It was too dark to attempt the passage of the river back to Basra, so we crossed over to the house of Mr. Lincoln of the British Consulate on the right bank of the Karun river and spent the remainder of the night under his hospitable roof.
Work of the river flotilla—Thames steamboats on the Tigris—The waterway through the desert—The renaissance of Amarah—The river's jazz-step course—The old Kut and the new—In Townshend's old headquarters—Turks' monument to short-lived triumph.
Our stay at Ashar barracks was of brief duration. A week after landing in Basra we received orders from General Headquarters to proceed to Bagdad immediately, but steamer accommodation was limited, and it was found impossible to embark the whole of our party at once. However, a compromise was effected with the Local Embarkation Officer, and place was found on an up-river steamer for our first contingent, consisting of General Byron, twenty-four other officers (of whom I was one), and forty N.C.O's.
Our transport was an antiquated paddle steamer, broad of beam, and the whole of her one deck was packed with troops bound for up-river like ourselves. In addition, she towed, moored on either side, two squat barges filled with troops and supplies.
The navigation of the Tigris, even in peace time,when the river is unencumbered, is a hazardous undertaking. Its lower reaches are flat and winding, and when it is in flood the banks are submerged. The stream follows an erratic course, occasionally striking out on an entirely fresh one, and the search for the new channel is often attended with disaster for the daring river mariner. Yet up and down the stream between Kut and Basra British seamen have zigzagged their way by sheer pluck and perseverance, dumping down men and supplies at the advanced base with unfailing regularity. The admirable part played by these river skippers of the Tigris has never been told, and so has never been properly appreciated by their countrymen at home. Day and night they toiled to hurry up the needed reinforcements to the hard-pressed battle line in Mesopotamia, and to feed the army that was driving the Turk from the "Land of the Two Rivers." Drawn from all parts of the Empire, they worthily represented the pluck, courage, and unyielding tenacity of the British race. Had it not been for the river skippers of the Tigris, shy, unostentatious men, sparing of speech and indifferent to praise, the Mesopotamian Campaign must have ended abortively; Kut could never have been retaken, and the Turks would still have been in Bagdad.
The despatches of victorious generals in Mesopotamia have been full of references to valuable aid and service rendered by units and individuals, but, it seems to me, they have entirely overlooked thegreat contribution of the men of the Tigris River Flotilla, who have apparently been left without reward or recognition.
In the waterway of the Shatt el Arab itself, and before we entered the Tigris proper, we passed scores of river craft. There were dhows laden to the gunwale with river produce being carried swiftly down by the current towards Basra market. Here was an antiquated sternwheeler with her lashed barges alongside, like an old woman with parcels tucked under her arms, going to the base to load up supplies. And, most wonderful of all, here was a London County Council steamer, theChristopher Wren, which had abandoned the Thames for the Tigris and the carrying of happy trippers from Blackfriars to Kew for the transporting of Mr. Thomas Atkins and his kit part of the long river journey towards Bagdad. Some of the Tommies on our steamer eyed her enviously. Here was a touch of the far-distant homeland under Eastern skies! There was a suspicion of a tear in some sentimental eyes, but the wag of the party scored a laugh when he megaphoned with his hands to the skipper of the Wren, "I'm for Battersea, I am!"
A number of these L.C.C. boats had come out from London under their own steam, making the long voyage to the Gulf and Basra through the Bay of Biscay and across the Mediterranean and Red Seas, buffeted by wind and wave, but without losing any of their personnel or suffering any materialdamage. It was a triumph of seamanship and British pluck.
The banks of the Tigris, and indeed of the Euphrates, at certain seasons of the year are surely the most desolate places on the habitable earth. The date-palm plantations of the Shatt el Arab are succeeded by a monotonous landscape of dull brown desert stretching away as far as the eye can see. To our right, as we wound and twisted our way up river, we occasionally caught a glimpse of the snow-clad mountains of Persia. Dotted here and there along the banks are Arab villages, which seemed to be a conglomeration of goats, sheep, and dusky-brown naked children, all thrown confusedly into the picture. By way of variation, now and then we swept past a desert oasis, where stood a few stunted palm-trees near which a tribe of nomads had set up their black tents of goat's-hair and were spending a week-end on the river bank before trekking afresh into the heart of the desert.
Your real Arab nomad is essentially a child of nature. He spends his life in the wilderness and has a rooted objection—nay, it is, in truth, a positive terror—to visiting any town, big or little. He has an undefinable dread of venturing within a walled city, apparently regarding it in much the same way as a wild bird would regard an iron-barred cage. Any restriction of movement is irksome to him. He loves the free life of the desert, with its limitless possibilities, its far-stretching horizon, and its absenceof streets and houses. He is of the tribe of Ishmael, destined to wander on and on, ever remote from the haunts of his fellow-man.
The semi-nomad, on the other hand, is less intractable, and does not chafe so much under the yoke of Western civilization. He is frugal, sober, and thrifty. We passed hundreds of his tribe who live on the banks of the Tigris, cultivating a patch of arable land, and using a wooden plough which must have been old-fashioned even in the days of that earliest recorded agriculturist, Cain.
We groped a tedious way along the sinuous Tigris, missing by a foot or two a down-river steamer and its lashed barges, making fair headway against the swirling waters which swept past us with the speed of a millstream. The current carried us from side to side, first bumping one bank, and then cannoning against the opposite one, until it seemed as if the stout lashings of our captive barges must be torn away. Where the river was especially narrow, we would tie up to the bank and give right-of-way to a convoy going down stream. At night, too, we would either tie up or anchor inshore, and at daylight would be off again.
In the bright clear atmosphere it was possible to see objects many miles distant. Ofttimes we would catch sight of a steamer away to our right or left, looking for all the world as if she were making an overland trip and was stuck fast in the middle of the waterless desert. But the seeming mystery wasexplained by the winding course of the river, which can only be likened to a series of figures of eight.
It took us about thirty hours to reach Amarah, which lies on both banks of the Tigris and, by reason of its position, had become an important coaling-centre on the lower part of the stream. There was an air of bustle and activity about the place, for British organization had descended upon it and rudely awakened it from the sleep of centuries. British military and native police controlled the town, and kept the more mischievous of the unruly Arab elements in order. A swing-bridge had been thrown across the river to carry vehicular traffic. River steamers were moored at the quays, taking in or discharging cargo, and Indian and Arab coolies sweated in the sun as they hurried along with great burdens on their backs.
Our way to camp led through the Bazaar, which may, I think, lay claim to be one of the filthiest and most malodorous in all the "Land of the Two Rivers." It had rained heavily the previous night, and now the unpaved roadway through the main bazaar was a foot deep in liquid mud. The average native was wholly unconcerned and, while we picked our steps carefully, mentally consigning Amarah and its abominable streets to perdition, barefooted Arab women, wearing anklets of silver, with a pendant through one nostril, and in their finest raiment, would plod contentedly through this mire as if it were a rose-bestrewn path. Tiny mites with no more clothing than astring of beads gave each other mud baths with the joy and enthusiasm of children sporting in the sea at some European watering-place.
