T HE S U B L IME PO RT E O F KAZ V IN

By H. G. DWIGHTAUTHOR OF

“STAMBOU L mom s

I LLU STRATED W ITH DRAW INGS

BY

WILFRED J . jONES

GARDEN CITY N EW YORK

DOU BLEDAY,PAG E COMPANY‘9 1 8

Copyright, 1 9 1 7, byDOU B LEDAY , PAGE COMPANY

All rigbts reserved, incinding that oftranslation into foreign languages,including the Scandinav ian

FOR

CLARA KHANUM AND CEC IL SAH’

B

I have eaten your bread and salt,

1 have drunk your water and wine,The deaths you died I have watched beside

And the lives that you livedwere mine.

”

C O N T E N T S

Confidential

Cauca s ian Prologue

Anabas i s

Kazv in

The Count ry of t he Sky

The B azaa r

Leaf from the Book of Ser M arco Po lo

Pers ian Apparatu s

J immy Co .

The G reat S laughter

Old W ine i n N ew Bott les

The Factory .

The Sat rap

About Rug Books (But to B e Skipped byThose Who N ei ther Read nor Wri teThem)

The Gramophone

The Sea of Sc iences

W i ld Boa r

V ignette of a T ime Gone By

Av icenna

The Caravan

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

The Sub l ime Porte of Kazv in Frontisp iecePAGE

Co lophon : Pers ian p rayer rug in the M et ropol itanMuseum (See title page)

Headpiece

Boat s at Enzel i

Pi lgrim s

The Tomb of P 1 ince Hosein .

Hamadan St reet

The OfficeA Court in the Bazaa r

Pot Shops .

The Tomb of Esther and Mordeca iYe Laund ress

Ye But ler .

The F lage l lant s

Zob eida’

s Li t ter

A Mourner of Ke rbe la

Rug Weavers

H amadan and M t . E l vendThe Fruit of the Knowledge of Good andEv i lThe Tomb of Av icennaCame l s

CON F I DENT IAL

In good sooth , my masters , this is no door. But it is a

little window which looketh into a great world.

0, dubious reader. Your book is no t reat iseon those l it t l e p ictures , somet imes gai lycoloured , somet imes faint ly sketched , of turbaned princes and flowering t rees and dancing

gaze l les , which i t has become so much the fash ion to

col lect— and to forge . I t contains not even one photo

graph of a t rue Persian min iature ; though if the war hadnot made it imposs ibl e for me to get hold of a certainport ra it by the great Behzad , I wou ld have borrowed it toreflect d i st inct ion on my pages . And hav ing lea rned bypungent experience that ye rev iewer i s somewhat g iven tojumping from a t it le to a conclus ion , and then vi sit ing hi sdisappointment upon ye scribb ler’s head , I make i t myduty to give warn ing as loud ly as I may that no Orienta l istneed waste t ime in turn ing over these pages . They contain nothing but a col lect ion of sketches in printer’s ink ,very décousus, as t hat good friend of mine among thei rworsh ip s t he Editors said who best understands the subt le art of gi lding a p i l l , in pray ing me to excuse h im thehonour of present ing a few of them to his publ ic—veryunsewn , i l lust rat ing i n t hei r random way but ( me sma l lcorner of Pers ia , and designed not at all to catch the eye

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of t he serious-minded . For my experience of t he Land

of the Sun was such a s might have been ga ined by amechan ic sent out to instal a force-pump for a t ravel ledKhan , or by a gent leman

’ s gentleman in the d ip lomat icservice whose master fe l l i l l by the way and never reachedTehran . I had friends ; t he dest iny of my friend s ledthem to Hamadan ; t hey were good enough to invit e me tofol low t hem ; I did so a l it t le more p romptly , I fea r, t hanthey expected . The rest was pure caeoiéthes serihendi

aggravated by the fact t hat I happened to be in thatremote theat re of t he Push to t he East when the GermanWa r broke out .

I can admit , however, t hat I t hought twice before succumb ing to th is incurab le itch of the writer to makecopy out of what he sees and hea rs , and that in t he endI made next to nothing of any journal i st ic t imel iness . If

I had been an Engl ishman , perhaps , I would not haveventured to add a vo lume even ha lf as port ly a s i t mighthave been to a bib l iography so rich a s that of Pers ia . Yet

I have never been of t hose who look at Engl ish andAmerican l iterature as at two separate th ings . Whenthe East I nd ia Company was formed , when Abbas theGreat inv ited t he B rit i sh factors to help h im drive t hePortuguese out of t he Pers ian Gulf, my ancestors had notemigrated to N ew Engl and ; and when they did they on lysecured my t it le to share i n the great Anglo-Saxon t rad it ion of the gentleman adventurer . Not t hat I mean toqual ify t hem a s gent lemen , or my own s l ight and com

fortab le experience of Pers ia as an adventure . But having had a fa r more p rolonged experience of other part s ofthe N ear East , 1 take a pa rt icu lar interest i n that extensive l iterature of our language which interp ret s t he East

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to the West . I t has counted for not a l it t le, I am persuaded,

in the unpara l le led success of Grea t B rita in a s aco lon ia l power . And I must further admit that I havebeen unab le to put away from myself an ambit ion of

cont ribut ing my mite to that l iteratu re .

As an American I have fe l t at greater l ibe rty to do sobecause our half of t he race has grown up in a greaterisolat ion . Much of the anoma ly of our pos it ion duringthe early part of the war wa s due to the s imp le fact thatmany good Americans seriou sly be l ieve the world to havebeen created in 1492 . If we took cognisance at a l l ofthe hypothes i s that there might be a world out s ide ourown, we saw it from too great a d istance to cred it it srea l ity , or to imagine ourse lves as bound with i t in one

fate . And we attached to a school at las something of

the fina l ity claimed for Holy Writ . Th is yel low patchwas l itera l ly Aust ria . That c rim son splotch was no morethan Germany, and must have been so from all t ime .

And St rasbourg and Serayev o were a s integral parts ofthem as Pot sdam or Schonbrunn . Al l too slowly didwhat was going on in Europe come to mean anyth ing tou s, because we knew too l i t t le what underlay it a l l .As for so remote a corner of the world as Pers ia , it is

too much to expect that many of my own fel low-countrymen , at any rate, a re ready to bel ieve in it s existence .

St i l l , anyth ing t hat at tempts to make even so shadowy aland a l it t le less shadowy is perhaps worth t ry ing . I twas not for me, of course, to do so in any encyclopedicway . Too many scholars now l iv ing have written of theh istory, t he geography, t he l iterature, t he ant iquit ies , theresources , and the pol it ics of Pers ia for a mere impress ionist to compete w ith them in thei r own generat ion . The

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Pers ian b ib l iography, however, contains other names,l ike those of the in im itab le old S i r Thomas H erbert

, of

Si r John Malcolm , of“Hajji Baba

” Morier,and of Lord

Curzon’

s env iable relat ive Lord Zouch e. The i r books,

or some of t hei r books, wh i le less compendious a re perhaps more successful i n evoking the t rue I ranic flavour.For they exempl ify the say ing of Sad i t hat “a l it t le i s aproof of much , and a sample a s good as an ass- load .

”

And they possess a qual ity wh ich has a lways seemed tome highly admirable i n a book , and a surpris ingly un

common one : that— How shall l put i t ? That it shouldnot be too hard to read ! In fact , if I were to turn out t hedregs of confess ion , I should have to adm it that t hat i st he kind of book I would most l ike to write . But itwi l l please me well enough if people who have been toPers ia find i t possible to turn over these pages wi t h no

more than t he usua l amount of deris ion . And if a fewwho have not been to Pers ia find here enough of t he look,t he l ight , t he incommunicab l e tang of those ancient uplands , to explore t he more serious l iterature of which Ihave spoken , to d i scover how far from s imple is it forEast and West to be j ust to one another, t hese loosesketches wi l l not have been st itched between covers invain .

If I have not fringed the bottoms of my pages withnotes it has not been solely out of anxiousness not toenfur1ate t he typesetter . I must here acknowledge, however, my great indebtedness to those whose ampler knowledge of Persia has so constantly come to the rescue ofmyown . I have borrowed right and l eft from B rowne,Curzon

,Le St range

,and Sykes, as wel l a s from Mr .

Stanley Lane-Poole, whose Mohammedan Dynast ies”

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i s an ind ispensab l e compass to the wanderer th rough themaze of N ear Eastern al lus ions . I have a l so helpedmyself without scruple from the Hakluy t Society

’s “Venet ian Travel lers in Pers ia ,

” from the French t ranslat ionsof Yakut and Masud i , and from other authorit ies greatand smal l more numerous than in a book of t h is k ind it isfit t ing to spec ify . I t wou ld be unfi t t ing , however, if Idid not spec ify how much informat ion , part icularly aboutrugs , I owe to my friend Mr . A . C . Edwards of Hamadanand many other places, who if he chose could write amore competent rug book than has yet been written .

Mr . Hen ry H i ldebrand of Hamadan was l ikew ise goodenough to give me valuab l e h int s on t he same subj ect ,whi le Dr. and Mrs . J . W. Cook of Tehran have taken thet roub le to clear Up for me va rious doubtful point s oforthography . I ndeed if I were to name all those in Persiaand out fromwhom I have rece ived fact s and k indnesseswithout number, I would have to make a cata logue toolong to p rint . But I cannot om it t hankmg , for thei rencouragement , help , and suggest ions , Mr. Eugene F .

Saxton,my collaborator M r. Wi lfred J . Jones , and Mr .

and M rs . F . Mort imer Clapp . And let me here expressmy ob l igat ions to the ed itors of Asia, The Bookman, andThe Century, for permitt ing me to republ ish four chapters or part s of chapters wh ich first saw the l ight in thei rmagazines .There remains to say a word with regard to the spel l ingfol lowed in th is book . The quest ion of rendering thesound of Pers ian word s and names in Engl ish is one ofpecu l ia r d iffi cu l ty , because at least th ree of the Pers ianconsonant s are unknown to us, whi le the l etter a i s quiteas va riable in Pers ian as i t i s in Engl ish . The t roub l e i s

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that those variat ions are not quite ident ica l , and that oneof them

,i n Pers ian , being officia l ly desc ribed as equiva lent

to the vowe l sound of the Engl ish word cat , real ly vergestoward the vowe l sound of bet . And offic ia l ly neithere nor o exist i n Pers ian . So there you have one p rol ificcause of an unending row between two camps of ort hograp h ers . The Orienta l ist s , on t he whole , have the bestof i t ; for they t ransl it erate according to a fixed system ,

pay ing no attent ion to Engl ish phonet ics and deny ingt he letters e and o as t he Pope d id the rotat ion of the earth .

Eppur si muove answered Ga l i leo . And my ea r has too

long been sharpened to the sound of st range tongues forme to be frightened by P rofessor B rowne when he c riesout against t he barbarity of putt ing an e or an 0 into a

name taken out of Arabic l et ters . The Turks quite incont rovert ibly

'

make the sound s , if they lack the letters .The Persian s pronounce them less d ist inct ly ; yet for t henov ice to take Professor B rowne ’ s word for i t t hat Enzel i ,for instance , shou ld be Anza l i , i s to risk st ray ing i n twoequa l ly fal se d i rect ions . Let it not be gathered that Iam so foo l i sh as to a rgue again st P rofessor B rowne ’ sspel l ing in Professor B rowne ’ s books . I t i s t he morescholarly and among Orienta l ist s i t i s ind ispensab le .

But why shou ld I , who am no Orienta l ist and who do notwrite for Orienta l i st s , myst ify my reader and set theheart of t he compositor against me by di st inguishingbetween k and q, by writ ing dh when I mean 1 , o rw wh enI mean u , and by st rewing my book with dark dot s andaccent s?I shal l not . For i t seems to me high ly adv i sab le to

d iscourage the layman from adding to the chaos whichal ready reign s i n h i s spe l l ing of Oriental names . I t here

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Engl ish tongue . And Tehran ? As to t hat , i t is h igh t imeEngl i sh-speaking people stopped using a French spe l l ing

for a name which rea l ly has on ly two syl lables . After a l l ,t hey wi l l not be so upset as if I had fol lowed ProfessorB rowne and sa id Tihran !

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CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

Here than at greater Ease than heeMayst beholdwhat hee did see;

Thou participates his Gaines,But hee alone reserves the Paines .

Hee tradednotwith Luker sotted.

Hee wentfor Knowledge and he‘

e got it.

Then thank the Author: Thanks is light,Who hath presented to thy S ightSeas, Lands, Men , Beasts, Fishes, and Birds,The rarest that the World afi oords .

T h e Lord Fayrfax, Baron Of Cameron, on Sir Thomas Herbert ,hisSOME YEERES TRAVELS INTO D IVERS PARTS OF AS I A AND AFFRIQUE

E HAD formed the habit , during a weekOf leisure ly B lack Sea t rave l , of wakingup every morning Off a town Of low redroofs and sl im white minaret s , set under

a high green coast . Batum a l so sat under a high greencoast—if so much higher than usual a s to be t ipped withsnow. But instead Of anchoring offshore and ba rgain ing

PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

wi t h the crews Of ta l l-prowed Turkish boat s , we t iedup to a quay and walked ashore w it h no more ado than ab rief session wi t h my lords Of the customs and the pa ssport bureau . And more conspicuous than any mina retwere the syringe domes Of a Russ ian cathedral . Wherebyit appeared that someth ing had happened in Batum s inceit stopped being a Tu rk i sh town in 1878 .

That fact was st i l l more appa rent when I stepped intoa t rue Russ ian d roshky, d riven by a t rue Russ i an coachman—a kind Of centaur so at one wit h his box t hat nohuman being could tel l where coachman stopped andcarriage began— and rat tled away over t rue Russ iancobblestones . I suspect

,however

,that if I had had t he

courage to scratch that coachman I would have found aGeorgian , if not . a Ta rta r . I n the Caucasus wheneverthey don ’t know what to cal l a man they ca l l h im a Georgian . That they are not always right I once or twiceproved by asking the man himself and finding out tha the was what I thought ; namely, a Laz . Those quick

tempered people a re a lmost as common in Batum a sthey a re in Trebizond and they look enough l ike Georgians to be thei r cousms. They all wea r the same topboots, the same slack b reeches , t he same short jackets ,and the same long-flapped hoods wit h a tassel at thepoint—wh ich serve them equa l ly for turbans, mufllers,or capes . The big b lack pol icemen of Batum dress l ikethat , being Georgians . I wondered if the house boys oft he HOtel de France were, too . They wore b lack Russianb louses and spoke no known language . But t here a rest i l l plenty Of Turks left in the town , as I discovered whi leprowl ing a round before it was t ime to take my even ingt ra in .

CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

They say that a famous b ridge over the Golden Hornis a good place from which to admire the nat ions Of theearth . I t st ruck me that the railway stat ion Of Batummight be a better one, when I went there in charge Of anArmenian porter from the hotel . A good many amongthe crowd that packed the wait ing rooms were h is own

fel low count rymen . They were darker and flerier lookingpeop le than the Armenians I had seen before, with anOdd look of the Lat in Quarter about many Of them . Onegroup Of young men in b road-brimmed hats , st ring t ies,and peg- top t rousers stood t ightly under an elect ric l ighta round an inten se young woman with a s l ight moustache,who read a loud to them out Of a b rand new book Ofpoetry . How do I know? I t rhymed ! But they were

there, my porter told me, to do honour to the memory Ofa certain Armenian philanth ropist who had recentlyd ied in Constant inople and whose body, having beenbrought to Batum on my ship , was about to be taken toT iflis by my t ra in , thence to be sent for buria l to the greatArmenian monastery Of Echmiadzin . Sure enough , at

the end Of the t rain stood a freight ca r which had beenturned into a chapelle ardente, w i th flowers and cand lesstanding around a black catafa l que . However, Armenians were but a fract ion of that polyglot company, amongwhom were Greeks , Turks, Tarta rs , the inevitable Georgian , and the equal ly inev itab le Russ ian , together withsuch exot ic Spec imens as the ta l l Swede who had t ravel ledmost Of the length Of t he B lack Sea i n my steamer chai r,the fat German who had left no stone unturned to find

out where I was going and why, and an Engl ish agentof the American Licorice Company .

