I got authentic information from 
 a Persian master-miner. This was a spare, 
 hungry-eyed man, an enthusiast who had 
 made little by his profession, but had evidently 
 acquired much practical skill and an extensive 
 acquaintance with the mineral districts about 
 Karman. He showed me specimens of lead 
 and copper ores from a place called Tang-i- 
 Mor-i-Aspan, or Horse-grass Pass, distant four 
 farsakhs from Pariz and two from God-i-Ahmar. 
 The ores seemed very rich. The Persian 
 Government, however, wants only mines of the 
 precious metals or of precious stones. They 
 gave the miner eight workmen, and ordered him 
 
 P 2
 
 2 1 2 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 to find a silver mine in the mountains above 
 Karman. He sunk a shaft fifty feet deep, and 
 struck lead, whence he proposed to extract 
 silver. But the Government could not wait, 
 and bade him find, if not silver, at least tur- 
 quoises. He did so, and sent two boxes of 
 turquoises to Teheran, paying the carriage ; and 
 has heard nothing more about them. He 
 showed me specimens of his turquoises in the 
 rough. There were four kinds of copper ore, 
 he said : blue-soil (lil-bum), violet (banafsha), 
 green, and red ; the two former being the best. 
 Coal also is found in Deh Taki, six farsakhs 
 north of Karman, and is brought into the city 
 for sale in the winter. Perhaps, however, this 
 coal (zughdl i sang) is merely anthracite. When 
 Mr. Blanford was in Karman, ten years ago, he 
 was taken to visit coal-diggings near Karman, 
 which produced only anthracite of an inferior 
 description. However this may be, doubtless 
 the mountains of Karman contain minerals in 
 plenty, which an energetic Government might 
 work with profit. After laying the Yazd- 
 Karman telegraph line, Colonel Schindler made 
 a tour in these parts, collecting specimens. My 
 miner was with him. " One day," said he, " we 
 were in Pariz together, and the Sartip asked
 
 Karman. 2 1 3 
 
 me what there was remarkable in the neighbour- 
 hood. I told him that at Faridun, two farsakhs 
 distant, there was an ancient avenue of chinars 
 (plane-trees), and an old graveyard with in- 
 scriptions on the tombs in a character which 
 nobody could read." The poor man was 
 anxious that I should take him with me on a 
 similar cruise ; but my plans were otherwise. 
 
 The Hindoos of Karman came to pay me 
 their respects. They are about forty souls, all 
 from Shikarpur, and mostly in the service of two 
 seths or bankers of that place, but a few have 
 come over on their own account. The youngest 
 of the community has been fourteen years in 
 Persia. They represented their life in this strange 
 land as a wretched one, but did not seem at all 
 keen to return to India. In their Persian dress 
 and tall felt hats they presented a miserable con- 
 trast to the genuine Persian. I never was more 
 forcibly reminded of the physical inferiority of 
 the Hindoo race. They looked like withered 
 black apes. In the evening I went to see 
 them in their caravansarai, called that of the 
 Hindoos; it belongs to the Qazi of the city, 
 whose patronage is useful to them. One of 
 their number had died that morning, and I had 
 noticed a crowd in the bazaar^ as I rode by,
 
 214 S* x Months in Pers ia. 
 
 waiting to behold the funeral ; a tree also had 
 been pointed out to me, beyond the walls, called 
 the Hindoo-burning plane-tree (Chinar i Hindu- 
 suz), where the body was to be burned. Four 
 farrashes attended the funeral, and received 
 two krans each, and their naib or sergeant had 
 two more, such being the customary fee. The 
 farrashbashi, however, who is the head of all 
 the noble company of farrashes, demanded two 
 tomans for himself. The Hindoos protested, 
 and tried to telegraph to the British Minister 
 at Teheran, but the telegraph clerk referred 
 the matter to the Prince Governor. Affairs 
 stood thus when I made my visit. The Hindoos 
 professed to be in a lamentable state, but seemed 
 comfortable enough, and when the farrashbashi 
 came to negotiate a compromise, they let him 
 know their mind fearlessly in choice Persian 
 slang. Perhaps my presence encouraged them, 
 though I gave them to understand distinctly 
 that I had no intention of interfering ; and so 
 came away. At night, as I was finishing my 
 dinner, in walked the Hindoos again, with 
 tidings of victory. The Prince Governor had 
 sent for them, had summoned the farrashbashi, 
 abused him, and made him pay up part of 
 twenty-one tomans which he had extorted from
 
 K arm an. 2 1 5 
 
 them on previous occasions ; and the farrash- 
 bashi had subsequently fled to avoid further 
 proceedings. Moreover, the Vazir had called 
 the Hindoos to him as they left the Prince, and 
 had told them to apply to him always in similar 
 cases. He was ashamed, no doubt, of the 
 Prince's interference over his head. Thus the 
 Hindoos triumphed, as I had expected. They 
 did not seem to me to be much oppressed. 
 They are not allowed to have a temple, or to 
 worship in public ; but they keep a private 
 chapel in the house of their principal man. 
 Their trade is with Karachi and Bombay ; pay- 
 ments are made by bills on Bandar- Abbas, or 
 gold is even remitted by courier (qdsid) to Ban- 
 dar-Abbas a fact which says a good deal for 
 the safety of the roads. 
 
 More interesting than these traders was a 
 Hindoo fakir, who came in, as I thought, to beg ; 
 but he assured me that he wanted no alms, 
 merely a little intellectual conversation. He 
 was a native of Firuzabad town in the Agra 
 district, a Brahmin by caste, had left his home 
 in youth, and followed his Guru or spiritual 
 master to Cabul, where he lived twelve years, 
 and thence, on his Guru's death, went to Herat. 
 This place he seemed to like best of all ; there
 
 216 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 is (or was) a large Hindoo community, with a 
 temple, near which he built a small shrine of 
 his own and lived happily. While he was there 
 the Heratis were constantly fighting with the 
 Turkomans. He left Herat five years ago, and 
 returned to India, gravitated again towards 
 Afghanistan when the war broke out, and was 
 in Candahar during its siege (qala'bandi) by 
 Ayub Khan. Returning to Karachi, he sailed 
 for Bandar- Abbas, and came up to Karman. 
 He was a wanderer on the face of the earth; 
 the passion of travel had seized him, and he 
 could find no rest for the sole of his foot. He 
 told me that Indian piece-goods and tea found 
 their way to Herat ; also turmeric and coarse 
 and fine sugar. 
 
 On our first arrival in Rafsinjan we had 
 heard rumours of a bread famine in Karman, of 
 negligence or incompetence on the part of the 
 Prince Governor, and mismanagement on the 
 part of the Vazir. In Karman itself we saw 
 the bakers' shops beset by small crowds, be- 
 tokening some difficulty in getting bread. It 
 would be hard to say what caused the hitch. 
 Rafsinjan had suffered from drought, but the 
 city seemed to be well enough supplied, and 
 perhaps the high prices were due to manipu-
 
 Karman. 217 
 
 lation of the grain market for the benefit of 
 those in power. The day after our arrival the 
 Prince Governor cut off the ears and plucked 
 out the beard of a baker in the bazar. My 
 servants had no difficulty in buying as much 
 bread as we wanted. On the whole, Karman 
 appeared eminently quiet and peaceful after 
 experience of Fars. Here were no tufangchis, 
 but regular soldiers in shabby blue tunics and 
 trousers, with old muzzle-loading muskets and 
 rifles, rusty bayonets, and most imperfect notions 
 of drill. They saluted me whenever I passed, 
 and looked as little unsoldierlike as they could. 
 Poor souls, they get indifferent pay at long 
 intervals, and have to subsist mainly as artisans 
 and hangers-on of the bazaar. I wished to see 
 the artillery, but was told that the arsenal (qur- 
 khana) had been damaged by the rain, and was 
 all in confusion. This was the second time 
 that I had been unable to get into a Persian 
 arsenal. The reason may have been jealousy, 
 or it may have been shame to show an European 
 such poor warlike preparations. It is but jus- 
 tice to the Persians to say that jealousy and 
 exclusiveness towards foreigners are not a 
 marked trait of the national character. 
 
 Of the merchants and trade of Karman I saw
 
 2 1 8 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 little. Rafsinjan produces cotton, which is 
 cultivated with great care ; the field is dug over, 
 then trodden by cattle, and finally the pulve- 
 rized earth is rammed flat with wooden mallets. 
 I did not see much poppy in Rafsinjan. The 
 direct route to Bandar- Abbas seems to be gain- 
 ing favour of late years. In the Karman post- 
 office (where I watched the distribution of 
 letters, and was rather impressed with the busi- 
 ness-like character of the performance) I found 
 a map of this route, but could not make it tally 
 with my information picked up in Sirjan. It 
 is creditable to the Government that the route 
 is quite safe, and perhaps, if its development 
 proceeds, the consequences may be very bene- 
 ficial both to Karman and Bandar- Abbas. By 
 this route come China tea and Manchester 
 piece-goods from India, also Indian spices, and 
 sugar mostly from Mauritius. Compared with 
 this, the trade by the northern routes from 
 Russia is but small. It consists chiefly of 
 khurda-farush or pedlar's wares, as cutlery, 
 candlesticks, tea-cups (made of glass), small 
 mirrors, and things of that sort. Some of the 
 shopkeepers, however, assured me that the best 
 tea came from Astrachan, caravan-borne via 
 Orenburg; if so, it is a marvellous round.
 
 Karman. 219 
 
 Fortunes are to be made by trade in Rafsinjan 
 as elsewhere. In Bahramabad I had heard of 
 a pedlar named Khwaja Ali who from small 
 beginnings had amassed great wealth, without, 
 however, making any change in his humble style 
 of life; marching over the plain, I had crossed 
 kanats which he was making ; and here, in 
 Karman, I found him building a caravansarai. 
 What a contrast to Husain Khan, son of the 
 late magnificent Ismail ! In Karman they told 
 me Husain's profession was mere lutigiri or 
 blackguardism ; he was in arrears with his 
 revenue, and had to mortgage three villages. 
 This caravansarai of Khwaja Ali's is the seventh 
 in the city of Karman. Two of them are called 
 after the Zardashtis and Hindoos respectively. 
 The Zardashtis or Zoroastrians are fire- wor- 
 shippers, called also Gabrs. They have their 
 separate quarter, where the women go about 
 unveiled, with long plaited hair. 
 
