After having safely landed at Piribazaar, we were packed into small Russian victorias and driven to Resht. My impression of that drive is vague. All I remember is mud the walls made of mud, the houses made of mud, and the people dressed in different shades of mud colour. I spent one short night in the hotel. I say short, for my sleeping night was made up of but a few hours.
* * *
On one occasion, a lady, leaving Resht with a large family, packed herself and some of the children into one carnage, and put the rest of the family in another with the nurse. The two carriages went on gaily all through the night, and stopped at a station to change horses about two in the morning. The nurse, waking, and counting her charges, found one was missing: a little girl of about three years had slipped off her lap, and evidently fallen out of the carriage while the nurse dozed. The alarm was given and the other carriage stopped. The frightened mother and father, followed by several Persians with lanterns, started on a search; they found the child some way back along the road, unhurt and sleeping soundly in the ditch. This story has become so well known that on going to meet a friend who arrived last year, I was amused to see her two small children tied fast to herself with long blue ribbons.
The road to Teheran is a Russian road, and is kept up by tolls, the traveller paying toll according to the number of horses he employs. When the first motor passed over the road, there arose the question as to how many horses it represented, and the delight of the people whose duty it is to collect the toll was great when they were told it was a forty horse-power. They taxed it as forty horses, and it cost the poor owner a pretty penny to reach Teheran. The time the journey takes depends a great deal on the capabilities of one's "head man"; if he is clever at getting fresh horses at each change and does not allow himself to be put off with horses that have just done the journey, the trip can be comfortably done in forty-eight hours, but it also depends on the amount one is willing to spend. A large tip quickens the Persian's movements a good deal.
* * *
There is no system of forestry, and the beautiful trees are cut down ruthlessly for the needs of the people. One constantly sees turtles in the ditches that border the road. They are, however, uneatable, and their shells are valueless, which is a pity, as they are to be found in thousands.
* * *
At Bala-Bala our coachman surpassed himself, driving down a precipitous incline at full speed, whipping his horses frantically, standing up and shouting, until we were certain something unusual, even for Persia, was happening. Leaning forward, I saw, to my horror, an old man standing with his back to us in the middle of the road, and utterly unconscious of our arrival at break-neck speed behind him. We joined in shouting to him to move out of the way, but with no result; and almost before we were aware of the possibility of such an accident, we heard the scrunch of his poor old bones as the wheels of our heavily-laden carriage went over both his legs. We got out as soon as we could arrest our downward career, and, much against our head gbolam's will, we insisted on the victim's family being sent for. We found he was deaf and dumb, and made a living as a beggar on the road. He was still alive when we picked him up, and we had him carried by the villagers (who collected around us to the number of about thirty) to a hut near the roadside. My husband asked the gbolam what he should give, and was told five tomans (about a pound in English money) was more than enough. My husband, thinking a life worth more than this gave five pounds.
We got back into the carriage with great difficulty, being hustled by the crowd, who clambered on the carriage with angry looks; and it was only by standing with a champagne bottle in one hand and a bottle of hot soup in the other, and beating their heads and hands, that we were able to free ourselves. I was thankful then that the coachman was the wild man he was; he behaved like a brick, and whipped up his horses till they tore down hill like mad things for the next half-hour. The bill for the stop at Bala-Bala was:
Persian bread . ....... One Toman
Hot water and tea . . ..Five Krans
Milk …….. Five Krans
Pilaw . . . . . . . . Two Tomans
Cream cheese . . . . . .Four Krans
One poor old man . . . Five Pounds
* * *
I had not been asleep very long, when I was awakened by the sound of a deep-toned bell, and opening my eyes, I saw great shapes passing by. It was my first sight of a caravan of camels, which always travels by night in summer to avoid the great heat of the day, as they come and go across the plains of Asia to the coast.
I have since found that the particularly melodious bell that woke me is worn by the camel that has fathered the most children in the caravan. I lay and counted the camels as they passed in the moonlight, and there were one thousand one hundred and seventy-three of them. The delay caused by these caravans is sometimes very great where the road is narrow.
