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

In one of the loveliest of the valleys on the skirts of Elwend lies the large walled village of Yalpand on a vigorous stream. For two miles before reaching it the rugged road passes through a glen which might be at home, a water-worn ledgy track, over-arched by trees, with steep small fields among them in the fresh green of grass springing up after the hay has been carried. Trees, ruddy with premature autumnal tints and festooned with roses and brambles, bend over the river, of which little is visible but here and there a flash of foam or a sea-green pool. The village, on a height above the stream, has banks of orchards below and miles of grain above, and vineyards, and material plenty of all sorts. It was revelling in the dust storm which winnowing produces, and the ketchuda suggested to me to camp at some distance beyond it, on a small triangular meadow below a large irrigation stream. Hardly were the tents pitched when, nearly without warning, Elwend blackened, clouds gathered round his crest and boiled up out of his corries, and for the first time since the middle of January there were six hours of heavy rain, with hail and thunder, and a fall of the mercury within one hour from 78° to 59°. The coolness was most delicious.

Hadji Hussein's prophecy that after I left him I should "know what charvadars are" was not fulfilled on this journey. I had one young man with me who from having performed the pilgrimage to Kerbela bears the name of "Kerbelai" for the rest of his life. He owns the fine and frisky animals he drives, and goes along at a good pace, his long gun over his shoulder, singing as he goes. Blithe, active, jolly, obliging, honest, kind-hearted, he loads as fast as three ordinary men, and besides grooming and feeding his animals well, he "ran messages," got the water and wood, and helped to pitch and strike the tents, and was as ready to halt as to march. Hassan and Mirza are most deliberate in their movements; nothing can hurry them, not even the risk of being flooded out of their tents; and when the storm came on Kerbelai snatched the spade from them and in no time trenched my tent and dug a channel to let the water out of the meadow.

The next day was cloudless, and the sky, instead of having a whitish or steely blue, had the deep pure tint so often seen on a June day in England. The heat returned, and it was a fatiguing and dusty march into Hamadan, still mainly on the skirts of Elwend, among villages surrounded by vineyards. After pursuing a by-road from Jamilabad I joined the main road, two miles from Hamadan, and the number of men on good horses, of foot passengers, and of asses laden with fruit and vegetables, indicated the approach to a capital as plainly as the wide road, trenched on both sides and planted with young willows.

The wall as is usual is of crumbling, rain-eaten, sun-dried bricks, and a very poor gateway admits the traveller into a network of narrow alleys, very ruinous, with infamous roadways, full of lumps, holes, slimy black channels, stout mangy dogs, some of them earless, tailless, and one-eyed, sleeping in heaps in the hot sun, the whole overwhelmingly malodorous.16

It was no easy matter to find the way to the American Mission House, even though the missionary Hakīm is well known and highly esteemed, and I rode through the filthy alleys of the city and its crowded bazars for more than an hour before I reached the Armenian quarter. The people were most polite. There was no shouting or crushing in the bazars, and in some cases men walked with me for some distance to show me the way, especially when I asked for the Khanum's house. Indeed they all seemed anxious to assist a stranger. Many of the children salaamed, as I thought, but I have since heard that they are fond of using to a Christian a word which sounds just like salaam, but which instead of meaning Peace is equivalent to "May you be for ever accursed!"

On reaching the Mission House I found it shut and that the missionaries were in the country, and after sending word that I had arrived I spent some hours in an Armenian house, where the people showed extreme hospitality and kindness.

They put a soft quilt down on the soft rugs, which covered the floor of a pretty whitewashed room, with many ornaments, chiefly Russian, and, finding that I was ill, they repeatedly brought tea, milk, and fruit instead of the heavy dinner which was at once cooked. The sight of several comely women dressed in shades of red, with clean white chadars, going about household avocations, receiving visitors and gracefully exercising the rites of hospitality in a bright clean house festooned with vines, was very pleasant to a dweller in tents. It is not Armenian custom for a daughter-in-law to speak in the presence of her mother-in-law, or even to uncover her mouth, or for young women to speak in presence of their elders. A wife cannot even address her husband in the presence of his mother, except in a furtive whisper. Owing to the custom of covering the mouth, which shows no symptom of falling into disuse, I did not see the face of a girl matron who, judging from her eyes, nose, and complexion, was the comeliest in the room.