 In Karman I made some changes in my 
 establishment. One of my two horses had a 
 frightful sore back ; I sold him and bought a 
 pony and a horse of mature years, of extraor- 
 dinary woebegone and cadaverous appearance, 
 and a fine development of bone. This animal 
 was fondly expected to put on flesh and become
 
 22O Szx Months in Persia. 
 
 creditable under the fostering care of my groom 
 a perfectly worthless youth, whom, neverthe- 
 less, I retained for want of a better. No 
 words can do justice to the bad qualities of 
 Persian servants. They are lazy, thievish, care- 
 less, dirty, without one spark of interest in their 
 work or affection for their master. I remember 
 reading Colonel MacGregor's account of Persian 
 servants, how he tried one, then two together, 
 then three, and always found them useless. I 
 thought the colonel must be in the wrong, but 
 shortly after landing in Persia I began to find him 
 entirely in the right. Let me, however, exempt 
 one of my servants from the imputation of 
 thieving, viz., the lad Husain, whom I picked 
 up in Karman. I had now three servants, a cook, 
 a groom, and Husain for general inefficiency. 
 The Prince Governor had also given me a 
 ghulam, so our caravan now consisted of nine 
 men, five horses, and five mules.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 KARMAN TO YAZD. 
 
 SEVENTY-THREE FARSAKHS: THIRTEEN DAYS. 
 
 FROM Karman to Yazd, one has the choice of 
 two routes. A range of mountains the Kuh 
 Dawiran extends between the two places ; 
 Karman being at one end of the chain, and 
 Yazd at the other. On either side of this 
 central chain is a parallel range ; and the 
 traveller from Karman may follow either the 
 valley on the right side of the central chain, or 
 that on the left. The latter (Rafsinjan) is some- 
 what the larger of the two, is better peopled, 
 has the telegraph, and is the grand highway of 
 commerce. The right-hand valley (Zarand) 
 was that by which I wished to travel; but 
 instead of taking the main road up the centre 
 of the valley, which is level clay and salt, I 
 kept along its northern edge, on the slopes 
 at the foot of the mountains, some few hundred 
 feet higher. These mountains are marked on
 
 222 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the map as Kuh Nugat, but I found no recog- 
 nition of that name in the villages at their 
 feet. The mountains, as usual, have par- 
 ticular names from the villages which they 
 overshadow; and as for the whole range in 
 general, the only name I could discover was the 
 Kuh-i-Hutkan. My purpose was to get behind 
 the range into the reputed "fertile highlands" 
 of Kuhbanan, which I pictured to myself as an 
 extensive, well-cultivated plateau. 
 
 ~L8th April, Sar Asiab, 6 farsakhs ; 7.30 a.m. 
 to 3 p.m. Our first day's march was to Sar 
 Asiab, or Mill-Head. The road passes the 
 western end of the Saidi hills, on a spur of 
 which, a mile to the right and two miles out- 
 side the city, is the tower where the fire-wor- 
 shippers expose their dead (dakhma-i-Gabrhd). 
 Soon after, limestone hills begin to appear on 
 the left, at first in isolated peaks, the largest 
 being the Maiden's Fort (a common name for 
 rock-forts in Persia), a naturally-scarped 
 eminence some 300 feet high, with remains of 
 fortifications on the summit, and traces of a 
 winding path to the top. At ten miles the 
 limestone hills become continuous, and the road 
 ascends between them and the Hutkan range, 
 now drawing nearer on the right. Crossing the 
 long undulations of its foot- slopes, we came at
 
 Sar Asiab. 223 
 
 last in sight of the orchards of Sar Asiab. A 
 noble chinar stands over the village qanat, 
 before the door of the caravansarai, a new stone 
 building, clean and solid, but without a keeper. 
 We preferred to seek shelter in the village, and 
 found good quarters in the kadkhuda' s house. 
 Here, for the first time, I received sursdt or 
 gratuitous purveyance of provisions, much 
 against my will. The ghulam Sayyid, whom the 
 Prince Governor had deputed to accompany me, 
 was a native of Azarbaijan, spoke Persian with 
 a strong Turkish accent, and had a large con- 
 tempt for the people of Karman. Moreover, 
 the Prince Governor had given me a letter in 
 which sursat was distinctly mentioned as my 
 right ; so the hapless kadkhuda of Sar Asiab 
 had to feed me and my people for nothing. Of 
 course he laid the village under contribution. 
 I was slightly unwell (the result of careless 
 eating in Karman), and shirked the question by 
 going to sleep. It was satisfactory, at any rate, 
 that the kadkhuda made no complaint. 
 
 19M April, Khanuk, 6/arsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 2.30 
 p.m. Next day we marched under the Hutkan 
 range, which rose 1500 to 2000 feet above us on 
 our right. The long grey slope at its foot is 
 neither verdant nor well- watered, but mere 
 shelves and ridges of hard clay mixed with
 
 224 Si* Months in Persia. 
 
 stones, and sometimes dotted with camel- thorn ; 
 but in nooks and bays formed by spurs of the 
 hills, or in the mouth of ravines discharging a 
 slender stream, little villages find means to 
 sustain themselves, and make the rocks bright 
 with foliage of fruit-trees and emerald patches 
 of wheat. These are tiny hamlets, sometimes 
 perched up in the rocks ; but on the slope itself 
 stand three larger villages, watered by qanats, 
 between Sar Asiab and Khanuk. We marched 
 through all three, and noticed the new cultiva- 
 tion of the poppy. Then we crossed a little 
 spur of the mountains, and came down on 
 Khanuk. It is a flat-roofed stone-built village, 
 with a ruined mud fort on a mound in the 
 centre, and with fine orchards around. My 
 quarters were under an archway open towards 
 the courtyard where the whole caravan found 
 room. The village was in great distress. 
 Yesterday, after half an hour's rain, a torrent 
 of mud, stones, and water had come down from 
 the mountains, and choked up and abolished 
 the qanat on which the hopes of the harvest 
 depend. The kadkhuda had gone to Karman, 
 to try to induce the Government, which owns 
 three-fourths of the village, to repair the 
 damage. The cost was estimated at 250
 
 Sursdt. 225 
 
 tomans, or nearly 100?. In these circum- 
 stances, it was little wonder that the chief men 
 of the village took occasion to ask me privately 
 whether the sursdt provided for us would be 
 allowed for in the revenue collections. I told 
 them that it was extremely doubtful, and called 
 for an account. The whole bill came to only 
 eight and a half krans (about seven shillings). 
 I paid it, and thought the matter was settled. 
 But in the morning Sayyid Ali and Sayyid 
 ghulam discovered the fact, and began a pretty 
 altercation with the villagers. It is not easy 
 to decide what one should do in such cases. 
 If one were able to protect the people, the 
 simple and obvious course of paying for every- 
 thing might be safely followed ; but the traveller 
 has to pass on, and the villagers are left exposed 
 to the vengeance of petty officers, who consider 
 their authority as insulted by any demand for 
 payment. The chief men were so frightened 
 that they returned the money, which of course 
 I could not think of accepting. After rebuk- 
 ing Sayyid Ali and the ghulam, I settled the 
 controversy by saying that the trifling sum was 
 intended merely as a token of satisfaction and 
 an acknowledgment of hospitality; and so 
 went away, very doubtful whether I had not 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 done more harm than good. Perhaps the 
 sursdt might have been allowed for in the 
 revenue, after all. 
 
 20th April, Zarand, 5 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. to 
 noon. Leaving the village, we crossed the bed 
 of the torrent which had wrought such damage. 
 It came from a gorge two miles above Khanuk, 
 where a little stream is expended in irrigating 
 a little village. The rain on the mountains 
 must have been something like a small water- 
 spout, for the stream came down with abundant 
 mud, and stones weighing half a hundred- 
 weight; it was thirty yards broad and four 
 feet deep where it passed Khanuk, and it 
 descended the slope about two miles before it 
 spread out and lost itself in the stony soil. We 
 were now descending into the plain, which we 
 had seen from Sar Asiab and Khanuk, lying 
 far below us on our left, with green villages 
 scattered at long intervals over the white clay 
 and gleaming salt, swept by whirling columns 
 of dust. Two villages lay at the foot of the 
 slope. We had an invitation to one of them 
 from its owner, Sultan Khan, but it lay a mile 
 out of our way, and as I was somewhat unwell, 
 and impatient to reach Zarand, I went to the 
 other village, and breakfasted there, then
 
 Zarand. 227 
 
 marched down the plain to Zarand, through 
 dust and wind. We found good quarters in 
 the empty house of one Ibrahim Khan. The 
 governor of Zarand came to see me in the 
 evening ; also Sultan Khan, who regretted that 
 I had not called at his A T illage, where he had 
 made preparations for my reception. It was 
 indeed a defect of courtesy, for which I made 
 excuse on the plea of indisposition. Zarand 
 district contains about five-and- twenty villages, 
 whereof fifteen are in the plain, and ten on the 
 long slopes under the Hutkan mountains. The 
 ways and means of Persian irrigation are very 
 well exemplified in this district. The upper- 
 most villages, or rather hamlets, situated in the 
 mouth of clefts and gorges, draw their water 
 from natural springs and brooks; these sink 
 into the stony slope, and are tapped two miles 
 lower down by the qanats of the larger villages 
 below ; finally, filtering through fifteen miles 
 of slow descent, the waters reach the levels of 
 the plain, and feed the qanats of the villages 
 along the main road. Further across the plain 
 there is no water. Under the Dawiran range 
 lies a glittering strip of kavir. A solitary hill 
 breaks the evenness of the plain ; it is about 
 400 feet high, and has a shrine at the top, 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 sacred to one Hayat Bibi, or Lady of Life, of 
 whose history I was not able to discover anything. 
 21si April, Tughraja, 9 farsakhs ; 7.30 a.m. 
 to 6 p.m. I rejoiced to know that our next 
 march would carry us at last into the promised 
 land behind the Hutkan range. Hitherto the 
 mountains had sheltered only isolated villages, 
 wherever a little river-bottom afforded width 
 enough for cultivation ; and if we had pene- 
 trated into this country, we must have carried 
 our provisions with us ; but now we were 
 marching for the " fertile highlands " of Kuh- 
 banan, where is a whole baluk or district with 
 a governor of its own. We reascended the 
 slope, and at sixteen miles reached a hamlet of 
 two houses, where we breakfasted. Then, 
 drawing obliquely nearer to the mountains, we 
 crossed the neck of a long spur which they 
 send out here into the plain. Behind the spur 
 are two small plateaux, one after the other, 
 both empty, but with good grazing for flocks. 
 We could now see the high precipitous peak of 
 the mountain at whose foot lay our halting- 
 place, Tughraja, but we had yet to cross the 
 valleys of three little streams which unite to 
 form a river that descends into the Zarand 
 plain and becomes salt. In these upper valleys
 
