ETCHMIADZIN
21 January.—To-day, I drove out to Etchmiadzin with Mr. Lazarienne, an Armenian, to see that curious little place. It is the ecclesiastical city of Armenia—its little Rome, where the Catholicus lives. He was ill, but a charming Bishop—Wardepett by name—with a flowing brown beard and long black silk hood, made us welcome and gave us lunch,and then showed us the hospital—which had no open windows, and smelt horrible—and the lovely little third-century "temple." Then he took us round the strange, quiet little place, with its peaceful park and its three old brown churches, which mark what must once have been a great city and the first seat of a national Christianity. Now there are perhaps 300 inhabitants, but Mount Ararat dominates it, and Mount Ararat is not a hill. It is a great white jewel set up against a sheet of dazzling blue.
Hills and ships always seem to me to be alive, and I think they have a personality of their own. Ararat stands for the unassailable. It is like some great fact, such as that what is beautiful must be true. It is grand and pure and lovely, and when the sun sets it is more than this, for then its top is one sheet of rose, and it melts into a mystic hill, and one knows that whatever else may "go to Heaven" Ararat goes there every night.
We visited the old Persian palace built on the river's cliff, and looked out over the gardens to the hills beyond, and saw the mosque, with its blue roof against the blue sky, and its wonderful covering of old tiles, which drop like leaves and are left to crumble.
Tiflis. 24 January.—I left Erivan on Sunday, January 23rd. It was cold and sharp, and the train was crowded. People were standing all down the corridors, as usual. Nothing goes quicker than eight miles an hour, nothing is punctual, nothing arrives. The stations are filthy, and the food is quite uneatable. I often despair of this country, andif the Russians were not our Allies I should feel inclined to say that nothing would do them so much good as a year or two of German conquest. No one, after the first six months, has been enthusiastic over the war, and the soldiers want to get home. One young officer, 26 years old, has been loafing in Tiflis for six months, and has at last been arrested. Another took his ticket on eight successive nights to leave the place and never moved. At last he was locked in his room, and a motor-car ordered to take him to the station. He got into it, and was not heard of for three days, when his wife appeared, and found her husband somewhere in the town.
Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan have gone on ahead to Baku, but I must wait for my damaged car. A young officer in this hotel shot himself dead this morning. No one seems to mind much.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY
25 January.—Last night I was invited to play bridge by one of the richest women in Russia. Her room was just a converted bedroom, with a dirty wall-paper. The packs of cards were such as one might see railway-men playing with in a lamp-room. Our stakes were a few kopeks, and the refreshments consisted of one tepid cup of tea, without either milk or lemon, and not a biscuit to eat. We all sat with shawls on, as our hostess said it wasn't worth while to light a fire so late at night. A nice little Princess Musaloff and Prince Napoleon Murat played with me. We were rich in titles, but our shoulders were cold.
I have not seen a single nice or even comfortable room since I left England, and although some womendress well, and have pretty cigarette-boxes from the renowned Faberjé, other things about them are all wrong. The furniture in their rooms is covered with plush, and the ornaments (to me) suggest a head-gardener's house at home with "an enlargement of mother" over the mantelpiece; or a Clapham drawing-room, furnished during some happy year when cotton rose, or copper was cornered. In this hotel the carpets are in holes in the passages, and there are few servants; but I don't fancy that the people here notice things very much.
I went to see Mme. —— one day in her new house. The rooms were large and handsome. There was a picture of a cow at one end of the drawing-room, and a mirror framed in plush at the other!
I must draw a "character" one day of the very charming woman who is absolutely indifferent to people's feelings. The fact that some humble soul has prepared something for her, or that a sacrifice has been made, or that one kind speech would satisfy, does not occur to her. These are the people who chuck engagements when they get better invitations, and always I seem to see them with expensive little bags and chains and Faberjé enamels. Men will slave for such women—will carry things for them, and serve them. They have "success" until they are quite old, and after they have taken to rouge and paint. A tired woman hardly ever gets anything carried for her.
26 January.—A day's march nearer home! This is the Feast of St. Nina. There is always a feast or a fête here. People walk about the streets, they giveeach other rich cakes, and work a little less than usual.
This hotel still keeps its cripples. Prince Murat sits on his little chair on the landing. Prince Tschelikoff has his heart all wrong; there is the man with one leg.