The t ra in in which my Armen ian presently deposi ted

PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

me was the St . Petersburg express ; for to get from Batumto St . Petersburg by rai l— Pet rograd had st i l l to be invented—you mu st cross the T ranscaucasus to Derbendand then come back to Rostov on t he north s ide Of themountains , before st riking up count ry for Moscow . I t

wa s t he usua l roomy Russ ian t ra in , thanks to t he b roadergauge Of the Russ ian ra i ls , and my compa rtment wa s theroomier becau se the seat s in i t were numbered . Whatinterested me fi rst , however, was the view . That wasst riking enough in the moon l ight as we ran along the edgeOf the sea toward the ghost ly heights Of the Caucasus .

Then I began to be interested in my fe l low t rave l lers .They turned out to be a l l G reeks and al l of one pa rty , onthei r way to a wedding in T iflis . Th i s i nformat ion wasvouchsafed to me by the b ride herse lf, i n an Engl i shmuch more creditable than my fl imsy Romaic . As for

her short , fa t , ugly , gay mamma , she was more fluent inI t a l ian and Turkish . There were a l so two ’ youngerdaughters , one plumper and one more p inched , d resseda s exactly al ike as two magpies , an O lder ma rried daughterwith a d iamond , a dumpy , ta lkat ive person who had thea i r of a poor relat ion , and a raki sh hu sband or two . Theyal l seemed to be a s much at home in Russian as they werein Greek , and between the Odd s and ends Of other languages wh ich we possessed in common we got a longfamously .

The gay mamma , to whom I wou ld have p roposedbefore the n ight was out if I had been quite sure tha tneithe r Of the rakish husbands be longed to her, fina l lyannounced that sh e was t i red of doing all t he ta lkingand that we must take tu rns tel l ing stories , propoundingen igmas , or otherwise helping to pass t he t ime . She

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

done in a Russ ian car even when it is not a sleeper,and one

Of the rakish husbands and I st retched out on the upper

storey , while the gay mamma and her married daughtera t last d ropped into si lence below . The only di scomfortabout it was that the doub l e windows were hermet ical lysea led for winter.I n the s implicity Of my heart I had imagined

'

t hat one

t ravel led most of t he way from Batum to Baku in romant ic mountain passes . T O my great surprise and d isappointment , accordingly, I discovered in the morn ingt hat no mountains were near us . They had recededduring the n ight to e ither s ide Of a w ide bare b rownva l ley w ith water in the bottom Of i t . They did , however, draw together a l it t le a s we went on, and towersdecorated the tops of h i l l s . Sheepskin cap s, fu rthermore, began more th ickly to decorate the roads besidethe t rack, where I a l so not iced sheets Of ice, and aboutha lf-past e ight we stopped at T iflis. Th is for me wasdoub ly an hour Of doom , for not only d id I pine to lookat T iflis but I d ied to accept the gay mamma ’s inv itat ionand go to the wedd ing with my l ively friends . The

t roub l e was that I had other friends to meet in Baku ,and a Caspian boat to catch . SO I had t ime only to beint roduced to a smart G reek b ridegroom , to eat an excellent breakfast , to sta re all too b riefly at the astoundingpeop le in the stat ion , and to admire T iflis from the com

p artment window as we rumb led away from i t , hang ingon either l ip Of a deep gorge wi t h a cog ra i lway cl imbinga mountain beh ind . After t hat the ba re b rown va l leywidened again , giv ing v iew of d istant snow mountainson the right and more d i stant snow mountain s on theleft . In front Of the lat ter ran a l ine Of low hi l l s, fluted

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CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

with sharp eros ions , that looked somet imes l ike mud v olcanoes and somet imes l ike an Old shore .

I was not , I must confess , too upset at being torn frommy Greek friends to take not ice Of my new compan

ions . Chief among t hem were a Russ ian mat ron , muchmore serious than the gay mamma whose corner sh e took ,and her big bold black daughter with a bang, with aneye that looked as if i t might have been d rawn by Mr .Maurice Ketten , and with a wi l l ingness to cul t ivat ecasual mascu l ine acquaintance . That eye fi l led me wit hmingled emot ions, for whi le i t ala rmed me a l it t l e i twas t he fi rst Russ ian eye into wh ich I had gazed for morethan two seconds since I had set foot in the Caucasus .And for Russ ian eyes , a s for many other th ings Russ ian ,I have a lways had a weakness . I hard ly know why .

Perh aps because I went to schoo l wit h some boys fromTagan rog, at the mouth of the Don . Perhap s becau se arai lway clerk in St . Petersburg once ins isted , wit h con

siderab le asperity , in sp ite of my feeb l e p rotest s , on g iving me change for ten pounds out of a five pound note

,

to the no smal l advantage Of my dep leted exchequer.Perhaps because an Old lady who might have taught mefa r more than she d id set me read ing Tol stoy andTurgeniev long before I knew anyth ing about Hardyand Meredith , or Howe l l s and James , or even J ackLondon and Richard Harding Davis . W ith the unhappyresu l t that when i n t ime I came to the lat ter, andpart icu larly the last two , I fai led to derive quite thesat isfact ion I might have felt if I had happened on t hemfi rst .These th ings

, of course, a re largely a mat ter of t hepersonal equat ion , and the world i s lucki ly big enough

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

forTol stoy and Richa rd Hard ing Dav i s to s it on the sameshelf . I find , though , that on my shelf the Russian s havea curious , if a perfect ly uncon sc ious , way Of putt ing outeverybody el se ’ s eye . They a re so human . They areso s imple . They see a round so many corners . Noth ing

frighten s them ; but they a re not p rudish about i t , a s anAnglo-Saxon ha s a tendency to be , or cynical about it , a s aLat in has a tendency to be . Neither are they sent imental about it . And behind it al l there i s a st ranget roub le, which somehow cont rives not to be ch i ldish evenin the face of an American Glad Book . Dostoiev sky

rather put s hi s finger on it , in“The B rothers Ka rama

zov”: It is d ifferent for other people ; but we in our green

youth have to sett l e the eterna l quest ions fi rst Of a l l .That ’s what we ca re about . Young Ru ss ia i s tal kingabout nothing but the eternal quest ion s now . Andt he t h ings that come into thei r head s ! DO you rememberSv idrigailov , in

“ Crime and Pun i shment ” ?“ ‘

I don ’ t bel ieve in a future l ife ,’ sa id Raskoln ikov .

Sv idrigailov sat lost in thought .‘ And what if t here a re only spiders t here, or someth ing

l ike that ? ’ he said suddenly .

He is a madman ,’ t hought Raskolnikov .

And so , perhaps , do you . But on ly a Russ ian wouldth ink Of that . And only a Russ ian could have writ tenthat t remendous scene between Sv idrigailov and Sonia ,su rely the most shaking Of it s kind in a l l l i terature, whenhe get s her into that ga rret and t hen let s her go .

I rega rded the bold b lack eye Of the young lady with abang and asked myself, with some misgiv ing, i f i t wereseeking t he solut ion Of ete rna l quest ion s . I went intothe corridor to th ink about it . There I found myself

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CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

bes ide another lady , much Older, who presently askedme someth ing in Ru ss ian . She looked so much l ike anEngl ish or New Engl i sh woman Of the k ind I most l ikethat I d idn ’ t answer, as I Often do under such ci rcumstances , that I hadn

’

t a match and didn ’ t know whatt ime it wa s . I told her instead that I d idn ’t know Russian . And before I knew it sh e was te l l ing me that shewas going to Petersburg for t he winter but that she l ivedin Batum , or just outs ide of it , where she had a house anda garden in s ight of the B lack Sea . I n her hand sh e held

some violet s from that garden and she offered me a few

of them , te l l ing me how quickly everyth ing grew there ,even subt ropica l t hings , under the high white wa l l Ofthe Caucasus . Anarchist s , she said , p reach the dest ruct ion Of p roperty ; but i t i s an inst inct Of man to havesomething Of hi s own . When one i s young one cant rave l , and be a lone . Later one wishes a home, and agarden . Her garden sh e had p l anted herself, from thebeginning . I t was l ike her chi ld , now that her chi ldren were grown up . She and her husband had done everyth ing by degrees , as they cou ld save money from thei rpay . Her husband was a ret i red c iv i l servant Of somekind . She d idn ’t go into part icu lars and I d idn ’ t askfor them : but sh e told me that they had l ived in manypart s Of Russ ia , adding that she had been very fortunate .

She had married young a young and handsome husband,

with whom She had a lways been happy . Her ch i ldren,

too , had never caused them any unhappiness—except onedaughter, who died in the flower Of her age . At fi rst

,

she said , sh e took it for granted . Late r, howeve r, when

she saw how many marriages Of her friends were unhappy,

she discovered how fortunate she had been . Her ch i l

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PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

d ren , Of course, she m issed , now t ha t they were ma rriedand l iving in homes of the i r own . But there had beenamong t hem none of t he d isasters Of which one was constant ly hea ring . And t here was her garden .

She sa id i t all quite s imply , without pol ite p reliminaries , j ust as if she had wa lked out Of Turgen iev . Andshe sa id many other th ings wh ich I have Often t houghtOf S ince .

“My count ry makes me sad ,”

sh e sa id so

la rge, so va ried , and he who should govern not st rongenough , and those who do govern t h inking only of thei rpocket s . There i s too much unhappiness . There wi l l beanother uprising .

” Tha t was in November, 1 9 1 3 . Peo

ple cannot speak or t h ink . Those who do, have to leave

the count ry . Tolstoy was t he only one who stayed , and

whom they dared not touch The ment ion Of that nameb rought up other names . I told her t hat I had been inNew York when Gorky went t here— in 1 905, was it

and t hat I had not been p roud Of the zea l wh ich myfel low count rymen showed in cast ing the fi rst stone at

him . T O my su rprise she rather took thei r pa rt aga instme , a l t hough she considered Gorky t he greatest Of l ivingRussian writers . She surprised me, too, by saying thathe had deprecated t he read ing Of Dostoiev sky by theyounger generat ion—t hough perhaps I misunderstoodher . Of Art sibashev ’

s“ Sanin She cried out t hat i t wa s

a dreadfu l book . She told me I Should rather readKorolenko, and the plays Of Ost rovsky . When I told herwhat an impress ion “ Evgen i Onegin made upon me ,years ago

,in Moscow, and what new t h ings had been

reveal ed to me when Safonov came to New York toconduct the Philha rmon ic Orchest ra , sh e was ev ident lypleased .

“ Yes ,”

sh e said ;“ I love Chop in , Schumann ,

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CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

Beethoven . But our Russian s have someth ing they havenot— a sadness , an understanding .

”

Al l th is t ime we had been standing up i n t he corridor .My Old lady out Of Turgen iev fina l ly i nv i ted me to Sit

down in her compa rtment— which happened to be theDamencoupé . And there I wa lked into Dostoiev sky .

For the back Of one of the seat s was turned up ,and on

that upper shelf another lady was ly ing, Of whom I hes itat ingly asked if I d id not d isturb her . She had a st rangeth in face and a quant ity of pale hai r p i led loosely on topof her head . Monsieur does not d isturb me, sh e re

p l ied .

“ He i s a st ranger, and therefore not a bore—yet .

Afterwards we shal l see !” She said i t in a deep,hoa rse

voice, and in a French much more fluent than t he Oldlady ’ s or mine, but wi th an ext raordinary accent . Atfi rst she on ly l istened to the two Of us who sat below,

supp lying every now and then the word we groped for.Then she began to talk, too , asking me what I was up toand tel l ing me about the ba rbarous Caucasus

,the mag

nificent scenery, the pass from T iflis to V lad ikavkaz . She

was from T iflis herse lf “ I would have l iked to t rave l,

too , she remarked . But now—it i s fini shed . I goto Petersburg, to d ie . She said i t without heroics

,

without sent imenta l i ty , i n her deep , hoarse voice, her terrific accent , st roking her pa le hai r on her upper she lf.And she and the older lady presently fe l l afoul of eachother over the Russian peasant . The lady from T iflis

in si sted that he was lazy , stupid , d runken , the curse anddespai r of the count ry . The lady from Batum took up

hi s defence , say ing that sh e had spent a l l her l ife withthe muzhik and thought the world Of h im . I f he wasdrunken it was la rgely the faul t of the Government

, who

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

forced vodka upon v i l lages even when they d idn ’t wantit , for the sake Of the revenue . I gnorant he certa inlywas, that muzhik ; but wha t chance had he had ? Andshe went on to tel l w it h what d ifficul ty she had Obta inedpermiss ion from Petersbu rg to Open a night school forpeasant s in one of t he c i t ies Of Little Russia where herhu sband wa s then stat ioned . More peasant s had comethan there wa s room for, and sold iers , too—t i l l her husband wa s suddenly t ran sferred to another p rovince .

For the rest , t he muzhik merely followed the examp leset h im by

_

hi s bet ters , in thi s generat ion without rest raint ,w i t hout faith , wit hout God . As for her, She ca red nothing for p ictures and confess ion s , she sa id : Only the Gospel , and to hold someth ing sacred . The l adyfrom T iflis l i stened from her upper shelf, her eyes st range lyintense in her th in face .

“Yes ,” she fina l ly uttered in

that hoa rse voice : “T o hold someth ing sacred And

sh e turned her face to the wa l l .“

I t suddenly came over me in t he S ilence that fol lowed ,as I sta red at t hat p i le Of pa le hai r, that there wa s someth ing more terrific than an accent on that upper shelf.Yet the eyes t hat looked at t he wa l l were not terrified .

And who knew what they saw? They saw, at any rate,t hat the st ranger was after a l l a bore . SO I went back,awkwardly enough , to my own compartment . The

mat ron and her big b lack daughter were st i l l t here . They

at once made it known to me that t hey were not seekingt he solut ion Of eternal quest ions , and I found , after myvisit in the Damencoupé , t hat I would not lay i t up againstthem . The on ly th ing I la id up aga in st them was t hatthey looked a l it t le too a rch over my violet s, and a skedme whether the lady from Batum were a governess or a

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

t hat be sand ? Like enough . For all ofa sudden l caugh t ,

th rough the corridor window, t he gl int of wide waterunder a cl imb ing moon . The Caspian Sea ! I did theCaspian Sea the honour to wake up and go into the corridor. I then d iscovered to my aston ishment that the

Casp ian Sea , for al l i t s moon Of Turkestan , looked exact lyl ike Lake Champla in under t he moon ofVermont—unt i l Ispied on the shore a vagrant came l , t he

'

silhouet t e Of h imdark and exot ic as the East against a ripp l ing glamou r . Hesaved t he day for the Caspian , d id that camel ! Thenruddier and more melodramat ic fi res began to fla re on

the horizon , to the north . And at last , l at ish in theeven ing, I said good-bye to my Ru ss ian friend s and gotOff at Baku .

Those fi res and t hat camel a re t he symbol s and ep itome Of Baku . B aku i s , if you l ike, a j umping-Off place .

I t is, at any rate, the place from which you jump Off to

Teh ran or Sama rkand . But i t had to me an a lmostAmerican ai r—as it were a Pit t sburgh dipped in A s ia .

That i s perhaps becau se B aku flames and bel ches , too , if

after a manner Of it s own, and without the d iabo l icbeauty with which nature and man have conspi red to

endow the t rue Pit t sburgh . Baku s i t s on lower and morebarren h i l l s , regard ing a greasy gray-green sea t hat neveragain looked to me so pictu resque a s when I fi rst beh eldi t in the moonl ight behind a camel . The houses Of Baku ,fu rthermore , make no at tempt to scrape the sky, al

t hough they look sol ider than those Of Pitt sburgh . They

are astoni shingly new, however, a great many Of them .

And B aku bustles i n a way that i s quite upset t ing toone ’ s t heories Of that pa rt Of the world . What g ives th i sp rocess it s part icula r colour i s that Baku i s , as a mat ter

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of fact , a fa i rly venerable town . Some twenty yearsbefore America was discovered a Venet ian ambassadorby the name Of G iosafat Barbaro passed t hat way andwrote , or his quaint Engl ish t ranslator d id , Of

“ a cit ie

cal led Bachu , whereof the sea Of B achu taket h it s name,neere v ntO which cit ie there is a mountaigne t hat castethfoorth b lacke oyl e, stynkeng horryb lye, which t hey ,nev ert heles, v se for furnissheng Of thei r ligh tes, and

for t he anoynt eng Of thei r camells twies a yere .