Still, if Amarah disgusted us with its muddy streets and evil-smelling bazaars, it had some compensating advantages, amongst them its British Officers' Club. In a desert of dirt and discomfort this was a veritable oasis, with its excellent cuisine, and smoking and reading rooms provided with the latest three-months-old newspapers and magazines. It stands on the river front, and from its roof-garden a fine panorama opens at one's feet. In the foreground are the busy river and the crowded quayside, and on the opposite bank the white tents of the British camps blend with the dark green of the date-palms. Still farther beyond, as a background to the picture, is the dun-brown of the desert wastes.
A wet camp is at all times an abomination, and our first night at Amarah was not a pleasant experience. The transit camp is on a sort of peninsula, and a few hours' rain converted it into a lake of mud. We were housed in huts whose shape recalled a miniature Crystal Palace, and whose semi-circular sides and roof were thatched with palm netting. In the hut which I shared with Major Newcombe and Captain Eve, during the early hours of the morning a heavy shower poured through the roof as if it were a sieve. In the darkness there was a scramble over the muddy floor in quest of waterproof sheets and raincoats with which to set up a second line of defence forour leaky roof. Afterwards we all laughed heartily at the experience, but at the time we were inclined to be wrathful, for an unexpected and unlooked-for shower-bath in bed at 2 a.m., even on active service, may ruffle the mildest of tempers.
From Amarah to Kut we went by river, the journey occupying three days. The military-constructed railway which has since been opened does the journey in ten or twelve hours. Our steamer, No. 95, was a comfortable one of her class for Tigris river travelling. Indeed in this part of the world she would be listed as de luxe, inasmuch as she possessed cabin accommodation and actually had a bathroom. The trip itself was but a slight variation of the monotonous river journey to Amarah. There were the same flat stretches of country now and again relieved by a few palm-trees; the white tents of a British river guard, a link in this long-drawn-out line of communications; or some Arab village with its grouping of dilapidated palm-roofed huts, its barking curs, and its mud-brown naked children. Occasionally down by the banks there was a fringe of green where some native cultivator, aided by the water from an irrigation canal, was rearing a hardy spring crop.
As on its lower reaches, the river pursued a devious path across the face of the country until one grew giddy with attempting to follow its windings. The Tigris is a most impulsive stream; it obeys no will but its own, and is as erratic as any river of its size in the world. However, as Kut is approached on theup journey, it broadens out into noble proportions, swift and deep, and for a few miles behaves rationally, abandoning its geographical jazz-step over the Mesopotamian plains.
Kut—the scene of Townshend's immortal stand, with his handful of troops diminished daily by famine and disease, holding off to the last a powerful enemy—is situated at the end of a tongue of land at a point where the Tigris, taking a mighty sweep, mingles its waters with those of the Shatt el Hai.
But a new Kut, a British Kut, a town of tents and wooden huts and galvanized iron buildings, has sprung into being three miles below the tottering walls of Turkish Kut, and about two miles from Townshend's advanced trench line. In British Kut there are rough wooden piers, hastily built, it is true, where the river steamers moor, few attempting the difficult passage from Kut to Bagdad. Kut is also an important railway junction, for the troops bound up river were disembarked here, and stepped from the steamer deck into the waiting troop-trains.
We went up river in a motor launch, General Byron, Major Newcombe, Captain Eve, and myself, to visit Townshend's famous stronghold. It was with a feeling of emotion that we disembarked at the old stone pier of Kut, and made our way along its broken unpaved streets, past its crumbling wall, to the centre of the town. The route led through the main business centre—it could hardly be called a bazaar—where merchants and money-changers pliedtheir trades, and a blind beggar in rags sat under the lee of a wall, with the sun shining full on his sightless eye-sockets, droning a supplication for alms. The wave of red war had passed and repassed over Kut, leaving it scorched and maimed. Turk and Briton had fought for supremacy round and about it, but that was more than a year ago, and Kut now dozed sleepily in the hot afternoon sun, beginning already to forget the past and, with the calm philosophic indifference of the East, accepting as a predestined part of its daily life the Standard of Britain which had replaced the Crescent of the Turk.
The Arab policemen who guarded its unkempt streets were serving their new masters faithfully, and those we passed, spick and span in spotless khaki and tarbooshes, by their alert and soldierly bearing gave unmistakable evidence of having graduated from the school of that efficient, exacting, and most conscientious of mortals, the British drill instructor.
Presently, guided by a Staff Officer from the base headquarters, we came to the house of the Hero of Kut. It was an unpretentious dwelling, flat-roofed, and built of sun-dried bricks, with nothing much to distinguish it from its hundreds of neighbours. Descending a steep flight of steps, we came to the Serdab or underground apartment common to most Mesopotamian houses, where the occupants hide for shelter during the hottest hours of the blistering summer day. The room was bare of adornment—a few chairs, a divan, and a table covered with officialpapers—that was all. It was now the home of the local Political Officer, but it had changed little, if any, since its former illustrious occupant walked out of it and up those stone steps—his proud spirit unbroken, his heart heavy, but his courage undimmed—to pass a captive into the hands of the Turks.
None of our party could lay any special claim to be sentimental but, standing there in the narrow underground room with its hallowed associations, where a very gallant British General, the foe without and disease and hunger within—he, too, alas! another victim of high-placed incompetency—planned and schemed during those dark days of the siege to break the throttling grip of the Turk, we felt we were upon holy ground, and every one of us, moved by a common emotion, raised our hands to our caps in salute. It was our tribute of admiration and respect for Townshend and his heroes—for the men who perished so nobly, no less than for their comrades maimed and broken who survived the fall of Kut, many of them, unhappily, only to pass anew through the gate of suffering and to end their lives as prisoners in the hands of a brutal, ungenerous enemy to whom honour and compassion are meaningless terms.
It was not every day that the Turks could boast such a victory as Kut, or that they found themselves with a British General and a starving British force surrendering to their arms. Short-lived as was their triumph, they lost no time in celebrating it by setting up a commemorative monument. This stands on theTigris' bank close to British Kut and the landing pier, and is in the form of an obelisk of unhewn stone on a plinth of corresponding material fenced in by an iron railing. A few obsolete cannon, the muzzles facing outwards, are grouped round the base of the monument. An inscription in Turkish records the fall of Kut and the capture of Townshend and his men which, it recounts, was accomplished by the grace of Allah and the prowess of the besieging Turkish Army.
The next stage of our journey from Kut to Bagdad was a short one. A night in a troop-train, and sunrise the following morning saw us being dumped down at Hinaida Camp on the outskirts of the City of the Caliphs.
Arabian nights and motor-cars—The old and the new in Bagdad—"Noah's dinghy"—Bible history illustrated—At a famous tomb-mosque.
Who has not heard and read of Bagdad, of its former glory and its greatness? I set foot in it for the first time on March 20th, 1918, the day after the arrival of our little party at Hinaida Transit Camp on the left bank of the Tigris.
As I tramped across the dusty Hinaida plain towards the belt of palm groves which veils the city on the east, I had visions of Haroun al Raschid, and fancied myself coming face to face with the wonders of the "Arabian Nights." It was with something of a shock, then, that on entering the city I encountered khaki-clad figures, and saw Ford vans and motor lorries tearing wildly along the streets. In the main thoroughfare, hard by British Headquarters, a steam roller was travelling backwards and forwards over the freshly metalled roadway, completing the work of an Indian Labour Corps; farther on, a watering cart labelled "Bagdad Municipality" was busily drowning the fine-spun desert dust thathad settled thickly on the newly born macadamized street. Here was an Arab café, with low benches on the inclined plane principle like seats in a theatre, where the occupants sipped their Mocha from tiny cups, or inhaled tobacco-smoke through the amber stem of a hubble-bubble, watching the passing show, and betimes discussing the idiosyncrasies of the strange race of unbelievers that has settled itself down in the fair city which once had been the pride of Islam.
