Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume 1 (of 2)

Isfahan too I barely notice, for the best of all reasons, that I have not seen it! Though a fourth part of it is in ruins, and its population is not an eighth of what it was in the days of Shah Abbas, it is a fairly thriving commercial emporium with an increasing British trade. Indeed here Russian commercial influence may be said to cease, and that of England to become paramount. It is the paradise of Manchester and Glasgow cottons: woollen goods come from Austria and Germany, glass from Austria, crockery from England, candles and kerosene represent Russia. Our commercial supremacy in Isfahan cannot be disputed. I am almost tired of hearing of it. Opium, tobacco, carpets from the different provinces, and cotton and rice for native consumption, are the chief exports. Opium is increasingly grown round the city, and up the course of the Zainderud. Of the 4500 cases exported, worth £90 a case, three-fourths go to China. Its cultivation is so profitable and has increased so rapidly to the neglect of food crops that the Prince Governor has issued an order that one part of cereals shall be sown for every four of the opium poppy.

The cotton in the bazars, through which one can walk under cover for between two and three miles, is of the best quality, owing to the successful measures taken by the calico printers to defeat the roguery of the cheating manufacturers. All the European necessaries and many of the luxuries of life are obtainable, and the Isfahan bazars are the busiest in Persia except those of Tabriz.

It is only fair to this southern capital to say that if one can walk over two miles under the roofs of its fine bazars, one can ride for many miles among its ruins, which have desolation without stateliness, and are chiefly known for the production of the excellent wild asparagus which is used lavishly on European tables at this season.

The "Persian Versailles," the Palace of Forty Pillars, each pillar formed of shafts enriched with colour and intricate work, and resting on a marble lion, the shaking Minarets, the Masjid-i-Shah with its fine dome of peacock-blue tiles, all falling into premature decay, remain to attest its former greatness; the other noble palaces, mosques, caravanserais, and Medressehs are ruinous, the superb pleasure gardens are overgrown with weeds or are used for vetches and barley, the tanks are foul or filled up, the splendid plane trees have been cut down for fuel, or are dragging out a hollow existence – every one, as elsewhere in Persia, destroys, no one restores. The armoury is the one exception to the general law of decay.

Yet Isfahan covered an area of twenty-four miles in circumference, and with its population of 650,000 souls was until the seventeenth century one of the most magnificent cities of the East. Its destruction last century by an Afghan conqueror, who perpetrated a fifteen days' massacre, and the removal of the court to Tihran, have reduced it to a mere commercial centre, a "distributing point," and as such, its remains may take a new lease of life. It has a newspaper called the Farhang, which prints little bits of news, chiefly personal. Its editor moves on European lines so far as to have "interviewed" me!

There are manufactures in Isfahan other than the successful printing and dyeing of cottons; viz., earthenware, china, brass-work, velvet, satin, tents, coarse cottons, glass, swords, guns, pistols, jewellery, writing paper and envelopes, silk brocades, satins, gunpowder, bookbinding, gold thread, etc.

The plateau on which Isfahan stands, about seventy miles from east to west and twenty from north to south, and enclosed by high mountains with a striking outline, lies 5400 feet above the sea. The city has a most salubrious climate, and is free from great extremes both of heat and cold. The Zainderud, on whose left bank it is situated, endows much of the plain with fertility on its way to its undeserved doom in a partially-explored swamp.

This Christian town, called a suburb, though it is really two and a half miles from Isfahan, is a well-built and well-peopled nucleus. It is not mixed up with ruins as Isfahan is. They have a region to themselves chiefly in the direction of the Kuh Sufi. My impression of it after a month is that it is clean and comfortable-looking, Mr. Curzon's is that it is "squalid." I prefer mine!

It is a "city of waters." Streams taken from a higher level of the Zainderud glide down nearly all its lanes, shaded by pollard mulberries, ash, elm, and the "sparrow-tongue" willow, which makes the best firewood, and being "planted by the rivers of water," grows so fast that it bears lopping annually, and besides affording fuel supplies the twigs which are used for roofing such rooms as are not arched.