* * *
The only real interest I found while furnishing my house was in choosing my carpets; they are the one thing in Persia worth spending any appreciable amount of money on. The manufacture of carpets is the oldest industry in Persia. The towns where they are made are numerous, but they are also made by the wandering tribes. It is easy to recognize, after a short study of their markings, from which town each carpet originates, as each has its own pattern; after I had seen a few hundred carpets, I could tell at a glance where one was made. The Persians themselves prefer the carpets of Kerman; their design of garlands of flowers interwoven with birds is always original and graceful. These Kerman carpets fetch the biggest prices, some of them only a yard or two square costing from forty to sixty pounds a pair. Persians always prefer to have their valuable carpets in pairs, and it is very remarkable that these pairs, which are made by different hands, should so resemble each other in design. The carpets from Tabriz are very like those from Kerman; those from Kurdistan are woven with a much softer and longer pile, with lighter colours and more gaudy designs. The carpets of Shiraz in the Fars country are distinguished from those of the rest of Persia by the fact that they are made more loosely, and are entirely of wool of a superior quality, which resembles velvet in its texture. They nearly always represent geometrical figures, usually in dark red, blue and white. Camel-hair carpets come from Yezd, as also the cotton carpets, which are almost exclusively used for the mosques. From Tabriz and Kashan Meshed, and Ispahan, come the beautiful silk carpets, which of course form the most important part of this industry. These silk carpets are pliable and soft; and though many of the new ones are crude in colour, the old ones are like early Italian fifteenth-century tapestry. The most decorative carpets, however, to my mind, are the Turcomans, and no smoking-room can be complete for anyone who has been in Persia without that deep plum-colour and white lozenge-shape pattern covering the divan or the floor.
Persian carpets are made in a very simple way, quite in keeping with the simple life of the Persian. The loom, which consists of two wooden bars between which the warp is stretched, stands always in the workman's house, at door or window, where the light is best; the workers are always women and children, who sit in a row on a bench. This bench may be lowered or heightened at will, as the carpet grows higher, for they work upwards, the part finished being rolled at the bottom. Often, seeming to tire, they will cut it off in the middle of a pattern, adding quite an irrelevant end, or putting it aside to be joined later. It is curious that they have no apparent respect for these carpets which they love; I have seen a dealer cut off the border of a carpet and sell it for a small price, the buyer not wanting to pay the price of a whole expensive carpet, and only requiring the border for a doorway.
The patterns of the usual models are learnt by heart by the worker, but the more complicated ones are reduced to scale. The very clever workers copy a pattern by sight, but there is usually a man who announces the number of stitches of each colour in a sing-song voice, as if he were reading a poem. A good worker will do a bit of about four inches broad and seventeen long in a day, so it is easy to understand that a large carpet takes years to make.
Unfortunately the Persian carpet is no longer as well made as formerly; less care is taken in choosing the workmen, and the colours are not so well combined. Orders from abroad are continually increasing, and the carpets are more hurriedly finished in consequence, the prices becoming perforce lower as the standard is lowered. Many of the carpets now made are rendered valueless by the use of aniline dyes from Germany and this in spite of all the measures taken by the Persian Government to exclude the entrance of these dyes into the country. Societies have been formed to try and fight this growing danger to Persia's finest industry, on which a great proportion of the population depends for its livelihood, but their efforts have hitherto met with little success.
* * *
When the capital was Isfahan and not Teheran, begging at one time became such a nuisance that a certain Shah issued an edict forbidding it. It was always easier to issue an edict than to have it enforced, and the Minister told his master that he was unable to accomplish what he wished: so the Shah determined to do away with the nuisance himself. Disguising himself as a rich merchant, he started out on a tour of inspection on foot round his own city, but he had scarcely reached the street before he was besieged by beggars of every description, who said they were dying of hunger. He bade them follow him to the bazaar, where he would satisfy their cravings. Entering the bazaar he ordered the gates to be closed, and soon found himself the centre of a great crowd. He had the beggars drawn up in a line in front of him and, after examining them carefully, he chose the fattest, and asked him why he did not work and earn his own living. The beggar replied that he could not find work and was dying of hunger. The Shah repeated this question to all the fattest in turn, sympathizing with them equally; then turning to the crowd, he said: "I have so kind a heart that I wish to be charitable to you, but I will not be imposed upon; I am ashamed to think that people should die of hunger in my kingdom, but I must be sure, before I help you, that you are telling me the truth. There is only one certain way to do this; I will open your stomachs and look inside." The Shah's soldiers fulfilled this order, bringing him the proof of the lie in their hands. The fate of these beggars becoming known to all those outside the bazaar, and spreading throughout the kingdom, the remaining beggars took refuge in the mountains, and during the twenty years of his reign no more beggars were found in the capital. One regrets his decease daily.