Truly a city of contrasts! Cheek by jowl with the Arab café was an eating-house full of British soldiers. The principal street runs parallel with the river and, as one proceeded, it was possible to catch glimpses of pleasant gardens running down to the water's edge and embowering handsome villas—gardens where pomegranates, figs, oranges, and lemons grew in abundance. The Oriental readily adapts himself to changing circumstances, and unhesitatingly abandons the master of yesterday to follow the new one of to-day. Already traces of the Ottoman dominion were being obliterated. The Turkish language was disappearing from shop signs to be replaced by English or French, with, in some cases, a total disregard of etymology, such choice gems as "Englisch talking lessons," "Stanley Maude wash company" (this over a laundry), "British tommy shave room," showing at all events a praiseworthy attempt to wrestle with the niceties of the English language.
Bagdad as I saw it in the first days following myarrival struck me as a place whose remains of faded greatness still clung about it. No one could deny its claim to a certain wild beauty which age, dirt, and decay have not been able wholly to eliminate. The glory of the river scene is unsurpassable.
To see Bagdad at its best one must view it from the balcony of the British Residency (now General Headquarters). Here, as you look down upon the river, the old bridge of boats connecting with the western bank is on your right, and handsome villas where flowers grow in profusion, the residences of former Turkish officials or wealthy citizens, adorn the foreshore.
The river is broad and majestic, and strange craft dot its surface. Here is a Kufa, in itself a link with antiquity, a circular boat of basketware covered with bitumen, sometimes big enough to hold ten men and two or three laden donkeys. Its cross-river course is decidedly eccentric. Propelled by crudely fashioned paddles wielded by sturdy oarsmen, its progress from shore to shore is leisurely and cumbersome as, caught into the eddying current, it twirls slowly, with a rotatory movement, like the dying motion of some giant spinning-top.
The cheerful Thomas Atkins promptly christened the kufa "Noah's Dinghy," and lost no time in getting afloat therein. Some of the Australians at Hinaida Camp organized a kufa regatta, the course being across river and back, a distance of about two miles. A waterproof sheet was attached as a sailby one enterprising Anzac, but even that did not help to accelerate very appreciably the snail-like progress of his aquatic tub. Local tradition avers that Sinbad the Sailor came spinning down from Bagdad to Basra in a kufa, when he signed on at the Gulf port for his first ocean voyage. Who knows? Kufas are depicted on some of the old Assyrian monuments.
A close relative surely to the Kufa is the Kellik or Mussik raft of the upper Tigris. Constructed of a square framework of wood buoyed by inflated goat-skins, it is widely utilized as a cargo carrier on these inland waterways. Piled high with hay and a miscellaneous collection of live-stock, it will waddle off down river with a crew of three or four, and half a dozen or so passengers. Sometimes the cargo shifts, or the goat-skin bladders become deflated, and the kellik, down by the nose or stern, grows more unwieldy than ever. A little mishap of this kind never bothers the crew. They steer for some convenient point on the river-bank where the water is shallow, unhitch the defective skins, and inflate them afresh with the unaided power of their own lungs. The cargo righted, and the trim of their cumbersome raft restored, they will push off into midstream and continue their venturesome journey, logging a steady two knots.
But on an upstream trip it is another story. Then the laden or empty kellik has to be towed, and hard work it is to make headway when the river is inflood and racing down to meet its brother, the Euphrates, on their joint way to the Gulf.
Going upstream the kellik keeps as close in shore as possible. Two men in the boat keep her from going aground, while a couple of others yoke themselves to a towline and move along the margin of the stream much like the canal bargees in Holland. But on the Tigris there is no well-defined towing path, and the course resolves itself into a kind of zigzag cross-country obstacle race, and the agility and dexterity with which these muscular native rivermen harnessed to the towline of a heavily laden raft will negotiate sunken ground, canal ditches, tumble-down village walls, and a few other natural hazards on a stretch of Tigris' river-bank, is extraordinary to behold. The life of a galley slave in Carthage must have been a soft snap indeed compared with that of the dark-skinned toilers who tug at an up-river kellik under the full force of a Mesopotamian sun.
Bagdad as a city takes us back to the horizon rim of the world's history. There still clings to it an air of musty antiquity and prehistoric dirt which the efforts of its new masters, the British, with pick-and-shovel sanitary science, and other new-fangled inventions of Western civilization, have not entirely eradicated. The beardless invaders from over the seas have sought to scrape clean its ancient bones, to straighten out the kink in its narrow, tortuous, and evil-smelling streets, and to let the light of day and a little wholesome fresh air penetrate into thegloom and dampness of its rabbit-warren of a bazaar. Staid, solemn-looking citizens, with the green turban of Mecca enveloping their venerable heads, whose ancestors probably drifted in here when overland travel was resumed after the Flood, have looked on in pious horror while festering slum areas have been laid low by British pickaxes. These Hadjis, fervent believers in tradition, and uncompromising opponents of innovation, have caressed their beards thoughtfully when confronted with the new order of things, and come to the philosophic conclusion that, as Kipling has it, "Allah created the English mad, the maddest of all mankind."
Biblical history is no longer vague and shadowy, but takes on a new meaning and an added significance to anyone who explores old Bagdad with eyes to see. As I wandered through its bazaars in quest of antiquities and bargains in bric-à-brac and rare damascened weapons, I often forgot the primary object of my visit while strolling silently about contentedly studying the hastening crowds who elbowed and fought their way along the narrow streets, or watching the complacent shopkeepers who sat cross-legged in their narrow, cell-like shops, haggling over prices with some prospective buyer. It was like throwing Biblical romance and Biblical tragedy on a cinema screen, only that now it lived and was real flesh and blood. Here were the descendants of the Jews of the Captivity—shrewd-looking, sharp-featured merchants, traffickers in gold and silver,dealers in antiquities, a living link between that very remote yesterday and the modern to-day, amassing much wealth in the land of their perpetual exile, carrying on unbrokenly the religion and traditions of Judaism—in dress, manners, customs, and speech as unchanged and unchanging as on the day when the heavy hand of the Babylonian oppressor smote their forbears and they were led away into slavery.
And here, too, now competing in commercial rivalry with the sons of Abraham, are lineal descendants of Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, and of those other warring races who between them made history in the long ago.
The descendants of the Jews of the Captivity have never wandered far afield, and it would even seem that they have preferred exile to repatriation. Bagdad formed part of Babylonia, and a three hours' train journey to Hilleh on the Euphrates will land the Bagdad Jew of an archæological turn of mind amidst the ruins of ancient Babylon.
