Excerpts from: ACROSS PERSIA by E. CRAWSHAY WILLIAMS, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS, LONDON, EDWARD ARNOLD, publisher to the India Office, 1907.
As to the circumstances of my voyage; it was made in 1903, after I had resigned my commission in the Royal Field Artillery in India. Wishing to gain experience and avoid the monotony of a long and uninteresting sea-voyage, I determined to travel home by way of the Persian Gulf, Persia itself, the Caspian Sea, Russia, and then by one of the various overland Continental routes to England.
Accordingly I interviewed my Indian servants; found two, Kishna and Kalicha by name, ready to come with me; happened by good fortune upon an Afghan, Saifullashah, employed in the State service at Simla, who was glad of a holiday in Persia and who spoke Persian fluently; and collected the various and somewhat numerous necessaries incidental to travelling in desert Eastern lands. In addition to my suite of humans there was another important member of the party, my little Scotch terrier ‘Mr. Stumps,’ who has been with me since his puppyhood at Oxford.
* * * *
Bushire has at least two inconveniences -- its climate and its harbour. The former is typical of the Gulf; that is to say, it is just tolerable in the winter and absolutely intolerable in the summer, when, as Lord Curzon remarks, 'the ordinary thermometer bursts, and those graded high enough have placed the solar radiation at 189 Fahr.' The second is also a type, inasmuch as, like almost all Persian harbours, it does not allow ships of any magnitude to come nearer than a mile or so to the actual landing-place. Consequently, after a deal of transhipment, the last portion of the journey has to be made in small native craft.
A picturesque, animated scene lay before me in the bright morning sunshine as I coasted quietly by the long, rude wharf at Bushire, off which lay scores of buggalows, loading or unloading oil, dates, shells, and other motley merchandise of the place. Past the Belgian custom-house buildings we went, and drew in to the landing-place. A busy throng bustled to and fro over the wharf: Persian soldiers in their ballet-girl-like attire; natives in their ‘handleless-saucepan’ hats; ragged Arabs washing shells, unloading canvas-covered oil-jars, or more generally sitting doing nothing; women with their long black or blue gowns draped shapelessly over their heads down to their feet, looking like so many animate bales of stuff; little ‘street’ Arabs only they are real Arabs here much like their fellows all over the world, with their devilments and mercurial movements in and out of the hurrying mob. Here, too, I saw the khaki-clad horsemen who form the body-guard of the British Resident fine, smart-looking Sikhs. It was good to hear the rough words of command again as they swung off at a canter with a clink and jostle that must always send a little thrill of pleasure through one who has himself ever clattered along to that same tune.
* * * *
But there is another side, the side of filthy alleys, of dust-heaps, of old withered hags, of the beggars, the sick and the deformed. At every corner there is some terrible sight; a man, holding up a withered stump of an arm; a deformed child; a woman whose sightless eyes peer into yours. Almost every other man and woman you meet has something amiss: a contorted face, a dead-looking open eye which glares blindly out, a sunken temple, a network of pitted scars. The East is a place of wild extremes; and disease, uncontrolled as it at present is by science, runs riot like some luxurious tropic growth.
* * * *
It is no good for anyone to go to the East if he is in a hurry. The East is a land of waiting - he will have to wait, whether he likes it or not: he cannot single-handed overthrow a nation. Two years in India had taught me something of this, and I had begun to absorb the soul-destroying influence of Oriental indifference. So I sat on the sand beneath a little shrub and patiently waited for the mules.
It was weary work. The way lay clear and straight before me; my heart longed for the road; my mind told me that every hour of delay meant another hour of marching by night in a strange land and the mules did not come.
Caravan after caravan came up out of the desert; first little moving specks of black on the brown sand, then strange creatures distorted by the quivering shimmer floating over the desert into monstrous things with bodies ten feet high, or, apparently, cut clean in half and travelling on in two sections. Approaching, receding, changing, at last they resolved themselves into solid flesh of man and beast, and came wearily up with a shouting of voices and tinkling of bells to unship the burdens from their camels or mules, and make snug for the night. And still my mules did not come. The sun swung across the heavens, the day changed from palpitating heat to drowsy cool, the dusk began to creep up from the far-off hills to the north-east and yet there were no mules.
