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

The day was cool, cool enough for a sheepskin coat, and the air delightful. The halcyon season for Persian travelling has come, the difficulties are over, and the fever has left me. Brown, bare, and bushless as are the rolling hills over which the road passes, it would be impossible not to enjoy the long gallops over the stoneless soil, the crisp, bracing air, the pure blue of the glittering sky, and the changed altitude of the sun, which, from having been my worst foe is now a genial friend. True, the country over which I pass is not interesting, but, as everywhere in Persia, craggy mountains are in sight, softened by a veil of heavenly blue, and the country, though uninteresting, suggests pleasant thoughts of fertility, an abundant harvest, and an industrious and fairly prosperous people.21 Turki is now almost exclusively spoken.

The whole of that day's route was an ascent, and the halting-place was nearly 9000 feet in altitude. I crossed the Sarakh river by a three-arched brick bridge, and afterwards the Gardan-i-Tir-Machi, from which there is an extensive view, and reached Geokahaz by a rough path on the hillside frequently dipping into deep gulches, now dry. The wettest of these is close to the village, and is utilised for a flour-mill. Springs abound, and as Persian soil brings forth abundantly wherever there is water, the village, which is Kurdish, confessed to being extremely prosperous. Its seven threshing-floors were in the full tide of winnowing with the fan, and so complete is the process that nothing but the wheat is left on the firm, hardened gypsum floor, recalling the Baptist's words, "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor." The wheat was everywhere being gathered "into the garner" – the large upright clay receptacles holding twenty bushels each with which every house is supplied.

This village of only 200 houses owns 7000 sheep and goats, 60 horses and mares, and 400 head of cattle, and its tribute is only 230 tumans. It and very many other villages belong to Haidar Khan, Governor of Achaz, of whom the villagers speak as a lenient lord. Apricot and pear orchards abound, and on a piece of grass in one of these I found my camp most delectably pitched. The ketchuda and several other men came to meet me; indeed, the istikbal consisted of over twenty Kurdish horsemen. The village was absolutely crowded with men and horses, 200 pilgrims being lodged there for the night.

The road at intervals all day had been enlivened by long files of well-mounted men in bands of 100 each on their way to the shrines of Kerbela, south of Babylon, to accumulate "merit," receive certificates, and be called Kerbelai for the remainder of their lives. Superb-looking men in the very prime of life most of them are, cheerful and ruddy, wearing huge black sheepskin caps shaped like mushrooms, high tan-leather boots, gaily embroidered, into which their full trousers are tucked, and brown sheepskin coats covering not only themselves but the bodies of their handsome fiery horses. A few elderly unveiled women were among them. They ride mostly on pads with their bedding and clothing under them, and their kalians and cooking utensils hanging at the sides. All are armed with guns and swords. I met over 1000 of them, most of them Russian subjects, and those who had occasion to pass in front of my tent vindicated their claim to be the subjects of a civilised power by bowing low as often as they saw me. They are really splendid men, and had many elements of the picturesque.

The 200 who halted in Geokahaz were under the command of a Seyyid who, before starting, beat about for recruits, and levied from them about five krans per head. On the journey he receives great honour as a descendant of the Prophet. He has a baggage mule and a tent, and the "pilgrims" under his charge gratefully cook his food, wait on him, groom his animal, water the dusty ground round his tent, shampoo his limbs, keep the flies from him, and are rewarded for the performance of all menial offices by being allowed to kiss his hand. On his part he chooses the best stations and the most fortunate days for starting, and he pledges himself to protect his flock from the woful plots of malignant genii and the effects of the evil eye. On the journey he both preaches and recites tales.