The Jew venerates Bagdad as a sort of lesser Zion. It was long the seat of the Exilarch, and is still the rallying centre of Eastern Judaism. Monuments and tombs of the mighty ones of the Chosen Race are scattered over Lower Mesopotamia. There is the reputed tomb of Ezra on the Shatt el Arab near Korna, that of Ezekiel in the village called Kefil, while the prophet Daniel has a holy well bearing his name at Hilleh near the ruins of Babylon. But the chief place of pious pilgrimage for Bagdad Jews liesin a palm grove an hour's journey from the city on the Euphrates road. Here is said to be buried Joshua, son of Josedech, a high priest towards the end of the captivity period.
Western Bagdad, on the right bank of the Tigris, always recognizing and rendering a somewhat sullen obedience to the sway of the Turkish Sultan, is separated from Eastern Bagdad by much more than the deep waters of the river. Its inhabitants for the most part are Mohammedans of the Shi'ite sect, as opposed to the orthodox or Sunni creed of the Turks. The Shias may be described as Islamic dissenters, and their cult is the state religion of Persia. Ethnologically and politically they are closer akin to Iran than to Turkey, and their eyes are more frequently turned to Teheran than to Istambul. In Western Bagdad they have their own mosques, their own bazaars, and their own shrines, and lead lives more or less isolated from their Asiatic brethren on the opposite side of the river.
During a visit to the famous Shi'ite mosque and shrine at Kazemain, a suburb of the Western City, I found that the people, while outwardly friendly and polite, were much more fanatical than the average Sunni Mussulman, and were inclined to resent any attempt on the part of a Giaour like myself to see the interior of their mosques and shrines. I had for companions General Byron and Lieutenant Akhbar, the latter a professing Shi'ite. We crossed by the new pontoon swing bridge which now connects thetwo shores, superseding the old bridge of boats of Turkish days.
The houses are huddled together, and are squat and meanly built, with the low encircling walls and roofed parapets of sun-dried mud so common to Persian villages. The streets are barely wide enough for two pedestrians to pass abreast, and are full of holes or covered with garbage. As for the inhabitants, they were miserably clad, and the few women whom we chanced to encounter in our path hastily stepped aside and, turning from us, made a furtive effort to veil themselves by covering the upper part of their faces with a dirty piece of rag produced from the voluminous folds of a sleeve-pocket.
We did not tarry here very long. Quitting this waterside hamlet we drove three miles to Kazemain itself, passing en route the terminus of the Bagdad-Anatolian Railway, that great link of steel in the chain of German world-expansion the completion of which, under the existing concession, would have been commercially and economically fatal to us in Western Asia.
The tomb-mosque of Kazemain is one of the architectural landmarks of Bagdad. Its twin domes and its four lofty minarets, all overlaid with gold, are visible for miles as the traveller approaches Bagdad from the west. When the rays of the noonday sun strike on these gilded cupolas and graceful tapering columns it enhances their beauty a hundredfold, and throws into bold relief all their harmony andsymmetry. It recalled to me vividly, but in a minor degree, some of the wonder and the glory of that other great monument of an Eastern land—the Taj Mahal at Agra. But while the one is secular and commemorative of earthly love, the other has a deeply religious significance, for in the imposing mosque of Kazemain are buried Musa Ibn Ja'far el Kazim and his grandson, Ibn Ali el Jawad, the seventh and ninth of the successors of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet, and recognized by the Shias as the rightful Caliphs of Islam. As a centre of pilgrimage for Shi'ite Moslems, Kazemain ranks second after Kerbela, the tomb of Hosain the Martyr; and from the point of view of sanctity, Kazemain is considered to take even higher place than either Samarra or Nejef, the other two Shi'ite shrines in the Vilayet of Bagdad.
The customary crowd of beggars, maimed, halt, and blind, whined to us as we alighted before the great gate of Kazemain Mosque. Three or four small boys, who had stolen a free ride by clinging to the back of the automobile while it crawled dead slow through the gloomy, winding streets of the bazaar, now demanded a pishkash (the Persian equivalent of backsheesh). Mollahs, Sayyeds, and other reputed holy men, springing apparently from nowhere, formed a ring around us, deeply interested in our dress, our speech, the colour of our hair, and our beardless faces. More especially was the wondering attention of the crowd concentrated on Akhbar, himself a native Persian, holding the King's commission and wearingthe King's khaki. "What manner of man is this?" asked the puzzled onlookers. "Is he Infidel or True Believer? for, by the Beard of the Prophet, he speaks our holy tongue as well as we do ourselves!"
Now there intervened an elderly personage in the Abba or flowing robes affected by the better class of Persian, with a green kamarband indicating his claim to lineal descent from the Prophet. The new-comer, whose hair and beard were plentifully dyed with henna—a never-failing sign, I was assured, of virtue and virility—offered to go in search of the Mujtahid or Chief Priest.
He returned presently with that important functionary, who salaamed, but looked at us coldly and suspiciously, I thought. A whispered colloquy now took place between himself and Akhbar. He had no doubt as to the heterodoxy of the General and myself, but, on the other hand, at first he was not convinced of the orthodoxy of Akhbar, this professed Believer clad in Infidel garb. All Akhbar's impassioned pleading failed to move him. Akhbar himself might enter freely, but as for the two Unbelievers, they must not set foot within the jealously guarded portals of the holy place.
Up to this point the negotiations had been singularly free from anything even remotely connected with coin of the realm. I think it was the Mujtahid himself who, in his most winning manner, hinted that "Blessed is he that giveth," and that even the dole of an Unbeliever might win merit in the sightof Allah. We gave accordingly, whereupon the Mujtahid, out of the kindness of his heart, and by way of requiting our generosity, said he would enable us to see something of the Shi'ite "holy of holies." With himself as guide we were led by a circular route to a caravanserai for pilgrims which stood close to the high wall of the mosque. The place was untenanted, but, mounting by a flight of rickety stairs to the flat and somewhat unstable roof, we were able to overlook the interior courtyard of the mosque, to note its gilt façade, and to watch the worshippers performing their ablutions at the fountain in the centre of the courtyard. With this we had to be content.
The Shrine down to recent days had been a sanctuary for criminals fleeing from justice, but the Turkish overlords, it is said, when a fugitive happened to be of sufficient importance, were able by cajolery and bribery to override Sanctuary and secure the man they wanted. In consequence, Kazemain lost its popularity with fugitive law-breakers.
The populace at the termination of our visit gave us a hearty send-off, and the beggars, whose persistence and persuasiveness it was difficult to resist, having relieved us of sundry krans and rupees, called down the blessing of Allah on our heads.
The Sunni Moslems have many imposing places of worship in Bagdad. The Mosque of Marjanieh is noted for its very fine Arabesque work, bearing considerable resemblance to the ornamentations on theMosque at Cordova, in Spain. There is also the Mosque of Khaseki, which is believed to have been once a Christian Church. Its Roman arch, with square pedestals and its spirally-fluted columns, reveal an architectural school that is not Oriental.
Outside the walls of the Western City is the reputed site of the tomb of Zobeide, the wife of Haroun al Raschid. The eroding hand of Time has dealt heavily with this once splendid mausoleum, but its curiously-shaped pineapple dome is still intact, and survives proudly amongst the ruin and decay of a dead-and-gone civilization. Niebuhr, the German traveller who visited this tomb in the middle of the eighteenth century, says he discovered an inscription setting forth that it was the site of the ancient burying-place of Zobeide, but that about 1488, Ayesha Khanum, wife of a Governor of Bagdad, was also given sepulture there. Doubt is thrown upon the historical accuracy of Niebuhr by many scholars, and there is a legend that Zobeide was buried at Kazemain.