The houses, some of which are more than three centuries old, are built of mud bricks, the roofs are usually arched, and the walls are from three to five feet thick. All possess planted courtyards and vineyards, and gardens into which channels are led from the streams in the streets. These streams serve other purposes: continually a group of Armenian women may be seen washing their clothes in them, while others are drinking or drawing water just below. The lanes are about twenty feet wide and have narrow rough causeways on both sides of the water-channel. It is difficult on horseback to pass a foot passenger without touching him in some of them.

Great picturesqueness is given to these leafy lanes by the companies of Armenian women in bright red dresses and pure white robes, slowly walking through them at all hours of daylight, visions of bright eyes and rosy cheeks. I have never yet seen a soiled white robe! Long blank mud walls, low gateways, an occasional row of mean shops, open porches of churches, dim and cool, and an occasional European on foot or horseback, and groups of male Armenians, whose dress so closely approaches the European as to be without interest, and black-robed priests gliding to the churches are all that is usually to be seen. It sounds dull, perhaps.

Many of the houses of the rich Armenians, some of which are now let to Europeans, are extremely beautiful inside, and even those occupied by the poorer classes, in which a single lofty room can be rented for twopence a week, are very pretty and appropriate. But no evidence of wealth is permitted to be seen from the outside. It is only a few years since the Armenians were subject to many disabilities, and they have even now need to walk warily lest they give offence. As, for instance, an Armenian was compelled to ride an ass instead of a horse, and when that restriction was relaxed, he had to show his inferiority by dismounting from his horse before entering the gates of Isfahan.

They were not allowed to have bells on their churches, (at Easter I wished they had none still), but now the Egglesiah Wang (the great church) has a fine campanile over 100 feet high in its inner court. The ancient mode of announcing the hours of worship is still affectionately adhered to, however. It consists of drumming with a mallet on a board hanging from two posts, and successfully breaks the sleep of the neighbourhood for the daily service which begins before daylight.

The Armenians, like the rich Persians, prudently keep to the low gateways, which, with the absence of windows and all exterior ornament, give the lanes so mean an aspect, and tend to make one regard the beauty and even magnificence within with considerable surprise.

In England a rich man, partly for his own delectation, and partly, if he be "the architect of his own fortune," to impose his position ocularly on his poorer neighbours, displays his wealth in all ways and on most occasions. In Persia his chief pleasure must be to hoard it and contemplate it, for any unusual display of it in equipages or furnishings is certain to bring down upon him a "squeeze," at Tihran in the shape of a visit from the Shah with its inevitable consequences, and in the Provinces in that of a requisition from the governor.

For a man to "enlarge his gates" is to court destruction. Poor men have low gates, which involve stooping, to prevent rich men's servants from entering their houses on horseback on disagreeable errands. Christian churches have remarkably low doors elsewhere than in Julfa, to prevent the Moslems from stabling their cattle in them. Rich men affect mean entrances in order not to excite the rapacity of officialism, according to the ancient proverb, "He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction" (Proverbs xvii. 19). Only Royal gates and the gates of officials who represent Royalty are high.

The Armenian merchants have, like the Europeans, their offices in Isfahan. The rest of the people get their living by the making and selling of wine, keeping small shops, making watches and jewellery, carpentering, in which they are very skilful, and market-gardening; they are thrifty and industrious, and there is very little real poverty.

The selling of wine does not conduce to the peace of Julfa. A mixture of sour wine and arak, a coarse spirit, is very intoxicating, and Persians, when they do drink, drink till they are drunk, and the abominable concealed traffic in liquor with the Moslems of the town is apt to produce disgraceful brawls.

Wine can be bought for fourpence a quart, but the upper classes make their own, and it costs less than this. Wines are both red and white, and one red wine is said to be like good Chianti. The Armenians tipple and also get drunk, priests included. It is said that some of the jars used in fermenting are between 200 and 300 years old.