Towards evening, as I lay trying to sleep, I was delightfully startled by a cheery European voice, and a lady bent over me, whose face was sunshine, and the very tone of her voice a welcome. Goodness, purity, love, capacity to lead as well as help, true strength, and true womanliness met in the expression of her countenance. Her spotless cambric dress, her becoming hat with its soft white pagri, the harmonious simplicity of her costume, and her well-fitting gloves and shoes were a joy after the slovenliness, slipshodness, and generally tumbling-to-pieces look of Oriental women. The Faith Hubbard School, one of the good works of the American Presbyterian Mission, was close by, and in half an hour Miss – made me feel "at home." Blessed phrase!

I. L. B.

LETTER XXIII

Hamadan, Sept. 12.

I came for four days, and have been here nearly three weeks, which I would willingly prolong into as many months if the winter were not impending. Illness, the non-arrival of luggage containing winter clothing from Tihran, and the exceeding difficulty of finding a charvadar willing to go to Urmi by the route I wish to take, have all detained me. For some time I was unable to leave the house, and indeed have been out very little, and not outside the city at all.

I am disappointed both with Hamadan and its autumn climate. It stands at an elevation of 6156 feet [Schindler], and on the final slope of the Kuh-i-Hamadan, an offshoot of Mount Elwend, overlooking a plain about fifteen miles long by nine broad, populous and cultivated, bounded on the other side by low gravelly hills. At this altitude, and with autumn fairly begun, coolness might be expected, but the heat, which a fortnight ago seemed moderating, has returned in fury, with that peculiar faintness about it which only autumn gives. Mount Elwend attracts masses of clouds, and these tend to hang over the town and increase the stagnation of the air, about which there is a remarkable closeness, even in this high situation overlooking the plain. Intermittent fever and diphtheria are prevailing both in the city and the adjacent villages. Not only is the air close and still, but the sun is blazing hot, and the mercury only varies from 88° in the day to 84° at night. Brown dust-storms career wildly over the plain, or hang heavily over it in dust clouds, and the sand-flies are abundant and merciless. In the winter the cold is intense, and the roads are usually blocked with snow for several weeks.

Water is abundant, and is led through open channels in the streets. The plain too is well supplied, and the brown villages, which otherwise would be invisible on the brown plain, are denoted by dark green stains of willow, poplar, and fruit trees. The town itself has fine gardens, belonging to the upper classes, but these are only indicated by branches straying over the top of very high walls.

My first impressions have received abundant confirmation. Important as a commercial centre as Hamadan doubtless is, it is as ruinous, filthy, decayed, and unprosperous-looking a city as any I have seen in Persia. "Ruinous heaps," jagged weather-worn walls, houses in ruins, or partly ruined and deserted, roofs broken through, domes from which the glazed tiles have dropped off, roadways not easy by daylight and dangerous at night, water-channels leaking into the roads and often black with slime, and an unusual number of very poor and badly-dressed people going about, are not evidences of the prosperity which, in spite of these untoward appearances, really exists.

The high weather-worn mud walls along the alleys have no windows, in order that the women may not see or be seen by men. A doorway with a mounting-block outside it, in "well-to-do" houses, admits into a vaulted recess, from which a passage, dimly lighted, conducts into the courtyard, round which the house is built, or into the house itself. These courtyards are planted with trees and flowers, marigolds and autumnal roses being now in the ascendant. Marble basins with fountains, and marble walks between the parterres, suggest coolness, and walnuts, apples, and apricots give shade. The men's and women's apartments are frequently on opposite sides of the quadrangles, and the latter usually open on atriums, floored with white marble and furnished with rugs and brocaded curtains. I have only seen the women's apartments, and these in the houses of rich traders and high officials are as ornamental as the exteriors are repulsive and destitute of ornament. Gilding, arabesques in colour, fretwork doors and panelling, and ceilings and cornices composed of small mirrors arranged so as to represent facets, are all decorative in the extreme. These houses, with the deep shade of their courtyards, the cool plash of their fountains, and their spacious and exquisitely-decorated rooms, contrast everywhere with the low dark mud hovels, unplastered and windowless, in which the poor live, and which the women can only escape from by sitting in the heaped and filthy yards on which they open, and which the inhabitants share with their animals. The contrast between wealth and poverty is strongly emphasised in this, as in all Persian cities, but one must add that the gulf between rich and poor is bridged by constant benevolence on the part of the rich, profuse charity being practised as a work of merit by all good Moslems.