Now Mlle. Lepnakoff, the singer, Musaloff, in his red coat, and some heavy Generals are here. We have the same food every day.
ENFORCED IDLENESS
Perhaps I was pretty near having a breakdown when I came abroad, and the enforced idleness of this life may have been Providential (all my hair was falling out, and my eyes were very bad, and the war was wearing me down rather); but to sit in an hotel bedroom or to potter over trifles in sitting-rooms seems a poor sort of way of passing one's time. To rest has always seemed to me very hard work. I can't even go to bed without a pile of papers beside me to work at during the night or in the early morning!
When the power of writing leaves me, as it does fitfully and without warning, I have a feeling of loneliness, which helps to convince me of what I have always felt, that this power comes from outside, and can only be explained psychically. I asked a great writer once if he ever experienced the feeling I had of being "left," and he told me that sometimes during the time of desolation he had seriously contemplated suicide.
30 January.—I got a telephone message from Mr. Bevan last night. He says Baku is too horrible, and there is no news of the cars. People are telling me now that if instead of cars we had given money, weshould have been fêted and decorated and extolled to the skies; but then, where would the money have gone? Last week the two richest Armenian merchants in this town were arrested for cheating the soldiers out of thousands of yards of stuff for their coats. A Government official could easily be found to say that the cloth had been received, and meanwhile what has the soldier to cover him in the trenches?
Armenians are certainly an odious set of people, and their ingratitude is equalled by their meanness and greed. Mr. Hills, who is doing the Armenian relief work here, pays all his own expenses, and he can't get a truck to take his things to the refugees without paying for it, while he is often asked the question, "Why can't you leave these things alone?" Now that Mrs. Wynne has left I am asked the same question about her. Russia can "break" one very successfully.
The weather has turned cold, and there is tearing wind and snow.
1 February.—"No," says I to myself, in a supremely virtuous manner, "I shall not be beaten by this enervating existence here. I'll dosomething—if it's only sewing a seam."
So out came needles and cotton and mending and hemming, but, would it be believed, I am afflicted with two "doigts blancs" (festered fingers), and have to wear bandages, which prevent my doing even the mildest seam. Oddly enough, this "maladie" is a sort of epidemic here. The fact is, the dust is full of microbes, and no one is too well nourished.
SOME "MALADES IMAGINAIRES"
I am rather amused by those brave strong people who "don't make a fuss about their health." One hears from them almost daily that their temperature has gone up to 103°; "but it's nothing," they say heroically, "or if it is, it's only typhoid, and who cares for a little typhoid?" Does a head ache, there is "something very queer about it, but"—pushing back hair from hot brow—"no one is to worry about it. It will be better to-morrow; or if it really is going to be fever, we must just try to make the best of it." A sty in the eye is cataract, "but lots of blind people are very happy;" and a bilious attack is generally that mysterious, oft-recurring and interesting complaint "camp fever." Cheer up, no one is to be discouraged if the worst happens! A thermometer is produced and shaken and applied. The temperature is too low now; it is probably only typhus, and we mean to be brave and get up.
3 February.—Last night we played bridge. All the princes and princesses moistened their thumbs before dealing, and no one is above using a "crachoir" on the staircase! Oh for one hour of England! In all my travels I have only found one foreign race which seemed to me to be well-bred (as I understand it), and that is the native of India. The very best French people come next; and the Spaniard knows how to bow, but he clears his throat in an objectionable manner. None of them have been licked! That is the trouble. An Eton boy of fifteen could give them all points, and beat them with his hands in his pockets.
I am quite sure that the British nation is really superior to all others. Ours is the only well-bred race,and the only generous or hospitable nation. Fancy a foreigner keeping "open house"! Here the entertainment is a glass of thickened tea, and the stove is frequently not lighted even on a chilly evening. Since I have been in Russia I have had nothing better or more substantial given to me (by the Russians) than a piece of cake, except by the Grand Duke. We brought heaps of letters of introduction, and people called, but that is all, or else they gave an "evening" with the very lightest refreshments I have ever seen. Someone plays badly on the piano, there is a little bridge, and a samovar!
6 February.—The queer epidemic of "gathered fingers" continues here. Having two I am in the fashion. They make one awkward, and more idle than ever. A lot of people come in and out of my sitting-room to "cheer me up," and everyone wants me to tell their fortune. Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are still at Baku.