At length, when hope deferred had made the heart entirely sick, and, played false over so many an alien caravan, I had almost ceased to speculate on the tiny far-off strings of animals, now scarcely to be seen through the falling night, up came Saif. ‘There, sir,’ said he, ‘they come.' I thought it prudent to doubt; but he was right, and, in a little, the faithless mules sauntered calmly in.
It was no use to be angry it is rarely any use anywhere, and less so than usual in the East; so we did not vainly waste time, but got to work.
My little camp sprang into astonishing life and energy.
Boxes, packages, tins of every size, lay piled in a chaotic heap; looking from the heap to the mules, and from the mules to the heap, it seemed a hopeless task to reconcile the two.
But mules were kicked towards boxes, boxes dragged to mules; by powers apparently miraculous, packages fitted themselves into the most impossible places; shapeless edifices rose on the pack-saddles; mules became actually ready, and were let loose to browse aimlessly about on the peculiarly unbrowsable wilderness; and after much struggling and swearing and shouting we were in order in a really incredibly short space of time. Saif and I were each honoured with a pony so let it be called for want of a better name; it certainly was not a mule, but that was almost all that could be said for it. As the pack-animals were now quite ready, we pushed enormous bits into our poor little steeds' reluctant mouths they seemed as if they had never had a bit between their teeth before, and never wanted it again and, after ‘padding’ a little with blankets, contrived to make the girths fit sufficiently tightly round their thin carcasses to make it at all events improbable that we should swing suddenly under them and be deposited on the desert.
* * * *
The Persian police are provided with the most elaborate tools for the thieving which they practise in addition to their more legitimate exactions on the road. Various goods are brought down the main trade routes of Persia, and they have various methods of appropriating them. Even when a consignment of some utterly unaccustomed merchandise appears, they are generally equal to the occasion; and with regard to this I was told a story eloquent of their ingenuity. A well-known English official in Persia had ordered some champagne from Europe, and on its arrival he gave a large dinner-party. All went well until the production of the newly acquired wine, which turned out to be a strange brand indeed. On removing the cork the champagne appeared to be flat to an unusual degree, and on examination it was found that, unfortunately, in place of the excellent vintage ordered, the bottles were filled with nothing more or less than dirty water. As the corks were intact and the bottles apparently whole, a miracle seemed to have taken place, until an acute observer solved the mystery. The tufangchis en route had, by means of red-hot wire, bored minute holes in the bottles, from which, with, no doubt, great gusto, they treated themselves to the luxury of breaking the laws of the Koran in a more than usually satisfactory manner. They then (or more probably on the next day) refilled the bottles from Ruknabad, the Zender Rud, or some other Persian stream whose waters, however much the Persian poets praise them, cannot be considered the equal of first-class champagne neatly stopped the wire-holes, repacked the cases, and sent them on to provide for the distinguished dinner-party the little surprise I have described. Such is an example of the resource our Persian policemen show in dealing with a novel situation.