 Ttighraja. 229 
 
 their water is but slightly brackish, and it 
 irrigates fair green fields, slopes clad with vine- 
 yards and orchards, and rows of plane-trees 
 and willows by the side of lanes which seemed 
 to me more English than anything I had seen 
 in the East. The last part of the march was a 
 long ascent. We had nearly ceased to believe 
 in the existence of Tughraja, when we crossed 
 the last saddle-back, and beheld an orchard at 
 our feet. It was most picturesquely situated, 
 covering an irregular patch of ground between 
 two hills, and at the confluence of two ravines, 
 so that the trees, overflowing the scanty level 
 plot, hung upon the slopes, and straggled down 
 the ravines, whose upper courses supplied the 
 water-channels that ran sparkling under the 
 green shade. Tughraja itself lay behind a hill 
 on our left, overlooking a long plateau. Evi- 
 dently we were now inside the Hutkan moun- 
 tains, and this plateau must be some thousand 
 feet higher than Zarand plain, while Tughraja 
 village again stood three hundred feet above 
 the plateau. On the farther side of the plateau 
 rose a low range of hills, and over their tops 
 could be seen the dark saw-line of Dawiran. 
 This table-land, thought, I, must be the "fertile 
 highlands" ofKuhbanan; but indeed Kuhbanan
 
 230 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 was a day's inarch distant, and the plateau 
 supports only two small villages on the Tughraja 
 river, which crosses the level space, finds its way 
 through the hills on the farther side, and 
 descends into the Zarand plain, where it waters 
 a few villages before becoming intolerably salt. 
 In Tughraja its water is sweet and beautifully 
 clear ; it fills a qanat that sends little channels 
 all over the village, while the stream itself flows 
 behind the village, under a slope clothed with 
 white-blossoming orchards. At the back of the 
 spacious archway where I lodged was a window 
 overlooking the slope. The sound of the stream 
 lulled me to sleep at night. Tughraja, like all 
 mountain-villages, is built of stone. The houses 
 are in pretty good repair. Walnut and plane 
 and willow and fruit-trees overshadow the stone 
 walls of the lanes. It is a pity only that the 
 stream shrinks almost to nothing in summer. 
 There were complaints of drought, and indeed 
 all Karman suffered pretty severely from 
 drought last year, though less than Fars. Our 
 guide on this march showed me bread made 
 of green herbs, which he said had been the food 
 of the poor people for many months. 
 
 22nd April, Kuhbanan, 7 farsakhs ; 7 a.m. 
 to 4 p.m. Next day we reached the veritable
 
 Kuhbanan. 231 
 
 Kuhbanan. It was by no means the kind of 
 place that I looked for. After a long ascent 
 over stony ridges, between the plateau on the 
 one hand and the central chain of Hutkan on 
 the other, we halted by a very slender spring, 
 and I had full leisure to admire Kuhbanan 
 from a distance of twelve miles, while I was 
 eating my breakfast. It is a plain with an area 
 of perhaps a dozen square miles, backed by a 
 semicircle of hills, and green with orchards and 
 fields, too extensively interspersed with white 
 patches of salt. Five villages stand in the 
 plain, Kuhbanan itself being the chief; they 
 are well watered, and cultivate more poppy than 
 wheat. This crop came into fashion five years 
 ago, and the present year has been singularly 
 favourable to it, rain-water having supplied the 
 place of irrigation. On the edge of the plain 
 we passed a shrine with two magnificent 
 plane-trees ; thence it was an hour's march to 
 Kuhbanan, which lies almost at the foot of the 
 hills. The village is embosomed in mulberry 
 trees, and maintains a small manufacture of 
 silk. The governor came out to meet me a 
 Teheran official, dressed in black, of a spare 
 habit of body, and timid manners ; evidently 
 discontented with his exile in this uncivilized
 
 232 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 place. He gave me good quarters in a vacant 
 house, while the mules and horses were stabled 
 in the neighbouring Husainia. 
 
 23rd April, Halt at Kuhbanan. Here I 
 halted one day, partly because the black mule 
 had fallen lame, and partly for my own sake, to 
 set my health right. I had indulged too freely 
 in the good things of Karman, and had suffered 
 for it ever since. In Kuhbanan I was able to 
 get plenty of excellent milk, and by making 
 that my sole diet for two days, and taking also 
 a little medicine, I got over my difficulties 
 satisfactorily. Kuhbanan itself presents few 
 attractions. It has, however, a name in local 
 history. When the Afghans, under Ashraf and 
 Mahmud, marched from Karman on Isfahan, 1 a 
 portion of their army seems to have taken this 
 route. One Latif Shah was then governor of 
 Kuhbanan; him they slew, and sacked the 
 district. On a spur of the hill above Kuh- 
 banan are the remains of an old fort, and a 
 little lower, a mile from the village, stands a 
 platform of hewn stone with two low towers 
 above it, called the throne of Latif Shah. 
 More interesting to an Anglo-Indian are the 
 beds of kankar or nodular limestone which are 
 1 In 1721.
 
 Deh AH. 233 
 
 found in the middle of the plain. The people 
 say that it forms the substratum of the soil 
 everywhere, and prevents the growth of good 
 wheat. It is evident, anyhow, that wheat has 
 been almost superseded by poppy. The Kuh- 
 banan people are in a lamentable state of 
 ignorance. They have never heard of England, 
 and consider Russia as the Great Power of the 
 universe. 
 
 24th April, Deh Ali, 5/arsakhs ; 7.30 a.m. to 
 3 p.m. We passed several mills in beginning 
 our march next day, and others were visible 
 higher up the mountain-side. Leaving these 
 on the right, we ascended among low hills and 
 crossed a little watershed at the fifth mile. 
 Below this lay a tract of small steep hills and 
 tiny streams, giving water to half a dozen petty 
 hamlets scattered along or near the road at inter- 
 vals of two to four miles. In contrast with these, 
 the mountain-village of Bidun hung on the side 
 of a mountain five miles on our right. Under the 
 crest were still some streaks of snow, and the 
 green orchards of Bidun (about 7000 feet high) 
 looked like a cool and happy nest where the sum- 
 mer heat, that dries the poor brooks among which 
 we were wandering, could never venture to come. 
 We crossed another ridge, and came in sight of
 
 234 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 Deh All. It stands at the right or northern 
 end of a plain some ten miles long. At the 
 southern end is a village watered by a river, 
 which descends from Kuhbanan and subsides 
 here in salt. Half-way between this village and 
 Deh Ali, a hamlet called Shuru or Brackish 
 struggles to maintain itself on the edge of a 
 white patch of kavir. Deh Ali is more fortunate 
 in having a qanat, fed from a mountain twelve 
 miles distant, on whose side can be seen the 
 village of Bazhgun, pleasantly situated and 
 green enough, but they say its water supply is 
 uncertain. The whole male population of Deh 
 Ali turned out to see the stranger. I was re- 
 ceived outside the village by a crowd of fifty or 
 sixty people, who returned my salutation, and 
 bowed as I passed. They had had word of my 
 coming from the governor of Kuhbanan. The 
 kadkhuda's house afforded us very fair 
 quarters, opening on a court-yard with vines 
 and a tank. My room was a spacious archway, 
 at the back of which flowed a stream from the 
 qanat, somewhat brackish, but cold and full of 
 small fish. Our drinking-water came from an 
 abambar. Deh Ali is within four marches of 
 Yazd, and its people seem to have picked up some 
 elementary geographical information from the
 
 Laying in Stores. 235 
 
 traders of that city. They had heard of Bom- 
 bay. England they knew under the name of 
 London ; and they asked me whether London 
 did not pay tribute to Rus and Rum, evidently 
 regarding Russia, Turkey, and Persia as the 
 three empires which divided the world between 
 them. They have very respectable sheep in 
 Deh Ali, which are nourished chiefly on wild 
 rhubarb. The last two miles of our road were 
 covered with wild rhubarb, as far as one could 
 see on either hand. Persian rhubarb might take 
 the place of Turkey rhubarb, if any care were 
 given to its cultivation. But the people leave 
 rhubarb alone, and eat the bulb of the hyacinth. 
 This flower brightens these low hills with many 
 a pretty spire of faint pink and white bells. 
 
 25^ April, Shaitur, 2 farsakhs. Our next 
 march, to Shaitur, was a short one. We were 
 to lay in provisions at a village half-way, 
 whither Sayyid ghulam had gone before day- 
 break, with the emissary of the governor of 
 Kuhbanan. When we arrived, however, about 
 eight o'clock in the morning, we found nothing 
 had been done. The whole male population 
 had fled at the sight of Sayyid' s hat with its 
 official badge ; all doors were shut, and hammer- 
 ing at them evoked only feminine whisperings.
 