Last night I went to Prince Orloff's box to hear Lipkofskaya in "Faust."
My car has come back, and is running well, but the weather has been cold and stormy, with snow drifting in from the hills. I took Mme. Derfelden and her husband to Kajura to-day. Now that I have the car everyone wants me to work with them. The difficulty of transport is indescribable. Without a car is like being without a leg. One simply can't get about. In order to get a seat on a train people walk up the line and bribe the officials at the place where it is standing to allow them to get onboard.
8 February.—A "platteforme" having been found for my car, I and M. Ignatieff of the Red Cross started for Baku to-day. We found our little party at the Métropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is Consul. They are quite charming people, and their little flat was open to us all the time we were at Baku.
The place itself is wind-blown and fly-blown and brown, but the harbour is very pretty, with its crowds of shipping, painted with red hulls, which make a nice bit of colour in the general drab of the hills and the town. There are no gardens and no trees, and all enterprise in the way of town-planning and the like is impossible owing to the Russian habit of cheating. They have tried for sixteen years to start electric trams, but everyone wants too much for his own pocket. The morals become dingier and dingier as one gets nearer Tartar influence, and no shame is thought of it. Most of the stories one hears would blister the pages of a diary. When a house of ill-fame is opened it is publicly blessed by the priest!
Kasvin. 18 February..—We spent a week at Baku and grumbled all the time, although really wewere not at all unhappy. The MacDonells were always with us, and we had good games of bridge with Ignatieff in the evenings. We went to see the oil city at Baku, and one day we motored to the far larger one further out. One of the directors, an Armenian, went with us, and gave us at his house the very largest lunch I have ever seen. It began with many plates of zakouska (hors d'œuvres), and went on to a cold entrée of cream and chickens' livers; then grilled salmon, with some excellent sauce, and a salad of beetroot and cranberries. This was followed by an entrée of kidneys, and then we came to soup, the best I have ever eaten; after soup, roast turkey, followed by chicken pilau, sweets and cheese. It was impossible even to taste all the things, but the Georgian cook must have been a "cordon bleu."
On February 16th one of the long-delayed cars arrived, and we were in ecstasies, and took our places on the steamer for Persia; but the radiator had been broken on the way down, and Mrs. Wynne was delayed again. I started, as my car was arranged for, and had to go on board. Also, I found I could be of use to Mr. Scott of the Tehran Legation, who was going there. We travelled on the boat together, and had an excellent crossing to Enzeli, a lovely little port, and then we took my car and drove to Resht, where Mr. and Mrs. McLaren, the Consul and his wife, kindly put us up. Their garden is quiet and damp; the house is damp too, and very ugly. There are only two other English people (at the bank) to form the society of the place, and it must be a bit lonely for ayoung woman. I found the situation a little tragic.
KASVIN
We drove on next day to this place (Kasvin), and Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin were good enough to ask us to stay with them. The big fires in the house were very cheering after our cold drive in the snow. The moonlight was marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the snow. All of them wore bells which jingled softly. Around us were the weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the snow, and the chiming camels I shall never forget.
Captain Rhys Williams was also at the Goodwins; and as he was in very great anxiety to get to Hamadan, I offered to take him in my car, and let Mr. Scott do the last stage of the journey in the Legation car to Tehran. We were delayed one day at Kasvin, which was passed very pleasantly in the sheltered sunny compound of the house. My little white bedroom was part of the "women's quarters" of old days, and with its bright fire at night and the sun by day it was a very comfortable place in which to perch.
Hamadan. 24 February.—Captain Williams and I left Kasvin at 8 a.m. on February 19th.
I had always had an idea that Persia was in the tropics.WhereI got this notion I can't say. As soon as we left sheltered Kasvin and got out on to the plains the cold was as sharp as anything I have known. Snow lay deep on every side, and the icy wind nearly cut one in two. We stopped at a little "tschinaya" (tea-house), and ate some sandwiches whichwe carried with us. I also had a flask of Sandeman's port, given me last Christmas by Sir Ivor Maxwell. I think a glass of this just prevented me from being frozen solid. We drove on to the top of the pass, and arrived there about 3 o'clock. We found some Russian officers having an excellent lunch, and we shared ours and had some of theirs. We saw a lot of game in the snow—great coveys of fat partridges, hares by the score, a jackal, two wolves, and many birds. The hares were very odd, for after twilight fell, and we lit our lamps, they seemed quite paralysed by the glare, and used to sit down in front of the car.