Jealousy and muddle—The dash for the Caspian—Holding on hundreds of miles from anywhere—A 700-mile raid that failed—The cockpit of the Middle East—Some recent politics in Persia—How our way to the Caspian was barred.
Bagdad is not a pleasant place of residence when the Sherki, or south wind, blows, and when at noonday the shade temperature is often 122 degrees Fahr. For Europeans, work is then out of the question, and it is impossible to venture abroad in the scorching air. There is nothing for it but a suit of the thinnest pyjamas and a siesta in the Serdab or underground room which forms part of most Bagdad houses. The local equivalent of a punkah is usually to be found here, and this helps to make life just bearable during the hot season.
At Headquarters and administrative branches there was a welcome cessation of labour from tiffin time until after the great heat of the day. But the late Sir Stanley Maude, when in chief command at Bagdad, demanded a very full day's work from his staff, and suffered no afternoon siesta. He set the example himself, and on even the hottest days was absent from his desk only during meal hours. Maude,splendid soldier and genial gentleman that he was, boasted of an iron constitution which was impervious alike to Mesopotamian heat and Mesopotamian malaria.
The cool weather had already set in when the Bagdad party took up its abode under canvas at Hinaida. We found already there an earlier contingent which had been gathered together from units serving in Mesopotamia and Salonika. No one knew quite what to do with us, and General Headquarters was seemingly divided in mind as to whether we should be treated as interlopers, and interned for the duration of the War, or left severely alone to work out our own salvation, or damnation, as we might see fit. The latter view carried the day, and our welcome in official quarters was therefore distinctly chilling. The difficulty chiefly arose, it appears, because General Dunsterville, the leader of our expedition, had been given a separate command, and was independent of the General commanding-in-chief in Mesopotamia. Jealousy was created in high quarters. There was a spirited exchange of telegrams with the War Office, in which such phrases as "Quite impossible of realization," "Opposed to all military precedent," are said to have figured prominently.
In February, in the middle of the rainy season, and while the snow still lay thick upon the Persian mountain passes, General Dunsterville had collected some motor transports and, taking with him a handful of officers, had made a dash for the Caspian Sea.His intention was to seize and hold Enzeli, the Persian port on the Caspian, in order either to bluff or to beat the Russian Bolsheviks there into submission, and to use it as a base for operations against Baku, which had become a stronghold of German-Turkish-Bolshevik activity.
After untold difficulties, one party crossed the rain-sodden Persian uplands, hewed a road over the snow-covered Assadabad Pass for their Ford cars, and, although severely tried by cold and hunger, succeeded in reaching Hamadan. Leaving a small band of men there to keep the unfriendly Persian population in check, Dunsterville pushed on for Kasvin, and thence to Resht, a few miles from Enzeli, brushing aside the stray bands of armed marauders that sought to bar his progress.
The goal was in sight, but, unsupported, and without supplies, and hundreds of miles from his small party at Hamadan, he found himself unable to hold on. His enemies were numerous and well-armed. Awed at first by the appearance of this handful of British officers who had unconcernedly motored into their midst after a seven-hundred-mile raid across Mesopotamia and Persia, the Bolsheviks and their German-subsidized Persian auxiliaries were for temporizing—nay, they even invited the British General to a conference to discuss the situation; and, in the hope of arriving at the basis of an understanding, Dunsterville accepted the invitation to confer with them.
In the meantime his enemies had not been idle. Their spies were quick to report that no British reinforcements were arriving. Dunsterville's numerical weakness was apparent, and the drooping spirits of the Bolshevik Council revived. It had been cowed into inaction, but now it grew bold, and its attitude became menacing. The British General was presented with an ultimatum demanding his immediate withdrawal on pain of capture and death.
There was no help for it. Withdraw Dunsterville must, and did. The Ford cars carrying the daring raiders sped away from the Bazaar of Resht and back to Hamadan, and through streets crowded with armed and hostile ruffians ripe for any crime.
This, briefly, was the situation in the early days of March. Dunsterville had leaped and failed. He was back at Hamadan, holding on tenaciously, with a small body of officers and N.C.O.'s, no men, lacking supplies, from which he was separated by hundreds of miles of roadless country made doubly impassable by rain and melting snow, and threatened with extermination by unfriendly tribesmen who, wolf-like, were baying round him, eager yet afraid to strike.
HOTEL D'EUROPE AT RESHT.HOTEL D'EUROPE AT RESHT.
But, one will ask, what were Dunsterville and his force doing in Persia at all? And why had Britain, who had gone to war with Germany because the latter had overrun neutral Belgium, and who had professed so much horror for Germany's aggression, why had she, of all nations, violated Persian neutrality,invaded Persian territory, and ignored Persian protests? The answer is simply that we entered Persia to defend Persian rights as much as to defend our own cause and the cause of the Allies. The territory of the Shah had been devastated by contending armies of Turks and Russians. It had been swept by fire and sword; and now those twin handmaidens of ruthless war, famine and disease, were abroad in the land of Iran, slaying indiscriminately such of the wretched helpless populace as had escaped the fury and the sword of Turk and Muscovite. Persia, by reason of its geographical boundaries—its frontiers being coterminous with those of Russia and Turkey—had in the early part of the great world struggle become the cockpit of the Middle East. The weak, emasculated Government of the Shah, a mere set of marionettes, hopped about on the political stage of a corrupt capital. It had no will of its own; and, even if it had, the constitutional advisers of the "King of Kings" had no means of enforcing it.
Hating Russia politically, and perhaps not without reason, coquetting with Turkey because of the common religious bond of Islamism, Persia herself very early in the War failed to observe the obligations which neutrality imposed upon her. She aided and abetted the emissaries of the Central Powers. Hun gold was the charm at which her gates flew open to admit Prussian drill-instructors, whose business was to organize and train the wild tribes of the south-west for raids against our vulnerable rightflank in Mesopotamia. The "Volunteers of Islam," a body of fanatical Mollahs with a leavening of Turkish military officers and of bespectacled professors of German Kultur, were recruited round Lake Van in Turkish Armenia. They had for their object the preaching of a holy war in Afghanistan against Britain, and the setting alight of our Indian north-west territory. The "Volunteers of Islam," moving across the Persian frontier, established their base in Persian Kermanshah preparatory to turning their faces eastward in the long trek to Herat and the scene of their Islamic and anti-British crusade.
They were destined never to behold the mountain passes of their "Promised Land," for, valour outrunning their discretion, these militants of Islam and Potsdam, while engaged in the final preparations for the journey to Afghanistan, were foolish enough to throw in their lot with a Mesopotamian frontier tribe which was thirsting to distinguish itself in battle against the British. The combat duly took place, and the insolent tribesmen were punished for their foolhardiness. In fact, they found extinction, instead of the looked-for distinction; and many "Volunteers of Islam" were also given sepulture by the vultures, theconcessionaires des tombeauxin these parts. As for the survivors, they readily abandoned Kermanshah for the greater security offered by the Armenian highlands.
