Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon

He was less happy with news about Maria that he heard when dining with an officer newly arrived from Bristol: ‘he is a relation of the Brook Smiths and knows Abram a little, he said he had heard young Brooks was to be married and was very anxious to know who the lady was to be’.33 Rawlinson knew it was Maria: ‘I wish I could hear something from you – it really does seem very odd to be hearing news of my own family from strangers. He and young Brown are the only people whom I have heard speak of young Brooke and they both call him a most insufferable dandy. I myself really think that you are a great deal too good for him.’34He continued bitterly: ‘I have now given up all hopes of hearing from you at all, I have been waiting nearly 5 months now in expectation of a letter. I had fondly hoped I had friends in England to whom I was so dear as they are and ever will be to me – what can be the reason for your not writing yourself? I cannot understand it at all – it is now nearly 9 months since I left England and I have not heard a syllable from any of you – what changes and revolutions may have happened since that time! I rather expect you and Georgiana are both married. I feel a presentiment that you will be sooner or later Mrs B Smith.’35 His presentiment was right, although Maria did not marry Brooke Smith for another four years.

At the beginning of May, Rawlinson sat the Hindustani examination again and wrote excitedly in his journal: ‘I have just passed an Examination in Hindoostanee and am reported qualified to act as Interpreter in that language.’36 In Bombay he had also developed a particular passion for reading about history and was buying increasing numbers of books. ‘I seldom went to bed,’ he commented, ‘without being conscious that I had gained some information in the course of the day of which I had been ignorant when I arose – there is something extremely gratifying in being conscious of continual progression in knowledge.’37 His thirst for learning led him into debt: ‘The Borkas are a class of men who go about selling mostly books, and of them I bought most of mine, especially oriental works. The only time I ever got into trouble for debt was with one of these Borkas, a pock marked brute with big turban. I had a row with him and refused to pay him, and he had me arrested. I was on the point of starting up the country to Ahmedabad and Guzerat, and I owed him 75 Rupees – but with expenses the sum amounted to double and then other claims came in upon me.’38 He was loaned £50 to help settle his debts, and towards the end of his life noted that apart from a further £50 borrowed from his father, he never owed money again.

On 1 June 1828, Rawlinson travelled over 300 miles north to join his new regiment, the 1st Grenadier Native Infantry, at Ahmedabad, the capital city of Gujarat that had been founded in the fifteenth century. Here he remained desperately unhappy that he had heard nothing from his family, noting sadly in his journal on 6 July: ‘On this day twelvemonth I bade adieu to the fair, the lovely shores of Albion. I have since never passed a day, I might almost say an hour, without thinking of my early friends, of sisters who in days of yore protested that they loved me – but mark their conduct – they have let me languish on a foreign shore, unnoticed and uncheered by one single line or token of recollection for a long lonely year. They have forgotten me and I will forget them … I am resolved. I will forget you all, until I again believe you worthy of my regard. I am wretched, I am miserable, but I swear – never to think on you again … henceforward my thoughts shall be of myself, my mind shall rest upon the future. I have set the stamp of everlasting misery on my brow – but I swear, I swear, I swear would that I would die.’39

Rather than admit he was miserable, Rawlinson resorted to pleasure and neglected his studies, about which he was later ashamed: ‘my days were spent in gambling, my nights in drinking – the billiard table and the Mess room were my only supports.’40 It was not until 21 October that he received ‘a very nice long letter from Abram’,41 but still nothing from his sisters. Three days later came the long-awaited news from Maria, and with great relief Rawlinson wrote: ‘now indeed that I have received your journal I feel a pleasure in sitting down in the evening and recording my adventures (such as they are)’.42 What he did put in his journal was the routine of his life at Ahmedabad: ‘Saturday [25 October]. The days all pass much in the same manner. Parade at sunrise, they last until 7 – breakfast at 8 – study more or less till 11 – write, play billiards, go out visiting, idle or sleep until ½ past 2, dress for dinner at 3 – pool or billiards afterward, then out riding until dark, and in the evening sometimes cards, but generally we retire quietly to our respective domiciles and pass the evening as best we may, not but that it is far from unusual to have a bit of supper swilled down with a pint or two … and sometimes too we go so far as to indulge in a bit of a spree in the bazaar afterwards – this you must allow is a most monstrous course of life even when compared with yours at Chadlington – I am really quite sick of it.’43