 236 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 boy Husain, being helped up a wall, 
 descended into an empty court-yard, and let us 
 in. Sayyid Ali's persuasive powers soon 
 tempted forth three or four women, with whom 
 he entered into negotiations, while I admired 
 the qanat-stream flowing through the court- 
 yard, and the small tank swarming with small 
 fish. These excellent women presently baked 
 us twenty-five pounds of very good bread, like 
 ship's biscuit, and brought me fresh milk, more 
 than I could drink. Meanwhile Sayyid and the 
 Kuhbanan man had been making inquisition for 
 barley on behalf of the cattle, and found wheat 
 instead, some forty pounds, which we loaded 
 up. For none of these things was payment 
 asked or offered ; nobody seemed to suffer 
 iinder any sense of injustice, and I thought it 
 the best plan, on the whole, to let the two 
 officials and the villagers arrange the matter 
 between themselves. We did, however, pay for 
 three fowls produced by three old women. In 
 this unwonted scene of plenty, Zaki Beg, I 
 regret to say, was tempted to depart from his 
 integrity, and forcibly abstracted a fowl from an 
 ancient dame. To judge from the appearance 
 of the bird, it might have been her playmate 
 in the days of her infancy ; at least, she valued
 
 Shaitur. 23 7 
 
 it as an old friend, and pursued the robber with 
 outcries. Zaki Beg was condemned to pay, and 
 retired shamefacedly. By this time the men of 
 the village, having first sent in single scouts to 
 report on our proceedings, and having found 
 them to be quite according to law and order, 
 came dropping in by twos and threes, and were 
 deservedly chaffed. We parted with them on 
 good terms, and marched to Shaitur against a 
 high wind, like a bleak March wind at home. 
 Finding no resting-place in the village, we went 
 to the fort of the chief man of these parts. He 
 himself was at Bafk ; but we were admitted, and 
 made ourselves comfortable enough. In the 
 afternoon I walked to the top of a small hill, 
 and surveyed the long table-land with its north- 
 eastern side bounded by dark mountains, and 
 its south-western edge rising against the horizon, 
 and there, apparently, dropping down to the 
 Zarand plain. A dozen little villages occupy 
 its centre, between Deh Ali and Shaitur ; they 
 are watered by brackish qanats, and shaded by 
 sinjad trees, 2 a kind of willow with a strong 
 sickly scent, and a fruit like small dates. The 
 trees were now in flower, and their heavy per- 
 
 2 Possibly this is the tree called ailantus. I found 
 nobody in Persia who could tell me its European name.
 
 238 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 fume could easily be detected at the distance of 
 a mile. The brackish water, which the sinjad 
 loves, prohibits the cultivation of poppy. 
 Madder (runask) takes its place. It is culti- 
 vated with much care, and is exported to 
 Bombay, and some to Khurasan. In a hamlet 
 called Deh Kuchak, near Shaitur, I inspected 
 the madder fields, and admired their neatness. 
 Two men came out and invited me into the 
 village, where I enjoyed a qalyan and a conver- 
 sation with the elders. Was I a Russian ? they 
 asked ; but one of the company knew the name 
 of Inglis, having travelled to Mecca via Bandar- 
 Abbas in an English steamer. He had been 
 much impressed by the forts of Aden. I was 
 also questioned as to the relations of the 
 Persian Government towards England, Russia, 
 and Turkey. One man asked whether the 
 Shah's new bride (of whom I had never heard 
 before) was not an English princess. After 
 half an hour's talk, we exchanged a friendly 
 adieu, and I walked back to Shaitur, having 
 discovered, among other things, that a Farangi 
 had passed that way six years ago, taking notes. 
 26th April, Bafk, 10 farsakhs ; 6 a.m. to 
 6 p.m. We had ten farsakhs between us and 
 Bafk, with no intermediate halting-place. From
 
 Descent to Bafk. 239 
 
 our high table-land, green enough to support 
 sheep, we were to descend through the Hutkan 
 range into the Zarand plain again, but here far 
 north of Zarand, where the plain is mere barren- 
 ness, stones and sand. As we filed through 
 the little street of Shaitur, we saw the table- 
 land rising before us to the south-west in a 
 gradual slope, which marked a long line against 
 the horizon at eight miles ; and beyond this line, 
 as we knew, began the descent towards Bafk, 
 but whether abrupt or gradual we could not tell. 
 When we reached the summit of the ascent, a 
 wonderful tangle of hills appeared below, with 
 the road winding round their bases and among 
 their ravines as best it could, now following a 
 dry torrent-bed, now taking advantage of a 
 broken ledge of rock along some steep hill-side. 
 But what caught the eye at once, and diverted 
 it from this maze of strangely shaped and 
 coloured peaks, was the grand gateway in which 
 the pass terminated. It stood out clear against 
 the morning sky, a great gap in a wall of rock, 
 through which could be seen, much farther 
 away than we desired, the broad naked plain of 
 Bafk, even then beginning to cover itself with 
 the haze of heat, though the day was still so 
 young. We soon lost sight of the plain, but
 
 240 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the sunlit summits of the great portal remained 
 in view throughout all the windings of the road. 
 Our devious descent continued for an hour, 
 when we came on a slender rill, of course 
 brackish, and presently found it gather force 
 enough to flood half a dozen tiny terrace-fields, 
 each of a few square yards, and to water the 
 sheep of three or four pastoral houses, or rather 
 holes in the rock, where the women-folk were 
 making butter, while the men had driven the 
 flocks afield. Though much alarmed at my 
 portentous presence, nevertheless the oldest 
 female, risking life and what else she had most 
 precious, sought to propitiate the strangers 
 with offering (duly paid for) of milk and curds, 
 fire for the necessary qalyan, and information 
 regarding the road. Under a tamarisk-tree 
 sad sign of our descent towards a warmer clime 
 we made a frugal breakfast, and resumed our 
 way to the gates, now only three miles distant. 
 They did not belie their promise of grandeur. 
 They are 400 feet high, the first 100 feet being 
 a steep slope, the rest sheer wall of rock ; their 
 depth is a quarter of a mile, their breadth 200 
 yards. Nowhere have I seen cliffs so sheer and 
 plumb ; they are a veritable wall, and in parts 
 bore all the whiteness of a plastered wall, de-
 
 Descent to Bafk. 241 
 
 faced by weather-stains. But a less pleasing 
 sight was the shimmering plain below, with its 
 six-and-twenty hot miles to be traversed some- 
 how between noon and even. At nine miles is 
 a small water-tank. No other object marks the 
 level waste till the eye rests on the far moun- 
 tain-chain that limits the plain on the west. As 
 we left the gates, my men discovered a number 
 of flourishing villages not more than ten miles 
 on our left front. There were houses and palm- 
 groves and the verdure of fields, plain enough ; 
 only, as my maps marked nought but wilder- 
 ness, T was fain to doubt my eyes ; and indeed 
 the whole thing proved to be mirage, conjured 
 up from the dry bed and sandy sides of the 
 torrent which discharges itself through the 
 cleft from which we had just emerged. Before 
 we reached the tank, the wind rose and lifted 
 the sand, which came against my pith hat like 
 rattling hail, while every gust threatened to 
 whirl that precious article, not to be replaced, 
 over the infinite leagues of the plain, beyond the 
 reach of footman or horse. But patience carries 
 one through most things, and as the sun was 
 almost sinking we crossed a low sandy ridge, and 
 attained the outskirts of Bafk. There was some 
 difficulty in finding a house. The first we tried 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 was a dismal ruin ; and while my people were 
 nunting for another, I accepted an invitation to 
 go and see the governor, who was enjoying tea 
 and a pipe in his court-yard, in the presence of a 
 few friends, a fountain, and some mulberry trees. 
 At my appearance, dismay and doubt depicted 
 themselves on the general countenance ; nor do 
 I wonder, for a more grimy and travel- stained 
 individual probably never entered those pre- 
 cincts before. I advanced nevertheless, and sat 
 down beside the Khan, took the proffered qalyan 
 and tea-cup, and began conversation. A grave, 
 black-bearded personage asked me whether I 
 had seen that famous fountain in London which 
 transmutes copper coins into gold. It was dis- 
 covered accidentally some time ago, by a shep- 
 herd who drank water from it in the hollow of 
 his hand, having a copper ring on his finger, 
 which ring, when he next looked at it, he found 
 changed to pure gold. The fountain is now the 
 property of the Government, and the source of 
 London's wealth. I informed him that I had 
 not seen this remarkable natural phenomenon, 
 and indeed was not aware of its existence. 
 Talking of local geography, I heard great 
 praises of a place called Gudrun, half-way be- 
 tween Bafk and the Zarand district, on a table-
 
 Bafk. 243 
 
 land between the Hutkan mountains and a short 
 parallel range. The specialty of Gudrun is that 
 it unites the products of a warm and a cold 
 climate; chinars and walnuts with pomegra- 
 nates, oranges, and lemons. Having learned 
 these and other things, I went to the quarters 
 in which my people were now installed, and had 
 a dinner of bread and cocoa, with good fresh 
 milk. My apartment was a great domed room, 
 raised above the court-yard, and entirely open 
 in that direction. Lying on my bed, I could 
 look up to the stars, and watch Orion moving 
 slowly past the arch of the wide portal. A 
 muazzin was calling with loud voice through 
 the stillness of the night; not content with 
 glorifying God, he took to chanting prayers at 
 great length. There is nothing like this sound 
 for reminding the European traveller that he is 
 an alien in an eastern land. I lay and listened, 
 and looked at the stars. 
 
 27th April, halt at BafJc. We halted here a 
 day to lay in stores. The Khan invited me to 
 a light early meal of mulberries and sweetmeats 
 in a garden, and called upon me in the evening. 
 He had been only a year in Bafk, and gave no 
 very good account of the place. It is a town 
 of some 3000 inhabitants, planted in the midst 
 
 R 2
 
 244 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 of a wide desolation. Ancient qanats supply 
 it with brackish water, and it abounds in mul- 
 berry, pomegranate, and palm-trees, which fill 
 the gardens that extend two miles to the north 
 of the town and almost connect it with two 
 little outlying hamlets. As we came over the 
 low sandy ridge yesterday, the green gardens 
 of Bafk, its wind-towers, and the domes of two 
 pleasure-houses of past days, made a brave 
 show of stateliness and prosperity. But Bafk 
 is poverty-stricken and stagnant. No trade 
 has taken root here, the town lies off the main 
 road, and the dates which "were its pride have 
 been smitten by cold for the last four years. 
 It is, however, very healthy. A doctor tried 
 to get up a practice here, but had to give up in 
 despair and go to Gudrun. An old mosque in 
 the centre of the town deserves mention. It 
 is built round a court-yard into which you 
 descend by steps; the material is stone, and 
 the narrow heavy solid style of the work 
 bespeaks a considerable antiquity. Architec- 
 tural grace there is none. 
 
