CHAPTER XIII.
23d June.—Kirmánshah to Mydasht, twenty-three miles. Owing to the promptitude of the Wakiluddaula in meeting my wishes and expediting my journey (for I had told him my object was to reach Basrah in time for the first July steamer to Bombay), we were enabled to set out from the city at ten o’clock last night. I had given the order to load and start at sixP.M., but the mulemen rebelled, led away their mules, and caused much trouble. Shukrullah Beg, however, advanced them some money, and by alternate threats and conciliations, persuaded them to return; and just then an escort of four horsemen arriving from the governor with letters for the commandant of the troops at Zuháb, I left three of them in charge of the baggage, with directions to bring it on so soon as loaded, and with the other as guide, set out from the city without further delay, calculating that my departure would decide the mulemen on their course, and hasten their movements.
After clearing the city and the low ridges to its west, we halted awhile for the rest of our party, who presently came up and joined us. The change from the close air and foul smells of the city to the pure fresh breezes on the open plain was most agreeable, and quickly dispelled the headaches, nausea, and feverish malaise most of us complained of in the filthy pent-up courts of our temporary residence. If the choice were mine, I should never enter these filthy Persian towns and villages, but campunder the shade of the trees in the gardens and vineyards surrounding all such habitations. In this time of famine and pestilence, one never knows what sickness may have occurred in the empty houses we took up our quarters in, whilst their state of neglect and impure atmosphere only suggested very disturbing fancies, and speculations we had no means of correcting.
We reached Mydasht Sarae at 4.30A.M.The morning air was so cold that we were glad of a fire to warm ourselves, and the midday sun was so hot that we took off our coats as superfluous. At daylight, the temperature was as low as 40° Fah., and in the middle of the day it rose to 136° Fah. in the sun’s rays, and 88° Fah. in the shelter of thesarae.
At half-way on our march, descending a long winding gully that opens on to a plain covered with some crops, we met a very large caravan of pilgrims and merchants on their way to Kirmánshah from Karbalá and Baghdad. There were nearly two thousand mules, camels, and asses, and fully as many men and women. We heard the sounds of their approach some minutes before we met. The escort with me and Shukrullah Beg were at first disconcerted by the sounds, and hastily collected our baggagers and party into a close compact column, and moved cautiously down the slope. Presently, on turning a rock, we were suddenly challenged by a party of four or five horsemen.[4]“It’s all right,” said Shukrullah Beg, “let us go on in the order we are now in. The caravan is a large one, and we may get confused with those in it.” The warning was quite necessary, for the caravan was the largest I have ever seen, and we werefully half an hour passing each other. Amongst the crowd were many mule-litters bearing veiled ladies. I counted one string of thirty-five out of several others.
I rode my dromedary on this march, and was, in the dim light of dawn, taken for a pilgrim by the people of the caravan, and received many a “Salám alaik Hájí!” from those nearest to me. I was so fatigued by the excitement and wakefulness of the past twenty-four hours, that soon after arrival at thesarae, I fell asleep in front of the fire lighted to warm our numbed hands and feet, and was for a time dead to the assaults of the vermin that swarmed all over the place. Their voracity, however, soon roused me from my slumbers, and I found myself violently attacked by the hosts of bugs, lice, fleas, spiders, and cockchafers, on whose domain I had intruded. They punished me so severely that I was glad to beat a retreat, and take refuge in my own tent, which, the baggage having come up, I had pitched at once. The delights of a tub and a clean suit can be better imagined than described.
Our next stage was twenty-eight miles to Hárúnabad. We set out at tenP.M., and marched all night in a south-westerly direction by a very good road over three successive ranges of hill, where the path is very stony. The rocks are limestone and magnesian limestone, and are thickly covered on their slopes with dwarf oak-trees. Except a small hamlet and a tiny stream at the first hill pass, called Kotal Cház Zabbú, we passed no village nor water in all the route. We saw, however, someilyátcamps, and small patches of corn cultivation in the nooks of the hills.
At fiveA.M.we arrived at Hárúnabad, a dilapidated village occupied by only twenty or thirty families. The rest, we were told, had gone off for the six summer monthsto theiraylácor summer quarters in the hills. Thekishlác, or winter quarters on the plain, are now mostly abandoned. The people here are all Kurds. We found thesaraehere (there are no post-houses on this road west of Kirmánshah) so dirty, and occupied by such dreadfully unwholesome-looking beggars, that we gladly availed ourselves of the offer of the chief man in the place to alight at the residence of the governor, who is at present absent on a tour in the district.
The house stands on the slope of a laminated limestone ridge, and overlooks a stream of beautiful clear water, full of fish and tortoises. It is apparently a new building, and is tastefully decorated with ornamental plaster. We found the rooms in the upper story quite empty, but very clean and sweet. The servant in charge of the house spread some felt carpets on the floor; and I stretched me down, and went to sleep till our baggage arrived, and the noise of the men woke me.
We hear disquieting reports regarding the safety of the road ahead. The country about Pul Zuháb is said to be in possession of the Khaleva tribe, who are now in open rebellion against the authority of the Sháh, by whom they were, to the number of a thousand families, transported a couple of years ago from the vicinity of Baghdad to their present settlements on this frontier. Their cause of dissatisfaction is the attempt to exact revenue from them. They are described as nomads of very unsettled habits, and predatory at all times. They possess valuable mares like the Baloch, and mounted on them, they now harass the country from Pul Zuháb to Hájí Cara. They are committed to this course of rebellion on account of a rupture with the Persian Government.
It appears that the governor of Karriud, Malik Nyáz Khán, went amongst their camps to collect the revenue;in a dispute at some tents, he was set upon and killed. The Sháh’s troops were consequently brought out to operate against the tribe. They have captured some principal men and their families, and have dispersed the rest of the camps into the hills.