From now on he was more relaxed and less than a week later he fell in love with a young widow, Mrs Doherty: ‘I mustered courage to go up and have a chat – she was rather entertaining, and I of course was immediately over head and ears in love – this seldom lasts more than a day or two.’44 After only two days he commented: ‘it cannot be said that I am at all seriously committed, but really a pretty woman is such a scarcity here that we transform her into an angel.’45 Over the following days the eighteen-year-old ensign did his utmost to accept invitations where she would be present and was extremely happy when ‘she evidently showed a decided preference for my conversation above the others’.46 By late November he admitted that he was totally lovesick. He obviously considered marrying her, but his regiment soon left for Bombay, and she later married a judge.

The regiment was back in Bombay on 1 December, and by now Rawlinson had received two more family letters – one from Georgiana and the other from his younger brother George. He resumed his studies, concentrating on Marathi, the language of the Maharastra state in which Bombay is situated. The following year, 1829, he ‘worked like a horse at languages’,47 then passed his Marathi examination, and in July gained the post of Quartermaster, Paymaster and Interpreter with his regiment. He resumed a vigorous social life, being ‘Steward of the Balls, Manager of the theatre, head of the Billiard & Racquet Rooms’.48 In addition, he was involved in hunting, shooting and horseracing and was constantly trying to impress the women in Bombay, where ‘I do flatter myself that I cut no very disreputable figure’.49 In private, though, Rawlinson noted that ‘I was educating myself by an extensive course of reading … From this time dates my passion for books.’50

In 1830 the regiment moved to Poona (now known as Pune) in the Western Ghats mountain chain, a march of nearly 100 miles south-eastwards from Bombay. Poona acted as a refuge from the summer heat for those in Bombay, with an extensive military camp about 2 miles from the town. Here Rawlinson remained for over three years, another militarily inactive period, but one that continued to be highly enjoyable. Years later he wrote that this period was ‘the most enjoyable of my life. I had excellent health, was in the heyday of youth, tremendous spirits, was celebrated in all athletic amusements, riding, shooting and especially hunting, and with the whole world before me.’51 He was so busy that he did not resume his journal until 11 April 1831, his twenty-first birthday, evidently irritated that nobody had marked the occasion, which recalled ‘more forcibly to my mind the loss I experienced in being thus far absent from the bosom of my family’.52 In years to come he kept returning on his birthday to this same journal entry in order to add comments on the progress in his life.

At Poona, Rawlinson’s maxim was: ‘“never engage in anything unless there is every chance of becoming first in it” – if I did not think I could be first I gave it up.’53 He was so good at sports that nobody would accept his challenge to compete for the considerable stake of £100 in a combined competition of ‘running, jumping, quoits, racquets, billiards, pigeon-shooting, pig-sticking, steeple-chasing, chess, and games of skill at cards’.54 In November 1831 at Newmarket in England, George Osbaldeston undertook a momentous horseracing match, completing 200 miles in less than eight hours using twenty-eight horses. It received massive attention, and the officers in Poona debated how they could emulate this success. It was Rawlinson who accepted a wager to race from Poona to Panwell, the mainland port of Bombay. The distance was 72 miles and the stake was £100, with a forfeit of 4 rupees to be paid for every minute over the four hours and the same amount to be paid to the rider for every minute under that time. ‘The general opinion,’ Rawlinson noted, ‘was that the match would not be won.’55

At quarter-past-five in the morning of 22 May 1832, the 6-foot tall, 12-stone, twenty-two-year-old rider set off, dressed in ‘hunting costume, jockey cap, thick ticking jacket, with a watch sewn into the waistband, samberskin breeches, and a pair of easy old boots’.56 He encountered numerous setbacks, from being forced to scramble with his horse over the backs of bullocks that were obstructing his way to descending the precipitous Ghats with his horse out of control. He changed horses ten times, on the third occasion being forced to abandon the exhausted animal and run uphill for a quarter of a mile to meet his next mount, because it had been stationed in the wrong place. Thousands of villagers lined the last three miles, and to the incredulity of the umpires he rode into the compound of Panwell tavern after a ride of just three hours and seven minutes, soundly winning the wager. Riding back to Poona in the afternoon with the same horses and in almost the same time, he ‘appeared at a party the same evening apparently as fresh as a lark but this was swagger!’57