We passed a regiment of Cossacks, extended in a long line, and coming over the snow on their strong horses. We began to get near war once more, and to see transport and guns. General Baratoff wants us up here to remove wounded men when the advance begins towards Bagdad.
The cold was really as bad as they make after the sun had sunk, and an icy mist enveloped the hills. We got within sight of the clay-built, flat Persian town of Hamadan about 10 p.m., but the car couldn't make any way on the awful roads, so I left Captain Williams at the barracks, and came on to the Red Cross hospital with two Russian officers, one a little the worse for drink.
ARRIVAL AT HAMADAN
With the genius for muddling which the Russians possess in a remarkable degree no preparations had been made for me. Rather an unpleasant Jew doctor came to the gateway with two nurses, and the officers began to flirt with the girls, and to pay them compliments. Some young Englishmen, one ofwhom was the British Consul, then appeared on the scene, so we began to get forward a little (although it seemed to me that we stood about in the snow for a terrible long time and I got quite frozen!). As it was then past midnight I felt I had had enough, so I made for the American missionary's house, which was pointed out to me, and he and his wife hopped out of bed, and, clad in curious grey dressing-gowns, they came downstairs and got me a cup of hot tea, which I had wanted badly for many hours. There was no fireplace in my room, and the other fires of the house were all out, but the old couple were kindness and goodness itself, and in the end I rolled myself up in my faithful plaid and slept at their house.
The next day—Sunday, the 20th—Mr. Cowan, the young Consul, and a Mr. Lightfoot, came round and bore me off to the Consulate. On Monday I began to settle in, but even now I find it difficult to take my bearings, as we have been in a heavy mountain fog ever since I got here. There is a little English colony, the bank manager, Mr. MacMurray, and his wife—a capable, energetic woman, and an excellent working partner—Mr. McLean, a Scottish clerk, a Mr. McDowal, also a Scot, and a few other good folk; whom in Scotland one would reckon the farmer class, but none the worse for that, and never vulgar however humbly born.
On Monday, the 21st, I called on the Russian element—Mme. Kirsanoff, General Baratoff, etc. They were all cordial, but nothing will convince me that Russians take this war seriously. They do thething as comfortably as possible. "My country" is a word one never hears from their lips, and they indulge in masterly retreats too often for my liking. The fire of the French, the dogged pluck of the British, seem quite unknown to them. Literally, no one seems much interested. There is a good deal of fuss about a "forward movement" on this front; but I fancy that at Kermanshah and at —— there will be very little resistance, and the troops there are only Persian gendarmerie. No doubt the most will be made of the Russian "victory," but compared with the western front, this is simply not war. I often think of the guns firing day and night, and the Taubes overhead, and the burning towns of Flanders, and then I find myself living a peaceful life, with an occasional glimpse of a regiment passing by.
To Mrs. Charles Percival.
British Vice-Consulate,
Hamadan.
23 February, 1916.
My dearest Tabby,
We are buried in snow, and every road is a dug-out, with parapets of snow on either side. All journeys have to be made by road, and generally over mountain passes, where you may or may not get through the snow. One sees "breakdowns" all along the routes, and everywhere we go we have to take food and blankets in case of a camp out. I have had to buy a motor-car, and I got a very good one in Tiflis, but they are so scarce one has to pay a ransom for them. I am hoping it won't be quitesmashed up, and that I shall be able to sell it for something when I leave.
THE DIFFICULTY OF TRANSPORT
Transport is the difficulty everywhere in these vast countries, with their persistent want of railways; so that the most necessary way of helping the wounded is to remove them as painlessly and expeditiously as possible, and this can only be done by motor-cars. Only one of Mrs. Wynne's ambulances has yet arrived, and in the end I came on here without her and Mr. Bevan. I was wanted to give a member of the Legation at Tehran a lift; and, still more important, I had to bring a soldier of consequence here. So long as one can offer a motor-car one is everybody's friend.