When it is the ordinary trade of the country with which they are concerned, their methods are complete and comprehensive. Some of the merchandise which finds its way down the main mule-track in Persia consists of raw cotton and raw wool. On the road there will often pass a long string of mules, each laden with the fat, closely packed bales, from which a stray tuft protrudes to show what forms the contents. It must be with a peculiar delight that the tufangchi deals with these bales; for his method, in addition to the profit it brings, possesses ingenuity above the average and a certain amount of humour to anyone but the owner of the goods. It is obvious that if any number of tufangchis boldly cut open the bales and audaciously took away part of the contents, they would be soon found out and their professional position taken from them for even in Persia appearances have to be kept up. They therefore have to contrive so that the abstraction of the cotton or wool shall not be noticed until its arrival at its destination, when detection of any individual culprit will be impossible, and the only person to suffer will be the consignee. The procedure is therefore as follows: The guardian of the road provides himself with a long rod with a roughed end, rather like the cleaning-rod of a gun. Making a small hole in the canvas covering of the bale, he pushes this rod into the very centre thereof, and twists it round and round until it has gathered, at the rough end, a tightly wound mass of cotton or wool; he then withdraws it, and the process may be repeated ad lib. He will do this to every bale in a caravan, and as, to outward appearances, everything is exactly the same the next morning, the charvardar, or muleteer, blissfully loads them up and goes on his way rejoicing, being happily unconscious of the large hole which is growing in the middle of each of his bales, some of which, when opened, will practically consist of mere walls.
Another merchandise that the tufangchis are fond of dealing with is the cotton stuff, cloth, and so on, which goes up-country from England, India, or Russia. It would seem rather a difficult matter to steal this, as each bale of goods is packed as tightly as the stuff can be rolled and pressed, and is secured by firmly clamped iron bands. Any attempt to drag a piece out would soon show that ordinary methods of thieving must in this case be abandoned. This does not disconcert our friend the tufangchi. He is the possessor of two long, flat, iron slips, and with these he approaches to do his work.
It is the clear stillness of the Persian night. The bales are piled up in the caravanserai, or on the sandy floor of the desert. The charvardar and his men are lulled in a fat and comfortable sleep. The only noise is the shuffling of the tired mules and the occasional tinkle of a little bell. The tufangchi quietly manipulates a bale into a convenient position; then he deftly forces one of the thin iron slips through the cloth, finding a place between two separate pieces. A little further down, and again between two pieces of cloth, he pushes through the other slip, and then with a screw he clamps together the ends of this peculiar device, which looks like some variety of trouser press. Sitting on the ground, he next places his feet securely against the bale, and, seizing the slips firmly, gives a hearty pull. Out comes the contrivance, bringing with it, of course, the enclosed piece of cloth. The remaining pieces, relieved a little of their pressure, gratefully swell up, and no trace is left of the operation.
Moist sugar is a favourite article of theft, and is extracted from the canvas bags it is in in the following way: Cutting an almost imperceptible hole in the canvas, the tufangchi thrusts a pipe straight into the centre of the bag. With a little persuasion, a steady stream of sugar flows easily through the pipe, and the first intimation the charvardar has of this little job is when, after a severe climb up one of the kotals, he notices that some of his sugar-bags have settled down a little.
Lump sugar falls an easy prey; a few lumps from every bale and some pebbles to replace them, and the thing is done.
Glass ornaments, too, and beads are very much the same weight as small stones, nor will anyone notice anything wrong until the end of the journey, when, of course, the foreign element may not have had a very good effect on the condition of the original merchandise.
The specific gravity of tea and straw is practically the same, and so it happens that very frequently at its destination a tea-chest is found to contain a mixture which would produce a rather peculiar brew if put straight into a teapot. But it is obviously not the fault of anyone in particular. No one can be brought to book, and, after all, the only loser is the merchant, so what does the charvardar care? The charvardar, indeed, never cares very much; as I have said, he is only the carrier, and not the owner, of the goods, and, as a matter of fact, he is not above aiding and abetting the rather shady practices of his friend the policeman if he finds it makes life easier for him. He often manages to make such things as almonds and nuts 'come right’ in weight at the end of a journey, despite some considerable ‘wastage’ on the way. In fact, a load has been known to have unaccountably increased in weight during its journey. This, however, may be explained by the fact that wet almonds weigh more than dry ones.
The science of thieving is probably far deeper and more abstruse than anything indicated by the above few examples, but they will serve to give some idea of the incidents of commerce in Persia, and, indeed, in the East generally. Is it to be wondered at that prices are high, commerce precarious, and progress a practical impossibility? If the East is to have a commercial future, it must substitute the methods of business for those of the bazaar, and the fundamental question underlying the whole is the question of better and more upright government.