So remarkable was Rawlinson’s achievement that it was reported in newspapers in both India and England, yet in spite of these diversions he still found time for study and wrote in his journal: ‘I read a great deal, and passed a first-class examination in Persian, and in fact I believe I was a general favourite.’58

Three: In the Service of the Shah

Having arrived in Bombay as a raw and immature East India Company cadet in 1827, on his ‘fatal day’ of 26 October, Rawlinson left India exactly six years later, a more mature and experienced officer, especially competent in the Hindustani, Marathi and Persian languages. His destination was Persia, known today as Iran.

The East India Company’s interest in Persia was originally commercial, but over the previous three decades every diplomatic effort had been made to maintain the country’s independence so that it could not be used as a base by Russia, Afghanistan or France for an invasion of British India, a threat that was felt to be very real. Fath Ali Shah, the ruler of Persia (‘Shah’ being the Persian title given to the country’s king), had made alliances with Britain and then France, but turned to Britain again in 1809. The following year British officers began to train the Shah’s army and accompany it into battle, but once peace was established between Britain and Russia in 1813 and Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo two years later, this military presence was largely withdrawn.

By the early 1830s, Russian influence in Tehran began to alarm the British to such a degree that the Company formed a new military detachment, drawn from all over India. Under the command of the forty-four-year-old Cornishman Colonel William Pasmore of the Bengal Native Infantry, the detachment consisted of native troops, eight officers, fourteen sergeants and an assistant apothecary. Rawlinson was chosen because of his proficiency in Persian, a language he was inspired to pursue by Sir John Malcolm, who had died of influenza in England a few months earlier. That inspiration caused ‘the most momentous change in his whole life’1 and would have a profound impact on the study of ancient cuneiform writing.

The military detachment sailed from Bombay on 26 October 1833 and completed the 1,700-mile journey to Bushire in early November. Known today as Bushehr, this Persian Gulf port is situated at the northernmost end of a narrow promontory, and the East India Company set up a factory there in 1763, although it was of little use as a port because ships had to drop anchor 2 to 3 miles offshore and transfer cargo in small boats. Rawlinson and his fellow officers were heading for Tehran and so needed to cross the coastal strip and make their way through the formidable Zagros mountains, rising to over 13,000 feet in height. News that the narrow mountain passes were already blocked with deep snow forced them to remain nearly three months in Bushire, considered ‘a most wretched place’,2 but their stay did at least coincide with the cooler weather and enabled sufficient baggage animals to be organized for the long trek ahead.

At the beginning of February 1834 Colonel Pasmore at last ordered his men to leave Bushire, and after a climb of 120 miles up through the mountains they reached Shiraz. This city is at an altitude of 5,000 feet and it became the capital of the province of Fars in the late seventh century, after the Arab conquest. From the thirteenth century it was renowned as a literary centre, especially because of two poets who were born and buried there: Sa’di (died 1292) and Háfez (died 1390). To the north of Shiraz the mountains rise steeply, and deep snow in the passes brought a halt to their journey.

Rawlinson made use of his enforced stay at Shiraz by immediately riding out to the ruins of Persepolis, some 30 miles away. Known now as Takht-i Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid) after a mythical king of Persia, Persepolis lies on the edge of a wide plain. It was Darius the Great, soon after his accession as King of Persia in 522 BC, who decided to build an impressive new capital city there, which he called ‘Parsa’. The city had monumental palace buildings constructed on a huge artificial stone terrace overshadowed by a fortified hill. The ancient Greek name of Persepolis may be a contraction of ‘Persai polis’ (meaning ‘the city in Persis’), or it can be translated as ‘destroyer of cities’, a more apt phrase for the site because nearly two centuries later, in 331 BC, it was looted and burned to the ground by Alexander the Great and his troops who had set out from Greece to conquer the Persian Empire. The destroyed city was abandoned and never rebuilt, but great stone columns, gateways, staircases and impressive relief sculptures remained standing, and Rawlinson spent many hours examining these ruins and copied some of the cuneiform inscriptions – strange writing with abstract, geometric signs. Though this site had been visited and recorded by many European travellers, he had not encountered such inscriptions before and was fascinated.