 28th April, Khan-i-Panj, 5 farsakhs ; 7.30 
 to 11.50 a.m. Bafk is not a good place to get 
 away from. If your destination be Karman, you 
 have to cross nine farsakhs of desert to Gud-
 
 Kavir again. 245 
 
 run, with uncertainty of finding stores when 
 you get there; if Yazd, there are eighteen 
 farsakhs between you and Fahraj the nearest 
 habitation of man in this direction. In all 
 other directions the desert spaces are as broad, 
 or broader, and the villages ultimately to be 
 arrived at are still more incapable of provision- 
 ing a caravan. The point we were aiming at 
 was Yazd. We took two days' provisions, and 
 marched for Khan-i-Panj, over two miles of 
 drifting sand, where the road is marked out by 
 pillars, then over hard clay, and thence into 
 the kavir. This kavir comes down the whole 
 way from Zarand. I had seen it from Khanuk, 
 a narrow strip under the Dawiran range ; but 
 it receives great accessions from the two rivers 
 we had crossed in the hills on our way to 
 Kuhbanan. We found it six miles broad, a 
 perfectly level tract of salt-encrusted clay, 
 dotted with thistles here and there, that looked 
 as large as gooseberry bushes. In the middle 
 is a salt stream, the unabsorbed remnant of the 
 two united rivers; we crossed it by a ford 
 paved with stones, all other places being im- 
 passable quagmire, as the guide said. Beyond 
 the kavir, the plain grows hard and stony, and 
 slopes upwards to Khan-i-Panj. Half-way are
 
 246 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 the ruins of a village which has succumbed to 
 drought and isolation. The tamarisk trees 
 watered by the old qanat still form a patch of 
 green shade in the arid landscape. Khan-i- 
 Panj consists of a stable and some small out- 
 houses, little vaulted chambers, more like hen- 
 houses than human habitations. 2 Hard by are 
 two water-tanks of foul and brackish water, 
 greasy, slightly sickening, overlying a deposit 
 of stinking black mud. Sand-hills close the 
 prospect on one side, kavir on the other; 
 beyond the white salt bed of the river, the 
 Hutkan range can be dimly seen through the 
 warm air. We halted, put the animals under 
 shelter, and disposed ourselves among the huts, 
 seeking rest till the evening. Outside, the 
 furious wind, which blows all day throughout 
 the spring and summer, howled at its sweet 
 will over salt and sand, and whirled about the 
 straw left by the last caravan which had visited 
 the place; for Khan-i-Panj is a mere shelter- 
 house without inhabitants, and indeed it was 
 
 2 There were workmen at the place a few days before 
 making bricks and repairs. Sayyid Ali, searching for 
 quarters, found none better than the brick-kiln, where he 
 slept serenely. I read " Paradise Lost " till I should fall 
 asleep, but Satan held me awake.
 
 A Night March. 247 
 
 only by chance that we found a few sticks of 
 fuel wherewith to cook our dinner. Towards 
 evening, as the wind fell, we crept forth; it 
 became possible to wash ; and the sweet hour 
 of dinner arrived for beasts and men. 
 
 28th April, near Chah-Kavar, 6 /arsakhs ; 
 6.30 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. on 29th. An hour before 
 sunset we were on the march again. Crossing 
 the low sandy hills, we advanced into the 
 desert and the shades of night, over a stony 
 plain broken by long gentle waves, and bounded 
 by ghostly mountain-shapes far away on either 
 hand, half seen or guessed at in the uncertain 
 light. We had coolness and calm, and the 
 quiet light of the stars; it was pleasanter 
 marching than under the midday sun, in the 
 driving dust and gravel. " See," said one of 
 the muleteers, " how the property marches in 
 the cool night ; " and indeed it was so. The 
 mules stepped out at a good four miles the 
 hour, to the cheerful clangour of their bells. 
 These animals, when not addressed individually, 
 are known by the generic name of " property " 
 (mdl), though each has its own distinctive 
 name, 3 and, for that matter, its peculiar temper 
 
 3 The five mules of my first caravan were named Laili, 
 Orange, Goldie, Brownie, and Blackie; four of the six mules
 
 248 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 also. The bells rung by Quasimodo in Notre 
 Dame (I had the book with me, a loan from 
 Dr. Odling) are likened to un bruyant attelage 
 de mules espagnoles, pique pa et Id par les 
 apostrophes du sagal;* and a train of Persian 
 mules in rapid motion is lively enough, as each 
 animal lowers its head to its work and steps 
 out with short quick paces, lifting bright hoof 
 after hoof (the Persian shoe covers nearly all 
 the foot), and making music wherever it goes, 
 while the muleteers praise the foremost and 
 chide those which lag. Night gradually settled 
 down over the wild prospect. We talked of 
 spirits that haunt the desert. Hafiz warns the 
 traveller against the ghoul of the wilderness, 
 that leads him astray by the mirage. " I was 
 riding once," said my ghulam Sayyid, " with 
 the Shadow of the Sultan across the desert 
 between Isfahan and Yazd, by night. We saw 
 an unknown fire in the darkness on our left. 
 The prince bade me and another ride to it and 
 
 of my second were Sandal, Caprice (ndzddr), Ringlets 
 (Kdkuli), and Leader. 
 
 4 This word sagal may perhaps be derived through the 
 Moors from the Arabic thaqqdl, meaning a carrier. The 
 root is the same as the Hebrew shekel, which literally 
 means a weight.
 
 Ghost-stories. 249 
 
 report. We galloped off, and galloped till 
 morning, when the fire disappeared, and we 
 had got never the nearer to it. We had lost 
 our way, and regained the camp with difficulty 
 in the evening." " Certainly," said Sayyid Ali, 
 " there be evil spirits (arwdh-i-khaMs) . When 
 I was in India, I lodged once in a house 
 opposite to a graveyard. I was told that the 
 spirits of the dead moved among the graves 
 by night, with lights ; but I did not believe 
 such stories. One night I was coming home 
 through the graveyard, when I saw a light 
 hovering among the tombs. Had there been a 
 man carrying it, I must have seen him; but 
 there was no man, it was an evil spirit. I was 
 so frightened that I do not remember how I 
 got home." At this conjuncture, a flash 
 appeared, or seemed to appear, for a moment, 
 in the darkness before us. " That's a shot," 
 said Zaki Beg; " I heard the report." I had 
 heard nothing, and believed the flash to be 
 simply fire struck by the heel of the leading 
 mule. But a few minutes later, an indefinite 
 black mass was seen to occupy the road ; we 
 closed up, marched on ; and out of the dark- 
 ness, with silent steps, came the gaunt figures 
 of camels. It was a caravan carrying sugar
 
 250 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 and cloth from Yazd. We gave the men 
 greeting, and passed by. They had heard our 
 hoofs from afar, and had made a demonstration 
 to show that they were armed and alert. Left 
 alone with the desert, we steered our course 
 towards a pyramidal mountain, a blot of deeper 
 blackness on the dark horizon, assuming shape 
 and sharper outlines as we drew nearer, till by 
 midnight it was two miles on our left, and our 
 guide bade us mark the cistern and shelter- 
 house of Tabar. The ruins of the village stand 
 at the foot of the hill ; it succumbed in its 
 struggle with the desert twenty years ago. Its 
 resources were no greater than a spring of 
 brackish water, and the tiny colony was unable 
 to make head at once against isolation, drought, 
 and the raids of Biluchis. This name we heard 
 here for the first time ; it is a word of fear to 
 the people of these parts. The Biluchis, they 
 say, come on their camels, thirty farsakhs in a 
 night ; they drink of this spring, and of other 
 springs, salt and sweet, known to them among 
 the mountains; and here, by the foot of this 
 hill, they lie in wait for caravans, and do ravish 
 the same when they get them into their net. 
 Sleepiness is a sovereign balm against idle 
 fears. We heard the dreadful words of our
 
 Lost. 251 
 
 guide, and regarded them not, but looked on 
 the shadowy mountain, as in a land of dreams, 
 and rode on. We followed less the dim- 
 descried road than a second and smaller peak 
 which now arose as our landmark from afar. 
 An hour's marching and fighting against sleep 
 brought us under this beacon, an abrupt mass 
 of rock rising over a river-bed (salt, of course) 
 into which the road dips and disappears. At 
 this interesting stage in the night's proceedings, 
 our guide lost his way. We wandered up and 
 down the river-bed for half an hour, then 
 climbed the right bank, and entered a dolorous 
 region of ridges, each directed towards the pole 
 star, and leading nowhere. Dim sierras seemed 
 to fence us round in the distance. Our guide, 
 who had talked largely of his minute acquaint- 
 ance with the road, which he had travelled 
 twenty times (in his imagination), found no 
 better counsel for us than to unpack and go to 
 sleep, which we did. Sayyid Ali proposed tea 
 and a qalyan; but I was asleep before these 
 luxuries were ready. The night air was still 
 and balmy ; but the morning would have frozen 
 water, had there been any to freeze. A few 
 camel-thorn bushes afforded fuel for the 
 servants and muleteers.
 