* * * *
Thus, riding until it became necessary to walk, and walking until it was pleasanter to ride, we plodded on until there became no doubt that we were approaching some very unusual natural phenomenon. This was signalized by a most unpleasant smell. It must not be imagined that an unpleasant smell is an unusual occurrence in Persia; in the civilized portions it is the rule and not the exception. But this was such a peculiar and unique smell that it was at once set down as something out of the ordinary Persian repertoire. Sulphuretted hydrogen combined with petroleum would convey some idea of its distinctive characteristic, and with feelings of mingled interest and disgust we awaited the explanation of the mystery. In a moment or two it came, when we rode up to a brilliant green stream running over slimy pink stones between crumbling yellowish-white banks. Dipping the hand into it, the water was warm. Despite the really terrible odour, we tracked the stream to its source. Some pools of hot sulphurous water bubbled out from among green slime and mud fringed with a yellow crystalline deposit. I myself could only struggle against an inclination to be ill long enough to take a photograph, but Saif seemed to revel in it, took off his clothes, bathed in the almost boiling water, and said he felt much refreshed. As I passed thankfully back again to the track down a decrescendo of smell, I noticed black lumps of bitumen bobbing down the current. Undoubtedly there is petroleum, but where no one has hitherto been able to discover.
Another stream, smelling less of sulphur but more of oil, burst from under the rocks a little further on, and it is near here that attempts have been made in the past to tap the petroleum reservoir which probably exists somewhere beneath the ground. Some day a happy man may hit the right spot, and then his fortune is made; but it is a speculative business. Half a dozen inches to the right or left, and you are, as Fate may decide, a pauper or a millionaire. Moreover, it is quite possible that the oil is inextricably mixed with the hot springs which bubble from the rock, in which case it would be at present beyond the power of man to make any profitable use of it.
By the way, it has occurred to me, as doubtless it has occurred to others before me, although I have never seen the idea set down, that the ancient religion of fire-worship which the Persian so long professed may have had some connexion with these great reservoirs of oil that exist in various parts of the Near East.
* * * *
At the beginning of this digression I left Saif and myself perspiring under a precipice near the cave of Shahpur. We plodded on, and it was not long before we at last found ourselves just beneath the cave, whence we attracted the attention of the muleteer and the Iliats mere specks below. In an hour they were with us, and we were ready to effect the last precipitous ascent to the cave itself. Though this is a steep climb of about 25 feet up the sheer face of the rock, with a little agility it is easy to scramble to the top by means of the cracks worn in the stone. Once there, the entrance of the cave gapes straight ahead. I walked up a rough slope, and there, about 50 yards down the incline which descended into the gloom of the great caverns, lay before me a huge uncouth monster, torn from off the rough stand where still remained his sandalled feet. The body of the giant Shahpur lay miserably abject, the noseless face turned upwards, the head sunk in the soft earth, its luxuriant curls buried; his body aslant; his legs a few feet higher than his head, and resting on their ancient throne. The 20-foot body was clad in a kind of tunic, crossed with two sashes, from one of which, at his left side, once hung his sword; an armless hand rested on his right hip, while above, a broken shoulder protruded horribly. The left arm was broken off above the wrist; its hand, no doubt, once rested upon the hilt of the sword.
Thus, with mutilated features and fragments of limbs, lay Shahpur the Ormuzd-worshipper, the god, Shahpur, King of Kings, Arian and non-Arian, of the race of the gods, son of the Ormuzd-worshipper, the god, Artakarsur, King of Kings.