* * *
The Minister's house is like an old abbey. Above the chancery is a clock tower covered with ivy, and it is by this clock that most of the Europeans who live near enough to hear it strike set their watches. Time is a difficult problem in Teheran. At approximately midday a cannon is fired on the Cossack parade-ground, but the approximation depends entirely on the soldier who fires it. We all think he fires it when he feels hungry, as it is very erratic. Anyhow, when invited out to dinner, we always inquire of our host whether he keeps Legation or gun time. Sometimes there is half an hour's difference. Neither of these times is ordinarily correct. Correct time, not a commodity in request in Teheran, is kept by the Indo-European Telegraphs, for whom it is telegraphed from London every morning at daybreak when the line is clear, so that connection is practically instantaneous. The difference between Teheran and Greenwich is three hours and twenty-six seconds.
* * *
One of my amusements in Teheran has been to stop and watch the camels being fed, which is always done at sunset in the open plain, at the caravans near the town. It is most interesting to see the business of the camp going on at the end of the day, when the tired men and beasts come to a halt; with their packs laid round them on the plain, the camels form themselves into little circles of eight or ten, their heads turned to the middle, and sink to the ground on their knees of their own accord, the man who is to feed them standing in the centre with a huge bag of food. This food looks like sticky white dough, and is rolled into big soft balls, about the size of a croquet ball, which he holds against the palms of his outspread hands; the beast and the man press towards each other, for the man seems to have to push the ball and help the camel to get it down its throat. The circles of animals give little guttural cries of impatience and keep turning their heads, till the men come and the food is served, shuffling close round the man on their knees, and nosing him and squeezing him in their excitement. They get a surprisingly small quantity of this food in comparison with their great bulk, and after being fed are turned loose, without their packs, to graze on the scant crop of thistlelike grass which, I believe, is called camel-thorn. They seem to enjoy it; it is also dried and used by the Persians for firing.
* * *
A great difficulty in Teheran is the distribution of the letters. Persians have no family name, so that if the address on the envelope does not include the profession, origin, parentage and all sorts of details concerning the person for whom the letter is destined, the probability is that the postman will never find the owner. Then again, if the letter is addressed to a woman, how can the postman reach her? She lives in a part of the house where he is not allowed to penetrate, and the houses have no letter-boxes. As there is so much difficulty about the distribution of letters, the Post Office has about fifty letter-boxes which can be hired by the public; strangely enough, however, only two are let. Persians usually register their letters, and in addition pay an extra tax to receive a notice that the letter has been delivered.
* * *
In 1911 thirty pupils were sent to France to complete their medical studies. Although, in August 1911, the Medjliss proposed to pass a law regulating the practice of medicine, it was not passed, as it was too much against the interests of the Persian doctors already in private practice and the native chemists' shops. Therefore, anyone having no knowledge of even the rudimentary rules of medicine may become a doctor or sell drugs. A Persian chemist's object is to buy a powder cheap and sell it dear, and to dilute it so that it does not immediately kill his patient. Fortunately there are two or three European chemists in Teheran.
A Persian proverb says, "The last doctor who sees the patient before his death is responsible for it"; and though the Persian doctor who has any pretence to pride in his reputation often calls in the European doctors in consultation, he never does so till the last moment, when it is usually too late. The European doctors have, therefore, earned with reason the title of being "the doctors of the dead."
* * *
Sometimes it is possible in the spring to get up a polo team. It is great fun to watch, and at one time some of us used to take tea down to the ground and spend a pleasant hour there. Now there is hockey and football to while away the time, and in summer the very enthusiastic play cricket.
* * *
Persians always have an answer ready; they are never taken unawares, and their inventive powers, when needed to get them out of a difficulty, are very great. A foreign Minister, travelling to Teheran from Resht, stopped at one of the small stations for some food. The head of the tea-house being asked by the dragoman what he could give them to eat, replied he had very little, only two eggs and a chicken. The Minister, being informed of this, said they would eat anything they could get there and have a better meal at the next station. After a little while one egg was brought in and set upon the table. The dragoman asked where the rest of the meal was, and was told that "The chicken shows every sign of laying the second egg, and when she has done so I will bring it to you, and then I will kill her and cook her for you" a neat way out of the difficulty!