” Andall honest touri st s , of whom I regret to confess I am notone, piously vi s i t i n Baku a place where the fi res Of Zoro

aster have burned these two or t hree t housand yea rs .The remnant s Of th i s more anc ient Baku are to be seenin certa in higher part s of t he town , where a cast le stand sin l ight stone , rat her l ike t he tufa Of Naples , adornedwith Pers ian l ion s and inscript ions . B eyond it st retchesa quarter which went fa r towa rd consol ing me for t hed iscovery t hat I might after all have stopped Off in T iflis,inhabited a s i t is by fragments of more st range racest han I know anyth ing about . The races Of Pit t sburgha re no doubt as varied , but they a l l d ress and look moreor less a l ike, whereas in Baku many thousands Ofgood peop le st i l l d ress as t hei r ancestors d id beforeAmerica was d iscovered . As I sat one even ing in myFrench HOtel d’

Europe, eat ing a Russ ian dinner, I overheard a group of Engl ish eng ineers d iscuss ing the merit sof oysters . They warmed my pat riot ic hea rt not a l itt leby the favou r w it h wh ich they ment IOned B lue Point sand Lynn Havens , t hough they ended by g iving t he palmto a certain unpronounceab le mollusc Of R io de Janei ro .

Later I came to know one Of t hose eng ineers very well,and he told me that in spite of G iosafat Ba rba ro and

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

the Zoroast rians, Baku d id not begin to bust le unt i labout th i rty years ago . Then it was a ruinous vi l lageOf Tarta rs and Pers ians, together with other ingredient sOf the usua l Cauca s ian pie . One day a Russian Of ficertook i t into h is head to buy some land there for a fa rm

.

H aving bought h is fa rm , he present ly found out that

noth ing wou ld grow on i t . Wherever he p loughed,more

over, a disgust ing b lack l iquid would ooze out Of the

ea rt h , and nothing cou ld d rain i t away . Of t hese matters he made b it ter complaint to an Armenian

,Offeri ng

h im the fa rm for an ext remely small sum. The Armenian k ind ly con sented to t ake the p lace Off h is hands

,

hav ing a suspicion that that b lack l iquid wou ld bea rlook ing into . That suspicion made the Armenian a millionaire . The Ta rta rs and Pers ians who owned most Ofthe rest Of B aku had susp ic ions of another kind whenother people t ried to buy thei r land , and for a long t imethey wouldn ’t sel l . In t he end , however, they becamemi l l ionai res, too . They cou ldn ’ t help themselves . Andthat i s why Baku i s so amus ing . The Russian and Armenian m i l l ionai res go away , l ike the mi l l iona i res OfP i t t sburgh . The Ta rtar and the Pers ian mil l ionai resdon ’ t , having no idea what on ea rt h to do with thei rmoney . SO t hey rOll around Baku in such automobilesas t hese morta l eyes have ne ’er beheld , painted t he mostrecondit e colours, gi lded , j ewe l led , bea ring passengerswith s leepy or with boi l ing b lack eyes a s t he case may be,with al l t he noses Of As ia , w it h bea rds that as Often as nota re dyed sca rlet with henna , with such headdresses asnever were seen on sea or land . They also go to themovies , marve l l ing over t he manners and moral s OfEurope and the N ew World a s exh ibited to them in t he

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CAUCAS IAN PROLOGUE

fi lms Of Pathe and Charl ie Chap l in . And for them a rethe shops Of Baku stuffed with every gimcrack that t hehea rt Of man can des i re—provided he wants to pay for i tten t imes as much a s he would in Pitt sburgh .

I t wa s the midd le Of November when I arrived in Baku ,but i t was st i l l warm enough for the band to p lay in thepark . That park i s t he qu intessence Of Baku . I t i snot a very leafy park , even in mid summer, for nothingwi l l grow in i t except in tubs Of earth imported at vastexpense . N either is t here anyt h ing wherewit h to waterthose tubs except by dist i l l ing, again at vast expense, thegreasy gray-green mixture Of sa l t and Oil that fi l l s t hesha l low bas in of the Caspian Sea . Nevertheless , i t i s avery agreeab le park , laid out at lengt h on the edge Of

the water . There are t rim sanded paths, there a re showycasinoes, there a re boat- houses and bathing- houses , therea re above all Russ ian caps set on more kind s Of headsthan I can begin to cata logue . There are a l so hat s , andturbans , and wool ly kalpaks , together with coat s Of manycolours , and rows Of cart ridge cases, and wonderful daggers , and more wonderfu l lad ies , attached or otherwise ,and heaven knows what . And as they move to and froon the t rim sanded pat h s, or lounge on t hewooden benchesa band better than ever I heard in New York p lays Verdiand Wagner and B izet and Gl inka and Chaikov sky .

And at last , t here on the edge Of nowhere, the elect ricl ights come out wit h a pop , and fa r away , over t he darkCaspian , a slow moon c l imbs out Of Sama rkand .

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ANABAS I S

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall goAlways a littlefurther: it may beBeyond that last blue mountain barredwith snow,

Across that angry or that glimmering sea.

J . E . Flecker : THE GOLDEN jouRN EY TO SAMARKAND

ROM the deck of t he unsteady l itt le paddlewheel steamer that churned out of the bay

towa rd a low red moon we looked our last OnBaku—a reced ing crescent Of l ight s accented

a t one end by a dark hi l l and at t he other by the angrygla re Of the Oi l field s . Then we went down to a portentou s Russ ian d inner . At the head of the tab le sat a graveLett ish capta in who a t once made me conscious Of all I

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ANABAS I S

had missed by never embarking on the Caspian before .

Bes ide him sat the ta l l Swede who on the B lack Sea hadformed such a predilect ion for my steamer cha i r, andwho now looked at me through hi s monocle with immen sedisdain . I t appeared that he was going to Pers ia to bean Of ficer Of gendarmes . Opposite h im sat a Belg iancustoms inspector and hi s fami ly, a l so bound to t he samecount ry for the fi rst t ime . Then there were two handsome Russ ian Offi cers, two frock- coated Pers ian Khan swith b lack pi l l boxes on thei r heads , and our t hree

se l ves , who came from yet more d istant port ion s Ofthe earth . I t was polyglot , i t was pleasant , and afterdinner Madame l

’

Insp ect rice sang us some charmIng

French songs . I sha l l not t ry to pretend that I wastoo world-weary to be taken in by i t all. As a matterof fact , I was del ighted . But I was al so ab le to perceivethat we might j ust as we l l have been on the B l ack Sea orthe Ba l t ic .

The next morn ing, however, the Caspian real ly lookeda s the Caspian might be expected to look . I t wa s t hesame greasy greeny gray, and b i rds that shou ld fly

over no t rue sea fluttered about the chopp ing side-wheeleror even l ighted on it , playing h ide and seek with beltedRuss ian soldiers who t ried to catch them in thei r hands .We passed a ful l- rigged ship , too, stubby and black, witha square counter that came out of no yard Of born sh ipwrights . I t was such a ship as Master Anthony Jenk inson might have set sai l i n from the mouth Of the Volga upon the disast rous affai rs Of the Muscovy Company . Then ,about noon , the bank of gray in the south began to reso l vei tself into a rampart Of cloud that grew ta l ler and sol ideras we chugged toward it . And at last a semic i rcle Of t rees

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PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

pricked the edge Of the sea, making the rampart behindit h igher and more teneb rous than ever .What is t hat ? ” cried the Be lgian lady of t he capta in ,

who paced back and forth nea r us , grave a s ever and al itt l e grim .

I t i s Pers ia , he answered— l ike t hat , a s if Persia werean every-day affai r .

“And when sha l l we sme l l t he roses , and hear the n ightingales?

” pu rsued h i s pretty passenger .The capta in waited a di screet moment before an swering

c rypt ica l ly“Madame perhaps forget s that it is November. We

sha l l a rrive in an hour or two .

He pursued his walk, leav ing me to consider the grimcase of the Be lg ian lady . Of Pers ia I knew no more

than she, but Of certain region s contiguou s thereto Iknew a l it t l e, and I t remb led for her . What I rea l lyfound myself con sidering , however, was that rampart Ofgrowing grimness that towered across the south , unbelievab ly h igh , increasingly seamed and patched withShadows of green and white . Such a coast as that ,at any rate, l had never seen in my l ife . The p ricklyt rees on t he horizon grew tal ler and darker, they somehow estab l i shed a connect ion with the stupendous mountain cha in behind them , and a t l ast we sl id betweentwo long wooden breakwa ters into t he st i l l lagoon of

Enzel i .At s ight Of i t t ha t unhappy Belg ian lady burst into tears .I knew much bet ter than if sh e had told me that sh e hadseen precious th ings i n museum s , that sh e had read anexpurgated edit ion Of the “Arabian N ights ,

” and t hat sheexpected palaces Of porcela in set among roses and night

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

gage to a big a rchway Opening into an interior court oft he custom house . True , we had inadvertently t hrownour checks overboa rd ; but on t he Caspian what i s a l it t l ematter of receipt s , between friend s ? In t hat a rchwayour passport s were du ly examined by a superb personagein a long coat and a black pi l lbox adorned wit h the l ionand sun Of his count ry in b ra ss . I f he had fol lowed t hedictates of h is own da rk heart he would doub t les s havelooked into our t runks ; for I could see he was dy ing toknow what on earth we had in so many bags, boxes ,bundles, and other receptac les beg inn ing with b and otherletters . But s ince we were t he t rave l l i ng compan ionsof a Belgian customs inspector and s ince my friends werewel l known to h is own Belgian ch ief, we were passedthrough w i t h no more than an interva l for me to admiret he passengers who sauntered off t he Ru ss ian boat withgay sadd lebags and painted wooden t runk s . There wereal so two d ist ingui shed looking Engl i sh ladies whom I hadnot seen on board . One of them sat l ike a symbol Ofher emp i re on a stout metal box so appropriately l abe l led ,i n b ig white let ters , I RONS I DES , t hat I very nearlysmi led at her l ike a bounder . Then we c l imbed a fl ightOf sta i rs to t hank the Be lg ian cu stoms in spector for h i scourtesy . We found h im in a cosy salon fu l l Of rugs andPersian b ric-a-brac and talk about an i l ine dyes and theexport duty charged on ca rpet s conta in ing t hem . Thi sgentleman a l so had a pretty French- speaking wife , uponwhose sympathet ic shou lder our own Belg ian ladywas d ry ing t he tears Of her d is i l lus ionment . And so ,

separat ing ourse lves from a l l but our l ightes t luggage , wehopped into a funny l itt l e V ictoria and d rove away to

Resht .

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ANABAS I S

Resht is an example Of t he unwi l l ingness Of the East toch ange i ts hab its . Resht i s an important : city, capita lOf the rich seaboard prov ince of G ilan . Yet because t hesea has never meant anything to a Persian , and becausethe caravan roads natural ly take the inner S ide Of thelagoon , Resht grew up out of s ight Of t he Casp ian . I n

the good Old t imes those who in s i sted on doing so took

ship to Enzel i , j ust as you do now . But at Enzel i t heyembarked in one Of those turned-up boats , sailed acrossthe lagoon , and rowed or got themselves towed up ariver to wi t h in a mile or two of Resht , where—after paying al l the gold of Oph ir to get themselves t ransported intothe town itself— they rea l ly began thei r journey inland .

Now you st i l l begin your real journey at Resht . I n t he

meant ime, however, t he Russ ian s have buil t a macadami sed road around the lagoon .

Bes ide it ran a pai r of Decauvil le rai ls , which a t t hatt ime shared with a short l ine running between Tehranand one of i t s suburbs the honour Of being the only ra i lroad in Persia . And Pers ia is b igger than Alaska , abouta s big as Ca l ifornia , Nevada , N ew Mexico, and Texasput together—o r France, Germany, Aust ria , and I taly .

But for my own part I was enchanted to be in a ca rriage rather than in a compartment . That Decauv i llet rack , moreover, and one or two auto-busses thatwhizzed past us, interested me infinitely less than the fla tcount ry th rough wh ich we d rove a t the end Of a mildgray afternoon . I t grew woodier a s we left the sanddunes and the Caspian beh ind us . A cormorant or twoflapped away across marshes Of plumy reeds . Crows

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

flew up from ba re rice fields crisscrossed by causeways ofea rt h . S t i l l st reams wound away among popla r t reesthat had not yet lost t hei r last leaf . Under them thatchedwooden shant ies stood on st il t s . And we passed anynumber Of woo l ly l i tt le black cows w it h humps on t he i rshou lders , j ust a s you see in p ictu res of I ndia . Those

cows gave me only the fi rst of many subsequent h int st ha t if Pers ia reaches out one hand to Turkey, sh e st retches

th e other towa rd that land so much older and more re

mote .

On the fa rther s ide Of a wooden b ridge, under wh ich aturned-up boat paddled Off between reeds and rice fields,our driver p roceeded to in it iate me into the most deeprooted of the customs of Pers ia by stopping at a half-wayt ea house . P icture not to yourself, however, any ladyI ike est abl ishment Of l inen- covered t ab les , t rim wa i t resses,and Dresden ch ina . This was a thatched house on

st i l t s , l ike the others a long the road, open in front to theworld and p resent ing to our admirat ion a row of legs more

Often bare than not , a l ine of auks’ eggs—one or two

w i t h a neat round i ndentat ion in the top—and a suc

cess ion Of long b lack pipes , together wi t h splashes Ofru sset , green , and b lue , a casua l gl it ter of b rass , and aquant i ty Of what might have been wh iskey glasses , contain ing about th ree fingers each Of nothing st ronger t hantea . They al so contained plenty of suga r, as I present lyhad occas ion to find out , and perhaps a sl iver of lemon .

But m i lk Heavens , no ! The Sah ib—o r t he Sah’b ,

a s t he coachman and eve rybody else in Persia seemed tocal l t he head of our sma l l pa rty—told me tha t thoseblack pipes were more than l ikely to conta i n opium .

And he went on to na rrate en l iven ing ta les of what some

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ANABAS I S

t imes happens to carriages in Pers ia when thei r driverssmoke too long at a tea house .

Our driver happi ly did not , and at n ightfa l l we drew upin front Of the chapar khaneh , the post- house , Of Resht .Upon this post- house, i ts immense eaves , i ts ba lcon ieshangi ng on nothing, and it s archway leading into a darkinner court , I gazed with an inten se, a pathet ic , interestsuch i s t he power upon certa in innocent Spiri ts Of thingsseen for the fi rst t ime . I had , indeed , seen a post-housebefore , but never one that had t he dignity Of a nat ional

in st itut ion or of a l ineage that st retched back unb rokento the t ime of Achaemenian kings . The Sah ’b in themeant ime engaged himse lf in a long and somewhatheated col loquy with the naib, the deputy road master to befound in every post-house . During th i s uninte l l igib leconversat ion there cont inua l ly popped up the esotericword asp . Now an a sp never reminds me Of anythingbut Cleopat ra and her monument , to say nothing of herwoman Charrnian ; and what on earth had those goodEgyptian s to do wi t h a journey into Pe rs ia ? I t ap

p eared t hat they had a good deal ; for an asp , pronounceda lmost exact ly as in Engl ish , i s in Pers ian a horse .

Moreover, t he naib swore he could g ive us none

t i l l he had sent the Russ ian mai l on to Tehran . Andi t was very heavy to-night . Apparent ly , therefore,t here was nothing for us to do but to cl imb the Openwooden stai r leading from the court to the upper ga l leryOf the chapar khaneh , to enter a room furn ished with twobeds , a long tab le, a quant ity of rugs , and a ba lcony , toeat such meat s as the naib had at h is d isposal , a nd towait unt i l horses were sent back from the next stat ion upthe road .