After the Russian military collapse in the winter of 1917, followed by the Bolshevist triumph and thesigning of the shameful treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Germans and their infamous allies, the followers of Lenin and Trotsky, lost no time in making themselves masters of the Caucasus. Tiflis fell, and arrayed itself under the Red Banner of National Shame; Armenians, Georgians, and Tartars, all victims of Turkish misrule, but hating each other more cordially than they collectively hated the Osmanli oppressor, wrangling over their respective claims to independent nationhood, varied by the absorbing passion of slitting each other's throats, were all too busy to seek to make common cause against the Bolshevik wolf when it appeared before their fold in the guise of a German lamb.
Would that all these nationless peoples of the Caucasus, who with so much vehemence are always pleading their own inalienable right to self-determination, possessed military gifts commensurate with their brilliant, perfervid, never failing oratory! If they could fight only half as well as they can talk, what unrivalled soldiers they would be!
The Bolsheviks and their German masters and paymasters, coming down the railway line from Tiflis, speedily possessed themselves of Baku and its oil wells. Immediately opposite Baku, and on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, is Krasnovodsk, the terminus of the Transcaspian Railway, that important strategic line which links up the khanates of Russian Turkestan, connects, on the one hand, Samarkand with Orenburg and the mainreseauofRussian railways, and, on the other, bifurcates and comes to a dead stop—resembling the extended jaws of a pincers—within hailing distance of the Afghan frontier. Once masters of the Caspian littoral and of the Russian gunboats which patrolled its waters, the Bolsheviks and their German allies were free to use the Transcaspian Railway, and to menace India seriously by way of Afghanistan.
At all events, they lost no time in invading Persia from the sea by way of Enzeli. Here they found eager sympathisers and willing auxiliaries in the Persian Democrats, a political party with considerable influence and following in Resht itself and throughout the Persian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. The Democrats laid claim to represent the intelligentza of North-Eastern Persia. Their profession of political faith was, broadly, "Persia for the Persians," the abolition of all foreign meddling in Persian affairs, and the ending of the Russian and British spheres of influence. But it was against the British that their virulent hatred and political conspiracies were chiefly directed. While they feared the British, they despised the Russians. As one of the leaders of this "Young Persia Movement" said to me when we had a heart-to-heart talk in Kasvin, "To our sorrow we find that the British are honest and incorruptible, therefore they are dangerous. Should they decide to stay here, we could never hope to turn them out. On the other hand, to our joy we recognize that neither the Russians nor theTurks possess these high moral attributes, consequently there was always the hope that some day we might be able to escort the last of them to the frontier."
The "Young Persia" representative put his case concisely, fairly, and without any tinge of political jaundice. None better than he realized the impotency of the vacillating Teheran Government to enforce its paper protests against the violation of Persian neutrality. Its only military instrument was a ragged, unpaid, undisciplined rabble, which international courtesy has been wont to designate an Army. The Persian Democrats therefore linked up with the Bolsheviks. But it would be erroneous to assume that their ranks were recruited entirely from disinterested patriots, inspired by the highest altruistic ideals, burning to rid their country of the foreigner—be he Briton, Turk, or Russian—in order that Persia might be free to work out her own political salvation in her own way and without interference from anybody. Some there were in the ranks of the Democrats actuated only by love of country, as they conceived it, who, with noble resolve in their hearts, trod the financially unremunerative path which led to the goal of political glory. There was always plenty of elbow-room and never any overcrowding on this road. The great majority of the Democrats, as I found them, put pul (i.e., money) before patriotism, and for them a Turkish lira, or a twenty-mark piece, had an irresistible attraction.
With the downfall of Russia as a military power, her Army, which had pushed down through Persia in order to effect a junction with the British in Mesopotamia, rapidly retreated, and as rapidly disintegrated, smitten by the deadly plague of Bolshevism. Discipline and organization were at an end; obedience was no longer rendered to Army Chief, corps commander, or regimental officer, but to the soldiers' own "Red Committee"—usually with a sergeant at its head—which, besides usurping the functions of Generalissimo, became the Supreme War Council of the Army, giving an irrevocable decision upon everything from high strategy to vulgar plundering. Now two Russian generals, named Bicherakoff and Baratof, appeared on the troubled stage of Persian politics. From the debris of an army they had gathered round them the odds and ends of stray Russian regiments, bands of irregulars from Transcaucasia, and Cossacks from the Don and the Terek—stout fighting men of the mercenary type, whose trade was war and whose only asset was their sword.
Both Bicherakoff and Baratof were loyal to the cause of Imperial Russia and her Allies, and refused to bend the knee to Lenin and Trotsky. They were willing to make war on our side as subsidized auxiliaries. In short, these heterogeneous cohorts were for sale; they possessed a certain military value, and the British taxpayer bought them at an inflated price, and also their right, title, and interest, if any, in the abandoned motor lorries, machine-guns, andmilitary stores of all kinds which littered the track of the retreating, disorganized Russian Army. The British military treasure-chest also honoured a proportion of the Russian requisition notes which had been given to the extent of millions of roubles in exchange for Persian local supplies, and which the Persian holders knew full well would never be liquidated by any Bolshevik Government in Petrograd or elsewhere.
Our friends, the Russians, having sold us their supplies for the common cause, made some difficulty about handing them over. The soldiers, it was said, claimed that war material was national property, and objected to its appropriation unless they, representing so many national shareholders, were each paid on a cash basis a proper proportion of the purchase price. This was a deadlock that was never satisfactorily adjusted. Our new Russian allies also offered to sell us the 160 miles of road from Kasvin to Hamadan which had been constructed by a Russian Company, and was being maintained by a system of tolls levied upon goods and passengers. But the price was so formidable that, if we had closed with the bargain, the British Exchequer would have needed the wealth of Golconda to complete the transaction.
Bicherakoff and his volunteers concentrated at Kasvin, at the junction of the roads leading to Resht and the Caspian in the north, to Tabriz in the north-west, to Teheran in the south-east, and to Hamadanand Kermanshah in the south-west. Here they imposed an effective barrier against the flowing tide of Bolshevism coming from the Caspian, and it was hoped that they might be able to keep open the road from Kasvin to Resht and Enzeli.
The distance from Kasvin to Resht is about eighty miles. Half-way, at Manjil, there is a road bridge over the Kizil Uzun River, and the country beyond is covered with thick jungle, which fringes the roadway on both sides.
About the time the Russians were sitting down in Kasvin awaiting developments, there appeared in the jungle country a redoubtable leader named Kuchik Khan, who was destined to exercise considerable influence on the military situation in the region of the Caspian. Kuchik Khan was a Persian of a certain culture and refinement of manner, endowed with courage, personal magnetism, and great force of character. He possessed, moreover, no little knowledge of European political institutions and of the science of government as practised in the West. The personification of militant "Young Persia," he proclaimed himself an apostle of reform. Preaching the doctrine of Persian Nationalism in the broadest sense, he declared that he was the uncompromising enemy alike of misrule within and interference from without. Recruits, attracted by good pay and the prospects of loot, flocked to his standard from amongst the harassed and overtaxed peasant population, and were soon licked into tolerable military shape byGerman and Turkish officers. Rifles, machine-guns, ammunition, military equipment, and money were also forthcoming from German sources. His army, which had its own distinctive uniform, grew rapidly, and it was not long before Kuchik Khan found himself strong enough to bid defiance to Teheran and its feeble Government. He set up as a semi-independent ruler, and had his own council of political and military advisers. Kuchik Khan's tax-gatherers collected and appropriated the Shah's revenues in Gilan and in part of Mazandaran, and his power became paramount from Manjil to the Caspian Sea. The Jungalis, as his followers were called, under German instruction became proficient in trench warfare. Selecting a good defensive position, they dug themselves in along the Manjil-Resht road, and their advanced outposts held the bridge head at Manjil itself.