The bazars are shabby and partially ruinous, but very well supplied with native produce and manufactures, English cottons, Russian merchandise, and "knick-knacks" of various descriptions. The presence of foreigners in the town, although they import many things by way of Baghdad, has introduced foreign articles of utility into the bazars, which are not to be found everywhere, and which are commending themselves to the people, "Peek and Frean's" biscuits among them. The display of fruit just now is very fine, especially of grapes and melons. The best peaches, which are large and of delicious flavour, as well as the best pears, come from the beautiful orchards of Jairud, not far from Kûm. The saddlery and caravan equipment bazars are singularly well supplied, as indeed they should be, for Hamadan is famous for leather, and caravans loaded with hides for its tanneries are met with on every road. The bark and leaves of the pomegranate are used for tanning. Besides highly ornamental leather for book-bindings and women's shoes, the tanners prepare the strong skins which, after being dyed red, are used for saddles, coverings of trunks, and bindings for khūrjins.

Hamadan is also famous for namads or felts, which are used as carpets and horse-coverings, and as greatcoats by the peasants as well as by the Lurs. A good carpet felt of Hamadan manufacture is an inch thick, but some made at Yezd reach two inches. For rich men's houses they are made to order to fit rooms, and valuable rugs are laid over them. The largest I have seen is in the palace of the Minister of Justice at Tihran, which must be fully a hundred and twenty feet by eighty feet, and formed fourteen mule-loads; but sixty by forty feet is not an uncommon size, and makes eight mule-loads. These carpet namads, the most delicious of floor-coverings, are usually a natural brown, with an outline design in coloured threads or in a paler shade of brown beaten into the fabric. Namads, owing to their bulk and weight, are never exported. The best, made at Hamadan, are about 20s. the square yard. Chairs spoil them, and as it is becoming fashionable among the rich men of the cities to wear tight trousers, which bring chairs in their train, the manufacture of these magnificent floor-coverings will probably die.

The felt coats, which protect equally from rain and cold, are dark brown and seamless, and cost from 10s. to 20s. They have sleeves closed at the end to form a glove, and with a slit below the elbow through which the hand can be protruded and used. These coats are cloak-like, the sleeve is as long as the coat, and they are often worn merely suspended from the neck.

Hamadan is also famous for copper-work, and makes and dyes cottons. The tanneries and the dye-works between them create a stench which is perceptible for miles. The neighbourhood produces much wine, white like hock, and red like claret, both being harsh and the first heady. The Armenians are the chief makers and sellers of wine. I wish I could add that they are the only people who get drunk, but this is not the case, for from the Prince Governor downwards, among the rich Moslems, intemperance has become common, and even many young men are "going to wreck with drink," sacrificing the virtue to which Moslems have been able to point with pride as differentiating them from so-called Christians. I was unable to return the Prince Governor's visit and courtesies in accordance with the etiquette for a European lady traveller, because of the helpless condition in which he and a party of convivial friends were found by the messenger sent by me to ask him to appoint an hour for my visit. Raisins, treacle, and arak are also manufactured. The rich prefer cognac to arak. It is spirit-drinking rather than wine-drinking which is sapping the life of the Moslems of Hamadan.

It is singular that in this Ecbatana, the capital of Greater Media, there should be so very few remains of an ancient greatness and splendour. Just outside the town a low eminence called Musala is pointed out as the site of the palace of the Median kings, but even this is doubtful. Coins of an ancient date are both dug up and fabricated by the Jews. Only two really interesting objects remain, and the antiquity of one of these is not universally accepted. The tomb of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai is the great show-place of Hamadan, and is held in much veneration by the Jews of Turkey and Persia, who resort to it on pilgrimage. The Jews are its custodians.