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There might , indeed , be something e l se to do, thoughtI in my secret hea rt—even afte r the Sah ’b assured methere wa s noth ing to see i n Resht . Perhap s ! But whatif your theory of l ife happen s to be t hat t here is somethingto see everywhere ? Wha t if you have j ust set foot , forthe fi rst t ime in your l ife, on the vi rg in soi l of Pers ia?What if you find yourself in an inn at the edge of a Pers ian town , which l ies somewhere beyond the balcony

’

in

t he dark, which fi l ls t he n ight with st range sounds andsmel ls and poss ib i l it ies , and which you wou ld might i lyl ike to prowl in , to say noth ing Of spending a n ight inand looking at by dayl ight ? What , however, could Ido? I had cheated the Sah ’b and the Khanum , by a tool it eral reading Of a friendly inv it at ion , out of a GoldenJourney to Samarkand . I t was not forme, therefore, tohinder them from hurry ing as fast a s asps would carryt hem to a b rand-new hou se in Hamadan . And , after a l l ,there were enough characteri st ic t h ings to see in myfi rst chapar khaneh . One of t hem was the exchanging o four handy Russ ian money for a sack of Pers ian two-kranp ieces , worth some eighteen cent s each , which with t hecartwheel tomans t hat i t need s ten krans to make, and thet iny shahis Of which there a re twenty in a kran , const itute

the sole coin Of the rea lm . Then came the affai r of buying our “ t icket for H amadan . I t cost , for the use of

one carriage and the four horses necessary to draw it

2 50 miles , together w it h t he inc idental tol l charges of

t he Russ ian road , not fa r from $ 1 00 . Ev ident ly one

would have to think twice before t rave l l ing in Pers ia ,t hought I , who dreamed Of I sfahan and Shi raz . True,t hree persons , or as many more as can squeeze into one

ca rriage, pay no more than one ; but even so it struck me

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ANABAS I S

that i n some other part s of the world 5533 might take onecon s iderab ly farthe r than 2 50 mi les . However

,we p ro

ceeded to fol low a lantern into a huge shadowy stable a t theback of the court where we picked out our carriage for thejourney . I t was a big rat t lety-bang landau , patched andsc ratched beyond be l ief, that might a lmost have comedown itse lf from Achaemenian t imes . I t hought so a l l t hemore when the Sah ’b told me that the cont ractor who ranthis part icu lar post road for the Russ ian s wa s a Pa rsee .

The n ight began to look darker than ever when theRussian con sul te lephoned to the naib for another t eam of

horses —t hough handful was what he rea l ly said . H etelephoned , mind you ! I n Pers ia ! The naib telephonedback , at the top of hi s voice, that the on ly handfu l Of aspshe had was engaged . The Russ ian con sul , not suspect i ngthat a newly arrived fe l low- count ryman of M r . W. M .

Shuster, at the other end of the l ine , was highly interested i n th is pract ica l aspect of the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1 907, rep l ied t hat i t d id not matter : asp s h emust have . He was of course within hi s rights , for t hi s isa Russian road . Neverthe less the Sah ’b , as a subj ectof a friend ly semi-a l l ied Power, and as a frequent cl ien tOf the road , went over to interv iew the Russ ian con su late .The Russian consu late , a s the paramount Power in northPers ia , stuck to its guns , say ing that the mai l hadprecedence over a l l t rave l lers and that the naib had no

business to sel l u s a t icket on Wednesday n igh t . So the

subject of the semi-a l l ied friend ly Power came back eat ing’

enraged cow, as the French say ing goes . And we sat

twi rl ing our thumbs whi le the mai l j ingled away toTehran and beyond the ba lcony inv i s ib le Resht fi l led then ight wi th romance .

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PERS I AN M IN I ATURES

Ha rd on m idnight , when we got t i red of twi rl ing our

t humbs and began to t h ink we might better go to bed , t h enaib suddenly produced horses . Out of the lampl it room

,

down the wooden sta i r, into the mud puddle at the bottomof i t , th rough t h e smokily l ighted a rch of the post- house wehastened , and p repa red for fl ight . There wa s somethingdark and furt ive about t h is hasty midnight departure thatreminded me of Lou is XVI and Ma rie Antoinette , whent hey fled away to Va rennes in that berline of Carly le ’ s .I nto our berline we crammed all t he luggage we couldbetween the seats, over the whole affa i r we sp read rugsand cush ions so a s to make a spec ies of bed , and t h e

Sah ’b and the Khanum , l ike King Louis and QueenMarie, set tled t hemselves wit h what ease they mightin thi s Pers ian sleep ing car, while I , an elderly Dauphin ,headed the opposit e way , stuck my legs between them .

Then the mekhter, t he post-boy, appeared wi t h the longawaited horses— and when I saw t hem I didn ’t wonderthat they were ca l led a sps ! —an auk ’s egg with a S leepyd river under i t mounted the box in vast d isgust , andaway under a cloudy moon to Va rennes , or Hamadan ,we began to rol l .

K ing Loui s and Queen Ma rie would no doubt have beenhighly amu sed had they known how thri l l ing to the Dauphin seemed thi s mild adventure, how st range t he graymoon l ight and black t rees of wh ich he caught gl impsest hrough the window of t he berline, how romant ic thej ingle of be l ls t hat kept growing louder or fainter t h roughthe dark , how imposs ible to close one

’ s eyes upon one’

s

fi rst journey in Pers ia . Between two and three O’clock

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ant ly in the berline wh i le ca rt s rat t led by on the Russianroad , whi le st rings of mules and donkeys went by wit hmuch j ingl ing Of be l l s, while ca ravans went by, realcaravan s of rea l camels, slouching d imly past to a ext raordinarily b roken music of different- toned b ells . Bes ide .

t hem dark figures t rudged silent ly . I thought of t hatwretched Belgian lady and smiled, secret ly , at my own

foo l ishness .The next t h ing I knew it was past five in the morn ing,

twice the hour and a half t he mekhter had promised , andwe were st i l l standing serenely in front Of the posthouse at Kudum , without p roperty and without p rospectof property . As t he Sah ’b showed no S ign of being consc iou s of thi s intolerable S i tuat ion , I crawled g ingerlyout Of the berline to st retch my cramped legs . A vaguefigure materia l i sed Off t he ground behind us and walkedaway . Other vague figures t rudged down the road ,kola on head and bag or tool on shoulder . I t was b eginning to get l ight , and i t d rizzled a l it t le . Events oft he deepest s ign ificance for one ’s fi rst morn ing in Pers ia !“Cal l the mekhter suddenly suggested the Sah ’b out oft he berline. Hav ing no other mean s of communicat ingwit h a mekhter, I p roceeded to pound on the closed shutte rof the post-hou se . After a t ime the shutter was withdrawn , a greasy kola st uck pa rt way out—and noth ingmore happened .

I n t he end , Of course, it wa s t he Sah’b who got us out

Of Kudum . Once under way , we soon began to cl imbinto a count ry of hi l l s and woods that gradual ly narrowed to the valley Of a river . Sefid Rud i s t he name ofi t , or White River . I smi led again , t h inking of anotherWh ite River whose val ley in Vermont I have long known .

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The Pers ian Wh i te River is a much b igger st ream , flow

ing where first I saw i t in a wide, sandy channel , and it sval ley is on a more heroic scale . The sky cleared a s wewent on, and we caught gl impses in front of us of t he hugemountain wa l l Of E lburz , wit h sca rfs of cloud drift ingac ross it s incredible height s . But the lumber raft s floating down on the cu rrent , the colou r of the autumn fol iage, t he ferns and brooks beside the road , and the ta lkOf my two compan ions , made it hard to be l ieve that wewere real ly in Pers ia . NO Vermonter, to be sure, wouldever wa lk abroad l ike t he peasant s we met i n such ragsof such faded b lue . The women ’ s rags were gayer, andt hey Often carried a child on thei r backs . Gayest of allwere the h igh two-whee led cart s we passed, wit h hooptops , and t he bigger four-wheeled gharries, wit h passengers s it t ing on pi les Of boxes and ba les . And t he harnessof t hei r horses was bright w it h brass and wit h dangl ingtabs Of b ril l iant wool or pol ished meta l . The khansand tea houses along the way, for the use of such t ravel lersas do not t ravel post , were of the now fami l ia r peakedgray thatch . And we passed a camp of came l s, whichalways t ravel at n ight except in cold weat her . Thei rpacks and pack-sadd les l ay scat tered on t he ground andt he b ig beast s crouched in rows or c i rcles , munching hayas supercil iously as if it had been Nessel rode pudding .

But whi le I knew in my hea rt that under these casua lunfami l iarit ies l ife i s after all l ife, whether in Persia orVermont , and that a man wi l l p robab ly find out more

about i t by st icking to h is own va l ley, I somehow derivedan immense inner sat isfact ion from the mere fact t hatt h is was Pers ia and not Vermont . On such s impl ic it ieshangs the happ iness of man !

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Suddenly , towa rd noon , j ust before we reached t hepost-house of J am shidabad , a st range th ing happened .

We had been c l imbing steadi ly th rough autumn woods,

with the picture growing increas ingly clear in frontof us Of the northern wa l l of Persia , to say noth ing Of theproblem of gett ing over i t , when , at a tu rn of the road ,woods , autumn leaves , the very t rees , d isappea red a s i fby magic . We had the better opportun ity to take inthis ext raord ina ry change because, again , t here was noproperty at J am sh idabad . However, if al l the posthouses Of Pers i a were l ike J amshidabad the fash ion ofd riving in day and n ight might become less popula r thanit is . The rugs on t he b rick floor looked clean enough tos leep on— t hough the rea l proof of that wou ld be to t ry i t !Beh ind the house Opened a l it t le wa l led quadrangle, cutinto quarters by two t ran sverse path s , with flower beds

in each corner and a round brimming poo l in the cent re .

We lunched on the porch in front , looking down on a wide,sandy val ley of pa rted water, some of the th reads stee lyb right , others st range ly blue . The Oppos i te slope of theva l ley was cleft by a ravine whose mouth was stopped ordeflected by a flat hi l l spur . We amused ourse lves bybui ld ing cast les there, w ith in hea ring of the river and ins ight both Of the green lower region of woods to the northand of t hose h igher and ba rer peaks of the south towa rdwh ich we were bound .

I t wa s t he midd le of the afternoon before we succeededin gett ing away from J am shidabad . The road houses ofthe b leak count ry into which we now began to penet ratefarther ind icated the suddenness of the change from thelower val ley . They no longer had thatched or peakedroofs , but flat ones Of mud . All the more su rpris ing, t here

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fore, was it , after hav ing begun to get used to th is t imberless land , to dip down to the river again and discover aplantat ion of Ol ive t rees . Such ta l l and bushy Ol ive t rees ,too , I never saw in Greece or Sic i ly . As a mat ter offact , they were p lanted , the Sah

’b to ld me, by veritab leG reeks , who form quite a colony at Resht and who cannotexist without the ol ive oil which forms no part of thePers ian menu .

There at Rudbar we changed horses aga in and rat t ledaway through a long v i l lage st reet d im ly l ighted by afew lamps but a l lowing one to catch vague moving pictures of shops , tea hou ses , smithies , and an Americansewing machine which had somehow found it s way intothe Greek Ol ive grove Of that Pers ian va l ley . Beyond theol ive t rees the val ley narrowed to a b lack gorge, wherethe a i r at last began to feel l ike the end Of November .And the wind blew so hard , especially when we c rossedt he river on a long Russi an bridge, t hat we were gladenough to get out at the post-house Of Menj i l , just b eyond , and drink some scald ing tea . Menj il is, so to

speak , another White River J unct ion ; for t hree va l leyscome together there, and a caravan t rail , not carriageable—as the French and I tal ians convenient ly sayfol lows the Sefid Rud part way to Tabriz , while the mainroad present ly branches off to Teh ran .

The lat ter was the onewe followed , through a h igh , dark,windy land Of stars , with water somewhere in the bottomOf it . I caught the pa l lor of t hat water, and the de l ic ioussound of i t , when we stopped at midnight at a post-houseappropriately named Ba l a Ba la , which means H igh H igh .

Loui s and Marie Antoinette s lept l ike reasonab le beings ,having enjoined me when I got out to st retch my legs t o

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see to i t that t he naib kept h is word and b rought us aspsin twenty m inutes . The twenty m inutes passed , and t hehalf hour, wh i le I , fa l se friend, da l l ied to adm i re a ca ravanthat j ingled up out of the dark in front of us. I cou ldmake out the shapes Of curved necks, h igh-p i led ba les ,and ma rch ing men , that passed to a st range accompaniment of bel l s . This Obb l igato seemed to play in a chordof fou r notes, of wh ich the loudest and deepest wa s a l sothe ra rest . The caravan rounded the curve of t he chaparkhaneh , j ingled off up a b lack s ide ravine , j ingled backmore soft ly on t he upper s ide of t he t i l ted hai r-pin bend ,and final ly made away diminuendo in t he di rect ion of

Menj i l , t he bel l s growing fainter and fainter t i l l t here wasnothing to hea r but the rush Of the water in the d imval ley below . Nea r by , in the post-hou se, I could see ou rd river and t he mekhter and half a dozen ragamuffins

among whom might or might not be our new driver, drinking tea and smoking those st raight b lack pipes—withenough opium in them , perhaps , to make them indiffer

ent a s to whether they stayed on t he road or pitched over aprec ip ice into t he river . I watched and l i stened , lost toall sense of duty . But the Sah ’b mumbled someth ingSl eep i ly out of the carriage and I , b rought back at la stto t he real it ies of l ife, made such sounds to the naib t hath is post-boy presently b rought us our handful .One remembers t he n ights of l ife for reason s the most

d iverse ; but among remembered n ights I t h ink I shal la lways include that pa rt icula r one. The sky was so

clear and the a i r, after a l l , so mi ld , that we had droppedthe top Of the berline. The wind in our faces was deliciously fresh , therefore , and a s we lay comfortab ly tuckedup in rugs and pi l lows we could Open our eyes , wi t hout

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ANABAS I S

the sl ightest effort , upon the da rk shapes Of the mounta ins , the end less caravans we met or overtook , t he moonthat sudden ly peered from behind some jagged height .I t was amazing what a quant ity of s i lver cont rived todrip out of that d ried-up l i t t le moon and what t ricks i tp layed in that wi ld pas s Part of the magic, of course,wa s t hat I was on ly hal f con sc ious . But I rememberwaking up once, or pa ss ing from one dream into another,i n a hol low enchanted with moon l ight , where we stoodsti l l while invi s ible water rushed past us and somewhereover our heads echoed a long-drawn ch ime of camel bel l s .

The second morn ing found us st randed again besidethe road , i n a barren place ca l led Mol la A l i , where t hedawn broke over a background of the Venet ian school .Near by were the same s l im pop lars Of a few faded leaves ,and in the d istance were the same sharp b lue peaks .They presently turned rosy, however . And what i smore they stayed so, even after the sun had cleared t he

heights of E lburz and b rought the world back to i tsnormal colour . I t was a ston ier and loft ie r world thanthe va l ley Of Ol ive t rees where the l ight had left us , madeup ent irely Of ruddy rocks , cleft by deep canyons and overlooked by soa ring crags where the road Iooped and z igzagged in the most fantast ic way . We gained the sum

mit of one pass , only to plunge down aga in into newdepths and na rrower . I n them , while we wa i ted forhorses a t the post-house Of Yuz Bash i Cha i—a perfect ly

authent ic Turkish name meaning Capta in ’s B rook—a

ca ravan of Canterbury pi lgrims , or pi lgrims from Kerbe larather, was good enough to ride under the terrace on which

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we kicked our heel s . A Pers ian Wife of Bath was one ofthe most conspicuous figures i n the cortege , being en

veloped from top to—we l l , not quite to— toe i n a shapeless b lack dom ino which I bel ieve they cal l a chader . Assh e rode ast ride l ike the men , we had no t rouble in seeingher toes , wh ich were encased in emera ld green stockingst hat were appa rent ly a part of some wonderfu l t rousersshe wore . And the face of the poor wretch wa s com

p letely covered by a th ick white c loth which had in i tonly a st rip Of Open-work embroidery in front of her eyesfor her to look out Of. Other lad ies , who had sma l l ch i ld ren w ith them , sat on l itt le rai led p latfo rm s slung on

ei ther s ide of a mule ’ s pack saddle . Is not such a p latform what used to be ca l led a cacolet , before the wordand the conven ience passed out Of use in our part of t heworld ? And st i l l others crouched uncomfortab ly in adoub l e l itter which t he Persians name a kejaveh , a sortof domed cage or kennel mounted in pai rs on a pack an imal .