The Seyyid in charge of this party was a man of commanding physique and deadly pallor of countenance. As frigid as marble, out of which his statuesque face might well have been carved, he received the attention paid to him with the sublime indifference of a statue of Buddha. The odour of an acknowledged sanctity hung about him, and pride of race and pride of asceticism dwelt upon his handsome features. He spent the evening in preaching a sermon, and, by a carefully-arranged exhibition of emotion, studied to perfection, wound up his large audience to a pitch of enthusiasm. The subject was the virtues of Houssein, and what preacher could take such a text without enlarging finally upon the martyrdom of that "sainted" man? Then the auditors wept and howled and beat their breasts, and long after I left the singular scene, trained "cheers" for the Prophet, for Ali, and for the martyred Hassan and Houssein, led by the Seyyid, rang out upon the still night air. At midnight, and again at four, a solitary bell-like voice proclaimed over the sleeping village, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet, and Ali is His lieutenant"; and 200 voices repeated grandly in unison, "There is but one God, holy and true, and Mohammed is His prophet, and Ali is His lieutenant." The addition of the words "holy and true" to the ordinary formula is very striking, and is, I believe, quite unusual. The Seyyid preached in Persian, and the pilgrims speak it.

In such caravans a strictly democratic feeling prevails. All yield honour to the Seyyid, but otherwise all are equal. No matter what the social differences are, the pilgrims eat the same food, lodge in the same rooms, sit round the same bivouac fire, and use towards each other perfect freedom of speech – a like errand and a like creed constituting a simple bond of brotherhood.

Geokahaz is the first Kurdish village in which I have really mixed with the people. I found them cordial, hospitable, and in every way pleasant. The ketchuda's wife called on me, and later I returned the visit. Each house or establishment has much the same externals, being walled round, and having between the wall and house an irregular yard, to which access is gained by a gate of plaited osiers. Within are very low and devious buildings, with thick mud walls. The atrium, an alcove with plastered walls, decorated with circles and other figures in red, is the gathering-place of the men, with their guns and pipes.

It is necessary to stoop very low to enter the house proper, for the doorway is only three feet high, and is protected by a heavy wooden door strengthened by iron clamps. The interior resembles a cavern, owing to the absence of windows, the labyrinth of rooms not six feet high, the gnarled, unbarked trees which support the roofs, the dimness, the immense thickness of the mud walls, the rays of light coming in through protected holes in the roof, the horses tethered to the tree-trunks, and the smoke. The "living-room" is a small recess, rendered smaller by a row of clay receptacles for grain as high as the roof on one side, and a row of oil-jars, each large enough to hold a man, on the other. A fire of animal fuel in a hole in the middle of the floor emitted much pungent smoke and little heat. A number of thick wadded quilts were arranged for me, and tea was served in Russian glass cups from a Russian samovar.

The wife was handsome, and never in any country have I seen a more beautiful girl than the daughter, who might have posed for a Madonna. They told me that for the five months of winter the snow comes "as high as the mouth," and that there is no egress from the village. The men attend to the horses and stock, and the women weave carpets, but much of the time is spent by both in sleep.

Accompanied by this beautiful girl, who is graceful as well as beautiful, and an old servant, I paid many visits, and found all the houses arranged in the same fashion. I was greatly impressed by their scrupulous cleanliness. The floors of hardened clay are as clean as sweeping can make them, and the people are clean in dress and person. The women, many of whom are very handsome, are unveiled, and do not even wear the chadar. The very becoming head-dress is a black coronet, from which silver coins depend by silver chains. A red kerchief is loosely knotted over the back of the head, on which heavy plaits of hair are looped up by silver pins. This girl passed with me through the crowds of strange men unveiled, with a simplicity and maidenly dignity which were very pleasing. It was refreshing to see the handsome faces, erect carriage, and firm, elastic walk of these Kurdish women after the tottering gait of the shrouded, formless bundles which pass for Persian women. The men are equally handsome, and are very manly-looking.

These Kurdish villagers are Sunnis, and are on bad terms with their neighbours, the Shiahs, and occasionally they drive off each other's cattle.

On leaving this pleasant place early next morning the ketchuda and a number of men escorted me for the first farsakh, and with my escort of sowars increased by four wild-looking "road-guards," riding as it seemed good to them, in front or behind, sometimes wheeling their horses at a gallop in ever-narrowing circles, sometimes tearing up and down steep hills, firing over the left shoulders and right flanks of their horses, lunging at each other with much-curved scimitars, and singing inharmonious songs, we passed through a deep ravine watered by a fine stream which emerges through gates of black, red, and orange rock into a long valley, then up and up over long rolling hills, and then down and down to a large Ilyat camp beside a muddy and nearly exhausted stream, where they feasted, and I rested in my shuldari.