Yesterday I was in request to go up to a pass and fetch two doctors, who had broken down in the snow. The wind is often a hurricane, and I am told there will be no warm weather till May. I look at a light silk dressing-gown and gauze underclothing, and wonder why it is that no one seems able to tell one what a climate will be like. I have warm things too, I am glad to say, although our luggage is now of the lightest, and is only what we can take in a car. The great thing is to be quite independent. No one would dream of bringing on heavy luggage or anything of that sort, except, of course, Legation people, who have their own transport and servants.
On journeys one is kindly treated by the few Scottish people (they all seem to be Scots) scattered here and there. Everywhere I go I find the usual Scottish couple trying to "have things nice," and longing for mails from home. One woman wasnewly married, and had only one wish in life, and that was for acid drops. Poor soul, she wasn't well, and I mean to make her the best imitation I can and send them to her. They make their houses wonderfully comfortable;butthe difficulty of getting things! Another woman had written home for her child's frock in August, and got it by post on February 15th. Cases of things coming by boat or train take far longer, or never arrive at all.
I shall be working with the Russian hospital here till our next move. There are 25 beds and 120 patients. Of course we are only waiting to push on further. The political situation is most interesting, but I must not write about it, of course. It is rather wonderful to have seen the war from so many quarters.
The long wait for the cars was quite maddening, but I believe it did me good. I was just about "through." Now I am in a bachelor's little house, full of terrier dogs and tobacco smoke; and when I am not at the hospital I darn socks and play bridge.
Now that really is all my news, I think. Empire is not made for nothing, and one sees some plucky lives in these out-of-the-way parts. I did not take a fancy to my host at one house where we stayed, and something made me think his wife was bullied and not very happy. A husband would have to be quite all right to compensate for exile, mud, and solitude. Always my feeling is that we want far more people—especially educated people, of course—to run the world; yet we continue to shoot down ourbest and noblest, and when shall we ever see their like again?
Always, my dear,
Your loving
S. Macnaughtan.
I hope to get over to Tehran on my "transport service," and there I may find a mail. Some people called ——, living near Glasgow, had nine sons, eight of whom have been killed in the war. The ninth is delicate, and is doing Red Cross work.
26 February.—On Tuesday a Jew doctor took my motor-car by fraud, so there had to be an enquiry, and I don't feel happy about it yet. With Russiansanythingmay happen. I have begun to suffer from my chillsome time getting here, and also my mouth and chin are very bad; so I have had to lie doggo, and see an ancient Persian doctor, who prescribed and talked of the mission-field at the same time.
MISSIONARIES AND RELIGION
I am struck by one thing, which is so naïvely expressed out here that it is very humorous, and that is the firm and formidable front which the best sort of men show towards religion. To all of them it means missionaries and pious talk, and to hear them speak one would imagine it was something between a dangerous disease and a disgrace. The best they can say of any clergyman (whom they loathe) or missionary, is, "He never tried the Gospel on with me." A religious young man means a sneak, and one who swears freely is generally rather a good fellow. When one lives in the wildsI am afraid that one often finds that this view is the right one, although it isn't very orthodox; but the pi-jaw which passes for religion seems deliberately calculated to disgust the natural man, who shows his contempt for the thing wholesomely as becomes him. He means to smoke, he means to have a whisky-peg when he can get it, and a game of cards when that is possible. His smoke is harmless, he seldom drinks too much, and he plays fair at all games, but when he finds that these harmless amusements preclude him from a place in the Kingdom of Heaven he naturally—if he has the spirit of a mouse—says, "All right. Leave me out. I am not on in this show."
27 February.—On Sunday one always thinks of home. I am rather inclined to wonder what my family imagine I am actually doing on the Persian front. No doubt some of my dear contemporaries saddle me with noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross, saying, "Don't let Miss Macnaughtan work yet." A typhus scare, I fancy. Such rot. But I am used now to hearing all the British out here murmur, "Whatcanbe the good of this long delay?"
HOW NEWS TRAVELS IN PERSIA
I am still staying at the British Consulate. The Consul, Mr. Cowan, is a good fellow, and Mr. Lightfoot, his chum, is a real backwoodsman, full of histories of adventures, fights, "natives," and wars in many lands. He seems to me one of those headstrong, straight, fine fellows whom one only meets in the wilds. England doesn't agree with them;they haven't always a suit of evening clothes; but in a tight place one knows how cool he would be, and for yarns there is no one better. He tells one a lot about this country, and he knows the Arabs like brothers. Their system of communicating with each other is as puzzling to him as it is to everyone else. News travels faster among them than any messenger or post can take it. At Bagdad they heard from these strange people of the fall of Basra, which is 230 miles away, within 25 hours of its having been taken. Mr. Lightfoot says that even if he travels by car Arab news is always ahead of him, and where he arrives with news it is known already. Telegraphy is unknown in the places he speaks of, except in Bagdad, of course, and Persia owns exactly one line of railway, eight miles long, which leads to a tomb!