From the Capta in ’ s B rook we cl imbed again , thi s t imeto t he rea l top Of the pass , feet above the Caspianthough the Caspian , you remember, l ies a l it t le lower thanthe B lack Sea . A sort of bare plateau was here, over‘

looking v ariotIS b ranching va l leys and overlooked in turnby loft ie r snow peaks Of Elburz . Tha t northern rampart of Pers ia is real ly the most imposing range in Asia ,after t he Himalaya s, t hough here it reaches a height ofno more than ten or eleven thousand feet . I n t h is wildp lace we came upon the gravestone of a Ru ss ian en

gineer. He who d ies in a st range land dies the deathof t he ma rtyrs ,

”say the peop le of the Prophet . And in

deed it must have been an unhomel ike p lace for a son of the

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steppes to b reathe h is last in , among those remote he ightswhose older assoc iat ions a re all of t he Fi re Worsh ippersand of t he gruesome order of the Assass ins . But so

many of our own race have left t hei r bones in un l ikelycorners of t he ea rt h that we d id not need to feel toosent imenta l about t he eng ineer who lay on that greatd ivide , among the rocks he had made passab le for t hefeet of h is count rymen .

From there on we descended, overtaking at Buinek

another Russian , a l ive one, reported to u s a s hav ing comeup with t he post . We looked darkly at h im , suspect ing h imto be the gu il ty man for whom the consul at Resht hadsnatched our horses . However, t here were soon betterth ings to th ink about than ourwrongs. Foranother b rusquechange b rought us into a new count ry tha t Opened i nfront of us almost as fa r as we could see, t i l l t he sunl ightcaught a wh ite, uptu rned rim at it s outer edges .

“Th is ,”

said t he Sah ’b ,“ i s Pers ia .

” I looked at Pers ia w ith vastinterest , thinking involunta ri ly again Of

‘ ou r Belgian lady .

There were certainly no roses or n ight ingales about ,neither palaces Of porcela in or so much a s a camel . I twas, t hough , a count ry of a kind I had never seen before :wide, flat , or at most mp ing a t rifle towa rd the east ,tawny-colou red, with a t awn iness that had an under

paint ing of pink in it , and wa l led on the north by thesnowy serrat ions of E lbu rz . They looked less formidab lethan before, and wit h good reason , s ince th is s ide of themountain is t h ree or fou r t housand feet h igher than the

other. But what st ruck me most was the l ight that layover the land , of utter clea rness , yet not ha rd or cold,and indescribab ly serene .As we rol led down the long, t i l ted plain I looked hope-1

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ful ly for the wh i t e cone of Demavend—that not qu it e ext inct volcano which towers feet beh ind Tehranin vain . But the city Of Kazvin soon made somethingel se to look for, darken ing t he t awny l evel s with its b lur .The vic in ity of i t began to be indicated by the look Of thefields about us, by th ickening orchards and clumps ofpoplar t rees . Then , as sunset started to do poet ic th ingswith the tops of the mountains , we saw above the t reesa brown city wa l l , i rregu larly sca l loped , and above theb rown city wa l l two domes b lue as j ewe ls .

KAZV IN

Let me give you somewhat to memorise Casbyn, wherein havebeen actedmany Tragick scenes, in their time very terrible.

Sir Thomas Herbert : SOME YEERES TRAVELS

E ENTERED Kazv in by a gatewaywhich among gateways was a sight to see.

The frame ofwa l l about i t was gai ly facedw i th green and yel low t i les , which a l so

encru sted the stubby pinnacles ri s ing above the wal l oneither s ide . When I looked at those t iles again , i n a moreuncompromis ing l ight , I admit ted to myself t hat I hadseen much better t i les . But the qua in t and decorat iveeffect of them in the twi l ight Should have con soled Madame l

’

Inspect rice for her porcela in pa laces , as t hey mademe forget the loss of Resht . Through that gate we

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KAZV IN

clattered into a long st reet , not quite st ra ight and on lywide enough for two carriages to pass , which was

crowded with st ro l l ing kolas . The lamps had just begunto twink le in the l itt le shops on ei ther side, bring ingout sudden gl int s of meta l , spots of co lour , shining eyes ,shal low port icoes fu l l Of tea drinkers , big a rches leadinginto dark court s , and upper ba lconies where one caughtnow and then the red glow of a pipe . These thingsand many more del ighted me so much that l a t once putup a pet it ion to A l lah the M ercifu l , the Compassionate,to the end that with heaves , glanders , and a l l otherequine i l ls might be smitten the asps of the p ost-houseof Kazvin .

The st reet present ly sp l i t in two in front Of a h igh mudwa l l , rudely crenel lated l ike the wa l l of the c i ty . Thiswe proceeded to ski rt , turn ing fi rst to the right and thento the left , t i l l we came out into such an esp lanade as Ihave seen on ly i n certain grea t western capita l s . Hum

b le New York , at any rate , has never been ab le to t reatherself to such a perspect ive . At the end by whichwe entered it the c rene l lated wal l gave p lace to a monumenta l white a rchway , looking down the lengt h Of theesp lanade towa rd an imposing pa lace at the Oppos it eend . We drove toward it , between l ines of plane t reesand locust t rees st i l l i n t he sere , t he yel low leaf, thatpart ly hid the low houses beh ind them . Arriv ing infront of the pa lace I had t ime to make out between t h epop lars surrounding i t a lower a rcade, an upper logg ia ,and ce rta in fancifu l decorat ions in coloured t i les , beforewe tu rned the corner Of i t . And I was wondering wh et her i t were the governor’ s pa lace or t h e headqua rters ofthe Russian commandant , when we sudden ly d rove

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through an a rch into a b rick cou rt behind it . T his porcel ain palace, if you please , was t he chapar khaneh !

Allah the Mercifu l , the Compass ionate, hea rd my cry .

At the Sah ’

b’

s anx ious inqu iry wi t h rega rd to asps, thenaib solemnly swore he had none . Now th is was a patentand eas i ly refutab le cont ravent ion of the t rut h . At

Kazvin , if anywhere, there a re a lways asps ; for a t t h isha lfway house the Russ ian road forks , one b ranch goingeast to Tehran and one sout h to Hamadan . But by thet ime th e naib got a round to confessing that , upon minutesea rch , t here m ight be found in h is stab les a jade or two ,

j ust returned sta rved and b reat hless from a journey of

many pa rasangs , t he good-natu red Sah’b took p ity on h is

passenger . H e decided that a n ight in a bed m ight not ,after al l , be amiss after two n ights in a berline.

At close qua rters t he porcela in palace looked a l it t leless splend id t han i t fi rst appea red at t he end of it s V istain the Pers ian twi l ight . N evertheless, t he wh ite a rcadeopen ing upon the court , surmoun ted by an upper terrace,wa s h ighly effect ive . W ith in , two spacious brick corridors cut t h rough t he lower floor at right angles . Ananxious underl ing in a long b l ack coat and a tal l b lackkola stepped forward to escort us to our rooms . The

Sah’

b’

s and t he Khanum ’

s wa s perhaps more luxu riouslyfit ted out wit h rugs and sketchy toi let a rrangement s .What m ine lacked in these humb l e conveniences it madeup in it s palat ia l s ize, in its gl impse of t he esplanadeth rough outer a rches and popla rs , and in it s floor Of squaret i les—tu rquoise and dark blue , set ob l iquely to t he l inesof the room . And while I d iscovered to my sorrow thatthe bad Turkish wh ich had proved vaguely inte l l igib le tocertain of t he inhabitants Of Baku and even of Resht

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KAZV IN

produced nothing but b lank looks upon the countenancesof Kazvin , I d id cont rive at last to wa sh off some of thedust Of the Russ ian road into a t in bas in set on a chai r .Having ordered d inner, we took a st rol l i n the now dark

esp lanade . At our end of i t a quant ity of fruit and v egetab le sta l l s were set up under t he plane t rees . Lantern sl ighted the overhanging branches and obscurely madevi s ib le the t iny panes of certa in high windows beh indt hem , and brought a l it t le colour out of py ramid s ofapp les , me lon s , and grapes . The latter d id not lookquite l ike the ones which Si r John Chardin describes asthe fai rest G rape in Pers ia being of a GoldCo lour, t ran sparent and as big as a sma l l Ol ive,

”ofwhich

he further avers t hat t hey a l so make t he st rongest W inein the World , and the most lusc ious .

” But it i s a longt ime s ince the French j ewe l ler of I sfahan saw them ,

andi t was now November . SO we t reated ourselves to a longye l low melon , and after a look at t he ghostly gatewayat the fa rther end Of the esp lanade returned to our inn .

D inner was somewha t p rovis iona l ly served in a bigb rick room ornamented with Russ ian advert isements ofbeer, vodka , and agricu l tu ra l machinery . The tab leware , moreover, was not quite Of pa laces , or even Of thi rdclass hotel s in other part s of t he world . But the feasti t self left nothing to be desi red—o r so it seemed to us,

who had not indulged in what might be ca l led one squaremeal s ince we left our Caspian steamer two days before .And after it I , in spite of my propensity to p rowl inst range town s at n ight , was good for nothing but bed ,

Yet even that n ight was not wi thout it s impressions . For

twice before morn ing was I roused by an ext raord ina ryuproar in the esplanade . I t made itself vague ly known

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th rough my d reams of camel bell s by a w ild clamou r ofpipes, t rumpets , and d rum s , bla ring out someth ing t hatnei ther was nor was not a tune . The fi rst t ime I jumpedup to look out of the w indow, seeing noth ing but a smokyfla re Of torches in the d istance . The second t ime I mere lyturned over in bed, say ing luxuriously to myse lf : Thisi s Pers ia !” St range what w i l l exhila rate or console thehea rt of man ! But I have no idea what i t was . A

wedd ing procession , perhaps? Or one of t hose wonderful

Orchest ral performances , a nakara, that u sed to greet theri sing Of the Pers ian sun— and st i l l may i n some places

,

for aught I know? Or could it have been a dream Of thatp ictu resque orgy wh ich honest George Manwa ring describes in h i s account of t h e meet ing between Abba s t heG reat and Si r Anthony Sherley in 1600? After a banquetin the palace of Kazv in and a fest ivity in the Bazaa r

,

one feature Of which were twenty danc ing gi rl s “very

richly appa rel led , the Pers ian king took the Engl i shadventu rer on hi s a rm and walked in every st reet in

the city,t he twenty women going before, s ing ing and

dancing,and h is nob l emen coming after, wi t h each of

‘

t hem one of our company by the hand , and at every turning t here was variety of mus ic , and lamps hanging on

either s ide of t hei r st reet s of seven height s one aboveanother

,wh ich made a glorious shew .

”

II

The next morn ing was a heavenly one, warm and clea r,t hrowing such a l ight on Kazv in that the Sah ’b—may hi sshadow never grow l ess !—who had known me too longto be ignorant of my s imple curios i ty about the outwardappea rances of l ife and my incu rable habit of carrying a

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PERS I AN M IN IATURES

Great caused to be put to deat h for a too witty poem .

And they say t hat when the I ndian Mogul J ahangi rhea rd about i t he burst into tears, crying out against t hecruelty of the Pers ian Shah, whom he would gladly havepaid for poor M i r l mad h is weight in pearl s ! M any otherrenowned peop le have l ived or died in Kazv in, and famou sEu ropeans not a few have described i t in thei r t ravel s .Whether Ma rco Polo actual ly passed that way in 1 280 Ido not qu ite make out from hi s ent ranc ing book . But

the Spaniard Don Ruy Gonzalez d i Clavijo, who wentto Samarkand on an embassy to Timur in 1404, passedthrough Kazv in . Piet ro del la Va l l e stopped there in1 6 1 8 . The Engl i sh ambassador S i r Dodmore Cottond ied and was buried there in 1628, as h is compan ion Si rT homas Herbert so inimitab ly relates . Si r John Cha rd inSpent fou r months there in 1674 . Master Anthony

J enkin son took up the affa i rs of the Muscovy Companywith T ahmasp Shah in h i s new capita l in 1 562 , fol lowedby Arthur Edwa rds in 1 566 . And during the eighteenthcentu ry E l ton , Hanway, and several other Engl i shmenconnected with the B rit ish Russ i a Company might havebeen seen on that handsome esplanade .

Engl i shmen have always been great t rave l lers andgreat writers Of t ravel s , and so many of t hem have wa lkedthe esplanade Of Kazvin that I cannot beg in to cata loguethe assoc iat ion s i t has wit h men of our race . Whereatlet no American prick up pat riot ic ea rs . For when Si r

Dodmore Cotton , for instance, died i n the c i ty of Tah

masp Shah my own ancestors had not quite made up t hei rminds to move from Old England to N ew England ; sot hat for Si r Dodmore Cotton and hi s contempora ries Ihave quite as close a fe l low fee l ing a s any B riton born .

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KAZV IN

And among those contemporaries , among all the Engl i shmen indeed who have Vi s i ted Kazv in , none makes a morepicturesque figure than that Si r Anthony Sherley ofwhomI just spoke—un less i t be his b rother Si r Robert Sherley .

This S i r Anthony was, I fea r, a sad dog, and one whomight serve to point the moral and adorn the ta le of aGerman h istorian Of the B rit ish Empire . Requi ringhim , however, to adorn my own tal e, 1 shal l take pain s topoint out at once that he was discred ited in h is own day ,which was much less squeamish than ours . And I shal ladd that even in hi s fol l ies he i l lu st rates the d ifferencebetween the gent leman adventurer, that most typica l ofB rit ish product s , and the equal ly characteri st ic Germantype of the secret agent . Si r Anthony was the sc ionof a count ry gent leman of Sussex , Of whom the most thatcan be said i s that he l ived to see hi s three son s ce lebrated ,

in Shakespeare ’ s l ifet ime , in a p lay ca l led“T rav ailes of

the Three Engl ish B rothers , and two of t hem “worn l ikeflowers in the b reasts and bosom s of foreign princes .”

He i s a l so supposed to have suggested to King J ames Ithe idea of creat ing the order of baronets . For the rest ,he wa s most successfu l in gett ing h imse lf into debt . Thist ra it was inherited in a conspicuous degree by the youngAnthony . The latter went to Oxford long enough toacqui re the ornament s of a gent leman , and then Openedthe chapter of hi s adventures by accompany ing the Earlof Leicester to the Low Count ries in that campa ign of1 586 which cost S ir Ph il ip S idney h is l ife . I n 1 59 1 , goingwith Essex to the wars in France , Sherley got h imselfdecorated for bravery by Henri IV— to the fury ofQueenE l izabeth , who cried :

“ I wi l l not have my sheep markedby a st range b rand , nor suffer them to fol low the pipe of a

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

fore ign shepherd ! This scrape and h i s ma rriage goth im into so much t rouble that in 1 596 he sought peace onthe high seas , set t ing forth with a sma l l fleet of six vessel sto capture from the Portuguese the island of Sao T homé ,in the Gulf of Guinea . Having raided t he town of Sant iago, in the Cape Verde I slands , he dec ided that theWest I nd ies offered a more p rom i sing field for his worthyendeavou rs t han the Gu l f of Guinea , and he descendedin turn on Dom in ica , Ma rgarita , Santa Ma rta , and

Jamaican wit h l i tt l e p rofit to the inhab itant s and not

much more to h im se lf. Be ing deserted at H avana byh is compan ions , he returned to England and engaged in ab rief privateering cru ise wit h h is pat ron E ssex . Thelatter then sent h im to I taly to help Don Cesa re d’

Este

gain the Dukedom of Ferra ra . But th is matter hadbeen sett led by the Pope before Sherley a rrived on the

scene . Our d i sappointed gentleman adventurer t hereforecon soled h imself for a t ime by seeing the sight s of

Ven ice .