At 10.30P.M., having made the guardian of our quarters happy, and requested him to convey our thanks to our absent host, Sartip Muhammad Hasan, Khalora, we set out from Hárúnabad, and after a march of twenty-four miles, at fiveA.M.arrived at Karriud. Here we found thesaraefull; and after wandering about a while, hired a house on the skirts of the town for the day. Our route was W.N.W., by a good road over and between low hills covered with dwarf oak-trees. In the glens and hollows we passed manyilyátcamps, and patches of rich corn.
Karriud is a charming spot, and its air is delightfully pure and refreshing. The town contains about two thousand houses, and is romantically situated in a deep hollow between two great hills of magnesian limestone. The elevation here is 5212 feet above the sea, and the night air is decidedly cold. Yet as we rode into the town we found the people sleeping on the house-tops, curled up in their coverlets. The tramping of our horses aroused some sleeping beauties, who, rubbing their eyes, stared at us with undisguised surprise, and shook their slumbering lords to take note of the new-comers.
Some of the young women—they were all fair complexioned, I observed—had very comely features, and fine turned limbs, which showed to advantage in contrast with their greasy and tattered attire. The town has a very flourishing look, and is crowded with a bustling population, who, notwithstanding their dirty habits and slovenly dress, appear comfortable and prosperous. Wehave evidently left the land of misery and starvation, for we have not seen so thriving and happy a scene since we entered Persian territory.
The bread we got here was made from the newly-reaped corn, and was simply delicious, after the coarse, mouldy, and gritty stuff we had been eating during the past fortnight. We saw lots of cattle here, a new feature on the scene; and, yet more surprising, some veritable domestic pigs. One of them, indeed, scared away from its fellows by our appearance, trotted ahead of us into the town, heralding our approach by a succession of grunts.
26th June.—Pul Karriud to Zuháb, thirty-two miles. We left Karriud at 8.45P.M.yesterday, and proceeded W.N.W. through a narrow valley, rising gently for eight miles. Here we descended by a rocky path into a deep winding defile, the sides of which are thickly covered with oak-trees. The road, everywhere rough and difficult, passes from side to side across a boulder-strewn ravine, in which are pools trickling from one to the other down the slope. At about half-way down the pass, we came to Myán Tágh, a village of about a couple of hundred houses. Here we found a regiment of Persian infantry orsarbáz, just returned from Pul Zuháb, where it appears they have had an encounter with the enemy. The men were scattered about the road for three miles beyond the village in great disorder, and without a semblance of discipline. Some of them chaffed our men, and asked what we had with us that we should go on when they were in retreat from Pul Zuháb. Their merriment and gibes, however, were at once silenced by Shukrullah Beg, who authoritatively announced that we weremámúr i daulat i Inglisia(on the service of the English Government). The words acted with magical effect. Those nearus stood at “attention,” and others as we passed on touched their caps.
Shukrullah Beg now told me we should have trouble ahead. There was no doubt, he said, about the Khaleva rebellion. A party of four hundred of them had only yesterday plundered Pul Zuháb, and were still in force in the vicinity. He was telling me what he had heard from thesarbáz(that they were brought back to the shelter of these hills to wait for reinforcements to attack the enemy), when his story was verified by a long stream of people hurrying up the defile with their asses and oxen bearing their household goods and chattels.
At the steep descent of the pass where the road zigzags down to Páyín Tágh, we had some difficulty in passing the stream set uphill against us. The poor fugitives were driving their cattle and puffing and panting as if the enemy were in hot pursuit. Some of their bullocks, taking fright at our party, became obstreperous, threw their loads, and charged in amongst us, producing no small confusion, and considerable risk of a roll down the precipice.
There were about four hundred of these Kurds coming up the pass. Many of them expressed surprise at our going down the hill when we saw they were running away up it. One hardy old dame in particular, whose bullock with all her worldly goods had dashed up the hillside to escape our approach, was especially loud and garrulous, and harangued us from the turn at a zig in words I did not understand. Shukrullah Beg explained by saying the old lady was facetious, and asked if we thought ourselves lions that we were going down to face the robbers who had defeated even thesarbáz? These Kurds were very poor and dirty people; some of them were hideously ugly. Many of them had a sickly, unwholesomelook, and in the light of dawning day, I saw that ophthalmia afflicted most of their children and young people.
The descent to Páyín Tágh is long and steep, by a stony road that zigzags down the mountain slope. Above the path to the right stands a solitary fire-temple, in a fairly preserved state of ruin. Away to the left of the descent is a very deep and narrow chasm, that drains the Myán Tágh defile and hills to the plain below. Seen in the waning moonlight on one side the descent, and in the growing gleams of a rising sun on the other, it looked a very remarkable natural phenomenon, and appeared like a great rent or fissure in the rocky barrier that closes the defile in this direction.[5]
Onwards from Páyín Tágh our road led along a gradually expanding valley, and at about ten miles brought us to Pul Zuháb. The view on looking back is peculiar and strikingly curious. The hills rise abruptly from the plain, and form a well-defined barrier, that extends west and east, a great buttress supporting the tablelands of Persia against the valley of the Tigris on the one hand, and the littoral of the Persian Gulf on the other.
We arrived at Pul Zuháb, or Saribul, as it is also called, from the bridge here over the Alwand river, at 7.30A.M., and finding thesaraeoccupied by a regiment ofsarbáz, pitched our tents on the bank of the river below the bridge. The height of this place is 2220 feet above the sea, and 2992 below that of Karriud. The change in the temperature was as great at it was sudden. At twoP.M.the thermometer rose to 102° Fah. in my tent, and placed in the rays of the sun, went up to 140° Fah. Atmidnight it fell to 60° Fah. in the open air. At Karriud the midday temperature was only 79° Fah., and in the early morning only 50° Fah., though the sun’s rays affected the mercury there as much as they did here, raising it to 134° Fah.
Soon after our arrival here I sent Shukrullah Beg with the passport received from the governor of Kirmánshah to the head man here, to arrange for an escort to proceed with my party in the morning. He returned an hour later saying the official here would have nothing to say to the passport, as it was addressed to the frontier officer at Zuháb, a town said to be twofarsakhsdistant in a north-west direction.