Two or three times these "road-guards" galloped up to shepherds who were keeping their flocks, and demanded a young sheep from each for the return journey, and were not refused. The peasants fear these men much. They assert that, so far from protecting caravans and travellers, they are answerable for most of the robberies on the road, that they take their best fowls and lambs without payment, and ten pounds of barley a day for their horses, and if complaints are made they quarter themselves on the complainant for several days. For these reasons I object very strongly to escorts where they are not absolutely needed for security. I pay each man two krans a day, and formerly gave each two krans daily as "road money" for himself and his horse, but finding that they took the food without paying for it, I now pay the people directly for the keep of the men and horses. Even by this method I have not circumvented the rapacity of these horsemen, for after I have settled the "bill" they threaten to beat the ketchuda unless he gives them the money I have given him.

The Ilyat women from the camp crowded round me with a familiarity which, even in savages, is distressing, a contrast to the good manners and unobtrusiveness of the women of Geokahaz.

On the way to Sanjud, a Kurdish village in a ravine so steep that it was barely possible to find a level space big enough for my tent, there is some very fine scenery, and from the slope of Kuh Surisart, on the east side of the Gardan-i-Mianmalek, the loftiest land between Hamadan and Urmi, the view is truly magnificent. The nearer ranges stood out boldly in yellow and red ochre, in the valleys indigo shadows lay, range beyond range of buff-brown hills were atmospherically glorified by brilliant cobalt colouring, and the hills which barred the horizon dissolved away in a blue which blended with the sky. In that vast solitude the fine ruins of the fortress palace of Karaftu, where the fountain still leaps in the deserted courtyard, are a very conspicuous object.

From the Mianmalek Pass there is a descent of 5000 feet to the Sea of Urmi, and the keen edge of the air became much blunted ere we reached Sanjud. Nearly the whole of the road from Hamadan has been extremely solitary. We have not met or passed a single caravan, and on this march of seven hours we did not see a human being. Yet there are buff-brown villages lying in the valleys among the buff-brown hills, and an enormous extent of country is under tillage. In fact, this region is one of the granaries of Persia.

Sanjud is a yellow-ochre village of eighty houses built into a yellow-ochre hillside, above which rises a high hill of red mud. It is not possible to give an idea of the aspect of the country at this season. Sheep and goats certainly find pickings among the rocks, but the visible herbage has all been eaten down. The thistles and other fodder plants have been cut and stacked in the villages. Most of the streams are dry, and the supplies of drinking water are only pools, much fouled by cattle. The snows which supply the sources of the irrigation channels have all melted, and these channels are either dry or stopped. There has scarcely been a shower since early April, and for nearly six months the untempered rays of the Persian sun have been blazing upon the soil. The arable land, ploughed in deep furrows, has every furrow hardened into sun-dried brick. Villages of yellow or whitish baked mud, supporting on their dusty roofs buff stacks of baked fodder, are hardly distinguishable from the baked hillsides. The roads are a few inches deep in glaring white dust. Over the plains a brown dust haze hangs.

This rainless and sun-scorched land lives by the winter snows, and the snowfall of the Zagros ranges is the most interesting of all subjects to the cultivator of Western Persia. If the country were more populous, and the profits of labour were secure, storage for the snow-water would be an easy task, and barren wastes might sustain a prosperous people; for the soil, when irrigated, is prolific, and the sun can always be relied upon to do his part. The waste of water is great, as considerably more than half the drainage of the empire passes into kavirs and other depressions. The average rainfall on the central plateau is estimated by Sir Oliver St. John at five inches only in the year.

My arrival at Sanjud was not welcome. The ketchuda sent word that he was not prepared to obey the orders of the Sartip of Achaz. I could buy, he said, what I could get, but he would furnish neither supplies nor guards for the camp. I did not wonder at this, for a traveller carrying an official letter is apt to be palmed off on the villagers as a guest, and is not supposed to pay for anything.