 252 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 29th April, Fahraj, 7 farsakhs ; 6 a.m. to 
 3 p.m. By daylight we were astir, the guide 
 cast about and recovered the road, and in an 
 hour we reached the caravansarai of Chah- 
 Kavar. This stands near the bed of the river, 
 with nothing but bare stony ridges and dry rocky 
 hills all around ; it is a large and well-built 
 caravansarai, with a well of brackish water, 
 but quite solitary and untenanted. A man and 
 a child met us as we passed the door; they 
 were migrating to Bafk, and hoped to arrive 
 there in the evening. The child walked all it 
 could, and was carried the rest of the way on 
 its father's back, with the few pounds of bread 
 that were the sole provision of them both. We 
 had now to cross the Dawiran range, and 
 descend into the plain of Yazd. But Dawiran 
 in these northerly regions sinks into a slender 
 system of limestone hills, and the pass through 
 which we came was only a break in the chain, 
 tr aver sable in an hour. Near the summit is 
 an open abambar, with dirty but drinkable 
 water. Here we breakfasted; then made our 
 way between dry limestone peaks, and beheld a 
 wonder, where we looked for none. Through 
 a gap in the line of hills on our left, we became 
 aware of a cloud-like whiteness hanging over a
 
 Fahraj. 253 
 
 wide and hazy plain, with some indistinct 
 shapes of blackness in the background. It 
 was like the discovery of a new country, or a 
 scene from fairy lands forlorn ; so lofty seemed 
 these phantom mountain-shapes, so cloud-like 
 their snows, so remote seemed the plain, so far 
 below us, with its paths and habitations of 
 men, if it had any, all dissolved away and lost 
 in the silvery mirage. Such was our first view 
 of Shirkuh ; I did not think then that I should 
 reach the edge of those snows, and explore the 
 recesses of the hills. Our present business 
 was to reach Fahraj, distant now some fifteen 
 miles, while Shirkuh was a good five-and-thirty 
 miles on our left. To us looking across the 
 sandy plain of Yazd, into which we were now 
 decending, the mulberry-groves of Fahraj 
 danced in the warm air, and seemed an 
 island of verdure set in glassy summer seas. 
 Four plodding hours carried us to that 
 welcome shade. As we drew near to the 
 village, I remembered those lines quoted by 
 Lamb from Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet to 
 sleep : 
 
 Take thou of me sweet pillow, sweetest bed, 
 A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light, 
 A rosy garland, and a weary head,
 
 254 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 and thought to myself, " Bed, pillow, and 
 weariness I can guarantee ; but I wonder what 
 sort of mud quarters I shall get in place of 
 that ideal chamber ?" As it happened, however, 
 Sayyid Ali's social accomplishments realized 
 the whole thing to the letter. He fraternized 
 at once with the owner of the first house to 
 which we rode a mullah of hospitable dis- 
 position and not uncultivated mind; I entered 
 into a spacious court-yard shaded by mulberry 
 trees, with a qanat stream behind it, and a 
 good room at one side. The women cleared 
 and swept the room, hoping that I should find 
 it comfortable, and pointing out that the little 
 things they left in the wall-niches (tdqchas) 
 would probably not be in my way. By this 
 time the mules were unloaded, arrangements 
 had been made for their feeding and ours ; I un- 
 packed my last small bottle of that dark Karman 
 wine, drank it with satisfaction, shut the door, 
 thereby excluding noise and light, and went to 
 sleep without wreathing my head with the 
 roses which the worthy mullah had placed on 
 the table. It was almost sunset before I awoke 
 and heard Sayyid AH discoursing to the small 
 boys of Fahraj, who had assembled to see his 
 monster. " Yes," said he, " you shall see now,
 
 Fahraj. 255 
 
 I will go in and wake him." I came out and 
 caused an instantaneous dispersion of the as- 
 sembly, but they came back and peeped round 
 corners as long as there was any light. Their 
 scrutiny, however, was not nearly so trying as 
 that which I had lately endured in Bafk, where 
 the women of the place ascended their house- 
 tops, and looked down on me from a rent in the 
 domed roof of my chamber, whispering and gig- 
 gling so persistently as to keep me in constant 
 suspicion that my travel-worn garments must 
 have given way in some unseen quarter. 
 
 Fahraj is beautifully shaded by mulberry 
 trees, and its qanat, when we saw it, was full 
 of cold snow-water from Shirkuh. The towers 
 of Yazd, seventeen miles distant, can be seen 
 from a slender minaret of mud, which I was 
 inveigled into ascending, and speedily descended, 
 finding that the frail structure could be con- 
 templated with much greater peace of mind 
 from below. 
 
 The distance between Bafk and Fahraj is 
 eighteen farsakhs, but only some sixty miles. 
 We marched it in thirty-one hours, including 
 seven hours' halt at Khan-i-Panj, and four 
 hours' enforced halt in the desert.
 
 256 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 YAZD. 
 
 30xH APRIL TO GTH MAT. 
 
 30th April,Yazd, 5farsakhs ; 11.30 a.m. to 4<p.m. 
 After a fortnight's marching over waste 
 places, from tiny village to village, where the 
 eternal question is Can we get straw and barley 
 for the beasts, and bread for ourselves ? there 
 hangs a glorious halo of expectancy over the day 
 which shall fairly land one in a great city with 
 a well-stocked bazaar, and in quarters more 
 commodious than a peasant's hut, or the four 
 bare walls of some mud fort. Sayyid Ali, in 
 particular, had lofty hopes of our reception in 
 Yazd. Before leaving Shiraz he had written a 
 letter to the Hakimbashi or Court Physician of 
 the Zill us Sultan in Isfahan, whom he knew 
 already through the medium of the Farhang 
 newspaper, edited by the Hakimbashi, and con- 
 tributed to by Sayyid Ali, who wrote letters for
 
 Yazd. 257 
 
 it from India upon things in general. The 
 Hakimbashi replied by a letter to Karman, 
 enclosing a firman from the Zill us Sultan for 
 my honourable passage through his dominions, 
 whereof Yazd is a part. We received this letter 
 in Karman, to Sayyid Ali's great delight ; and 
 before leaving Fahraj, I despatched the ghulam 
 Sayyid to show these credentials to the gover- 
 nor of Yazd, and apprise him of my coming. 
 As we drew near Yazd, and entered the maze 
 of sand-drifts which extend for two miles south 
 of the city, Sayyid Ali's face assumed an 
 expression of hope deferred, which was amusing 
 enough. I did not care much, for my own 
 part, whether the governor gave us quarters or 
 left us to find them in a caravansarai. But as 
 we drew near the suburbs, a crowd of horse- 
 men broke upon us from behind the sand-hills 
 on our left, and presently the miraculous ap- 
 parition of a chariot descended from the sandy 
 heights, and crossed our path. Sayyid Ali's 
 face brightened. This was the expected istiqbal 
 or escort of welcome. It was calculated to 
 put one's modesty to the blush, my caravan was 
 so humble, so travel-worn; I was riding the 
 pony I had bought in Karman, a good little 
 animal, but horribly out of condition ; Sayyid 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 Ali was mounted on my old original grey horse 
 of Shiraz, a beast remarkable for perpetual 
 mange, and a fixed resolution not to fatten ; 
 while the bay Karman horse, having contracted 
 a sore back, was led along triumphantly as a 
 specimen of a walking skeleton. Zaki Beg 
 enhanced the awe-inspiring grandeur of my 
 train by the reverend aspect of his white steed, 
 and the tattered antiquity of his garments. 
 We were nevertheless received with immense 
 deference. I took my seat in the carriage, and 
 witnessed marvels of charioteering over water- 
 courses and through the narrow bazaars of the 
 city. We were conducted to the fort, where 
 excellent quarters were assigned us in the 
 Diwankhana or Government House. I had two 
 large rooms, well carpeted, furnished with 
 tables, chairs, and sofas, and looking out on a 
 court-yard with trees and a tank of clear water. 
 Tea andcoffee were ready, and two huge trays 
 of sweetmeats (for which Yazd is famed) were 
 placed on the floor. Presently the Khan came 
 to see me. He is the governor's brother, a slim 
 youth with good features and an agreeable 
 manner; the governor himself was absent in 
 Isfahan. We became great friends during my 
 stay in Yazd. Every morning and evening the
 
 Yazd. 259 
 
 Khan came to see me, and we talked of all ima- 
 ginable subjects over our tea and pipes. He 
 was too young to care much about such serious 
 topics as government or politics, but would 
 listen with rapt attention to descriptions of the 
 wonders of London, especially the Crystal 
 Palace. His ignorance was sometimes amus- 
 ing ; for instance, when I showed him my maps, 
 and pointed out Yazd, he was quite disappointed 
 to see only a black spot instead of a bird's-eye 
 photograph of the city of Yazd, which he had 
 expected ; and gravely suggested that I should 
 have the map amended to suit his idea. On the 
 third morning after my arrival, the Khan took 
 me with him to a garden outside the city, where 
 I saw Persian roses in full bloom along the 
 banks of a watercourse lined with tiles and filled 
 from a tank into which the water came tum- 
 bling over a little waterfall. "We sat under the 
 dome of the garden-house, and looked with 
 pleasure at the pretty picture. This delight in 
 gardens is an agreeable trait in the Persian 
 character. A man will spend his money in 
 making a garden that can never repay him, 
 simply for the sake of having a place where he 
 can sit in the mornings and evenings, smoke 
 his qalyan and sip his tea, and enjoy the con- 
 
 s 2
 
 260 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 versation of his friends beside a runnel of clear 
 water, under the shade of trees, and within the 
 sight and scent of flowers. Yet Persian flower- 
 gardening is by no means adequate to the capa- 
 bilities of the country. The principal flower is 
 the rose, and it is little better than a dog- 
 rose, though very sweet, and lovely to behold 
 in its luxuriant plentifulness. A few days 
 later, we spent a whole day in a larger garden 
 at a greater distance from the city. The 
 garden-house here is on a magnificent scale, but 
 unfinished ; the owner, late governor of Yazd, 
 has been transferred to Khorasan, and his 
 property in Yazd suffers from the absence of 
 its master. A brick-lined tank, forty yards 
 long by seven broad, occupies the centre of the 
 garden. At the time of our visit, the rose-trees 
 which border it were in full bloom, and two 
 large bushes stood at its head, fragrant masses 
 of white blossom. The pomegranate also was 
 in flower. But the beauty of the garden was 
 marred by a furious wind which arose in the 
 evening, filling the air with dust, and over- 
 turning the tea-service which had been set 
 beside the water. We were forced to retreat 
 into an upper room and to shut the windows. 
 The poor Khan, who was tormented with a grain 
 of dust in his sole remaining eye (he had lost
 
 Yazd. 261 
 
 the other by accident while a boy), complained 
 lamentably of this undesirable change. " The 
 evening," said he, " ought to be the best time 
 of the day in a garden, and now the evening 
 has been spoiled. I had only one eye, and of 
 course a grain of dust must get into it. This 
 precious place, Yazd, is always full of wind and 
 dust. They're catching it pretty hot in the 
 city just now, I'll be bound." I consoled him 
 as best I could, and gradually his eye grew 
 better, the wind moderated, and we drove home 
 in the dusk. 
 