This was rather embarrassing intelligence, and I was in doubt as to what course I should adopt, when some further information elicited from Shukrullah Beg decided me in my line of action. He told me that the officer now in charge of the frontier at Zuháb, had only just been appointed by the Sháh’s government, in place of the local hereditary chief, who had been recently killed by the Khaleva (Arab) rebels, and that he was a Persian of Tehran. The commandant of the troops here was a brother of the murdered chief, and claimed to succeed him in the local government. But as he had been denied his right, he was not on good terms with the new incumbent, and would make a difficulty in carrying out any orders received from him, and that it was probable I might be detained here a week or more, till reference was made to Kirmánshah.
The very thought of this was more than I could bear. I therefore sent Shukrullah Beg to the commandant of the troops, who it seems was also governor of this place, with instructions to convey my compliments, and inform him that I was travelling on the service of Government,that it was important I should not be unnecessarily delayed, and that it was my intention to march towards Casri Shirin at sunset. After considerable delay, Shukrullah Beg returned, and reported that the commandant had received and understood my message, that he said he had received no authority to escort my party, and could not let me proceed, as the road ahead was altogether unsafe, and that he would call on me in the course of the afternoon to explain how matters stood.
Shortly before sunset a messenger came across the river to announce that the commandant, Murád Ali Khán, was coming over to see me. I said he was welcome, and meanwhile ordered some tea to be prepared, and arranged my camp-stools and boxes as seats. He dismounted at the bridge, and attended by four or five others, walked over to where I was seated in front of my tent. I rose and shook hands with him, and thanked him for taking the trouble to come over, and gave him a seat. He then introduced his brother, Karím Khán, commandant of the cavalry stationed here, and motioned him to a seat; the others stood at the edge of the carpet spread before us. A pause followed, and then we bowed at each other politely, expressing much, but saying nothing. He then looked round, and observed that we were a large party, and had a good deal of baggage. “Yes,” I said, “they are natives of India, and are returning to their country with me.” Another pause followed, and the tea opportunely came round to fill a threatening hiatus. I apologised for the absence of thecalyán, as I had none with me, but offered a cheroot in its place, and set the example in its use. He lighted one and his brother another, and then we began to talk more at ease. I then said that mymirakhorShukrullah Beg had led me to understand that there would be some little delay in getting an escorthere, owing to an informality in the address of my passport, but that I was desirous of avoiding unnecessary delay, and purposed marching onwards this evening.
“Quite true,” he said, “the passport is not addressed to me, but as I have received a letter by express messenger from the Wakiluddaula at Kirmánshah, requesting me to further your progress, and as he is a personal friend of mine, I am ready to take you across to the Turkish frontier, and I will there ask you for a letter certifying to my having done so.”
“Certainly,” I said, “this is very good. Agha Hasan,” I added, “told me at Kirmánshah that he would write to you, and that I should be saved inconvenience thereby. Will the escort be ready to accompany me this evening? My camp is ready to march at an hour’s notice.”
“No,” he said, “you cannot move this evening. You require a strong escort, and it will not be ready till morning. I myself and Karím Khán will come over for you at daybreak, and we must march together with every precaution. There are four hundred rebel Khaleva (Arabs) on the road. They plundered yonder village,” pointing to a sacked and roofless hamlet a mile off, “only yesterday.”
“Thanks,” I said, rising; “I shall be ready for you at daybreak.”
I shook hands with each, and they both retired with their attendants. They are both fair men, with good honest features, of simple manners and plain outspoken speech. After they left, Shukrullah Beg told me that my determination to go on had alarmed the commandant, for he did not like to stop me, and could not let me proceed unprotected, as the road was really dangerous; but he doubted his promise to start in the morning.
About noon, a caravan from Khánakín had arrivedhere, escorted by a party of horsemen. They camped on the river bank alongside of ourselves, and from them our people heard all sorts of exaggerated reports as to the dangers of the road. But it was true they had been attacked yesterday beyond Casri Shirin, and a string of camels cut off from thekáfilaby these Khaleva rebels. I determined, however, to abide by the commandant’s promise, and gave the order to march at daylight.
27th June.—Pul Zuháb to Casri Shirin, twenty-four miles. At threeA.M.our camp was struck and all ready to start, but no sign of the escort appeared. I sent Shukrullah Beg over to the commandant to say I was ready, but he returned presently with a reply from some subordinate that he was asleep. I waited till fourA.M., and then moved off, sending a Persiansarbáz, of whom six or seven had been standing sentry over our camp during the night, to inform the commandant that I was going on slowly, and the escort could follow.
We went west by north across the valley, passingen routethe village plundered by the rebels yesterday, up to some low hill ridges. Here we were overtaken by a party of horsemen under Karím Khán. He galloped up, saluted in military fashion, and said the commandant was following with the infantry, and that we had better wait his arrival here. We dismounted, halted the baggage, and I gave the cavalry leader a cheroot to while away the time, whilst we watched the infantry coming along the plain. They were a very ragged-looking set, armed with long rifles, fired from a forked rest attached by a hinge to the barrel, and just like those used by Afghan mountaineers. They came along at a good pace, with no attempt at formation, but with a light springy step and very merry tempers. As they approached, the commandant urged his horse up theslope, and saluting as his brother had done, laughingly observed that my punctuality had roused him an hour sooner than he intended. A preferred cheroot, however, turned the current of his thoughts from his curtailed slumbers, and remounting, we proceeded in the best of humours.