I went to see the ketchuda, and assured him that I should pay him myself for all supplies, and a night's wages to each watchman, and the difficulty vanished. Many of the handsome village women came to see me. The ketchuda made me a feast in his house, and when I bade him farewell in the morning he said solemnly, "We are very glad you have been our guest, we have suffered no loss or inconvenience by having you, we should like to be protected by the great English nation." This polite phrase is frequently used.

The Persian Kurds impress me favourably as a manly, frank, hospitable people. The men are courteous without being cringing, and the women are kind and jolly, and come freely and unveiled to my tent without any obtrusiveness.

The ketchuda sent eight guards to my camp at night, saying it was in a very dangerous place, and he did not wish his village disgraced by a stranger being robbed so near it. He added, however, that six of these men were sent for his own satisfaction, and that I was only to pay for the two I had ordered.

My journey, which is through a wild and little frequented part of Persia, continues to be prosperous. The climate is now delightful, though at these lower altitudes the middle of the day is rather hot.

It was a fertile and interesting country between Sanjud and Sain Kala, where I halted for Sunday. The road passes through the defiles of Kavrak, along with the deep river Karachai, from the left bank of which rises precipitously, at the narrowest part of the throat, the fine mountain Baba Ali. A long valley, full of cultivation and bearing fine crops of cotton, a pass through the red range of Kizil Kabr, and a long descent brought us to a great alluvial plain through which passes the river Jagatsu on its way to the Dead Sea of Urmi. Broad expanses of shingle, trees half-buried, and a number of wide shingly water-channels witness to the destructiveness of this stream. A severe dust storm rendered the end of the march very disagreeable, as the path was obliterated, and it was often impossible to see the horses' ears. In winter and spring this Jagatsu valley is completely flooded, and communication is by boats. There are nearly 150 villages in the district, peopled almost entirely by Kurds and Turks, and there are over 200 nomad tents. The Jagatsu is celebrated for its large fish.

When the storm abated we were close to Sain Kala, a picturesque but ruinous fort on a spur of some low hills, with a town of 300 houses at its base. In the eastern distance rises the fine mountain Pira Mah, and between it and Sain Kala is a curious mound – full of ashes, the people said – a lofty truncated cone, evidently the site of an Atash-Kardah, or fire-temple. This town is in the centre of a very fertile region. Its gardens and orchards extend for at least a mile in every direction, and its melons are famous and cheap – only 6d. a dozen just now.

It is a thriving and rising place. A new bazar is being built, with much decorative work in wood. The junction of the roads to Tabriz from Kirmanshah and Hamadan, with one route to Urmi, is in the immediate neighbourhood, and the place is busy with the needs of caravans. It looks much like a Chinese Malay settlement, having on either side of its long narrow roadway a row of shops, with rude verandahs in front. Among the most prominent objects are horse, mule, and ass shoes; pack-saddles, khurjins, rope, and leather. Fruiterers abound, and melons are piled up to the roofs. Russian cottons and Austrian lamps and mirrors repeat themselves down the long uncouth alley.

The camping-ground is outside the town, a windy and dusty plain. Here my eight guards left me, but the ketchuda shortly called with a message from the Sartip commanding a detachment of soldiers and the town, saying that a military guard would be sent before sunset. Sain Kala is in the government of Sujbulāk, and its people are chiefly Kurds with an admixture of Turks, a few Persians, mainly officials, and the solitary Jew dyer, who, with his family, is found in all the larger villages on this route.

An embroidery needle was found sticking in my dhurrie a few days ago, and I had the good fortune not only to get some coarse sewing-cotton but some embroidery silks at Sain Kala, and having a piece of serge to work on, and an outline of a blue centaurea, I am no longer destitute of light occupation for the mid-day halt.

Truly "the Sabbath was made for man"! Apart from any religious advantages, life would be very grinding and monotonous without the change of occupation which it brings. To stay in bed till eleven, to read, to rest the servants, to intermit the perpetual driving, to obtain recuperation of mind and body, are all advantages which help to make Sundays red-letter days on the journey; and last Sunday was specially restful.