STONE BRIDGE AT SIAH RUD WHICH IS THE PROBABLE PLACE OF ATTACK FROM ANY OF THE JUNGLE TRIBES. IT WAS AT THIS POINT THAT THE HANTS SUFFERED CASUALTIES.STONE BRIDGE AT SIAH RUD WHICH IS THE PROBABLE PLACE OF ATTACKFROM ANY OF THE JUNGLE TRIBES. IT WAS AT THIS POINT THAT THEHANTS SUFFERED CASUALTIES.
Kuchik Khan, as Persians go, was relatively honest, and was possibly inspired by patriotic zeal; but this did not prevent his becoming a pliant and very useful military asset in the hands of the enemies of the Entente Powers. At their behest he bolted and barred the door giving access to the Caspian and for the British, at all events, labelled it, "On ne passe pas!"
Au revoir to Bagdad—The forts on the frontier—Customs house for the dead—A land of desolation and death—A city of the past—An underground mess—Methods of rifle thieves.
It was not until the beginning of April (1918) that the intermittent rainfall practically ceased, and allowed a contingent of the weatherbound Dunsterville party to turn their faces towards Hamadan, where our General and his small force were said to be in dire straits.
The advanced base near Baqubah on the Diala River, north-east of Bagdad, where some of our unit were under canvas, was a quagmire; and the road beyond the Persian frontier was reported to be impassable for man, motor, or animal transport. But four consecutive days of fine weather effected a transformation. The heat of the sun converted the liquid mud of the plains into half-baked clay, and the road itself showed a hard crust upon its surface.
No time was lost in setting out for Persia. The force from the advanced base began its march at daylight on April 5. Baggage and transport were cut down to the lowest possible limits, and GeneralByron and I moved ahead of the column in a Ford van.
On the first night we reached the headquarters of General Thompson, commanding the 14th Division operating on the Diala. Next morning, the weather still promising fair, we were off betimes, and, in spite of road difficulties, at ten o'clock reached the Motor Transport Depot at Khaniquin, the last town on the Turkish side. After a brief halt to enable us to swop our somewhat war-worn car for a more efficient one, we started again, and, within an hour of pulling up at Khaniquin, had crossed the frontier into Persia.
As we approached the boundary of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at this point, the road wound round a low hill. On an eminence above stood a tumble-down martello tower which once had held a Turkish guard; and on a corresponding height on the other side were the ruins of a Persian fort. From these vantage points the two Asiatic Empires, both now crumbling in decay, had for centuries jealously watched each other, quarrelling over a mile or two of disputed territory with all the vehemence of their Oriental blood.
Near Khaniquin, on the Turkish side, we saw what had once been the Quarantine and Customs Stations. It was here that the corpse caravans, coming from the interior of Persia and bound for Kerbela, one of the holy places of the Shi'ite sect, halted and paid Customs dues. It is the pious wish of every Persianto be buried at Kerbela, near the shrine of Hossain the Martyr. The town is in the Vilayet of Bagdad, and in pre-war days the Turks derived a very handsome revenue from tolls levied on dead Persians who were being transported to their last resting-place beside the waters of the Euphrates. It was a gruesome but lucrative traffic for the living, whether Customs officials or muleteers. These caravans of dead, by reason of the absence of anything approaching proper hygienic precautions, probably also carried with them into Asiatic Turkey a varied assortment of endemic diseases. When Persians whose testamentary dispositions earmarked them for the last pilgrimage to Kerbela died, they were buried for a year. At the end of this period they were exhumed, enveloped in coarse sacking, lashed two by two on the back of a mule, and carried to their new resting-place, accompanied by bands of sorrowing friends and relatives.
We were now well over the frontier, and found ourselves in a land of desolation and death. Our way lay past ruined and deserted villages, many of the inhabitants of which had been blotted out by famine. Beyond a few Persian road guards in British pay, or an occasional native labour corps road-making under the protection of a detachment of Indian Infantry, the country seemed destitute of life. On the other side of the frontier I had heard a good deal as to the appalling economic conditions of Persia, and of the shortage of food; but now,brought face to face with the terrible reality, I understood for the first time its full significance.
Men and women, shrivelled and huddled heaps of stricken humanity, lay dead in the public ways, their stiffened fingers still clutching a bunch of grass plucked from the roadside, or a few roots torn up from the fields with which they had sought to lessen the tortures of death from starvation. At other times a gaunt, haggard figure, bearing some resemblance to a human being, would crawl on all fours across the roadway in front of the approaching car, and with signs rather than speech plead for a crust of bread. Hard indeed would be the heart that could refuse such an appeal! So overboard went our ration supply of army biscuit, bit by bit, on this our first day in the hungry land of the Shah!
At Kasr-i-Shirin, where we made a short halt, we were soon surrounded by a starving multitude asking for food. One poor woman with a baby in her arms begged us to save her child. We gave her half a tin of potted meat and some biscuits, for which she called down the blessing of Allah on our heads. Her maternal solicitude was touching, for, although it was evident that she was suffering from extreme hunger, no food passed her lips until her baby had been supplied.
The western slopes of Kasr-i-Shirin are covered with the remains of a great city. The outline of extensive walls can be traced amidst the debris of masonry. Masses of roughly hewn sandstone strewthe ground. Within the ancient enclosure are heaps of tumble-down masonry, all that exists of the houses that formerly stood there. Some little distance away are traceable the ruined outlines of a splendid palace with spacious underground apartments and beautiful archways, once the residence of some Acharmenian or Sasanian monarch. The remains of a rock-hewn aqueduct, with reservoir, troughs, and stone pipes, which brought water to this city of antiquity from a distance of twelve miles, are still to be seen.
From Kasr-i-Shirin onwards there was a gradual descent to the bottom of the Pai Tak Pass. It is three miles to the top of the Pass, and there is a difference in altitude of about fifteen hundred feet. Whatever else they may be, Persians are not roadmakers. Formerly the only way to scale Pai Tak was by following a mule track which wound round the sparsely wooded slopes of the hill. But now British military engineers had done some useful spade work there; an excellent road had been built with easy gradients, and Pai Tak was negotiable for Ford cars, and even for heavily laden Peerless lorries.
The view from the top was superb. On either side of the plateau towered snow-capped mountains. We found in possession, under Colonel Mathews, a British force consisting of the 14th Hants. The Colonel himself was absent; but the officers of the battalion gave us a hearty welcome, and fixed us up with quarters for the night.
The Senjabi tribesmen round about were troublesome,and their leader, Ali Akhbar Khan, incited by German propagandists, seemed bent upon coming into collision with the British. It was bitterly cold at Surkhidizeh on the top of the Pai Tak Pass, and we enjoyed the warmth and comfort of the Hants' mess quarters.
This was an underground circular apartment, cut out of the earth, into which you descended by a flight of wooden steps. The top was roofed with canvas, tent fashion.