Our route led for twenty miles across a rough uninhabited country, traversed in all directions by low ridgy banks, here and there rising to the proportions of hillocks. The infantry trotted along on each side of our baggage; and the cavalry, from front and rear, sent out parties to the heights on either side to reconnoitre the country. At about seventeen miles we came to a great wall, built across the outlet of a small hollow. The stones were of large size, like those of the Pyramids. This structure, we were told, was originally an aqueduct from the river Alwand to Casri Shirin; and a little farther on we came to the river itself, a sprightly little stream, with a fringe of tall reeds on either bank. The sun was now shining hotly, and added to the thirsty sensations excited by the parched arid look of the land; so we turned aside to it to water our cattle and allow the men to slake their thirst. Frequent warnings from our escort hurried us on again; and we proceeded along the line of telegraph posts, here thrown down and the wires cut by the rebels. We passed through the ruins of a great fort and palace of very ancient date, and entered the village beyond. As we passed through these ruins, there was a commotion amongst our horsemen ahead, and several of them galloped off to the village beyond; and when we emerged from them, we found theSarbáz-Khánaor “barracks” overlooking the little town was covered with soldiers perched on the domes of its roof, eagerly scanning the country around.
Our party hastened their paces, and in a few minutes we entered Casri Shirin, or “the palace of Shirin,” named after the ruins close by, and were accommodated in an empty house adjoining asarae, in which our cattle and followers found shelter. We had hardly settled down for the day, when a party ofsarbázbrought in a villager who had been shot through the lungs above the heart not an hour before. A party of Khaleva had swept past the village just as we arrived, and drove off the cattle some villagers were tending at graze. These men, though unarmed, attempted to resist, and one of them was shot. The advance of our party had caught sight of the rebels as they went off with their booty, and hence the commotion above alluded to.
I did what I could for the poor fellow brought to me, but he was fast bleeding to death, and I told his friends that he had not many hours to live. They bore him away to his home, only a few houses off, and later on towards the evening the sounds of women wailing and beating their breasts announced that he was out of his suffering in this world. In the afternoon, Murád Ali and his brother Karím came to see me, and congratulate us on having made the journey so far in safety. The former said that had he met these people he must have fought them; and as they were much stronger than his own force in numbers, he could not have driven them off without loss. His party with us consisted of sixty horsemen, and a hundred and twentysarbáz; whilst the rebels were reckoned at four hundred, all mounted on hardy and active Arab mares.
Before leaving, Murád Ali produced a paper for me to sign. It was written in Persian, and was to the purport that he had escorted my party in safety and comfort from Pul Zuháb to the Turkish outpost at Khánakín. Ireturned the paper, saying I was quite satisfied with the escort to this, and would sign it on arrival at Khánakín. He here explained that he could not enter the Turkish outpost with us, and I could not sign it on the road. To this I replied, that there could be no difficulty on that score, as I carried pen and ink with me, and would sign it on the road outside the Turkish post. He looked rather disappointed, so I told Shukrullah Beg to explain in a friendly way that I could not certify to a service as completed when it was only half accomplished.
I then presented him with a telescope, and his brother with a revolver, explaining that I should not have an opportunity on the road of offering these tokens of my thankfulness for his kindness, and also begged he would allow me to make a small present in money to each of thesarbázwho had formed our escort. This last arrangement was objected to on the score of its being contrary to custom, but the objection was readily withdrawn on my representing it as an exceptional case. They both seemed well pleased, and after arranging that we should start at midnight, took their leave, and as a last request begged that I would not move till they came for me, and I promised compliance.
28th June.—Casri Shirin to Khánakín, twenty-four miles. We were ready at the appointed hour, but our escort did not make their appearance till after one o’clock, and it was nearly twoA.M.before our party was arranged in marching order and finally started. Our route at first was across a rough raviny tract along the course of the Alwand river, and then for several miles over a wild and hummocky country, which had frequently been raided by the rebels. We were hurried across this bit of the road very quickly, as it was feared the enemy might be concealed amongst the inequalities of the ground oneither hand, and it was as much as oursarbázcould do to keep pace with us, though they trotted along manfully.
Soon after the day had broken, and as the rising sun was slanting rays of light upon the country, dimly visible in the departing obscurity, we came upon the wreck of thekáfilathat had been plundered yesterday. The road was strewed with bits of paper and cardboard boxes, and on either side lay deal boxes smashed to pieces, and tin cases torn open. Oursarbázhastily ransacked these, and ran along bearing cones of loaf-sugar under their arms and bottles of claret stowed away in their coat fronts. Some got hold of packets of letter-paper, and others of boxes of Frenchbonbons. As we got on, tiring of their loads, they hid them away under roadside bushes, to take them up again on their return.
At about sixteen miles we came to the Turko-Persian boundary, marked by a bare gravelly ridge, slightly more elevated than the others, that form the most characteristic feature of the country. Here the commandant, Murád Ali, with the escort ofsarbáz, took leave of us. He produced the paper he showed me yesterday, and asked me to sign it, saying his brother, Karím Khán, with the sixty horsemen, would see us safe into Khánakín. “Then,” said I, “make the paper over to him, and I will sign it there.” He readily assented, and accompanied us to the foot of the slope, and then shaking hands, galloped back to hissarbázon the crest of the ridge.
We had proceeded about three miles over a gently falling country, thrown into mounds and ridges of bare gravel, and I was in interesting converse with some Bukhára pilgrims on their way to Karbalá, who had joined our party at Casri Shirin, when some signs made by our advanced horsemen from an eminence ahead ofour path made Karím Khán mass us all together and push on at a trot. “Has anything been seen?” I asked as we trotted along amidst the dreadful clatter of our mules, who seemed to scent danger instinctively, and quickened their pace with an alacrity I would not have given them credit for. “Yes,” he said, “the enemy are on our flank. Their scouts have been seen.” A little farther on we caught sight of them. “There they are,” said Karím Khán, pointing to a knot of twelve or fourteen horsemen about a mile and a half off, as they passed across a bit of open ground from the shelter of one mound to the concealment of another. “There are only a dozen of them,” I said; “they cannot harm us.” “That’s all you see, but there are four hundred of them behind those knolls. There is akáfilacoming out from Khánakín now, and they are lying in ambush for it. We shall not get back to Casri without a fight.”