The excellent education given in the C.M.S. schools has had the effect of stimulating the Armenian schools, and of producing among the young men a large emigration to India, Batavia, Constantinople, and even England. Only the dullards as a rule remain in Julfa. Some rise high in Persian and even in Turkish employment.

The Armenian women are capital housewives and very industrious. In these warm evenings the poorer women sit outside their houses in groups knitting. The knitting of socks is a great industry, and a woman can earn 4s. a month by it, which is enough to live upon.

In Julfa, and it may be partly owing to the presence of a European community, the Christians have nothing to complain of, and, so far as I can see, they are on terms of equality with the Persians.

However, Isfahan is full of religious intolerance which can easily be excited to frenzy, and the arrogance of the mollahs has increased since the fall from almost regal state of the Zil-i-Sultan, the Shah's eldest son, into the position of a provincial governor, for he curbed them somewhat, and now the restraint is removed. However, it is against the Jews and the Bābis, rather than the Christians, that their hostility is directed.

A few weeks ago some Bābis were peaceably returning to a neighbouring village, when they were attacked, and seven of their number were massacred under atrocious circumstances, the remainder taking refuge for a time in the British Telegraph office. Several of both sexes who escaped are in concealment here in a room in the Hospital compound, one of them with a broken jaw.

The hiding of these Bābis has given great umbrage to the bigots of Isfahan, though the Amir-i-Panj justified it on all grounds, and about the time I arrived it was said that a thousand city fanatics purposed to attack the mission premises. But at one of the mosques there is a mollah, who with Gamaliel-like wisdom urged upon them "that if 300 Moslems were killed nothing would happen, but if a single European were killed, what then?"37

I cannot close this letter without a few words on the Armenian churches, some of which I visited with Mr. and Dr. Aganoor, and others with Dr. Bruce. The ceremony representing the washing of the disciples' feet on the Armenian Holy Thursday was a most magnificent one as regards the antique splendour and extreme beauty of the vestments and jewels of the officiating bishop, but the feet, which are washed in rose-water and anointed, are not, as in Rome, those of beggars, but of neophytes costumed in pure white. Incense, embroideries, crowds of white-robed women, and other accessories made the function an imposing one.

The Cathedral, a part of the Monastery, has a narrow winding approach and a thick door, for ecclesiastics were not always as safe as they are now. In the outer court is the campanile before mentioned. The floor is paved with monumental slabs, and among the graves are those of several Europeans. Piles of logs look as if the Julfa carpenters seasoned their wood in this court!

The church is divided by a rail into two compartments. The dome is rich with beaten gold, and the dado is of very fine tiles, which produce a striking effect. The embroideries and the carpets, some of which are worth fabulous sums, are between two and three centuries old. The vestments and ornaments of the priests are very fine, and suggest the attire of the Aaronic priesthood.

It is a striking building, and the amount of gold and colour, toned into a certain harmony by time, produces a gorgeous effect. The outer compartment has a singular interest, for 230 years ago its walls were decorated with religious paintings, on a large scale, of events in Bible history, from the creation downwards. Some are copies, others original, and they are attributed to Italian artists. They are well worth careful study as representing the conceptions which found favour among the Armenian Christians of that day. They are terribly realistic, but are certainly instructive, especially the illustrations of the miracles and parables.

In one of the latter a man with a huge beam sticking out of one eye is represented as looking superciliously with the other at a man with an insignificant spike projecting. The death of Dives is a horrible representation. His soul, in the likeness of a very small nude figure, is represented as escaping from the top of his head, and is being escorted to the entrance of the lower regions by a flight of small black devils. The idea of the soul emerging from the top of the head is evidently borrowed from the Moslems.

Our Lord is, I think, everywhere depicted as short, dark, and dark-haired, with eyebrows much curved, and a very long upper lip, without beauty or dignity, an ordinary Oriental workman.

The picture of the Cathedral is an enormous canvas, representing the day when "before Him shall be gathered all nations." The three persons of the Trinity are there, and saints and angels are portrayed as worshipping, or as enjoying somewhat earthly but perfectly innocent delights.