 Speaking of the Khan, I ought to mention 
 also his two big dogs. These are the progeny 
 of a pair of mastiffs imported by the Zill us 
 Sultan. They were nearly full-grown when I 
 saw them, and seemed to me the largest dogs I 
 had ever seen. No care having been taken with 
 their education, they ran wild, fleeing from the 
 approach of man. The Khan told me with 
 pride that he had seen them pull down and kill 
 a cow, an ass, and even a mule. Some day, I 
 expect, they will pull down a man in open 
 bazaar. 
 
 Yazd is a great trading mart. I saw many 
 of its merchants, and found them intelligent, 
 liberal, and anxious to hear about India and 
 Indian trade. Haji Muhammad Taki, an old
 
 262 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 man of spare figure, and with that patriarchal 
 cast of countenance which one sees sometimes 
 in the East, told me with pride that he had 
 lately given a bill of exchange on New York. 
 He wished to know the cost of a railway from 
 Yazd to Isfahan, and how much a luggage-train 
 could carry. I estimated the cost for him at 
 5000Z. a mile, and the freight of a train at 350 
 tons, or 2100 mule-loads. These figures filled 
 him with dismay. He seemed to have been 
 cherishing some faint sort of hope that a com- 
 pany of Yazd merchants, aided by the Govern- 
 ment, might do something towards a railway to 
 Isfahan. At the time of General Goldsmid's 
 visit, ten years before, Haji Muhammad Taki 
 had expressed similar hopes regarding the tele- 
 graph. Since then, the Government has made 
 the telegraph, and the Yazd merchants use it 
 much and value it highly ; but the railway will 
 probably be deferred for ever. The grand staple 
 of Yazd is opium. All the fields round the 
 city, while I was there, were white with poppy, 
 and the time for gathering the opium had just 
 begun. The poppy-heads are scored overnight 
 by a comb with four or five short sharp teeth, and 
 in the morning the exuded juice is removed with 
 a spatula. The crop seemed a magnificent one ;
 
 Yazd. 263 
 
 I have not seen such tall strong poppy in India, 
 with such full heads. One must also remark 
 the growth of the trade during late years. The 
 first hint I had of this was in Qazran, where 
 the cultivation of poppy has been lately intro- 
 duced, and is revenue-free. The Zarand district 
 has recently begun to raise opium on loans 
 advanced by Yazd merchants; thus, in Sar 
 Asiab and Chatrut we were told that Gabrs from 
 Yazd had come last year for this purpose, while 
 in the neighbouring village of Gurchu the people 
 had not yet learned poppy cultivation (hanuz 
 ydd na giriftand). Kuhbanan seemed wholly 
 given up to poppy. Though Isfahan is a greater 
 centre of the opium trade than Yazd, yet as it 
 was in Yazd that I got most of my informa- 
 tion, I may as well record my statistics here, 
 such as they are. The opium trade of Persia 
 dates from the Chinese war. In the security 
 afforded by the British occupation of Hong- 
 Kong, Persian opium began to find its way to 
 China. The prohibitive duties in the Indian 
 ports were a great obstacle, and for a long time 
 more opium went to Constantinople than to 
 Hong-Kong. Then the route via Ceylon was 
 struck out by certain merchants of Yazd, and 
 now in these latter days opium is shipped direct
 
 264 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 for China from Bandar- Abbas by steamers of 
 the Peiho Company. Last year's export was 
 6000 peicul or boxes; this year's export (1881) 
 is expected to reach 8000 boxes. In 1871 the 
 export was 4000 boxes. Thus the trade has 
 doubled in ten years, and perhaps it is increas- 
 ing now faster than ever before. Reduced to 
 English figures, 1 the weight of 6000 boxes 
 would be equivalent to 860 tons, and of 8000 
 boxes to 480 tons. These figures do not look 
 formidable, especially when we remember that 
 the Indian export is ten times as great. Still, 
 if the Shah could but bring himself to spend 
 some of his hoarded money on improving com- 
 munications with the sea, it seems quite possible 
 that the rivalry of Persian opium might be 
 sensibly felt in India. The Persian price is 
 somewhat lower than the Indian. Muhammad 
 Taki Khan told me that the crude opium sold 
 for 15 tomans the shahi man, and the finished 
 
 1 One peicul = 10| shahi mans. The shahi man is 1280 
 misqals, each misqal being ths of a tola ; thus the shahi 
 man =512 tolas, and 10| shahi mans = 67 Government 
 eers, or 134| Ibs. Multiplying by 6000 we get 360 tons 
 nearly. This corresponds pretty accurately with the result 
 obtained by reckoning the peicul as equivalent to lj cwt. 
 English; more exactly, one paicool = lOf shahi mans, and 
 8| shahi mans = one hundredweight.
 
 Yazd. 265 
 
 opium for 20 tomans. This would be as nearly 
 as possible Rs. 10 and Us. 13 per ser; the 
 Indian price for finished opium being Rs. 16. 
 The Persian method of preparation is much 
 more primitive, I fancy, than that practised in 
 our opium factories. I watched the process in 
 Isfahan ; the opium was exposed on tiles to the 
 heat of the sun, then kneaded vigorously, then 
 exposed again, and so on ; after the third or 
 fourth kneading, it is made up into round flat- 
 bottomed cakes of one pound each, and is ready 
 for exportation. The colour is a clay yellow. 
 Persian merchants are very eager to discover 
 the process employed in India. As I have never 
 seen the Ghazipur factory, I could not tell 
 them, had I even been disposed to do so. 
 
 Next to opium, silk is a notable product of v 
 the Yazd district, but the industry has much 
 declined of late. There were 1800 silk-houses 
 here a few years ago, and there are scarce 150 
 now ; so I was informed. The mulberry trees 
 remain, overshadowing gardens and lanes with 
 great luxuriance, and yielding a sweet white 
 fruit, which is considered very wholesome as a 
 corrective or preventive of the maladies inci- 
 dental to the human frame in spring-time. 
 
 Yazd city has little that is worth seeing.
 
 266 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 Caravansarais are numerous, but narrow and 
 confined, with deep court-yards. The best is 
 that of the Khan Wali, which is three- storied. 
 The Khan's school, and the Musalla, are also 
 buildings of some pretensions : the latter has a 
 very deep court-yard, reached by a long descent 
 of steps, at the bottom of which flows a water- 
 course full of blue mud deposited from the 
 dyers' quarter. A foot of water flows over the 
 mud, and the people wash in this stream and 
 drink of it as if it were the cleanest imaginable. 
 Perhaps the abambars are the chief glory of 
 Yazd. Their domed roofs are really noble, and 
 the wind-towers which surround them testify to 
 the care taken to keep the water cool. The 
 garrison of Yazd consists of 30 artillerymen 
 and a regiment of infantry 400 strong. I 
 saw the artillerymen and their guns a six- 
 pounder and a three-pounder of bronze, cast 
 in Tabriz in the reign of Muhammad Shah. 
 Situated in the heart of Persia, Yazd has no 
 frontier tribes to keep in order, and its people, 
 moreover, enjoy a reputation for peacefulness. 
 The vice-governor told me that he had hardly 
 any work to do, scarcely a dispute to settle : 
 and I saw for myself the emptiness of his court- 
 yard strange contrast to the environs of an
 
 Yazd. 267 
 
 Indian cutcherry. It is true that his brother 
 had carried all the revenue work away with him 
 to Isfahan ; and perhaps the people might have 
 no great confidence in the youth's capacity. I 
 saw something of one case which had come 
 before him ; a man on the point of bankruptcy 
 had made a personal visit to the house of a 
 debtor of his, in the hope of recovering 600 
 tomans, and this visit had been represented to 
 the vice-governor as an invasion of the privacy 
 of the zanana, whereupon the unhappy bank- 
 rupt was seized and thrown into prison. 
 Muhammad Taki interceded for him, and the 
 vice-governor promised his release. The man's 
 debts were 3000 tomans, part of which was due 
 to Muhammad Taki himself. As for the prison, 
 it was near my quarters ; I saw the prisoners 
 once or twice, in chains heavier than we use in 
 India. They made their salaam, and seemed 
 well enough nourished. Prosperity, indeed, is 
 a notable feature of Yazd. Hardly a beggar 
 was to be seen, and the busy bazaars and well- 
 kept houses, as well as the dress of the people 
 and the number of the merchants, were signs 
 of a city supported by brisk trade. Every one 
 with whom I spoke had something to say in 
 praise of the Zill us Sultan, the Prince Governor
 
 268 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 of Isfahan, to whom Yazd is subject. When 
 last year's scarcity threatened Yazd, he sent 
 2000 kharwars or ass-loads (about 580 tons) of 
 wheat on his own mules to Yazd, to be stored 
 as a first reserve. This restored confidence, 
 and there was no further trouble. " We feel," 
 said some of the men I spoke with. " that if a 
 famine should come upon us, the Prince would 
 not desert us, so we have confidence. He has 
 suspended the revenue demand in the case 
 of the poorer class of cultivators. He has 
 given orders that they need not pay anything 
 till this year's harvest has been got in." This 
 year's harvest has been bountiful. We had 
 ridden into Bafk under the evening sunlight 
 between long fields of wheat and barley almost 
 ready for the sickle ; and before I left Yazd 
 barley harvest had begun. It was a pleasure 
 to see such good crops. To return, however, 
 to the Shahzada ; he abolished the export duty 
 (khuruj) on opium, by which a former local 
 governor of Yazd had succeeded in doing 
 damage to the trade, and he is said to exact 
 nothing from Yazd beyond the fixed revenue of 
 the city. He has exerted himself to make the 
 roads safe. The year before last, two highway 
 robbers were caught near Karmanshahan, on 
 the Karman road. The Prince was asked for
 
 Yazd. 269 
 
 orders, and telegraphed back, " Mortar them 
 up," so they were encased in mortar, each at a 
 gate of the city ; I saw one of them. Never- 
 theless, the day of my arrival, Karmanshahan 
 telegraphed that last night a caravan of tobacco 
 and sugar from Yazd had again been plundered 
 near the old place, two men killed, twelve 
 wounded, and sixty camels driven off. The 
 robbers were supposed to be Kashkais of Fars, 
 who had come across the desert with a few 
 days' provisions on their backs, and had lain in 
 wait by that notorious duzdgah or robbers' haunt 
 where low hills break the monotony of the 
 desolate plain which extends from Sar-i-Yazd 
 to Rafsinjan. Perhaps the recent change of 
 government in Fars, of which more anon, had 
 something to do with this daring raid. 
 