Farther on we saw another party of these robbers skulking behind the mounds a mile or two off the road to the left. But we had now come in sight of Khánakín. A party of five or six Turkish cavalry with their red caps stood out against the sky on a mound to the right, and a similar party did the same on a mound to the left. A mile or two ahead appeared the green gardens of Khánakín and Hájí Cara, and on the plain outside stood the snow-white tents of a regiment of Turkish infantry.
Karím Khán’s horsemen reined up on some rising ground to the right to await the comingkáfila, and the Khán himself, dismounting, said he would here take leave of me. I thanked him for his service, signed his paper, shook hands, and with a “Khudá háfíz!” (“God your protector!”), mounted and proceeded. As we entered Khánakín a large caravan filing out took the road we had come. Some of the camels were beautiful creatures,and perfectly white. Behind them followed a long string of pannier-mules, with their freight of fair Persians, and on either side marched a gay cavalcade of Persian gentlemen. Bringing up the rear was a mixed crowd of more humble travellers, menials, and beggars.
They filed by, and we found ourselves before a greatsarae. Here some Turkish officials took possession of us, ushered us within its portals, and informed us the quarantine would last ten days. We were prepared for this delay, although we had cherished the hope that a clean bill of health might pass us through without detention. But the rules were strict, and rigidly observed; we had come from an infected country, and were consequently pronounced unclean, and only the quarantine could cleanse us.
It was very cruel, and a sad disappointment, after our long and wearisome marches to catch a particular steamer, to be here baffled at the very threshold of our success. There was no hope of release. I saw the Basrah packet steaming away in the distance, and myself left on the shore; so resigned myself to the hard logic of facts, and heartily hoped that at least one of the members of that great congress of European medical men who met at Constantinople to devise these traps might some day be caught in this particular snare of his own setting.
Looking around our prison-house, we found three or four parties of wretched, half-starved pilgrims detained here on their way to Karbalá. In their dirt and rags they were the very embodiment of poverty and misery. Turning from them to the quarters at our disposal, the revelation was still more disgusting. The place had not been swept for ages, and the floor was inches deep in filth and stable litter. The torments of the Mydasht Sarae came back vividly to my mind. It was impossiblefor us to live here, so I asked to see the doctor in charge of the quarantine. “He died of fever ten days ago,” said our janitor, “and his successor has not yet arrived.” I was about to move out of thesarae, and pitch my tent outside, when a Residencykhavass, who had been kindly sent forward from Baghdad by the Resident, Colonel C. Herbert, to meet me here and attend me on the journey onwards, made his appearance with a letter from his master. Ilyás, for such was his name—AnglicèElias—hearing my orders to pitch the tents, here interposed a representation that the heat and dust outside would be unbearable, and sure to make us all ill. If permitted, he would secure us quarters in one of the gardens adjoining. By all means; and away he went on his errand. Presently he returned with a couple of Turkish officials, who heard our objections to thesarae, and at once led us off to a nice garden at a little distance, where we pitched our tents under the shade of some mulberry-trees. A guard of Turkish soldiers was placed round us to prevent communication with the townspeople, except through the appointed quarantine servants, and we were left alone to ourselves.
The Bukhára pilgrims who had joined our party at Casri Shirin, and who had slipped out of thesaraewith our baggage, in hopes of sharing the garden and proceeding onwards with us, were discovered by the quarantine people, and marched back to their durance. Poor fellows! they pleaded hard to remain with us, and appealed to me to befriend them; and the quarantine inspector, who, I must record to his credit, did his utmost to make his disagreeable duty as little offensive as possible, promised they should accompany us on our departure hence.
There were three of these Bukhariots. One of them, Hakím Beg, a very intelligent young man of pleasingmanners, gave me some interesting information regarding his country. He told me he had set out from Bukhára five months ago with four other friends and two servants. Two of his party and one servant had died on the road through sickness. The other two and the servant were those I saw with him. From Karbalá it was their intention to go to Bombay, and thence home by Peshawar and Kabul.
He spoke in most favourable terms of the Russian rule in Turkestan, and said their government was just and popular. The Russian officials he described as kind and liberal, yet stern when necessary, and declared the people preferred them to their own rulers. There are about twenty thousand of the people of the country employed in the Russian service, civil and military, and there is a strong Russian force at Samarcand—twelve thousand men, he thought. When he left, an expedition had started eastward to subdue Khokand and Yárkand; and it was generally given out that in three years time the Amir of Bukhára would resign his country to the Russians. There were, he reckoned, thirty thousand Persian captives, all Shia Muhammadans, in the country, which is extremely populous and fertile. Hundreds had been purchased from their owners and set at liberty by the Russians. The whole country, including Khiva, would very soon come under the Russian rule, and then all the captives held as slaves would be at once liberated. They number between fifty and sixty thousand. In ten years’ time, he said, the Russians would march to India.
Our quarantine quarters in the garden are insupportably dull and insupportably hot. The thermometer at noon—it is suspended from the branch of a mulberry-tree over a little stream of water—ranged from 100° Fah. to 108° Fah. during the eight days of our stay here.In the sun’s rays, the mercury rises to 150° Fah., and at night has fallen so low as 64° Fah.
On the 2d July, a flight of locusts settled on the garden. The townspeople turned out with drums, and shouts, and stones; but their host was not materially diminished. Their jaws worked steadily with a sawing noise all night and all the next day, and then they flew away, leaving the garden a forest of bare sticks, and the ground thick with the leaves they had nibbled off. Apricot, peach, plum, pomegranate, apple and mulberry trees are cleared to the bark; and their boughs were weighed down with the load of the destroying host. The damage done must be very great. Not a particle of shade is left for us, and the heat is something dreadful.