More important than any man here are the dogs—Smudge, Jimmy, and the puppy. Most of the conversation is addressed to them. All of it is about them.
28 February. A day on the Persian front.—I wake early because it is always so cold at 4 a.m., and I generally boil up water for my hot-water bottle and go to sleep again. Then at 8 comes the usual Resident Sahib's servant, whom I have known in many countries and in many climes. He is always exactly alike, and the Empire depends upon him! He is thin, he is mysterious. He is faithful, and allows no one to rob his master but himself. He believes in the British. He worships British rule, and he speaks no language but his own, though he probably knows English perfectly, andlistens to it at every meal without even the cock of an ear! He is never hurried, never surprised. What he thinks his private idol may know—no one else does. His master's boots—especially the brown sort—are part of his religion. He understands an Englishman, and is unmoved by his behaviour, whatever it may be. I have met him in India, in Kashmir, at Embassies, in Consulates, on steamers, and I have never known his conduct alter by a hair's breadth. He is piped in red, and let that explain him, as it explains much else that is British. Just a thin red line down the length of a trouser or round a coat, and the man thus adorned is part of the Empire.
The man piped in red lights my fire every morning in Persia, and arranges my tub, and we breakfast very late because there is nothing to do on three days of the week—i.e., Friday, the Persian Sabbath, Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Sunday, the Armenian Sunday. On these three days neither bazaars nor offices are open. Business is at a standstill. The Consulate smokes pipes, develops photographs, and reads old novels. On the four busy days we breakfast at 10 o'clock, and during the meal we learn what the dogs have done during the night—whether Jimmy has barked, or Smudge has lain on someone's bed, or the puppy "coolly put his head on my pillow."
About 11 o'clock I, who am acting as wardrobe-mender to some very untidy clothes and socks, get to work, and the young men go to the town and appear at lunch-time. We hear what the local news is, and what Mr. MacMurray has said and Mr. McLean thought,and sometimes one of the people from the Russian hospital comes in. About 3 we put on goloshes and take exercise single-file on the pathways cut in the snow. At 5 the samovar appears and tea and cake, and we talk to the dogs and to each other. We dress for dinner, because that is our creed; and we burn a good deal of wood, and go to bed early.
Travel really means movement. Otherwise, it is far better to stay at home. I am beginning to sympathise with the Americans who insist upon doing two cities a day. We got some papers to-day dated October 26th, and also a few letters of the same date.
Unfinished Article on Persia found among Miss Macnaughtan's papers.
UNFINISHED ARTICLE ON PERSIA
Persia is a difficult country to write about, for unless one colours the picture too highly to be recognisable, it is apt to be uninteresting even under the haze of the summer sun, while in wintertime the country disappears under a blanket of white snow. Of course, most of us thought that Persia was somewhere in the tropics, and it gives us a little shock when we find ourselves living in a temperature of 8 degrees below zero. The rays of the sun are popularly supposed to minimise the effect of this cold, and a fortnight's fog on the Persian highlands has still left one a believer in this phenomenon, for when the sun does shine, it does it handsomely, and, according to the inhabitants, it is only when strangers are here that it turns sulky. Bethat as it may, the most loyal lover of Persia will have to admit that Persian mud is the deepest and blackest in the world, and that snow and mud in equal proportions to a depth of 8 inches make anything but agreeable travelling. Snow is indiscriminately shovelled down off the roofs of houses on to the heads of passers-by, and great holes in the road are accepted as the inevitable accompaniment to winter traffic.
In the bazaars—narrow, and filled with small booths, where Manchester cotton is stacked upon shelves—the merchants sit huddled up on their counters, each with a cotton lahaf (quilt) over him, under which is a small brazier of ougol (charcoal). In this way he manages to remain in a thawed condition, while a pipe consoles him for his little trade and the horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears. The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather, and women with veiled faces and long black cloaks pick their way through the mire. Throngs of donkeys, melancholy and overladen, their small feet sinking in the slush, may be with the foot-passengers. Some pariah dogs make a dirty patch in the snow, and a troop of Cossacks, their long cloaks spotted with huge snow-flakes, trot heavily through the narrow lanes.