In this the conception is analogous to those celebrated circular pictures in which the Buddhistic future is unrolled, and which I last saw in the monasteries of Lesser Tibet. The upper or heavenly part is insignificant and very small, while the torments of the lost in the lower part are on a very large scale, and both the devils and the nude human sufferers in every phase of anguish have the appearance of life size. The ingenuity of torment, however, is not nearly so great, nor are the scenes so revolting as those which Oriental imagination has depicted in the Buddhist hells. A huge mythical monster represents the mouth of hell, and into his flaming and smoking jaws the impenitent are falling. Does any modern Armenian believe that any of those whose bones lie under the huge blocks of stone in the cemetery in the red desert at the foot of Kuh Sufi have passed into "this place of torment"?

The other church which claims one's interest, though not used for worship, is that of St. George, the hero of the fraudulent contract in bacon, as well as of the dragon fight, to whom the Armenians as well as ourselves render singular honour.

This church is a great place for "miracles" of healing, and cells for the sick who come from a distance are freely provided. In a covered court are some large stones in a group, one of them evidently the capital of a column. Two of them have cavities at the top, and the sick kneel before them, and as the voluble women who were there told us, "they first pray to God and then to the stones," and finally pour water into these cavities and drink it. The cure is either instantaneous or occurs at any time within fifteen days, and in every case the patient hears the voice of St. George telling him to go home when it is complete.

These stones, according to the legend told by the women and popularly believed by the uneducated, took it into their heads to come from Etchmiadzin in Armenia, the residence of the Catholicos, in one night, and deposited themselves where the church now stands. Seven times they were taken into Faraidan, eighty miles from Julfa, and as often returned, and their manifest predilection was at last rewarded by a rest of centuries. There were a number of sick people waiting for healing, for which of course fees are bestowed.

The Armenians, especially the women, pay great attention to the externals of their religion. Some of its claims are very severe, such as the daily service before daylight, winter and summer, and the long fasts, which they keep with surprising loyalty, i. e. among the poor in towns and in the villages. For at least one-sixth of the year they are debarred from the use of meat or even eggs, and are permitted only vegetable oils, fruits, vegetables, and grain. Spirits and wine, however, are not prohibited.

I really believe that their passionate attachment to their venerable church, the oldest of all national churches, is fostered by those among them who have ceased to believe its doctrines, as a necessity of national existence. I doubt very much whether the "Reformed" congregations, which have been gathered out here and elsewhere, would survive the withdrawal of foreign aid. Rather, I think, they would revert to the original type.

Superstitions without number are mixed up with their beliefs, and are countenanced by the priests. The meron or holy oil used in baptism and for other purposes has the stamp of charlatanism upon it. It is made in Etchmiadzin.

Rose leaves are collected in an immense vat, which is filled with water, and at a set time the monks and nuns form a circle round it, and repeat prayers till "fermentation" begins. They claim that the so-called fermentation is a miracle due to the prayers offered. Oil, probably attar of roses, rises to the surface, and this precious meron is sent to the Armenian churches throughout the world about once in four or five years. In Persia those who bear it are received with an istikbal or procession of welcome.

It is used not only in baptism and other rites but at the annual ceremony of washing the Cross at Christmas, when some of it is poured into the water and is drunk by the worshippers. In the villages they make a paste by mixing this water and oil with earth, which is made into balls and kept in the houses for "luck." If a dog licks a bowl or other vessel, and thus renders it unclean, rubbing it round with one of these balls restores it to purity.

At a village in Faraidan there is an ancient New Testament, reputed to be of the sixth century. To this MS. people come on pilgrimage from all quarters, even from Fars, Tihran, and Armenia, to be healed of their diseases, and they make offerings to it, and practically render it worship.

To go and pray on a newly-made grave is a remedy for childlessness much resorted to by childless wives. When two boys fight, and one of them is hurt, or when any one is injured by a dog or by a tree falling, they wash the damaged person in water, and then throw the water over the boy, dog, or tree which has been the cause of the injury, believing that in this way the mischief is transferred.