6th July.—We were to have set out on our way this evening, but at the last moment were informed that our health papers would not be ready till the morning, so our departure is fixed for to-morrow evening. The doctor of the Turkish regiment here came to see us. He tells me that typhus fever is very prevalent in the town, and that one hundred and eighty people have died of it during the last three months. The Turkish troops here are a remarkably fine set of men. There is nothing like them in Persia. They wear the Zouave-pattern jacket, and baggy trousers, with the red cap. The uniform is white cotton, thick and strong, and spotless clean; their arms, the Enfield-pattern rifle and a sword-bayonet.
8th July.—Khánakín to Shahrabad or Sherabad, forty-five miles. Our health papers were brought to us yesterday afternoon, and we were once more free. The march was fixed for sunset, and our mules and baggage and servants were all ready to start at the appointed time, but there was some delay in the arrival of ourescort. Shukrullah Beg, who had become as helpless and discontented as any one of our party in the quarantine, now recovered his liberty, but not his former activity andsavoir faire. He was out of his element amongst the Turks, and willingly resigned his office to thekhavassIlyás. The latter went off to the Turkish commandant, who had soon after our arrival been furnished with my passport from the Turkish minister at the Persian court, and after a long absence, returned with a party of nine Georgian horsemen, fine handsome fellows, dressed and equipped in their national costume and armour.
It was eight o’clock before we set out on our long night-march. The evening air was close, still, and oppressive. We wound our way through the bazárs of Hájí Cara, passing its many cafés with their crowds of solemn-looking, silent Turks, puffing their long pipes and sipping their black coffee—the first characteristic of the new country we had entered; and crossing the river Alwand a little below a broken bridge, struck across some rough stony ground, crossed by several irrigation cuts, towards the high road, which we reached at three miles. The river Alwand is a branch of the Dyalla, and, where we crossed, was about forty yards wide and two feet deep, flowing in a clear stream over a pebbly bottom.
After reaching the main road, our route led south by west, over an undulating country, apparently uninhabited. At 3.45A.M.we reached Kizil Rabát, the land gradually falling all the way. Here we changed our escort, and found a large party of the Khaleva rebels, who had recently been captured by the Turkish troops, and were now being conducted to Baghdad, there to answer for their misdeeds. The escort which here joined us hadunder their charge as prisoner one Hátim Khán, chief of the Khaleva tribe of Hamávand Arabs. He was captured some days ago, shortly after our passage, near the Casri Shirin frontier, and was now being conveyed, as they told us, for execution to Baghdad. He was a powerfully-built, handsome young man, of about twenty-five years of age; and was accompanied by a servant, who walked by the side of his mule, and from time to time eased his master’s position as much as his fetters would allow. The captive chief was mounted on a mule, his hands were manacled together in front, and his feet fettered together above the ankles under the saddle-girths. The position must have been most tiresome, and the captive was sometimes so overtaken by sleep, that he nearly fell off his seat, and was several times waked up by a sudden fall on the mule’s neck.
From Kizil Rabát the road leads S.S.W over an undulating alluvial plain, up to a range of sandstone hills that separate it from Shahrabad. We crossed this range by a fairly good road, here and there passing over rocks by deep and narrow paths worn into their surface, and at seven o’clock reached the plain on the other side. Another hour and a half across a plain covered with scrubby vegetation brought us to Shahrabad, where we alighted at thesarae. I was so exhausted by the effects of the heat and confinement at Khánakín, and so thoroughly fatigued by the tedium of twelve and a half hours’ march in the saddle, that, without waiting for refreshment, I stretched myself on the floor, pillowed my head on my elbow, and immediately sunk into unconsciousness.
About noon our baggage arrived, and, to our satisfaction, the mules were not nearly as jaded as we expected; so I gave the order to march at sunset for Bácúba. During the afternoon, the governor called to say that hecould not give us an escort, as all his horsemen were out in the district, owing to the disturbed state of the country. He promised, however, that the Kizil Rabát escort with their prisoner should accompany us in the evening.
This is a dirty little village, in the midst of a wide, thinly-peopled, and mostly desert plain. It is only 750 feet above the sea-level, and 290 feet lower than Khánakín, and at this season is a very hot place. We had the floor of our rooms sprinkled with water in the hopes of the evaporation reducing the temperature, but it did not fall below 98° Fah. during the whole day. The walls of thesaraeand adjoining houses are lined with great piled-up heaps of storks’ nests. Towards sunset the parent birds returned from the marshes with the evening meal for their young. Each bird, as it alighted on its nest, threw back its head, and made a loud clattering with its beak, and then disgorged a quantity of roots and worms, which the young ones gobbled up. It was a very singular sight. They all kept up a sort of dance upon the flat surface of the nest, their lanky legs being kept in the perpendicular by the flapping of half-stretched wings.
Whilst our baggage was being laden this evening, the keeper of thesarae, who gave his name as Abdurrazzác, came up to me for the customary present. I gave it him, and was turning away when he asked, “Is Akhún Sáhib still alive?”
“Whom do you mean?” I said, quite taken aback.
“The Akhún of Swát, Abdulghafúr, the hermit of Bekí,” he replied.
“What do you know of him, and why ask me?” I inquired.
“I am a disciple of his,” he replied, “and your peopletell me you have come from Peshawar, and know all about him. It is reported here that he is dead, and has been succeeded by his son Sayyid Mahmúd Badsháh, whosekarámát(miraculous powers) are even more strongly developed than those of the father.”
“It is six months,” I said, “since I left Peshawar, and this is the first time I have heard the Akhún’s name mentioned.”
He then told me that there were about a dozen of his disciples (muríd) in this town, and upwards of a thousand in Mosul, whence a sum of two thousand rupees is annually sent to Swát as tribute to the saint.
Our baggage filing out, I now mounted my horse, whilst my strange acquaintance, holding on to the stirrup on the off side, in sonorous tones repeated the Akhún’s creed, “Ant ul hádí, ant ul hacc; lais ul hádí illahú!” (“Thou art the guide, thou art the truth; there is no guide but God!”) I bade the stranger good evening, and went on, wondering at the strange adventures travellers meet with.