But it is not only, nor principally, of climate that one speaks in Persia at the present time.
Persia has been stirring, if not with great events, atleast with important ones, and at the risk of telling stale news, one must take a glance at the recent history of the country and its people. It is proverbial to say that Persia has been misgoverned for years. It is a country and the Persians are people who seem fated by circumstances and by temperament to endure ill-government. A ruler is either a despot or a knave, and frequently both. Any system of policy is liable to change at any moment. Property is held in the uneasy tenure of those who have stolen it, and a long string of names of rulers and politicians reveals the fact that most of them have made what they could for themselves by any means, and that perhaps, on the whole, violence has been less detrimental to the country than weakness.
THE YOUNG PERSIAN MOVEMENT
The worst of it is that no one seems particularly to want the Deliverer—the great and single-minded leader who might free and uplift the country. Persia does not crave the ideal ruler; he might make it very unpleasant for those who are content and rich in their own way. It is this thing, amongst many others, which helps to make the situation in Persia not only difficult but almost impossible to follow or describe, and it is, above all, the temperament of the Persians themselves which is the baffling thing in the way of Persian reform. Yet reform has been spoken of loudly, and again and again in the last few years, and the reformation is generally known as the Nationalist or Young Persian Movement. To follow this Movement through its various ramifications would require a clue as plain and as clear as a golden thread, and thebest we can do in our present obscurity is to give a few of the leading features.
The important and critical situation evident in Persia to-day owes its beginning to the disturbances in 1909, when the Constitutional Party came into power, forcibly, and with guns ready to train on Tehran, and when, almost without an effort, they obtained their rights, and lost them again with even less effort....
29 February.—The last day of a long month. The snow falls without ceasing, blotting out everything that there may be to be seen. To-day, for the first time, I realised that there are hills near. Mr. Lightfoot and I walked to the old stone lion which marks the gateway of Ekmadan—i.e., ancient Hamadan. I think the snow was rather thicker than usual to-day. Mr. Lightfoot and I went to Hamadan, plodding our way through little tramped-down paths, with snow three feet deep on either side. By way of being cheerful we went to see two tombs. One was an old, old place, where slept "the first great physician" who ever lived. In it a dervish kept watch in the bitter cold, and some slabs of dung kept a smouldering fire not burning but smoking. These dervishes have been carrying messages for Germans. Mysterious, like all religious men, they travel through the country and distribute their whispers and messages. The other tomb is called Queen Esther's, though why they should bury her at Ekmadan when she lived down at Shushan I don't know.
We went to see Miss Montgomerie the other day. Sheis an American missionary, who has lived at Hamadan for thirty-three years. She has schools, etc., and she lives in the Armenian quarter, and devotes her life to her neighbours. Her language is entirely Biblical, and it sounds almost racy as she says it.
There is nothing to record. Yesterday I cleaned out my room for something to do, and in the evening a smoky lamp laid it an inch thick in blacks. The pass here is quite blocked, and no one can come or go. The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared, with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it being sent to Enzeli; but the whole thing is a mystery, and is making me very anxious. There are no answers to any of my telegrams, and I am completely in the dark.
3 March.—I think that to be on a frozen hill-top, with fever, some boils, three dogs, and a blizzard, is about as near wearing down one's spirits as anything I know.
5 March, Sunday.—In bed all day, with the ancient Persian in attendance.
The Return of the Pilgrim.
THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIM
This is not a story for Sunday afternoon. It is true for one thing, and Sunday afternoon stories are not, as a rule, true. They nearly all tell of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the Pilgrims, and that is why this parable is not for Sunday afternoon. I write it because I never knew a true thing yet that was not of use to someone.
Most of us leave home when we are grown up. The people who never grow up stop at home. The journey and the outward-bound vision are the signs of an active mind stirring wholesomely or unwholesomely as the case may be. The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and comes back penitent, as we have heard a thousand million times. The Far Country is always barren, the husks of swine are the only food to be had, and bankruptcy is inevitable.
The story has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God wot; it gives many a man a wholesome fright, and keeps him at home, and its note of forgiveness for a wasted life has proved the salvation of many Prodigals.