I t wa s t here that his thought s were fi rst turned towa rdPers ia , by the merchant s and t ravel lers whom he met onthe Ria l to . Thei r accounts of t he magnificence andl iberal ity of Shah Abbas the G reat so excited Sherley ’s

s ixteenth-century imaginat ion t hat noth ing would do

but he must go there h imself. T o t hat end he gave outthat Essex had sent h im to make an al l iance wit h theShah aga inst t he Turks . And in 1 599 he emba rked atVen ice with h is younger b rother Robert and some twentyfi v e Engl i sh compan ions , together with an inte rp reter hehad picked up in Ven ice , a great t ravel ler newly comefrom the Sophy

’

s cou rt , whose name was Ange lo , born inTu rkey, but a good Christ ian , who had t ravelled s ixteen

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KAZV I N

yea rs , and did speak twenty-four kinds of languages .I know those good Christ ians !Of the many st range things which befel l t h i s self

appointed embassy I cannot begin to speak . They wereshipwrecked and shanghaied . They were robbed andimprisoned . They made t he acqua intance of

“a certain kind of drink which they cal l coffee : i t is made of anI ta l ian seed ; they drink i t ext reme hot ; i t i s nothing toothsome , nor hath any good sme l l , but it is very wholesome .

”

They borrowed good ly sums from the factors Of the LevantCompany in Constant inople and Aleppo and from aFlorent ine in Baby lon ,

” as our forefathers cal led Baghdad . Then passing t hrough Curd ia , a very thiev ishand brut ish count rie , t hey at last a rrived in Kazv in .

Abbas happened to be away on some mi l ita ry expedit ion ,but Sherley was handsomely received by “ the Lord Stew

a rd and offered , in t he manner Of the t ime, £20 a dayfor his maintenance . When th is sum was fi rst brought

him , Sherley magnificently pushed it aside with h is foo t ,say ing : Know this , b rave Persian , I come not a-beggingto the King, but hea ring of his great favour and worth iness , thought I could not spend my t ime better than cometo see him , and kiss h is hand , with the adventure of mybody to second him i n h is p rince ly wars . Which did

not prevent b rave Anthony from later accept ing from theShah a l l manner of sp lend id gift s , including

“ very fa i recrewel carpets .”

When Abbas returned to Kazvin , Sherley and h i s company went out to meet h im , a s the Persian custom i sFi rst

,Si r Anthony h imself in rich cloth of gold , h is

gown and h i s undercoat ; hi s sword hanging on a richscarf to the wort h of a thousand pounds , being set with

S I

PERS IAN M IN IATURES

pea rl and diamonds ; and on h is head a tu l ipant according,

” —i. e. a tu rban to t he wort h of two hundredpounds , his boot s embro idered w i t h pearl and rub ies ;his b rother M r . Robert Sherley, l ikewi se in cloth of gold ,h is gown and h is undercoat , wit h a rich tul ipant on h ishead ; h is interpreter, Angelo, in cloth of s i lver, gown andundercoat ; four in cloth of s i lver gowns , wi th undercoat sof s i lk damask ; four in crimson velvet gowns, wit h damaskundercoat s ; fou r in blue damask gown s , wit h taffetyundercoat s ; four in yel low damask, w it h thei r undercoat sof a Pers ian stuff ; h i s page in c loth of gold ; h is four footmen in ca rnat ion taffety . Wa s not that a s ight to see?

There wa s l ikewi se someth ing to see when Abbas made h isstat e ent ry, preceded by twelve hundred men bea ringhuman heads on t he point s of thei r p ikes . Some a l sowore necklaces of ears , wh i le others played on t rumpet s

two and a ha lf yards long . And the Shah lost no t ime inshowing h i s Engl i sh vi s i tors thei r fi rst game of P010

played , I bel ieve, on the esp lanade . Si r Stanley Maude ’ s

officers perhaps lost a s l it t le t ime after the i r t riumpha lent ry into Baghdad in play ing a Polo match ; but a groundfor th is old Persian game was fi rst l a id out t here by theCal iph H a run al Rash id in the eighth century .

S ir Anthony was wel l born , and he must have been wel lmade and wel l spoken , to have induced so many of thegreat Of t he ea rt h to lend him money and send h im on

wi ld goose chases . Abbas was apparently enchanted w i thh im . H e gave h im a written charter grant ing all Christ ian merchant s in perpetu ity the right to t rade in Pers ia ,together with freedom from customs and rel igious l iberty .

And five month s after h is a rrival Sherley got h imse lfsent back to Eu rope on an embassy from the Shah , ap

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pointed to t reat concern ing that famou s al l iance again stthe Turks . I n Moscow, where Sherley went fi rst , he wasbad ly received by Boris Godunov . But this i s not thep lace to recount the long story of h is other adventures .For I regret to state tha t he never returned to Pers ia orsent the Shah any report of h i s embassy . This was perhaps because he had been disavowed at home, where henever returned either. He cont inued to wander a roundEurope in pursuit ofpat ron s and grandiose schemes againstthe Turks unt i l , poor, garru lous , conceited, and discred ited ,he d ied in Spain in 1 635.

When S i r Anthony went away on hi s miss ion for Abba sthe Great , he left h i s younger brother Robert beh ind himas a hostage, Abbas promis ing

“ that he wou ld use him

as h is own son, and that he shou ld never want , so longas he was king of Pers ia . When two years had passedby , and no word had come from the faith less Si r Anthony ,

the Shah began to look askance at Robert . But the

young Engl ishman , then no more than twenty- two or

three, proved h is own fide l ity by fight ing for the Pers iansagainst the Turks . For th is service he was given a h ighcommand , and seems to have undertaken to reorgan isethe army, espec ia l ly in the matter Of art i l lery . Abbas

further showed him hi s favour by renewing the charter ofre l igious l iberty fi rs t given Si r Anthony , by issuing anedict of a more sub stant ial kind , declaring t hat

“ thi s

man ’s b read i s baked for s ixty years ,” and by present ing

Sherley with a C i rcass ian wife , a re lat ive Of one of hi s own .

And in 1608 the Shah sent young Sherley in turn on anembassy to Europe , which was so much more successfulthan the other that Si r Robert tu rned up again in 16 1 5.

The C i rcassian lady accompan ied h im on th i s exped it ion

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and both of t hem at t racted the greatest attent ion wh erever they went , a s Sherley, in his character Of Pers ianenvoy, always d ressed in the Pers ian manner and on lycon sented to remove h i s turban in the p resence of h isown rightful sovereign K ing J ames I . But he does notseem to have accomp l ished anyth ing very defin ite, evenin England , where the Levant merchants obj ected to amercant il e t reaty w ith Persia , on the ground that it wouldspoi l thei r p rofi tab le Turki sh t rade .

At the end of 1 6 1 5 Abbas sent Sherley ab road aga in .

The most apparent resu l t s of th i s second embassy werethat Sherley and hi s wife got t hemselves pa inted in Romeby Van Dyck . Those port ra it s were long vis ible a t Petworth , and perhap s a re yet . The miss ionwas b rought toan end in 1625 by the appearance in Engl and of anotherambassador from Abbas Shah , a Persian , who pronouncedSherley an impostor and st ruck h im in the face when firstthey met . What in th is cloudy affai r mil i tated mostact ively against Sherl ey, in the minds of h is count rymen ,was that he did not st rike back ! As t here was no one inEngland competent to pass on the authent icity of Sher

ley ’ s c redent ia l s , and as he ins isted on h is own good fa ith ,K ing Charles I appointed Si r Dodmore Cotton as envoyto Abbas Shah and sent the th ree ambassadors packing

to Pers ia—Sherley and the Pers ian refus ing to t ravel inthe same sh ip . And when they a rrived in I nd ia in 1 627

the latter committed suic ide, thereby prov ing to h isEngl i sh compan ions t hat he dared not face t he Shah inthei r company .

The Shah , for that matter, when they finally found h imin h is summer palace of Ashraf, north of the E lbu rz , confi rmed Cotton in t h is Op in ion by the friendl iness of his

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Hee was the greatest t rave l ler in h is t ime,and no man

had eaten more sal t then he, none had more relish t t hemutab il it ies of Fortune . He had a heart as free as anyman : h is pat ience was more Ph ilosoph icall t han h is lntellect , having smal l acqua intance with the Muses : manyC i t ies he saw, many hil l s climb

’

d over, and tasted ofmanysev erall waters ; yet Athens , Parnassus , Hippocrene werest rangers to h im , h i s Not ion p rompted h im to other em

p loyment s : by Rodulph the Second hee wa s created aPa lat ine of t he Emp i re ; and by Pope Paul 3 . an Earle of

the sacred Pallace of Lateran ; from whom he had powerto legit imate the I nd ian s ; and from the Pers ian Mon

a rch had enrich t h imselfe by many merit ing servicesbut obta ined l east (as Scip io, Caesar, Belisarius, &c .)when he best deserved and most expected i t . Ranck mewit h those that honour h im .

”

As soon as I saw the esplanade aga in , the Meidan-i-Shahas the Pers ians ca l l it , by sunl ight , I at once made up mymind—as I have s imilarly done a hundred t imes beforethat noth ing would please me more than to spend therest of my days in Kazvin . Other esplanades , to be sure,may be carried out with a more grandiose perfect ion of

deta i l . Yet i t had never before been given me to beholdan esplanade where st rings of camel s ma rched , perfect lyat home, between yel lowing plane t rees , or under loggiaswit h qu ite such an accent Of slenderness and height .And the monumental t riple wh ite gat eway at the fa rtherend wa s real ly perfect of i t s k ind . This Ali Kapu or

Sub l ime Porte of Kazvin i s al l that remains of the oldpalace of t he Safev is, wh ich Chard in says was buil t by

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Tahmasp Shah on the p lans Of a Turkish a rch itect , andenlarged by Abbas the G reat . The doorway stands in asquare white frame , ta l ler than the wings on either s ide,recessed in a pointed arch and set off with a l it t le b luet i l ing . No wonder George Manwa ring, one of Si r Ant hony Sherley

’

s company, t hought those t iles more p recious than they are, and described them as

“rich stones verybright , the l ike I th ink the world cannot affoord ' What

gives i t s part icula r a i r, however, i s t he sta lact ite groin ingof the recess , and a pointed window over the door, fi l ledwith an int ricate gri l le of plaster . And on either s ide ofi t a re two smal ler a rches , set one above the other, t he lowera plain white ogive , the upper a l a rger ogive of stalact ites,forming a rai led balcony or logg ia , in t he back ofwhich adoor correspond s to the great window of the cent ra l a rch .

Seen in it s perspect ive of plane t rees , with t he standardof the Lion and the Sun float ing above i t, t he gateway produces an indescribab le effect of st rangeness and dign ity .

Over the door, according to Chardin , is written : May

th is t riumphant gate be always open to good fortune,

by v i rtue Of t he '

confession we make, that there i s no godbut God.

” I t opens , now, upon the headquarters of theSwedish gendarmerie !There were other doorways to be seen in the esplanade ,beh ind the t rees , decorated with b ricks and t i les in aninterest ing way . And I was st ruck by a stone headstuck in the upper corn ice of a house , set Off by a pai r ofhorns . But what p resent ly began to int rigue me beyondendurance was a green dome I could see above the housetops , whi le fa rther away were the tops of two b lue minaret s . I therefore set out i n t he southwesterly di rect ionin wh ich I saw them , and very soon lost myse lf in a maze

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of s ilent st reet s whose mud wa l l s were too h igh andtoo c lose together for me to catch sight again of thattantal is ing green dome . I did d i scover, however, anynumber of admirab l e doorways , recessed in pointedarches of b rick and set about with co loured t iles—genera l ly very bad ones , t rut h compel s me to add . The doorsthemselves were low and heavy , adorned with a fan

tast ic variety of knobs , c lamp s , locks , and knockers . I

al so passed several dark a rches from which steps or inclined planes led down into the bowels of the ea rth ;and out of them men staggered with d ripp ing goat skinsof water . Some of t hese a rches were very decorat iveindeed with t i les and stalact it e vau l t ing, and perhapsan inscript ion of t i l e, or cut in pa le stone, set abovethem .

And I d id come at l ast upon those two b l ue minaret s .They were not t rue minaret s , being l it t l e turret s with acovered logg ia at the top ; for the Pers ian muezz in s , unl ike thei r Turk ish cous in s , cal l to p rayer from the roofsof the i r mosques . Th is mosque l ay so successful ly h iddenbeh ind ru inous mud wa l l s t hat I could catch only agl impse of it from the rea r . But that was where it s grea tb lue dome was best to be seen , crowned by a second t inydome

, set l ike a c losed bud on the sta lk of a high drum .

Th is must have been one of the domes that caught myeye from the pla in . Wha t I had not dist inguished thenwas that among it s tu rquoi se t iles were set sma l ler greenand ye l low ones , making a sp i ral pattern that waved upfrom a richly decorated ba se . I would have l iked to th inkthat th is was the masjid—i-juma which H a run al Rash idleft Baghdad long enough to bui ld . None of t he booksI have read about Kazv in , however, give me much en

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couragement for think ing so—o r even that it was themasjid-i-shah begun by I smai l Shah , finished by Tahmasp , and restored by Agha Mohammed and Fat

’h A l iShah , founders of the reigning Kaj a r dynasty . Thesebooks of t ravel are all very we l l ; but thei r writers ra relystay long enough in one p lace, or know enough of thelanguage, to be sat isfactory !The other blue dome I final ly found front ing a great

space of sun on the south s ide of the town . I t be longed ,the dome , to a st ructure wh ich I do not too confident lyname ; for so recent and magnificent ly pub l i shed an au

t hority as M . Hen ri René d’

Allemagne ident ifies it , as Imake out , with the masjid- i-shah . Whereas a passerbyof wh om I stammered inquiry in the matter made somereply about Prince Hosein . And in fact there is in Kazvinan Imamzadeh Hosein , the tomb of a two-year-Old '

son

of the I mam Riza whose mausoleum in Meshed is themost sacred place in Pers ia . That th is build ing was atomb rather than a mosque seemed further to be indicatedby the ci rcumstance that the Open space in front of i twas a cemetery . The ground was all st rewn w ith flat

and faint ly sculptured stones l ike that , with no rai l ort ree to guard t hem . On the SIde facing the great mausoleum were two lesser ones , as I judged—low, flat - roofedst ructures with pointed brick domes too sma l l for them ,

thei r facades b ri l l iant ly t iled and contain ing ogival windows darkly screened by gril les in a wheel des ign Of

weathered wood . And besides the mausoleum , in the

crene l lated mud wal l of the c i ty, was another t iled gateway, l ike the one by which we had entered the n ightbefore . I went out of i t for a glance at the rear of themausoleum . I t was b roken , I found , by five deep white

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pointed recesses of sta lact ites, each looking a t a differentangle across the p la in .

But I have not spoken of t he facade, wh ich cons isted oft hree great t i led a rches, the ogival recess in the cent rebeing higher than the other two , surmounted by six t i ledpinnacles . And beh ind them rose the pointed dome, ofthat form made fam i l iar to al l the world by the p ictures ofthe Taj Mahal , blue a s a t urquoi se and l ightly decoratedl ike the dome of my nameless mosque with wav ing spi ral sOf green . What lay between I do not know . I had beenwa rned not to pass t he porta l . The Pers ian s, while lessst rict than the Turks in many respect s , a re more st rictin not al lowing Christ ians to defi l e t he i r holy places . SO

I stood outside in the sun and t hought I had never seenanyth ing quite so j ewel- l ike . I f I had known the splendours of Cai ro and I sfahan I might have been less moved .

I remembered , too , t hat Pisa has something to Show in the

way of a sunl it place by a c ity wa l l . But in thei r dustyplace without t rees, in thei r tawny sett ing, in thei r untempered l ight , those t i les were l ike some fabulous andforb idden efflorescence of that l ion-coloured land.