 The Gabrs or fire-worshippers of Yazd seem /. 
 to deal chiefly in opium. They have a stone 
 tower and platform, where they expose their 
 dead, on a spur of a hill three miles south of 
 Yazd. There are 150 families of Jews in Yazd 
 engaged in the silk trade. They have fallen 
 into great poverty, at least in externals. Their 
 chief man called on me. He was wonderfully 
 fair. He had a boon to solicit. It seems that 
 a subscription was raised for the Jews of Yazd 
 last year in Europe, and a sum of 4:001. was
 
 2 7O Six Mont/is in Persia. 
 
 forwarded to Teheran for them by Sir Moses 
 Montefiore (such was the tale), but never got 
 through the hands of the Teheran officials. 
 Would I make inquiries in Teheran ? I would 
 not ; but if the Jews would give me a written 
 statement of their case, I had no objection to 
 forward it to Sir Moses Montefiore, whom they 
 regarded as their great patron. The man went 
 away, and brought me a Hebrew letter two 
 days later, which I forwarded, with a letter of 
 my own, to a correspondent in London, who 
 transmitted the papers to Sir Moses Montefiore's 
 address, and in due time received a courteous 
 reply to the effect that the petition of these 
 poor Jews would be attended to. Although 
 the man spoke with me quite in private, he 
 made no complaint of oppression. He did 
 complain of impoverishment in the famine, and 
 of the Teheran officials who had stopped the 
 expected remittance, on the strength of which 
 the Jews had been borrowing from their Persian 
 neighbours. 
 
 Yazd is out of the way of political informa- 
 tion. The youthful vice-governor,, being a 
 native of Azarbaijan, regarded Russia as the 
 greatest Power in the world. The merchants, 
 like their class in all countries, took no interest 
 in politics whatever.
 
 271 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SHIRKUH. 
 STH TO HTHMAY: THIRTY-TWO FARSAKHS. 
 
 THE Khan had talked so much about Shirkuh 
 and the wonders to be seen there, that I asked 
 him for a ghulam, and planned a week's excur- 
 sion in the mountains. He gave me not only 
 a ghulam but also a yuzbashi or sergeant, a 
 swell Turk, who had a fancy for a week's outing 
 at other people's expense. I foresaw that this 
 individual would be simply in the way, but 
 being the Khan's guest, I could not dispute his 
 good pleasure. Old Zaki Beg came with me, 
 one servant, one muleteer, and two mules. We 
 were a party of seven souls altogether, including 
 a servant of my friend the Turk. Sayyid Ali 
 stayed behind to entertain the Khan with his 
 stories of India and the blessings of British rule. 
 6th May, Toft, 4 farsaJchs; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 
 Our first march was to Taft, sixteen miles 
 south-west of Yazd, and near the foot of Shir-
 
 272 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 kuh. You cross the level stony plain, draw 
 near to the hills, pass between two rocky knolls, 
 and there is Yazd shut out from view behind 
 you, while in front are the mulberry trees of 
 Taft, a mass of foliage amidst which the houses 
 can scarcely be discerned. The town fills a 
 little plain or basin among low rocky hills, and 
 its background is the mouth of a dark pass with 
 cliffs two hundred feet high. A dry river-bed 
 divides the plain; its water, taken off in the 
 mountains, is led by a narrower channel down 
 the main street of the town. A small covered 
 bazaar, a gaily-painted Husainia, and some good 
 houses, in one of which the governor's we 
 found quarters ; such are the modern glories of 
 Taft. Holy men have lived here in time past. 
 An old dome rises above the trees ; it is empty, 
 and the doors are gone, but the roof and walls 
 still show beautiful work in blue and gold, with 
 flowered tiles and fresco painting. Over the 
 door, carved in wood, is the Arabic date, corre- 
 sponding to the Christian year 1268. Hard by 
 stand theruinsof the shrine built by Shah Niamat 
 Ullah before he fixed his abode in Mahun. These 
 are buildings of some extent, with the remains 
 of handsome mural decorations. They are com- 
 paratively modern. Under the ancient dome
 
 Taft. 273 
 
 are some beautiful tombstones of Yazd marble, 
 pale yellow and white, carved with the graceful 
 Arabic letter. The handsomest is quite plain 
 but for the kalima or creed of Islam (there is 
 no God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet 
 of God), cut in the polished yellow stone a 
 marvel of elegance. Another tombstone has 
 the following inscription : 
 
 DASHTAM SHAMA-I KI MIDIDAM BA NUB i o JAHAN. 
 
 TUNDI I BAD I AJAL AMAD, RABDDASH NAOAHAN. 
 TA ZI PESH I CHASHM I MA TEKDANA GOHAK DUR SHTJD, 
 DlDA I GHAMM DIDA-AM SHUD RUZ O SHAB GOHARF1SHAN. 
 Az FIGHANAM MURGH O MA HI GAR BINALAD, DUR NIST; 
 
 NALA i MAN SANGRA HAR LAHZA ARAD DAR FIGHAN. 
 
 SAL I UMRASH YAZDIH, DAR HAFTA 1 MAH I RAJAB, 
 SHUD BAR FIRDAUS I BARRIN AfiDUL ALT NAU JAW AN. 
 
 HASHT SAD o CHIHIL BUD o HASHT AZ HIJRA i KHAIR UL 
 
 BASHAR 
 
 Which might be rendered freely thus : 
 " I had a light that lighted all the world 
 for me. Fate, like a violent wind, whirled it 
 away. Since my unique pearl vanished from my 
 sight, my sad eyes, by night and day, have 
 teemed with pearls, called tears. Marvel not if 
 bird and fish wail at the sound of my mourning, 
 for the very rocks have learned continually to 
 re-echo my grief. In his eleventh year, on the 
 seventh of the month Rajab, young Abdul AJi 
 VOL. i. T
 
 274 Si* Months in Persia. 
 
 passed to Paradise on high. It was eight 
 hundred and forty and eight from the glad 
 tidings of the Flight " 
 
 The rest is wanting. The date would be 
 1477 A.D. It seemed to me that this expression 
 of a father's grief for the death of his son was 
 worth transcribing as a touch of nature trans- 
 mitted across four centuries from the distant 
 East. 
 
 In the evening I ascended the hill to the 
 south of Taft, and visited a natural well in a 
 cleft of the rock, which of course is reputed to 
 be of unfathomable depth. Taft looked ex- 
 tremely pretty, with its old fort on a rocky 
 knoll rising out of the sea of foliage, and its 
 white poppy-fields fringing all the outskirts. 
 The song of nightingales came up from the 
 mulberry groves. I sat half an hour, enjoying 
 the view, and talking to the men who were 
 with me. Thence we went to the house of one 
 of the local notables, whom we found drinking 
 tea with his friends in a court-yard over- 
 shadowed by vines, and crossed by a qanat- 
 stream flowing through a little tank. I sat 
 down and had tea and a qalyan. The people 
 were a little shy at first, but soon became
 
 A Persian Geographer. 275 
 
 talkative and friendly. Why did I not allow 
 my rice to be cooked with oil ? was there any 
 religious prohibition? Thus is the traveller 
 continually reminded of the ceremonial law 
 which lies like an incubus on Islamitic countries, 
 binding men from the cradle to the grave, and 
 prompting them to recognize a system of similar 
 tyranny in every habit which caprice or con- 
 venience may recommend to the European 
 stranger. I do not know whether I succeeded 
 in making these worthy people believe that the 
 reason of my abstinence was simply a natural 
 dislike of greasy dishes. It was more difficult 
 to explain the difference between the Protestant 
 religion and the .Armenian. From theology we 
 passed to geography. I was catechized by a 
 learned doctor as to the number of zones 
 (aqlim). After some misunderstanding, we 
 came together on the ecliptic, of which the 
 doctor had a perfectly correct idea. I explained 
 to him that our torrid zone extended between 
 the extreme northern and southern points on 
 the line of the ecliptic; and he explained to 
 me that his zones were reckoned from the 
 equator to the poles, according to each half- 
 hour's difference in the length of the day ; also 
 that the space of twelve degrees on each side 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Six Months in Persia. 
 
 of the equator is uninhabited. He then began 
 to ask about Europe, and lamented the death of 
 the Emperor of Russia, whom he called the 
 Imperator i Aazam, or Most Great Emperor, 
 the autocrat of all Europe, in his eyes. 
 
 After dinner, the governor came in with a 
 musician, and also with some good red wine. 
 We had some odes of Hafiz sung in a style 
 perhaps two degrees better than the usual 
 bellowing. The governor was highly sensible 
 of the charms of poetry. He looked at me 
 and shook his head mournfully when the singer 
 lamented the want of good faith in these latter 
 days (in zamdn wafd na darad) ; the fact is that 
 he had the governorship of Miankuh and Pusht- 
 i-kuh last year, as well as Taft, but some rival 
 had carried off the two former at the end of the 
 year. What struck me most, however, was the 
 ejaculation Amdn, amdn ! nishan i kaaba 1m- 
 jast ? ki bimurdim dar dashtash " Mercy, 
 mercy ! where is the sign of the kaaba ? for 
 we are perishing in the desert, seeking it." It 
 was not only that the words recalled long 
 marches when the halting-place delayed to come 
 into view hour after hour ; but they are, after 
 all, the cry of failing faith in all countries 
 and times, and the doubts of Hafiz might be
 
 To Deh Bala. 277 
 
 rendered in the most modern of English 
 words 
 
 And long the way appears, that seemed so short 
 To the unpractised eye of sanguine youth ; 
 And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, 
 The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, 
 Tops in life's morning sun so bright and bare ! 
 
 7th May, Deh Bala, 4>farsakhs ; 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.
 
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