This tomb consists of an outer and inner chamber, surmounted by a mean dome about fifty feet in height. The blue tiles with which it was covered have nearly all dropped off. The outer chamber, in which there are a few tombs of Jews who have been counted worthy of burial near the shrine, is entered by a very low door, and the shrine itself by one still lower, through which one is obliged to creep. The inner chamber is vaulted, and floored with blue tiles, and having been recently restored is in good order. Under the dome, which is lighted with the smoky clay lamps used by the very poor, are the two tombs, each covered with a carved wooden ark, much defaced and evidently of great antiquity. There is an entrance to the tombs below these arks, and each is lighted by an ever-burning lamp. There is nothing in the shrine but a Hebrew Old Testament and a quantity of pieces of paper inscribed with Hebrew characters, which are affixed by pilgrims to the woodwork. The tombs and the tradition concerning them are of such great antiquity that I gladly accept the verdict of those who assign them to the beautiful and patriotic Queen and her capable uncle.

On the dome is this inscription: "On Thursday the 15th of the month Adar in the year of the creation of the world 4474 the building of this temple over the tombs of Mordecai and Esther was finished by the hands of the two benevolent brothers Elias and Samuel, sons of Ismail Kachan."

The other object of interest, which has been carefully described by Sir H. Rawlinson and Sir H. Layard, is specially remarkable as having afforded the key to the decipherment of the cuneiform character. It is in the mountains above Hamadan, and consists of two tablets six feet six inches by eight feet six inches (Layard) cut in a red granite cliff which closes the end of a corrie. There are other tablets near them, carefully prepared, but never used. The three inscriptions are in parallel columns in the three languages spoken in the once vast Persian Empire – Persian, Median, and Babylonian, and contain invocations to Ormuzd, and the high-sounding names and titles of Darius Hystaspes and his son Xerxes.

Amidst the meanness, not to say squalor, of modern Hamadan, no legerdemain of the imagination can re-create the once magnificent Ecbatana, said by the early Greek writers to have been scarcely inferior to Babylon in size and splendour, with walls covered with "plates of gold," and fortifications of enormous strength; the capital of Arbaces after the fall of Nineveh, and the summer resort of the "Great King," according to Xenophon.

The Jews are supposed to number from 1500 to 2000 souls, and are in the lowest state of degradation, morally and socially. That bad act of Sarah in casting out "the bondwoman and her son" is certainly avenged upon her descendants. They are daily kicked, beaten, and spat upon in the streets, and their children are pelted and beaten in going to and from the school which the Americans have established for them. Redress for any wrongs is inaccessible to them. They are regarded as inferior to dogs. So degraded are they that they have not even spirit to take advantage of the help which American influence would give them to get into a better position. The accursed vices of low greed and low cunning are fully developed in them. They get their living by usury, by the making and selling of wine and arak, by the sale of adulterated drugs, by peddling in the villages, and by doing generally the mean and dishonest work from which their oppressors shrink. Many of them have become Moslems, the law being that a convert to Islam can take away the whole property of his family. A larger number have, it is believed, joined the secret sect of the Bābis. I never heard such a sickening account of degradation as is given of the Hamadan Jews by those who know them best, and have worked the most earnestly for their welfare.

There are a number of Armenians in Hamadan, and several villages in the district are inhabited exclusively by them. There are also villages with a mixed Persian and Armenian population. They all speak Persian, and the men at least are scarcely to be distinguished from Persians by their dress. They are not in any way oppressed, and, except during occasional outbreaks of Moslem fanaticism, are on very good terms with their neighbours. They live in a separate quarter, and both Gregorians and Protestants exercise their religion without molestation. They excel in various trades, specially carpentering and working in metals. Their position in Hamadan is improving, and this may be attributed in part to the high-class education given in the American High School for boys, and to the residence among them of the American missionaries, who have come to be regarded as their natural protectors.

The population of Hamadan is "an unknown quantity." It probably does not exceed 25,000, and has undoubtedly decreased. Seyyids and mollahs form a considerable proportion of it, and it is one of the strongholds of the Bābis. It is usually an orderly city, and European ladies wearing gauze veils and properly attended can pass through it both by day and night. Several parts of it are enclosed by gates, as at Canton, open only from sunrise to sunset, an arrangement which is supposed to be conducive to security.