When any one is ill of fright and the cause is not known, the nuns come to the house, and pour wax into a basin of boiling water, noting the form it takes, such as a snake, a dog, or a frog. In a case lately they went out and killed a snake, for the thing whose form the wax takes ought to be killed; but as this might often be difficult or unsuitable, they compromise the matter by throwing the water (not boiling, I hope) over the nearest dog or toad, or anything else which is supposed to be the culprit.

On the first Monday in Lent the women wash their knitting needles for luck in a stream which runs through Julfa. The children educated in the Mission schools laugh at these and many other superstitions.

The dress of the Armenian women is very showy, but too much of a huddle. Red is the dominant colour, a carnation red with white patterns sprawling over it, They wear coloured trousers concealed by a long skirt. The visible under-garment is a long, "shaped" dress of Turkey red. Over this is worn a somewhat scanty gown of red and white cotton, open in front, and very short-waisted, and over this a plain red pelisse or outer garment, often quilted, open in front, gashed up the sides, and falling below the knees. Of course this costume is liable to many modifications in the way of material, and embroidered jackets, heavily trimmed with jewellery and the like. As fashion is unchanging the acquisition and hoarding of garments are carried to a great extent.

There are two marked features of Armenian dress, one, the massive silver girdle made of heavy chased-silver links four inches long by two deep, often antique and always of antique design, which falls much below the waist in front, and is used to confine the ends of the white sheet which envelops an Armenian woman out of doors, so that it may hang evenly all round. The other is a skull-cap of embroidered silk or cloth, placed well back on the head above the many hanging plaits in which the hair is worn, with a black velvet coronet in front, from which among the richer women rows of coins depend. This, which is very becoming to the brilliant complexion and comely face below it, is in its turn covered by a half handkerchief, and over this is gracefully worn, when not gracelessly clutched, a chadar or drapery of printed cambric or muslin. A white band bound across the chin up to the lips suggests a broken jaw, and the tout ensemble of the various wrappings of the head a perennial toothache.

I. L. B.

LETTER XIV

Julfa, April 30.

You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully expected to have left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable delays have occurred. My caravan and servants started this morning, and I leave myself in a few hours.

Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive name of Screw. He is fairly well-bred, big-headed, big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay, fine-coated, slightly flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in several places from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an undoubted yabu, and has carried loads for many a day. He has a long stride, shies badly, walks very fast, canters easily, and at present shows no tendency to tumble down.38

I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the definite dividing line between the desert and the oasis of cultivation and irrigation, watching the daily development of the various crops and the brief life of the wild flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kajū, and returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the bright waters of the Zainderud crimsoning in the setting sun.

For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altogether free from clouds and showers, there have been some gorgeous sunsets, and magnificent colouring of the depth and richness which people call tropical, has blazed extravagantly; and from the violet desert to the indigo storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhrūd mountains, from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple crags in dark relief against a sky of flame, all things have been new.

Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the baptism of a young Moslem in a semi-private fashion, who shortly afterwards renounced Christianity, and the other that of a respectable Mohammedan merchant in Isfahan, who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved that if he were not permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one way he would in another. He was passed over, to my great regret, if he be sincere, but I suppose the Rubric leaves no choice.39

I have written little about my prospective journey because there has been a prolonged uncertainty about it, and even now I cannot give any definite account of the project, except that the route lies through an altogether mountainous region, in that part of the province of Luristan known in Persia colloquially as the "Bakhtiari country," from being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, chiefly nomads. The pros and cons as to my going have been innumerable, and the two people in Persia who know the earlier part of the route say that the character of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel among them. On the other hand, I have the consent and help of the highest authorities, Persian and English, and shall not go too far, but shall return to Isfahan in case things should turn out as is feared. The exploration of a previously unexplored region will be in itself interesting, but whether there will be sufficient of the human interests, which I chiefly care for, I doubt; in that case the journey will be dull.