The Sah ’b and the Khanum—may thei r shadows nevergrow less !—c h ided me not for my long ab sence . Theyeven a l lowed me to loiter in that inv it ing st reet by whichwe had entered Kazv in while they acqui red pistachionuts

,wh ich a re one Of the spec ial t ies of the town , together

wi th other th ings good to munch out of a bag whi le ones it s in a berline and post-houses a re fa r away . I n thedayt ime, i t i s t rue, t hat s t reet took on a semi- Europeani l ed aspect from it s Russ ian and Armenian s igns . TheSah ’b

,being a man of tongues, even encountered a cast

away Greek, who first nearly d ied of joy at the unaccus

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tomed sound of h is own l anguage and then was readyto d ie of despai r because the Sah ’b had no t ime to gossipover a glass of mast ic . There were al so big Cossacksdoing pol ice duty, a rmed with bayonet and sab re . How

ever,Kazv in wi l l st i l l t ake a deal of Russ ian is ing, as I

saw for myself in the pot- shops I looked into the sweetshops of unimaginab le daint ies, t he glit termg coppershops

,the smithies fu l l of the acrid sme l l of a forge . I

poked my 1nqu1 51 t 1 v e nose, too , in to more than one a rchway

,coming once upon a c i rcl e of camel s chewing the

cud of b it terness in a ga l leried court , and again upon anovel process of rope-making, carried on between twowheeled cont rapt ion s in a bigger court of t rees . What Il iked best about that di scovery, t hough , was the grea tt i led doorway at the farther end , and the u lt imate pointedwindow whose gri l le let a l i t t le dusty l ight into t he intermediate darkness .I was not the one to complain when , in the berline again ,

we locked whee l s with a gharry and had to be ext ricatedby a Cossack a s pol it e as he was tal l . However, there is

an end to al l th ings . Al l too soon t he Cossack , who wasa l it t le less pol it e to the driver of the gharry than he wasto us, took away our l ast excuse for rema in ing in Kazvin ,and we clat tered out of the porcela in city gate .

6 1

THE COUNTRY OF TH E S KY

A journey is a portion of hell.—ARAB IC PROVERB

Hey diddle, diddle, my son j ohn !One shoe off and one shoe on

—MOTHER GOOSE

ROM t h e Resht road we b ranched Off t h rough asuburb of adobe wa l l s and fruit t rees not yetba re , across a dry gu l ly l ike a Sici l ian fiumara,

past t he scal loped mud batt lement s that lookedas if Kazv in lay in no great fea r of enemies, away fromthe two tu rquoise domes gl i t t ering behind them , into

the empty p lain . I t s lanted up a l i t t le toward a companyof hi l locks that huddled under a fa r white semic i rc le ofmounta ins to t he southwest . As we made for them ash rewi sh wind that is a special ty Of th is plateau caughtus in the back , n ipping the I nd ian Summer softness outof t he a i r and remind ing us, l ike t hose sha rp snOWpeak s,

that winter was at hand . The mu le t ra in s we met wereanother reminder, for every pack animal carried a snowshovel or two .

For t he rest , t here was much less to see than duringthe fi rst ha lf of our jou rney . The t raffic of the Russ ianroad div ides after it get s t h rough the E lburz passes , andthe ca ravan s bound for Hamadan or Baghdad often find

‘

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But the sun made us no ceremon ies to-n ight . H e did notret i re slowly, gracious ly , with the l ingering fa rewel l smi leof yesterday . H e ab ruptly d i sappeared , from one mo

ment to another, as if s lamm ing the door of t he west b eh ind h im upon a land as b leak and ba rren a s the dark 0’

t he moon . And in the cheerless tw i l ight we seesawed upand down towa rd a ghost l ike barrier that towered betweenus and the sout h .

About n ine o ’clock we reached a ch i l ly place of the comfort ing name of Ab -i-Germ , or Hot Water— from certa in mineral springs that are a place of resort for rheumat icPers ians . The post-house looked very cosy, too , w it h i t sl ight s and gay rugs . But the naib, dece itful man , hadno hot water at all . Wh ich was so reprehen s ible in anaib l iv ing at Ab -i—Germ that we refused to wa i t t ill hel ighted a fi re and put h is ket t le on, tel l ing h im to tele

phone ahead to the next stat ion to have a samova r readyfor us. SO i t was midnight before we tumb led out at

Aveh , very cold and sleepy, for a belated tea . After thatwe seriously began to cl imb again , up and up betweenspect ra l height s , i n the hearing of inv is ible water, to

ward snapping st ars . There even began to be a pal lorof snow bes ide u s , so that my compan ions speculated al it t le as to what might happen at the top of Sul tan Bulaghpass . They knew it Of old, having once or twice stuckthere in a d rift . And they told me that the post i s somet imes held up there for weeks at a t ime . For the top of

that pass is not fa r from feet above the Caspian .

But what happened wa s t hat I , who had never soa red so

near the other world , and who might not have been inthe best cond it ion after th ree days Of almost cont inuousjounc ing in an ant ique berline, d isgraced myself by fal l ing

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TH E COUNTRY OF THE S KY

faint and having to be laid out in the snow beside theroad with the Sah ’

b’

s pocket flask . And the rest of then ight I fi l led the berline with ignob le snores , all uncon

sc ious of the wi ld shapes and astound ing stars Of thatcount ry of t he sky .

I t was upon a new heaven and a new earth that I Openedmy eyes next morn ing, when we drew up at t he secondstat ion south of the pass . Si rab was the name of thatpost-house , which I be l ieve means M irage . Being somewhat subject to mirages myse lf, i t may have been myimaginat ion that added a pu ri ty to the ai r, deepened t heb lue of the fleck less sky , warmed the long- broken s lopein front of us with a secret gold . But th is land wascert ain ly much nearer heaven than the one we had left ,and con s iderab ly farther south —about as fa r as Gibralta ror Cape Hatteras . And it i s not every day that one seesfor the fi rst t ime the sun of the Fi re Worsh ippers ri seover the rim of the Pers ian desert . However, as I tookin th is not altogether object ive phenomenon I could makeout that i t was re lated to the b ru sque sunset of the evening before . The sky brightened , palpitated ; the edge ofthe desert sudden ly flashed into incandescence ; t he incandescence boi led and grew tumid t i l l a bubble of intolerab le gold surged clea r of the pla in : no moods , no glamours , none of t hat se lf-consc ious inflammation of nature

which attends the b reaking or the fading of the l ight inmore temperamenta l cl imates . It was l ike the solut ionof a p rob lem by an inte l lectua l mind , rather than anyin spirat ion of romance or despai r . And the look of the

count ry cont ributed to th i s effect , with its long, s imp le ,abstract l ines , of a beauty ent i re ly different from that of aland of t rees .

PERS IAN M IN IATURES

When I set about ass i st ing at th is spectac le more ful lythan wa s possib le ins ide a closed landau , and to that endhunted for my shoes, I cou ld find no more than one of

them . Nor could anybody el se . Wherea t the d readt ruth bu rst upon me that the other must have fal len outby the ways ide, who knew how many pa rasangs back

,

during my hum i l iat ing perfo rmances on top of the pass .“ Look here,

” I a sked the Sah ’b ;“When sha l l I see

my t runks aga in ?Oh , in about two months , answered the Sah ’b

pleasantly— “if t hey don ’ t get stuck in the snow .

”

“ Can one buy shoes in Hamadan ? ” pu rsued I da rk ly .

Very n ice ones ,” he rep l ied red , ye l low, pu rple ,

even b right green , and curly about the toes .”

“The devil !” I burst out , very inappropriately for theholy Sabbath .

“ I ’ve got noth ing with me but a pai r ofpatent leather pumps !

“Never m ind ,” the Khanum consoled me .

“ I ’ l l lend

you those new arct ics I bought in Baku .

Such is Pers ia ! However, I soon forgot my sorrows inanother aspect Of Pers ia that p resented itself to our View

as we rat t led merrily southward under the mount ingsun . This was a success ion of block- houses , squa re mudtowers wi th loop-holed roofs , each one standing in s ightof t he next and somehow g iv ing , in spite of the te lephonewi res sagging between them , the d ist inctest of impres

s ions that we had cont r ived to d rop back from the twent iet h centu ry i nto t he th i rteenth . Out of a loop-holewou ld be st icking a rifle or a Russian- looking lamb ’s

wool cap—be longing , neverthe less , to a Persian gendarrnewho does h is best to d isc red it Morier’ s famous quotat ion :“O Al lah , Al lah , if there was no dy ing in the case , how

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TH E COUNTRY OF TH E S KY

the Persians would fight !” I t was to assist in this worthyendeavour that my monoc led Swedish friend had t rave l leddown the B lack Sea in my steamer chai r . I ought tohave been the more wi l l ing to lend it to h im because myfe l low-count ryman M r . Shuster had been the occasion ofhi s going out to Pers ia . And that he might find some

thing to do the Sah ’b made the c lea rer to me by point ingout a l ine of low hi l l s at our right and te l l ing me about aRobin Hood Of the region , named after the uncle of t heProphet , Abbas , who not so many month s before hadpounced out of those h i l l s upon a messenger of the lmperia l Bank of Pers ia , rel ieving h im of the t idy sum of

tomans .

After that I rega rded b lock-houses , loop-holes , and thet rim b lue genda rmes we met pat ro l l ing the road , withmore interest than ever, to say nothing of t he barrenlandscape around them . But nothing more sta rt l ingdid we see than certain great patches of bl ind ing whitein the ruddy dun colour of the p lain s , which gave one anexcel lent idea of what a sa l t desert must look l ike . I ndeedthe greater pa rt of the count ry was no better than a desert , without a house, a t ree , or a st ream to see. Whatbegan to grow more and more Vi s ible in front of us wa s atal l

,toothed silver mounta in . And that , I lea rned , was

Mt . E lvend , guardian of Hamadan and neighbour of

that new house toward which we had been hurry ing .

Of Hamadan itself, however, there was a s yet no s ign .

Nor was there any t i l l after we had passed , at noon , thelast post stat ion of Ag Bu lagh . Then I d iscovered apeasant or two d riv ing across the desert on a log of wood ,ha rnessed to a minute ox . Although I was not a l it t lea ston ished to find out that the peasant was ha rrowing a

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field , I was st i l l more aston i shed to note that the ox hadno hump . Those I nd ian- looking cat t le all belong tothe north s ide of E lburz— unle ss there be more Of them inthe ext reme east and south of Persia . We al so began toencounter tea houses once more , cub ical ones Of pinkyyel low mud , whose cl ient s seemed not so busy sippingthe glass that cheers a s pursu ing that more int imate ocen

pat ion wh ich the Khanum dignified’

wit h the t it le of

The Chase . He that hath ears to hea r, let h im hear ! Ihave witnessed The Chase in the land where the c i t ronblooms , but never have I seen i t so popu lar, so pass ionate, Or fol lowed with so l it t l e fal se modesty , as in Persia .

A Vil lage or two from which these hunt smen came werevisible in the d istance , too much the colour of t he count ryto be very conspicuous , but ma rked by prickly plantat ion s of poplars . And two huntsmen of a more p icturesque sort kept us company for part of t he way intotown . One of them was a swarthy young man on a

fiery stal l ion , who looked as if he might very we l l be anat ive of that vi l lage the Sah ’b told me about , not fa raway

,t he inhabitant s whereof, unt i l discouraged by the

genda rmes , used to make a hand some l iv ing by standingon a certa in b ridge of t he Russian road and tu rn ing outthe pockets of t ravel le rs . Eve ry now and then he wouldda rt off across the field s, standing in h is st i rrups anda iming hi s gun beh ind h im a s if to prove t hat the t radit ionOf the Parth ian shot i s not yet dead in Pers ia . Upon theSah ’b asking him what he would take for h i s horse, herep l ied magn ificently : I t i s yours”—and gal loped Offagain . H i s Older compan ion rode a sorrier steed , hislegs thrust into a couple of sadd lebags . Bu t such saddlebags , woven in the manner of fine rugs !

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This part of the t i lted p lateau was much broken byhil locks , some of them so sma l l and so regula r in shapethat they had rather the ai r of the tumu l i of Thrace .

They rather tempted one, too, to remember that Pers ianshad passed through that corner of the world , and G reeksthrough thi s—unt i l they sudden ly parted , to let us downinto a wide dip beyond . But what they rea l ly did wasto t reat me , for one, to that rare enough experience , asen sat ion . For the farther slope of the b road ho l low intowhich we began to coast ended in the snow of E lvend ,seven thousand feet above our head s , though nearlyth i rteen thousand feet in the Pers ian b lue . T he toothedrange that wore the snow was of a ruddy purp le in theb ri l l iant afternoon l ight , curv ing nob ly south and east ina great amphitheat re about more of a forest than I hadseen since tu rn ing the corner of J am shidabad . The t rees

of th is forest were prevalent ly poplars , slim and bare asmasts . And between them looked out t ie r on t ie r of

flat adobe roofs , honey-coloured in the St . Mart in’s

sun, not unsuggest ive indeed of a wi ld honeycomb . Ori t might be a wasps’ nest , pla stered on the lower butt resses of E lvend . Who knew? I had heard manysavage things spoken of Hamadan . Nor was there anysign of tu rquoise domes . But if a town is capab le ofperch ing i tself in such an amph itheat re as that , t houghtI , i t can very wel l do without turquoise domes .Traffic mult ipl ied a s we t rot ted on . Mud wal l s and

orcha rds , nakeder than those Of Kazv in , began to borderthe road . Presently fou r demure young men in long blackcoats and short b lack caps waylaid the berline and profferred the Sah ’b and the Khanum an e loquent Orienta lwe lcome in a French of surpris ing fluency . T hen a

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cava lcade of t h ree n ice- looking young Europeans , anEngl ishman , a Frenchman , and a Swiss , fol lowed by th reePers ian grooms , cantered up to meet us . No : I made up

my mind then and there that H amadan was not a wasps ’

nest ! Thus at tended we splashed through a shal lowst ream , lu rched uphil l into t ipsy a l leys of mud hovelswhere I not iced one or two bui l t- in b it s of Sa racen iclooking sculptu re . At last , having mounted a half moonto t he top of the town , we drove down a l ane between ah igh adobe wall and a wil low-bordered field , pa ssed afew tal l b rick gateways , and stopped at one more .

And so: w it h one foot in my own American shoe andone i n a Russ ian snow-boot of the Khanum ’

s , did I make

my ent rance into the hospi tab le Swiss bungalow whereI spent my fi rst n ight in H amadan .

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mounta in s to t he c ity . I t amuses me the more becausethe ri te Of going down town is associated in my m ind withboats, t ra ins , t rams , tunnel s , and other devices of t heWest for cheat ing t ime . Whereas in Hamadan t imeclaims h is ful l clue . T o go down town , or to go to theBazaa r, as we say here, you may if you choose mount ahorse . You may not , however, ca l l a carriage . The

st reet s a re too na rrow to drive in . The Sah ’b and I ,accordingly, walk . And so do most of t he fifty or s ixtythousand other Hamadanis. I f the resul t s of th is wholesome exerc ise be not very favourable to the sh ine of ourshoes or t he crease of our t rou sers , i t at least gives us abet ter chance to see how l i t t le there i s to see .

The road out s ide our gate i s at fi rst a muddy count rylane, enl ivened by t rees and a m in iatu re b rook that cannever make up thei r minds wh ich s ide to run. Present lythe t rees give i t up , yield ing t hei r place to two b lank mudwalls . As for the b rook , i t dec ides to take the middle ofthe st reet , ferry ing dead l eaves , on ion peel s , and moreequiv ocal rel ics to the unknown dest inat ion to which itfinal ly van ishes under a wall . And i t does not take melong to make out that the charm s of H amadan a re notfor the nost ri l . Was that what the more in it iated poetwhose d ist ich I have put at the head of th is chapter wasth inking about ? Mr . Cl inton Scol la rd might th ink so,

or my Belg ian lady . Yet it occu rs to me tha t such a person as the late M . Cézanne , for example, m ight note w it hout disfavour the none too geomet ric l ine in wh ich thatd i rty water flashes down the st reet , the inequal it ies oftone and su rface in the i rregula r mudwal l s on e i ther s ide,the cont rast of thei r tawniness w i th the b ri l l iant st ripof b lue overhead . I can also imagine a celeb rated cit i

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HAMADAN STRE ET

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zen Of Lowel l , Massachusetts, finding subj ects to etch int hese crooked perspect ives , in the shops that occas ional lyb reak t hem with b road , overshadowing canop ies of driedmud , propped up on l ean ing popla r poles ; in the roughb lack arches th rough wh ich an al ley w i l l sudden ly plungeout of s ight ; in the fl imsy balcon ies that give an accenta l l t hei r own to a b l ind mud wa l l , or t he ra re windowstha t p ierce i t , h igh above the ground , fi l led with an infinityof l it t l e panes . But who , without gloss ing or vi l ify ing

,

could evoke the t rue mud and cobb lestones underfoot ,the exact key of clear colour overhead the comp l icatedva riat ion of smel l s about one st rong acrid theme of burning camel dung?The most a rch itectura l feature of these twist ing cracks

of sun and shade a re the doorways . Some of t hem , in

deed , ba r the st reet it se lf, shutt ing off qua rter fromquarter at n ight or in t imes of disturbance . None ofthem can compa re wit h the Sub l ime Porte of Kazvin ,but al l Of them make a welcome b reak in the monotonyof t he endless mud walls and most of t hem a re more imposing than the common run of st reet doors in Europe orAmerica . A gateway, the Sah

’b tel l s me, i s the indexof a man ’s importance in the world . And t he humil ityof h i s own, together with the lack Of any yawn ing underl ing especial ly deputed to gua rd it , is what Hamadanfinds not least aston i sh ing about our new house .