Rifle thieves were active in the camp at Surkhidizeh. Wandering Kurdish tribesmen showed special daring in this form of enterprise. Scarcely a night passed without the Hants' Camp being raided for arms. British rifles brought enormous prices when sold to the Senjabi and other of the lawless nomads whose happy hunting-ground is the "No Man's Land" in the neighbourhood of the Turko-Persian frontier. Here a man was socially valued solely by the arms he carried. He might be in rags as far as raiment was concerned, but the possession of a .303 Lee Enfield, or a German Mauser, marked him as a man of some distinction and importance in the country, one who might be expected to do big things, and with whom it was well to be on friendly terms.
The average nomad whom I came across is not renowned for physical courage, and in daylight he will think twice before attacking even a single British soldier; yet these selfsame tribesmen wouldunhesitatingly raid a British bivouac nightly, and face the possibility of death, in order to pilfer a couple of rifles. Rifle raiding possessed for them a kind of fascination. The raiders often failed and paid the penalty with their lives, but the attempts were never abandoned for long. One method was for a brace of snipers to fire on the sentry and on the guard, so creating a diversion. A couple of their fellows, with their bodies well oiled, naked save for a loin-cloth, and carrying each a long knife, would meanwhile crawl into the camp at a place remote from the point of disturbance, and snatch a rifle or two from beside the sleeping soldiers. If caught, they used their knives, and invariably with fatal effect. Even if detected the raiders usually got away, for in the darkness and confusion it was difficult to fire upon them without incurring the risk of hitting one of your own people.
I was aroused from a sound sleep the first night at Surkhidizeh by the noise of rifle firing, followed by an infernal hullabaloo. Unbuttoning the tent flap, and rushing into the open, I found that the rifle snatchers had been busy again. A native had wriggled through the barbed-wire enclosure and, with the silence of a Red Indian, had entered a tent occupied by men of the Hants battalion. The soldiers slept with the sling of the rifle attached to the waistbelt. Cutting through this without disturbing the owner, the thief had bolted with the weapon.
On leaving, he fell over some of the sleepingoccupants, who were aroused and sought to grab him, but in the darkness and confined space of the bell-tent, they missed the thief and grasped each other's throats. The sentry fired, but failed of his mark. The remainder of the guard and some Indian units also loosed off a few rounds, but without success.
The night favoured the enterprise. It was pitch dark. The raider's friends, from the cover of some dead ground in the neighbourhood, sniped the camp intermittently for the next hour or two, until everybody grew exasperated, and wished that Persia with its marauding bands, and the whole Middle East Question were sunk in the deep sea.
A city of starving cave-dwellers—An American woman's mission to the wild—A sect of salamanders—Profiteering among the Persians—A callous nation—Wireless orders to sit tight—Awaiting attack—The "mountain tiger."
Next day we set out for Kirind, about fifteen miles from Surkhidizeh, where a platoon of the Hants held an advanced post. After passing Sar Mil and its ruined fort, we dipped down into a valley bordered by high hills, where grew dwarf oaks, with a background of mountains whose snow-topped peaks glistened in the warm spring sunshine.
Our way lay over a black cotton-soil plain, and the road looked as if it had recently been furrowed by a giant plough. It was hard going for the Ford cars, and our difficulties were increased when rain presently overtook us. Half an hour's downpour will convert any Persian road into a morass, and that between Surkhidizeh and Kirind is no exception to the rule. The Fords for once were baffled. The leading car could get no grip on the slippery soil; its front wheels revolved aimlessly, then by a mighty exertion moved forward a few yards, only to come to an abrupt stop, up to its front axle in a slimymud-hole. We temporarily jettisoned everything, and pulled it out with a tow rope and the united efforts of a dozen friendly natives who were not averse from a little physical labour for a pecuniary reward. There was no getting rid of the glutinous mud. It adhered to one's boots and clung to one's garments with a persistency that was irritating and ruinous to the temper. The fifteen miles' journey occupied four hours, and we were "bogged" seven times before the cars finally got clear and gained the roughly paved causeway which, skirting Kirind village, led to the British military post.
TYPICAL PERSIAN VILLAGE.TYPICAL PERSIAN VILLAGE.
Kirind itself is a straggling and typical group of Persian mud-houses. It clings haphazardly to both sides of a steep, narrow gorge, closed at one end by a perpendicular wall of jagged limestone rock, which rises sheer for a thousand feet. Beneath this frowning rock-barrier nestles a village abominably and indescribably filthy, inhabitated by an elf-like people in whom months of semi-starvation had bred something of the sullen ferocity of a pack of famishing wolves. There was in their eyes the glint of the hunted wild animal. They fled at our approach—men, women, and children—diving into dark, noisome, underground dens which exhaled a horrible effluvium, or else bolting like so many scared wild-cats for some lair high up amongst the limestone ridges. Some of the fugitives whom we rounded up and spoke to compassionately answered with a terrified snarl, as if dreading we should do them injury. Yet itwas chiefly the Turk, that zealous propagandist of the tenets of Islam, whose rapacity and cruelty had driven this fellow Moslem race to the borderland of primitive savagery.
Amid all the horror and misery of this desert of human despair we found a Christian angel of pity, isolated, working single-handed, striving to alleviate the terrible lot of the starving people. The angel was an American woman, Miss Cowden, of the Presbyterian Mission. Years before she had given up home, country, and friends in obedience to a higher call, and was devoting her life and her energies to the betterment of the temporal lot of the unhappy, underfed, Persian children. She had learned their language, and moved from village to village alone and unattended, carrying out her great work of charity, and content to live in some dirty hovel. A vocation surely demanding sublime self-abnegation, and calling, I should think, for the highest attributes of faith and courage! I hold no brief for foreign missionaries in general. I know that their proselytizing methods have been the subject of severe criticism in the public press and on the lecture platform. All the more reason, therefore, why I should tell of a work which is being done so unobtrusively, without hope of earthly recompense, and well beyond the range of the most powerful "Big Bertha" of the cinema world.
The Kirindis for the most part belong to the curious religious sect called Aliullahis, aboutwhose beliefs and rites many strange legends circulate.
One of these concerns their immunity from injury by fire, and recalls the "fire walkers" of the Tongan Islands. Aliullahian devotees, it is said, will enter a kind of oven and stay there while fire is heaped around it, making it red-hot. Then, covering their heads with the burning cinders, they cry, "I am cold," and pass out unhurt. Another ceremony consists in lifting bars of red-hot iron out of the fire with their bare hands, their skin showing no signs of burning.
Their religion seems to be a strange mixture of Mohammedanism and Judaism, with doctrines from various other esoteric faiths grafted on to it. Thus they number amongst their prophets Benjamin, Moses, Elia, David, and Jesus Christ, and they have also a saint of peculiar efficacy in intercession named Ali. Some investigators into their creed maintain that Ali and Daoud (David) are one and the same person; others think that Ali is so high up in the spiritual hierarchy as only to be invoked through Daoud. In any case, their prayer before battle is, "O Daoud, we are going to war. Grant that we overcome our enemy!" They then sacrifice some animal, usually a sheep, which is roasted whole. The High Priest prays over the carcass and distributes the flesh in small portions to those present. Communion in this sacrament appears to inspire the Aliullahian with absolute confidence in the success of any undertaking it precedes.