But there is another journey, far more often undertaken by the young and by all those who needs must seek—the brave, the energetic, the good. It is towards a country distant yet ever near, and it lies much removed from the Far Country where swine feed. Its minarets stand up against a clear and cloudless sky, its radiancy shines from afar off. It is set on a hill, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carrytorches! They have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with eager feet. Whatever anyone likes to say, it is a much more crowded path than the old trail towards the pigsty. At the first step of the journey stand Faith and Hope and Charity, and beyond are more wondrous things by far—Glory, Praise, Vision, Sacrifice, Heroism, sublime Trust, the Need-to-Give, and the Love that runs to help. And some of the Pilgrims—most of them—get there.
DISAPPOINTMENT
But there is a little stream of Pilgrims sometimes to be met with going the other way. They are returning, like the Prodigal, but there is no one to welcome them. Some are very tragic figures, and for them the sun is for ever obscured. But there are others—quite plain, sober men and women, some humorists, and some sages. They have honestly sought the Country, and they, too, have unfurled banners and marched on; but they have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords, and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered, do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and even Love has not been all that was expected. The Pilgrims return. Their poor tummies, too, are empty, but no calf is killed forthem, there is no feasting and no joy. They stay at home, but neither Elder Son nor Prodigal has any use for them. In the end they turn out the light and go to sleep, regretting—if they have any humour—their many virtues, which for so long prevented them enjoying the pleasant things of life.
March.—I lie in bed all day up here amongst these horrible snows. The engineer comes in sometimes and makes me a cup of Benger's Food. For the rest, I lean up on my elbow when I can, and cook some little thing—Bovril or hot milk—on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this place! If only someone would send back my car, which has been taken away, or if I could hear where Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are! But no, the door of this odious place is locked, and the key is thrown away.
I have lost count of time. I just wait from day to day, hoping someone will come and take me away, though I am now getting so weak I don't suppose I can travel.
One wonders whether there can be a Providence in all this disappointment. I think not. I just made a great mistake coming out here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods, what a winter it has been—disillusioning, dull, hideously and achingly disappointing!
MEMORIES OF HOME
It is too odd to think that until the war came I was the happiest woman in the world. It is too funny to think of my house in London, which peoplesay is the only "salon"—a small "salon," indeed! But I can hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations, and the press notices in their pink slips. Then the big lectures and the applause—the shouts when I come in. The joy, almost the intoxication of life, has been mine.
Of course, I ought to have turned back at Petrograd! But I thought all my work was before me, and in Russia one can't go about alone without knowing the way and the language of the people. Permits are difficult, nothing is possible unless one is attached to a body. And now I have reached the end—Persia! And there is no earthly use for us, and there are no roads.
My car turned up at Hamadan on March 9th, and on the 13th I said good-bye to my friends at the Consulate, and left the place with a Tartar prince, who cleared his throat from the bottom of his soul, and spat luxuriously all the time. The mud was beyond anything that one could imagine. There was a sea of it everywhere, and men waded knee-deep in slush. My poor car floundered bravely and bumped heavily, till at last it could move no more. Two wheels were sunk far past the hubs, and the step of the car was under mud.
The Tartar prince hailed a horse from some men and flung himself across it, and then rode off through the thick sea of mud to find help to move the car. His methods were simple. He came up behind men, and clouted them over the head, or beat them with a stick, and drove them in front of him. Sometimes he took out a revolver and fired over the men's heads, making them jump; but nothing makes them really work. We pushed on for a mile or two, and then stuck again. This time there were no men near, and the prince walked on to collect some soldiers at the next station. It was a wicked, blowy day, and I crept into a wrecked "camion"and sheltered there, and ate some lunch and slept a little. I wasn't feeling a bit well.
That night we only made twenty miles, and then we put up at a little rest-house, where the woman had ten children. They all had colds, and coughed all the time. She promised supper at 8 o'clock, but kept us waiting till 10 p.m., and then a terrible repast of batter appeared in a big tin dish, and everyone except me ate it, and everyone drank my wine. Then six children and their parents lay in one tiny room, and I and a nurse occupied the hot supper-room, and thus we lay until the cold morning came, and I felt very ill.
So the day began, and it did not improve. I was sick all the time until I could neither think nor see. The poor prince could do nothing, of course.