I. L. B.

LETTER XXIV

Hamadan, Sept. 14.

I am visiting the three lady teachers of the Faith Hubbard Boarding School for girls, and the visit is an oasis on my journey. It is a most cheerful house, a perfect hive of industry, each one being occupied with things which are worth doing. I cannot say how kind and how helpful they have all been to me, and with what regret I am leaving them.

The house is large, plain, airy, and thoroughly sanitary, very well situated, with an open view over the Hamadan plain. It is closely surrounded by the houses of the Armenian quarter, and all those domestic operations which are performed on the roofs in hot weather are easily studied, such as the drying of clothes and herbs, the cleaning of heads, the beating of children, the bringing out of beds at night, and the rolling them up in the morning, the "going to bed" of families much bundled up, the performance of the very limited ablutions which constitute the morning toilette, and the making and mending of clothes, the roof being for many months both living-room and bedroom.

At sunset, as in all Persian towns, a great hush falls on Hamadan. Only people who have business are seen in the streets, the bazars are closed, and from sunset to sunrise there would be complete silence were it not for the yelping and howling of the scavenger dogs and the long melancholy call to prayer from the minarets. If it is necessary to go out at night a person of either sex is preceded by a servant carrying a lantern near the ground. These lanterns have metal tops and bottoms, and waxed, wired muslin between, which is ingeniously arranged to fold up flat. They are usually three feet long, but may be of any diameter, and as your consideration is evidenced by the size of your lantern there is a tendency to carry about huge transparencies which undulate very agreeably in the darkness.

This is the Moharrem or month of mourning, for Hassan and Houssein, the slain sons of Ali, who are regarded by the Shiahs as the rightful successors of the Prophet and as the noblest martyrs in the Calendar. During this period the whole Persian community goes into deep mourning, and the streets and bazars are filled with black dresses only. In this month is acted throughout the Empire the Tazieh or Passion Play, which has for its climax the tragic deaths of these two men.17

I arrived in Hamadan on what should have been the first day of Moharrem, but there had been a difference of opinion among the mollahs as to the date, and it was postponed to the next day, for me a most fortunate circumstance, as no Christian ought to be seen in the streets at a time when they are filled with excited throngs frenzied by religious fanaticism. On the following day the quiet of the city was interrupted by singular cries, and by children's voices, high pitched, singing a chant so strange and weird that one both longs and dreads to hear it repeated. The Christians kept within their houses. Business was suspended. Bands of boys carrying black flags perambulated the town, singing one of the chants of the Passion Play. As night came on it was possible to feel the throb of the excitement of the city, and till the small hours the march of frenzied processions was heard, and the loud smiting on human breasts and the clash of the chains with which the dervishes beat themselves, were intermingled with a united rhythmic cry of anguish —Ah Houssein! Wai Houssein! (O Houssein! Woe for Houssein!) Ya Houssein! Ya Hassan! and in the flickering light of the torches black flags were waving, and frenzied men were seen beating their bare breasts.

In some of the cities these processions are a sickening spectacle. Throngs move along the streets, escorting large troops of men either stripped to their waists or wearing only white shirts which expose the bosom. Beating their breasts with their right hands in concert till they make them raw, gashing themselves on their heads with daggers, streaming with blood, and maddened by religious frenzy, they pass from street to street, and the yell rises from all quarters, Ya Houssein! Wai Houssein! Occasionally men drop down dead from excitement, and others, falling from loss of blood, are carried away by their friends. It is at the end of the month of mourning that these processions, called testeh, increase so much in frenzy and fanaticism as to be dangerous to the good order of cities, clashing with each other, and sometimes cutting their way through each other with loss of life. To join in a testeh is to perform a "pious act," and atones for sin committed and to be committed. The Tazieh or Passion Play itself, acted in splendour before the Shah, is repeated everywhere throughout Persia, lasting from ten to twelve days, the frenzy with which the different incidents are received culminating on the last day, when the slaughter of Houssein is represented. On the whole the Tazieh is among the most remarkable religious phenomena of our age.