In the afternoon I had a very intelligent visitor, a Hakīm from Tabriz, sent on sanitary duty in consequence of a cholera scare – a flattering, hollow upper-class Persian. He introduced politics, and talked long on the relative prospects of Russian or English ascendency in Asia. England, he argued, made a great mistake in not annexing Afghanistan, and his opinion, he said, was shared by all educated Persians. "You are a powerful nation," he said, "but very slow. The people, who know nothing, have too much share in your government. To rule in Asia, and you are one of the greatest of Asiatic powers, one must not introduce Western theories of government. You must be despotic and prompt, and your policy must not vibrate. See here now, the Shah dies, the Zil-i-Sultan disputes the succession with the Crown Prince, and in a few days Russia occupies Azirbijan with 200,000 men, captures Tihran, and marches on Isfahan. Meanwhile your statesmen talk for weeks in Parliament, and when Russia has established her prestige and has organised Persia, then your fleet with a small army will sail from India! Bah! No country ruled by a woman will rule in Asia."

In the evening the ketchuda and two other Persian-speaking Kurds hovered so much about my tent that I invited them into the verandah, and had a long and pleasant talk with them, finding them apparently frank and full of political ideas. They complained fiercely of grinding exactions, which, they said, "keep men poor all their lives." "The poorest of men," they said, "have to pay three tumans (£1) a year in money, besides other things; and if they can't pay in money the tax-gatherer seizes their stock, puts a merely nominal value upon it, sells it at its real value, and appropriates the difference." They did not blame the Shah. "He knows nothing." They execrated the governors and the local officials.22 If they keep fowls, they said, they have to keep them underground or they would be taken.

At the Shah's death, they said, Persia will be divided between Russia and England, and they will fall to Russia. "Then we shall get justice," they added. I remarked that the English and the Kurds like each other. They said, "Then why is England so friendly with Turkey and Persia, which oppress us, and why don't travellers like you speak to the Sultan and the Shah and get things changed." They said that at one time they expected to fall under English rule at the Shah's death, "but now we are told it will be Russia."

After a long talk on local affairs we turned to lighter subjects. They were much delighted with my folding-table, bed, and chair, but said that if they once began to use such things it would increase the cost of living too much, "for we would never go back to eating and sleeping among the spiders as Mohammedans do." They said they had heard of Europeans travelling in Persia to see mines, to dig among ruins for treasure, and to collect medicinal herbs, but they could not understand why I am travelling. I replied that I was travelling in order to learn something of the condition of the people, and was interested likewise in their religion and the prospects of Christianity. "Very good, it is well," they replied; "Islam never recedes, nor can Christianity advance."

LETTER XXV (Continued)

The following morning the Sartip turned out in my honour all the road-guards then in Sain Kala to the number of twelve to escort me to the castle of Muhammad Jik, a large village, the residence and property of the Naib Sartip. This was the wildest escort I have had yet. These men were dressed in full Kurdish finery, and besides guns elaborately inlaid with silver and ivory, and swords in much-decorated scabbards, they carried daggers with hilts incrusted with turquoises in their girdles. They went through all the usual equestrian performances, and added another, which consists in twirling a loaded and clubbed stick in a peculiar manner, and throwing it as far ahead as possible while riding at full gallop, the one who picks it up without dismounting being entitled to the next throw. Very few succeeded in securing it in the regulation manner, and the scrimmage for this purpose was often on the point of becoming a real fight. They worked themselves up to a pitch of wild excitement, screamed, yelled, shouted, covered their horses with sweat and foam, nearly unhorsed each other, and used their sharp bits so unmercifully that the mouth of every horse dripped with blood.

After they received bakhsheesh they escorted me two miles farther "to honour the Khanum," fired their guns in the air, salaamed profoundly, and with shrieks and yells left me at a gallop.

The village of Muhammad Jik has a well-filled bazar and an aspect of mixed prosperity and ruin. The castle, a large, and, at a distance, an imposing pile, a square fort with flanking towers, is on an eminence, and has a fine view of the alluvial plain of the Jagatsu, studded with villages and cultivated throughout.