Still unable to move on to Tehran, Rawlinson made a further trip with two other officers and his head groom back into the mountains, this time to explore the deserted ruins of Bishapur – ‘The Beautiful [City of] Shapur’ – a city that had been founded nearly eight centuries after Persepolis. It took its name from the second Sasanian ruler of Persia, Shapur I, who ruled for over three decades from AD 240. He belonged to the Sasanian (or Sassanian) dynasty that was founded by Ardashir, supposedly a descendant of the legendary ruler Sasan. Shapur himself was particularly successful in battle against the powerful Roman Empire, defeating two of its emperors and even capturing Valerian in AD 260 – the only time a Roman emperor was taken prisoner. At Bishapur Shapur’s victories were commemorated in three sculptured reliefs on the rock faces of a river gorge, showing the king on horseback trampling and receiving in submission his Roman enemies, while beyond the gorge at the foot of a mountain he built the royal city of Bishapur.

Rawlinson had been warned that ‘a notorious Robber chief had possession of the whole country and it was as much as my life was worth to venture into his lands. I also learnt from my servant who had been in his service, that Bakir Khan the son was in reality a very good fellow, smoking his segar [cigar], and taking his glass of wine as kindly as any English gentleman – he was also a very good rider and first rate shot … I took the precaution therefore before starting to take a few presents, on the chance of meeting Bakir Khan, and above all I put aside a few bottles of sherry and brandy.’3

After some hours sketching ruins and copying inscriptions, they rode on a few miles and agreed to climb a steep mountain to look for the famous Cave of Shapur with its colossal statue of Shapur I, once over 20 feet high, but now collapsed. ‘Up to this time,’ Rawlinson recorded, ‘we had not seen a single soul in any part of the ruins and so hoped to escape all observation of the robber tribes who lived near.’4 Leaving their horses with the groom, they began the difficult climb in the sweltering heat. Although they were all capable, resourceful soldiers, only Rawlinson had the nerve and climbing ability to reach the cave: ‘The ascent of the mountain was exceedingly difficult, and my two companions … gave in before reaching the summit. I went on, found the cave and carved my name on the statue.’5 Some years later he was told that ‘some travellers, penetrating to the statue and imagining they were the first Europeans to visit the spot, were misdeceived and astonished by finding it’.6

For two hours Rawlinson stayed in the cave, while his companions returned to camp, so when he returned to his groom, he was alarmed to be surrounded by Persian horsemen, followers of Bakir Khan, who was himself visible in the distance. In order to avert a potentially dangerous situation, Rawlinson rode straight up to him and greeted him in Persian. Although he was reproached for coming to the area like a spy, a friendly conversation followed, ending with Bakir Khan asking for something to drink. Rawlinson’s groom filled up a drinking cup with half a bottle of brandy, which Bakir proceeded to drink rather rapidly until he staggered about and collapsed. Immediately Bakir’s men aimed their long matchlock guns at Rawlinson, who seized the cup and drank the remaining liquid in case it was thought to be poisoned. While they hesitated to fire, Bakir Khan showed signs of recovery and asked: ‘Sahib, what was that liquid fire you gave me? It was very good but awfully strong. I thought it was sherry, but it was the father of all sherries, where did it come from?’7 Rawlinson diplomatically replied that he had given him brandy, the strongest of all liquors, having heard he could drink anything. Before leaving, Bakir promised ‘to take care of any travellers who might bring letters from me, and I believe he acted up to this promise [and] always behaved well to Englishmen’.8 Rawlinson was saddened a few years later when Bakir Khan was killed by government forces ‘for some banditti proceedings’.9

With weather conditions improving, the detachment set off from Shiraz towards the end of February and managed to travel 250 miles until hampered by deep snow in the mountain passes beyond Isfahan. From the late sixteenth century, Isfahan had been transformed into one of the most magnificent cities of Persia by Shah Abbas I (ruler from 1588 to 1629), who made it his capital. Its splendour was short-lived, as the Afghans invaded Persia and besieged the city in 1722, massacring most of its inhabitants, and it never recovered its former glory. After a week, the British detachment advanced as far as Qum (pronounced Ghom in Persian), one of the most sacred places of pilgrimage for the Shi’ite Muslims.