9th July.—Shahrabad to Bácúba or Yácúbia, thirty-two miles. We set out at half-past eight o’clock yesterday evening, and passing through the town, struck across a plain country much cut up by dry water-courses. As we left the town, some people at the gate warned us to be on the alert, as akáfilahad been attacked and plundered the night before at four miles from Bácúba. Our escort consists of only five horsemen, with two others in charge of the Hamávand prisoner. Our own party, which consists of twenty-three baggage-mules, and as many followers, and a couple of riding-camels, accompanied by the Bukhára pilgrims, was here joined by an Arab Shekh with a patriarchal beard of snowy whiteness—an ideal Abraham, in fact—and five or sixother travellers on foot, who seized this opportunity of a safe conduct to Baghdad.
We had proceeded very quietly for about three hours, our eyelids becoming gradually weighed down by the weight of sleep, when we came to a deep water-cut. We followed the course of this for half an hour up to a bridge thrown across it. A gentlewhiseet-whiseetwas now and again heard to proceed from the bushes on the other side of the canal.
“That’s an odd sound,” I observed to Mr Rozario, who was riding by my side; “larks, I suppose, disturbed by the tinkling of our mule-bells.”
“Yes, sir, it sounds like the voice of birds. There it is again, farther off.”
The sounds ceased, we crossed the bridge and clearing a patch of thin brushwood, got on to a bit of plain country. It was just midnight, my horse was very tired, and his rider was very sleepy. So I drew aside to let the baggage get on, and dismounted to await my riding-camel in the rear of the column. Its saddle required a little adjusting, and all meanwhile went ahead except myself, the camel-driver, thekhavassIlyás, and one of our escort.
“All is ready,” said Hydar Ali, the driver, and I took my seat behind him. The camel had just risen from the crouch, when there came the sound of a confused buzz of voices, and a quick rustling of footsteps on the hard plain behind us.
“Bang! bang!” from my attendants as they shot ahead full speed, shouting, “To the baggage!—quick! quick! to the baggage!” “Bang! bang!” again as they turned in their saddles and fired into our pursuers. And amidst a din of shouts and guttural sounds, I found myself joggled along at a pace equal to that of the horses. Two minutesbrought us to the baggage, all halted and clustered together in a packed mass. The escort came to the front, and with threats followed by shots, kept the robbers at bay, whilst theircháwashor officer had the baggage unladen and the loads piled in a semicircular breastwork, the mules ranged outside and the followers inside. All this was done with the rapidity of lightning, and in less time than it has taken me to describe it, we found ourselves, half a dozen horsemen, arms in hand, at either end of the breastwork, facing a party of thirty or forty Arab robbers at the edge of some brushwood not as many yards of.
“I know them,” said thecháwash. “This is our only chance. If we move, they will shower their javelins amongst us and then rush in with their knives.” “Bang! bang!” “Have a care! we mean to fight,” shouted some of our party; and Ilyás answered their demands for thezawwár Ajam(Persian pilgrims) to be made over to them as their lawful prize, by the bold intimation that we were not pilgrims at all, but thirty Englishmen, all armed with rifles. The venerable old Shekh too put in a word, or rather many words, in a horribly harsh and savagely energetic language. What he said I don’t know, but it led to a noisy and confused discussion amongst the robbers, who suddenly disappeared, leaving an ominous silence to puzzle us.
The night had now become dark, and the figures in front of us could no longer be traced, either by their movements or voices. Presently, whilst we were intently peering into the dim belt of bushes in front of us, a suppressedwhiseet-whiseetwas heard on the plain to our right. “Look out!” shouted ourcháwashas he rushed from side to side to encourage his men; “they are on both our flanks. Don’t fire now; wait till they come close,and then shoot and use your swords.” Another silence, and then faint sounds in front “They are here,” said two or three voices, and immediately a couple of shots turned our attention towards them, and we stood, pistols in hand, ready to meet a rush.
And so it went on for three hours, thecháwashnow and again warning us to be on the alert, as the robbers reckoned on our becoming sleepy and careless in the silence. “They are not gone,” he would shout, “let them see you are awake.” And the warning seemed necessary, for our followers who were unarmed had quietly rolled themselves up in their blankets, and disposed themselves to sleep under the shelter of the baggage—a strange instance of oriental indifference and resignation to fate.
About three in the morning day began to dawn, and we found the bushes in our front empty, and discovered the cause of our safety in a dry water-cut running along their front. Two or three of our escort were sent out to reconnoitre the land, and finding all clear, we loaded the baggage and proceeded, after standing at bay upwards of three hours. “I see no signs of our firing having taken effect,” I said to thecháwash. “No, thank God,” he replied, “we did not wound any of them. If we had, they would have got reinforcements from the Arab camps around, and we should not have escaped their hands.”
After proceeding a little way, we came to a deserted roadsidesarae. “There,” said thecháwash, “that’s the place where these very robbers plundered akáfilaonly last night.” A dead donkey with its pack-saddle lay under the shade of its walls, and we went past congratulating ourselves on our providential escape. Onwards our road went across a level country, well cultivated, and covered with villages and date-groves, the last a feature in the scene we had not before now met with.
We arrived at Bácúba at 8.30A.M., and found quarters in thesarae, which we found full of bales of merchandise, mules, and travellers, Indians and Arabs, Persians and Turks, with African slaves not a few.
10th July.—Bácúba to Baghdad, forty miles. We set out from thesaraeat 7.30P.M.yesterday, and passing through the town, crossed the Dyalla river by a bridge of boats. On the farther side we were delayed a while for the completion of our escort, which is increased by two horsemen in addition to those who joined us at Shahrabad. On their arrival, our party was formed up into a close column, as the first sixteen miles of the road were considered dangerous. We came successively on three or four deep dry canals, and near each we were halted a few minutes whilst the horsemen went ahead to see there was no ambush.