There was an impressive pathos about this great grotesque image, once bowed down to and worshipped as a god, now lying dishonoured in its lonely cave above the ruins of a dead city. The weird solemnity was heightened by the surroundings. The image was set in the centre of the lofty sloping hall which formed the mouth of the cave; in front shone the gap of blue sky; behind, yawned the desolate gloom; all around lay the relics of a dead civilization it was a scene to see by twilight in the falling dusk, with the great King looking like a white giant against the inky depths behind, and the sky-patch fading from crimson to grey. Then it would not be hard to imagine the dead people of the strange old -world city stealing from the uncanny, musty nooks within to do reverence to Shahpur. The natives fear this place; they will not go there alone, and refuse altogether to enter the black recesses of the cave. Nor is it hard to understand their feelings, for well might this chasm with its ruined tanks, huge, damp, tomb-like halls, and long, evil-smelling passages, be the abode of ghosts, as it is of bats and strange owlish birds.
* * * *
In connexion with the subject of crime and punishment and the powers that be in Persia, there will always live in my mind a curious dramatic scene which I witnessed at Shiraz. It took place in the court-yard before the Governor's palace. The sun was just dropping behind the roofs opposite, and a little stone-banked lake, a mere patch of water under a tree before the main gate into the palace, lay sparkling in the last light of day. Close by this little pool a knot of men was gathered as I rode up. For a moment the reason was not clear. Then I caught a glimpse there on the ground of a white-sheeted thing lying upon something of a stretcher. I walked up; yes, it was a dead body wrapped in blood-stained white cloth. At its foot stood a Persian, shouting something hoarsely; his brown clothes were dabbled in red. It was a murder. That was all I could make out. Then from opposite there came a wild crying, and there rushed across the empty square a body of black-veiled women, headed by one who madly dashed on with leaps and bounds, shrieking horribly and beating her bare breasts with her hands. Down on the dead body she fell, patting it and clasping it, moaning and calling to it, then falling back to strike herself again and call vainly to the unhearing heavens.
Suddenly there came the clatter of hoofs; all fell back; it was the Governor. Cossacks, silver maces, then the unpretentious-looking man on a white pony, less remarkable in appearance than all his attendant crowd.
The scene was a moving one. It was profoundly, almost sensationally, dramatic. It seemed like some situation of the stage. Surely here, to round off the drama, there must come some act befitting the elements of life and death which here lay bare in all their crude nakedness. The atmosphere was electric with a peculiar breathless excitement which seemed to cry for some great thing to happen and relieve the pent-up forces. But, alas! Nature is not so clever as Art; the appropriate rarely happens. The threads are left hanging loosely in the plays of life where they are deftly gathered up in the plays of man. Comedy, tragedy, farce, drama, they all seem to wander on in a slovenly and unending way in this world of ours, without apt justice or a fitting end. There is no plot, no picturesque consecution, no climax. The characters come and go, unregarding art and reason alike. A super lingers on the stage after the principal has been snatched behind the scenes; the wicked triumph without even the palliation of skill to make their triumph tolerable; the stupid ‘succeed,' the clever 'fail'; there is no meaning, no moral, in it all; yet still across the stage during their short act the countless players press on aimlessly, eternally. All that most of them can do is to act their small part in the great play that has no beginning, no end, and of which they know no object, seeking not effect, not even justice, merely striving on in their unimportant places. To do the best, that is indeed all that is to be done, save, perhaps, now and then to wonder whether, after all, there may not be somewhere a Stage Manager.
So my tragedy came to no fitting end.
The Governor stopped; with a gesture he summoned one of his Court. He was angry; it was unbecoming, unpleasant, to trouble him with such unsavoury things. What business had they there? ‘What is all this?' he asked, pointing angrily to the scene before him. They told him; the husband of this woman had been robbed and shot, that was all. 'Send them away,' said he, and, turning, walked into the palace.
So the body was carried off, as also the woman, for she had fainted. Justice, however, had its way in the end, for I heard that afterwards the murderer was blown from a cannon.
* * * *
There is a curious ironic horror about the life of the poor in Persia. If you are destitute, it is as well to be also diseased. The loss of an eye, the paralysis of the limbs, the infirmities of age all these are assets from which money can be made.
'Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends,’ cries the beggar in very truth, ’for the hand of God hath touched me.'
One particular visit from the poor of Persia remember very vividly. As I sat in the chapar khaneh at Surmek, the next resting-place after Khoneh Khoreh, Stumps suddenly barked. I looked up, and there, at the door, was a blind old man led by a wee creature of a few years old; a beautiful little girl. They were a strange, pathetic couple, the sightless old man and his tiny guide and guardian. The mite said nothing, but looked mutely appealing from beneath her long-lashed eyes. She was shivering, and the little red lips quivered with the cold. Inside, I had a fire, so inside they came, with a curious absence of constraint or comment. From beginning to end the child uttered not a word; but, while she warmed her icy hands before the blaze, her father conversed with me with courteous Persian readiness.
At last the girl's lips ceased to tremble, and her hands lost their numbness, and then I gave them two krans, and they went out into the sunlight - the sunlight that he had never seen.
Persia is no place for the tender-hearted, there is too much to grieve over; at least, it is too obvious. Probably there is just as much in England; but here we have a way of hiding it away where it is not seen, and most of the world goes on its path quite untroubled and untroubling. Yet, after all, perhaps it is a matter of temperament, and the tender-hearted can live neither in England nor in the East, but their lives are made sadly uneasy. Indeed, this world itself would seem no place for one whose heart is torn by the sorrows of life; to whom the beggar by the way-side, the drunkard in the gin-shop, the drab on the pavement, are matters not merely observed, but grieved over. The thick-skinned fellow has the best of it. On his tough hide the miseries of life shoot their darts harmlessly, he pursues his path serene and well assured that ‘God's in His heaven, all's right with the world.’
* * * *
‘While waiting, I inspect a beautifully tiled room used to store those presents collected by the Shah which are not in the great Museum.
‘It is a quaint assemblage of magnificent lumber. Stored in no order, priceless curiosities thrown down by the side of valueless rubbish, glorious works of art reposing under the shadow of domestic furniture, it is itself an epitome of Persia and the Persians in its strange incongruity, its pitiful disorder, its combination of departed glory and present decay.
‘In one corner is an untidy pile of velvets and ermines; close by, a collection of very inferior photographs; in the opposite corner a beer-machine, on which reposes an oil-painting.
‘A bookcase filled with volumes fronts a table covered with curiosities of natural history, which in turn looks on to a slab where lie specimens of ancient pottery. Then comes a musical-box. Typewriters lie neglected, magnificent tea-sets and services of glass have never seen a table-cloth, great vases merely contain the dust of years, a map of the British Isles, hung upside down, averts in this way its gaze from a picture, hung below, whose breadth of subject is redeemed by no beauty of execution. Violins mutely appeal for the touch of a hand which shall unseal their hidden harmonies, forlorn mandolins cry for fair fingers and sweet moonlit hours the very musical-boxes seem to pray to be taken where the babble of childish laughter shall greet their long-dumb tinkle.
‘In a room beyond, more china, more glass, unused, unwanted.
‘All is chaos, neglect, pathetic waste.
‘I leave with an ache at the heart all this rich uselessness, and, outside, the people poverty desolation.
‘Next to the museum itself in a huge glittering room are glass cases filled with a collection almost as composite as that I have just left, with at the end the Peacock Throne, --for that is its name, though in reality it is no more that relic rapt from Delhi than is the chair on which I sit to write this. Still, it is very fine, and its jewels and enamel, if they fail to excite a historic interest, at all events appeal to the imagination in other ways.
‘A stuffed bird which warbles in a cage is over against a cabinet in which are artistically hung six-penny hand-glasses, sometimes with broken handles. Originally, I am told, there were even more extraordinary dispositions of things; but I did not see Lord Curzon's tooth-brushes, though it is quite likely they were somewhere about.
‘The chief delight of the attendants was a musical-box with moving figures, which they wound up for our benefit, I think my favourites were the sixpenny looking-glasses.