In AD 817, Fatima al-Ma’suma died on a journey to her brother, Imam Ali Reza, and was buried at Qum, where her shrine became a site of pilgrimage. Imam Ali Reza died a year later and was buried at Messed in north-east Persia, the country’s holiest city. Both the shrine of Imam Reza and that of Fatima were restored some eight hundred years later by Shah Abbas I and, not long before Rawlinson’s visit, the reigning Shah, Fath Ali, had repaired Fatima’s shrine and embellished the dome with gilding. The shrine was strictly barred to non-believers, but Rawlinson was determined to be the first European to gain entry, even though it was ‘whispered that instant death would be the portion of the audacious infidel who should be found intruding into its hallowed precincts’.10 Over fifty years later, he wrote that ‘I visited the sacred shrine in the disguise of a pilgrim, a visit of great danger which has never been repeated by any one up to the present time’.11 Thrilled to be inside, he was nearly detected by turning his back on the holy spot as he viewed everything around him, but realized his error in time – and came out alive.

The detachment continued northwards from Qum for another 90 miles and finally reached Tehran in mid-March. The city lies in the foothills of the Elburz mountains, a snowy backdrop dominated by the dormant volcano Damavand, which is the highest mountain in Persia at 18,600 feet. It was only a modest trading town when it became the capital city of Persia in 1789, but over half a century later Tehran’s population had risen to around 50,000. A near-contemporary description of the city was uncomplimentary, reckoning that the ‘streets swarm in the day time with beggars from every region in Asia, their attire as diversified as their extraction … The Bazaars of Teheran are constructed in the form of long, covered corridors, lighted from above. On either side of the interior, are ranges of shops, occupied by dealers and working people, each quietly plying his avocation … The Bazaar is both a market and a factory … The streets of Teheran have never been cleaned since the place was built … The public ways are infested with the remains of camels, apes, mules, horses, dogs and cats; and here they lie, until some starving dog strips the bones of their flesh, and leaves them to the gradual corrosion of time’.12 The detachment remained at Tehran for several months ‘studying Persian and becoming acquainted with the country’.13

To emphasize his importance, Fath Ali Shah, the second ruler of the Qajar dynasty, kept the officers of the detachment waiting a few weeks before receiving them, and Rawlinson’s own observations of the occasion indicate his opinion of the absurd pomp and rigid etiquette. In order to impress the Persians, Rawlinson and the other officers formed a glittering and gaudy spectacle as they set out on their horses from the residence of the British Envoy in the south of the city. ‘A party of two-and-twenty Europeans thus brilliantly attired,’ Rawlinson noted, ‘is a spectacle to which the eyes of the Teheranees are but little accustomed.’14 Riding through the narrow streets and bazaars, they reached the Golestan Palace, dismounted and were led through courtyards and gloomy passages to the splendid Golestan Garden. The Shah was in an adjoining audience room, ‘but, it being utterly inconsistent with etiquette that we should proceed thither by the direct route, we were paraded half round the enclosure before being permitted to approach the throne’.15 Seated on a throne in one corner of the room overlooking the garden, the Shah was surrounded by sword and shield bearers and miscellaneous princes, who were attired in expensive robes and equipped with jewel-encrusted weapons. The throne, Rawlinson observed, ‘was shaped much like a large high-backed old-fashioned easy chair, and, though made of gold, and studded throughout with emeralds and rubies, appeared a most strange ungainly piece of furniture’.16

This display of wealth contrasted with the simplicity of the room and with the appearance of the elderly Shah (then sixty-four years of age). Although portrayed in numerous flattering paintings gorgeously attired and with a beard down to his waist, Rawlinson thought him a person of ‘a plain and almost mean appearance. The old man’s beard is still of prodigious length, but its claim to supremacy in this respect may, I think, be fairly questioned. His face is dark and wrinkled; his teeth have all fallen out from age; and he retains not a trace of that manly beauty which is said to have distinguished him in former days, and which characterizes even now the pictures which are daily taken of him.’17 In a polite conversation lasting just fifteen minutes, the Shah expressed the value he placed on the detachment, and they were then dismissed with the greatest honour.