A little after midnight we came to the Sarae Beni Sád. Here we found a party of twenty Hamávand horsemen, with some Turkish officials, going to Baghdad to answer for the misconduct of their tribe on the Casri Shirin frontier. Our escort with their prisoner joined them, and we proceeded with only two horsemen as escort and guides.
We passed several long strings of camels going on towards Bácúba, and three or four small parties of travellers. It was too dark to distinguish who they were, but the familiar sounds of Pushto so unexpectedly falling on my ears, roused me from the heaviness of an overcoming sleep, and I started into wakefulness just in time to satisfy myself that a party of Afghans of the Peshawar valley were passing us.
Later on, the day dawned, and the country gradually unfolded itself to our view. A vast plain, bare and uninhabited, spread before us, and a long green line of date-groves bounded the monotonous prospect ahead. Thefatigues of our long march now overburdened me with its accumulated load. Minutes seemed hours, and the last bit of our road seemed to grow longer the more we advanced upon it, and I thought we should never get over this ever-increasing plain.
At length the mud walls of Baghdad, its domes and its towers, came into view, and our flagging energies revived at the prospect of rest. The gilded dome and minars of the mosque of Kázamín overtopping an emerald bank of date-groves away to the right, had not for us the attraction that a couple of horsemen clad in white approaching from the city claimed. They were officials attached to the British Residency here, and came to announce that the Resident and a party of gentlemen had come out to meet us. Our fatigue vanished, and we pushed on with enlivened spirits to meet a hearty welcome from the Resident, Colonel C. Herbert, and the Residency Surgeon, Dr Colville, and the other gentlemen who were with them. It was the most agreeable incident of the whole march, and fittingly came in at its close.
We stayed six days at Baghdad, enjoying the kindest hospitality at the Residency. Its memory comes back with feelings of gratitude as the pleasantest interval in the whole of my long journey. We visited the “city of the Khalifs,” its bazárs and its public buildings, and in the salutations and friendly looks of Jew and Turk, Arab and Armenian, had ample evidence of the popularity of at least the British Resident. We witnessed a review of the Turkish troops—splendid men, admirably equipped and armed with the Snider pattern-breech-loader. Through the polite consideration of His Excellency Muhammad Kaúf Pasha, the governor of the province, we were enabled to visit the Admiralty workshops, the Ordnance stores, barracks, hospitals, and other militaryestablishments. The discipline, organisation, and thorough order pervading all departments took me completely by surprise; and but for the red cap everywhere, I might have thought myself in Europe inspecting the barracks of a French or German garrison town.
The barracks, a handsome pile fronting the river, had been built on the European model by a Belgian architect. The hospital, a commodious double-storied building on the opposite shore, was furnished with all the modern appliances of the Western institutions, under the supervision of French and Italian doctors. The messing and dieting of the men in barracks and in hospital were assimilated to the European system, and attracted my special attention, as so much simpler than, and superior to, the complex and inefficient arrangements that, subservient to the caste prejudices of the natives, are in vogue amongst the troops of our Indian army.
In the Ordnance department we were shown their breech-loading cannon and the arms of the cavalry—the Spencer rifle—and a six-shooting revolver on a new American principle, all turned out of the Government manufactory at Constantinople. We visited the School of Industry, in which nearly three hundred homeless boys are fed and clothed and sheltered by the profits on their own industry. And certainly the specimens of their handiwork shown to us spoke well as to their proficiency in the arts of weaving, printing, and carving. Some of the cabinetwork was of really superior finish, and the shoes made by them were not to be distinguished from those made in European shops.
We visited the jail, too, and saw a number of Hamávand and Arab prisoners, brethren of the ruffians through whom we had ran the gantlet scathless, all heavily laden with chains—veritable chains, weighing sixty orseventy pounds, coiled round their loins and limbs. The light of Western improvement had not yet shed its rays on this department; and we found the criminal savage, uncared for and filthy, crowded together in an open yard, weighed down by the load of their chains, and guarded by military sentries posted on the overlooking walls.
We left Baghdad, its delightful Residency and agreeable associations, on the 16th July, and steamed away at daylight down the river Tigris on board theDujla. As the city disappeared behind us, with all I had seen fresh on my mind, I thought, “Surely ‘the sick man of Europe’ is convalescent; his neighbour, ‘the sick man of Asia,’ may ere long need the physician’s aid.”
At breakfast-time we passed the ruins of Ctesiphon; and at nightfall anchored mid-stream, owing to the shallowness of the river. At daylight we were away again down-stream, but two hours later stuck on a sandbank. Got off at noon, to stick again a little lower down; and so on till nightfall, making very little progress. Heat intolerable, thermometer declines to come down below 110° Fah. upstairs or downstairs. Next day as bad as the day before. Sandbanks and heat equally obstructive and troublesome. At midday passed a town called Kút—the monotony of the journey relieved by Arab camps on either bank, and floating pelicans on the stream. Went ahead all night, and in the morning passed Azia, and during the day several other stations with Turkish garrisons, also Ezra’s tomb, surmounted by a conspicuous blue-tiled dome.
River banks very low, and land beyond marshy and apparently below water-level, but covered with Arab camps, and vast herds of kine and buffaloes. Naked Arabs, boys and girls, disport on the shore, and plunge into the river to our amusement. Melon-rinds thrownfrom the boat create frantic efforts for possession. Their mothers on the shore instantly slip out of their long loose shifts, andin puris naturalibusrush into the contest, to land some hundred yards below their clothing, with or without a prize.
Lower down the river, date-trees line the shores in never-ending succession, and seem to grow out of the water. At nightfall arrived at Márjil, and warped alongside a wharf built up of date-logs. Took in cargo all day, and in the evening steamed down to Basrah, and cast anchor near the mail-steamerEuphrates. Here we transhipped to the mail-steamer, and proceeding down the Persian Gulf, in due course arrived at Bombay. The heat in the Gulf! its bare recollection is enough to provoke a moisture of the skin. Happily I need not dwell on its memory. It is beyond the limits of my journey from the Indus to the Tigris.