Bes ide one low, heavy door, Open upon darkness , quaintl ife- s ized figures are frescoed : t he S ign of a pub l ic bath .

Other signs a re the st riped towel s hanging out to d ry inthe l itt le square where th ree st reet s come together, thebu l l s ’ eyes of green ish gl ass in the mud domes of t he roof,and a new smel l . At any rate , i t seems that Pers ian baths,

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un l ike Turkish ones , contain a cent ra l pool , appropriate lynamed the t reasury , and that the water of t his t reasury i schanged as se ldom as may be ! This news enab les me tobea r with better equanimity the further news that Ishal l never be a l lowed here , as I have been in Stambu l ,to po l lute the interior of a bath with my presence .

The peop le we meet a l l look more al ike than the peop le of any p lace I have seen for a long t ime . There isl i tt le of the colour I had expected— save when a companyof mosst roopers clat ters by on horseback , led by a fant ast ic ind iv idua l in a tun ic of peacock green velvet . H i ssadd le i s covered wit h a latt ice-work of magenta brocade on white , and a l l of t hem ratt le with weapon s out ofa museum . Otherwi se everybody dresses very soberly ,t he men oftener than not in a loose b rown cloak ca l ledan aba and a brown fe l t auk ’ s egg, the women swathedfrom top to toe in a black or dark blue chader . I t i s impossib le to tel l one from another when thei r th ick whiteVei l s are down . These have an Odd t riangu lar effect ,being fastened around the crown of thei r heads with ajewe l led clasp at the back , and d isappearing In front

under the dark domino . But I not ice that they l ike tothrow thei r veil s back when none of thei r own men arenear . The consequent revelat ion of long black eyes andh igh , pink cheek-bones is not too upsett ing ! I n fact , t hemen st rike me as handsomer than the women . There

a re many bare legs and feet— too many to be comfortab le,I am afra id , at feet above the sea a round Thanksg iv ing t ime . Yet one youngster pat ters after us starknaked , apparent ly less sorry for h im self than he wouldhave us be l ieve . He be longs to the great a rmy of beggarsthat l ie in wait at st rategic corners or fo l low one with

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hand out st retched , making piteous outcries which arefu l l of t he word khoda, God. They a re a di st ress ing spectac le, with thei r th in rags , thei r h ideous deformit ies, thei remaciated babies . However, you learn the more wi l lingly how to put them off with a pha risa ic God be yourkeeper !” when you catch one l aughing gai ly with herneighbour and t hen burst ing into dolorous sobs at s ightof you.

Final ly we reach the t rue boundary of t he Bazaar,which is t he river. I am wi l l ing to take Prof. W i ll iam s J ackson ’ s word for it t hat th i s river is t he Alusjird,

t hough I never came across any one else who had so

defin ite a name for i t . ~ I wou ld be les s wil l ing to acceptthe p icture of i t wh ich Prof . Wi l l iam s J ackson and Colonel Sykes have borrowed from an o ld French t ravellerby the name of Eugene Flandin if I d id not happen to

remember the Envoi of “The Seven Seas , how Kipl ing

says :

each in his seperate starShal l draw t he thing as he sees i t for t he God of

things as they are .

For myself, I see that pointed bridge of brick and cobblestones less romant ica l ly than d id M . F landin , in the yearof grace 1 84 1 . I even have to confess t hat I do notsee t he white peak of E lvend qu ite so acute or so apt lyplaced with respect to the bridge below it . But I do see

that the river and it s b ridges are a notab le feature of

Hamadan,fa l l ing away between bou lders and popla rs

into a winding c left th rough the clay- co loured town . And

I see what M . Flandin did not , what perhaps in 184 1

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TH E BAZAAR

was not t here to see, a quaint low mosque at one end oft he bridge , with windows of heavy wooden lat t ice-work inwhich panes of white paper are pasted against t he cold .

Not fa r beyond the b ridge l ies the Office . I , beingused to reach Of fices by way Of a l ift , find th is Offi ce ahigh ly characterist ic p lace . The gateway giv ing en

t rance thereto is by no means so august a s some others inHamadan . St i l l , it is a handsome enough b rick a rch ,leading into a dark vau l ted vest ibu le . From the Vest i

bu le an inner door Open s at right angles into a courtwhich no one wou ld ever have expected . I t i s la id out

l ike a ga rden with t rees , flower bed s , and brick walks .And at the fa rther end of i t l ies the Offi ce proper . Th isis a long , low, flat - roofed house, faced with l ight buff brick,whose most engaging feature is the talar in the cent re .

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The talar is a great loggia , ra ised four or five feet abovethe ground but ri s ing i t self t hrough the second sto ry tot he roof, t he outer edge Of which it he lps to ho ld up bymean s of two ta l l and ext reme ly sl im pi l lars with slendercarved cap ita l s . The two inner corners of the talar aredecorated a t the top with pendent ives of sta lact ites and

p a inted flowers in pale ye l low, whi le a good part of therea r wal l i s one immen se window . The square lower pa rtof the window i s cut up into innumerab le t iny panes ,the upper part being an ogival latt ice of weathered woodl ike those I saw in Kazv in . And on either s ide of thetalar i s one more such cusped latt ice, not quite so la rge,thei r int rica te dark b rown wheels rel ieving the ye l lowi shfacade in the plea santest poss ib le wayThe Offi ce it se lf i s entered not th rough the talar but

th rough a vest ibule on either s ide of i t , from which doorsOpen both into the loggia and into the adjoin ing rooms .After such an approach , however, i t i s su rp ris ing to discover how l ike other Offices is th i s one. The chief difference is in the black- capped mirzas who sit at many ofthe desks . A mirza, I might add , is either a p ri nce or ascribe, accord ing as the t it le fo l lows or precedes his givenname . These mirzas a re not p rinces . They a re , a s amatter of fact , nearly a l l J ews , though they dress l ikePersians and speak French much better than I . But the

t rue touch of the count ry is a wool ly b rown lamb which atthe p sychological moment a vi llager known to the Sah ’bproduces from the folds of an aba and present s to h im forp ishkesh : which means that the Sah ’b is expected inretu rn to grat ify the donor wi t h a gift of money rathermore than equal to the va lue of the lamb .

Next the Office, a l l but , i s the Bank . Theoret ica l ly ,

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of banknotes in Pers ia for 99 years—o r unt i l 1 988 . The

t roub le w it h these notes i s that they a re good only forthe town where they a re issued , being el sewhere subjectto discount . Which is t he reason why t ravel lers in Pers iaa re ob l iged to load themselves down with sacks of krans .

But if any b ranch were at any t ime unab le to redeem it snotes , the Bank would forfe it it s monopoly . SO the Rus

sians used to col lect a s many of the Engl ish notes a sthey cou ld lay hands on, suddenly present ing them forpayment at a moment when they had rea son to be l ievethat t he b ranch they chose wa s short of cash . But theynever quite caught the Engl ish out . And on one occasionthe Hamadan b ranch redeemed so la rge a number of i t sown notes in so huge a quant ity of the minutest coin s ofthe realm tha t the Russian s never repeated the experi

ment . N ew l ight on t he workings of t he Anglo- RussianAgreement of 1907 !Quite a s amus ing, to my s imple mind , is it to watch

the people who come and go th rough the court . I amst i l l too green to tel l whether they be Persians or not ,unless they show a certain type of lean , dist inguishedface . Port ly Hebrews enter with bags Of Sheke l s such a swe ca rried up

—count ry . Nat ives of Baghdad , known bythe i r t ight s i lk robes and t hei r d rooping fezzes , bring inthe news of the Tigris . Semi- Eu ropean Armen ians st icklong noses between the ba rs of the cash ier ’ s cage . And

one customer would make hi s fortune at a costume ball .H is loose clothes a re of so pale a blue that I can ’t imaginehow he keeps them so immaculate . He wea rs top bootsw it h a curious design cut into the upper edge of t hem .

Around hi s wa i st i s a bulging figured si lk gi rdle, out ofwhich prot rude suggest ive handles of ivory, s i lver, and

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TH E BAZAAR

stee l damascened with gold . A repl ica of that gi rd le,

on a reduced sca le, bind s about h i s forehead a b lack kola,

ta l ler and more pont ifical than I have yet seen . What i smore, he ha s features to go with these st riking accout rements— proud , aqui l ine, so spare that deep hol lows underl ie h i s cheek-bones , yet of an env iab l e swa rthy ruddiness ,wi th one broad , b lack , unbroken bar of eyebrow abovetwo profound eyes that seem to meditat e anyth ing butfinance .

Who on earth is that magnificent creature ? ” I demand of the Sah ’b .

“That ? Oh , only a Kurd, he repl ies . Come on .

The Bazaar p roper l ies a short d istance down h i l l fromthe Bank and the Offi ce , on the same s ide of the river.A mirra guides me there, walking in front of me to clearthe way . H e makes noth ing of shov ing people aside,and they , l ike Pruss ian s on the same s idewalk with anoffi cer, make noth ing of being shoved . That i s how thesteps of greatness are smoothed in Persia . For the rest ,no great smoothness i s percept ible to my steps . Whatpleases me most about the st reet s i s thei r narrowness

,

and the manner in which they swerve thi s way or that ,and the gay chatter of wh ich they are ful l . There issometh ing Neapol itan about it , something at all eventsnot Turk ish . And what do I catch s ight of th rough agateway but a dome , the dome of the Masj id-i-Juma , t hemirza tel l s me—which i s to say the dome of the Fridaymosque—and around the base of that dome a few tu r

quoise t i les ? After a l l I

We turn into a sma l l square, wh ich i s dark and clamp

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by reason of t he matt ing roofing i t over, st retched on

wooden beams . Here is a vegetab le and meat ma rket,

whose stal l s leave but a narrow ais l e a round the edges .Dried fru it s , fresh apples , quinces , oranges , pile thestands . Bunche s of b ig white grapes , looking none toofresh , hang from rafters . Beyond are butcher shopsw it h l ive sheep and dead sheep in them , sheep with thei rfleeces and Sheep without thei r fleeces , sheep in everystage of d i smemberment , hanging from hooks or la id outon stained s l ab s of wood for t he admi rat ion of the pub l ic .

Even at t h i s late season fl ies not a few buzz around them,

which no one would ever think of keeping away by meansof any kind of screen . In one comer an O ld man squatsin the mud wit h a quant ity of goat s ’ heads ly ing on theground in front of h im . Every now and then a customerp icks ‘

one up by a horn , examines i t attent ive ly, andlays it back in the mud . Out of another stall comes another old man ca rry ing a chicken . He wears a leather

skul l cap,and h is beard is dyed scarlet with henna .

H e catches the squawk ing fowl by the wings, which hefolds back and lays in the mud under h is right foot .Under his left he set s t he creature ’ s legs ; and then , veryde l iberately

,in the manner p rescribed by the canon , he

cuts the ch icken ’s th roat , the b lood spurt ing out over themuddy cobb lestones .We pass on into a c rooked a l ley , l ined on both sides by

l it t l e Shops . They a re open in front , and some of t hemhave counters flush with the st reet . Others have nocounter at al l . In al l of them the p roprietor s it s on a rugam id h is wa res . Among wa res that catch my eye arehanging meta l pots wh ich look l ike pewter, though they

are p robab ly t inned copper . The biggest and best ones

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p le designs in dul l red , b l ue, or green , wit h the happ iestresu l t s for the eye .

I n genera l t he various t rades tend to st ick together,though thei r boundaries are not very c l ea r . Every nowand then I come across a new depa rtment of cutlery ,where a re queer cu rved knives such as might be most athome in the gi rd le of my magnificent Kurd , marquet riedwith gold , perhaps , and hav ing st rangely watered b l ades .Then there i s any number of j ewe l lers ’ shops , withbowl s of seed pearl s , b ig fi l igree gold earrings , andbigger pendants , often crescent- shaped and engravedwi t h fine l ines or set wit h uneven stones . You see

gold beads, too , and odds and ends of coins such asare a lways being dug up in the fields of the East ,piled hel ter skelter with cart ridges and a l l manner of

European abominat ions .No two st reet s of the Bazaa r are of the same length orroofed quite al ike . Here one dark corridor ends sud

denly in a b laze of sun . There another reaches a longtentacle down h il l

,t he d im perspect ive being cut a t inter

va l s by cross bars of l ight . I am t reated , too , to sudden

gl impses of courts , with camel s in them , or a confu s ion ofbales

, or ta l l-capped peop le d rinking tea i n the sun . Butlong before I have seen a l l I wan t to t he mirza leads mearound to a pa rt of the B azaar hand somer than any other .

Th is iswhere the leather merchant s foregat her . Leather,

you must know,is another great spec ia l ty of Hamadan ;

and t he leather men ply thei r t rade not under rafters or

matt ing but h igh brick domes . The way in which someobscu re a rchitect handled thei r groined vau lt ing is ath ing to see,

a s are the pointed lunettes of da rk woodenlat t icework which he set in the upper gloom of t he octa

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gon s where two st reet s meet . And there a pointed archis more than l ike ly to Open into a quadrangle with a poolin the cent re

,or a t re l l ised b rick p latform where it must

be ve ry p leasant for a sojourner in a caravan serai to

smoke his water-pipe andadmire the deep cusped

porches of t h e c lose andthei r inte rior sta lact ites .

I find here such footwea ra s t he Sah ’b promi sed me,of themost wonderfu l shapesand co lours . The ones Iadmire most are of anemerald green , having nomore than an inch or twoOf hummingbi rd sp lendourwherein to sl ip a humming

bi rd’

s toes . M ine, a las , are not of the gender worthyof such shoon . I al so admire an inst rument of brass ,shaped l ike a hand , with wh ich a workman beat s ast rip of v iv id morocco . Other workmen , however, runAmerican sewing machines as noncha lant ly as if theyhad invented them . The sadd lers and the harnessmakers a re the natura l al l ies of th is gent ry . Thei r

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craft is the more interest ing to watch because of

the deft t h ings t hey do in the way of decorat ing . Theyin lay leather of one colour into leather of another co lour

,

and devise out of pol ished meta l and sl ivers of mirrorglass quaint ornament s that a re meant to gl it ter andj ingle about a horse . Nor must I forget those leathercradles w ith a p iece of wood set into each end for st iffening . No one dreams , of course, of leaving that wood asi t comes to h im . I t can be carved with l it t le arabesques

,

or covered , if you p refer, with a bit of brocade or O ldembroidery .

What the mirra saves for t he last i s a quarter of openst reet s where p rosperous Ru ss ian and Armen ian shop sdo thei r wickedest to int roduce a false a i r of modern ityinto ancient Ecbatana . He points out to me with p ridethe gl ass Show-windows , t he b il ious cal icoes , t he—can Ibe l ieve my eyes?—cheap American shoes . Yet

,quite

acc identa l ly , he shows me someth ing after a l l . For on

our way back to the Office we pass the crowded booth swhere the potters of Lalein display t hei r wares . Theya re not forgers or sent imental ist s , you understand , t hosepotters of Lalein . They supply an honest , every-day demand for pipkins to cook in , for bow l s of every imagi nab le size, having pla in edges or fluted , for flowerpot s

whose two or th ree handles g ive them an in imitab lefinish

, for ja rs to hold water— though they rare ly do !Then there a re a l l kinds of other ja rs , s l im ones , potbel l ied ones , ta l l enough ones to hold a man , t rue A l iBaba ja rs , which a re used for the storing of wheat andother p rovisions . The b iggest j ars a re doub le-deckers ,whose upper storey is conven ient ly p rovided l ike theflowerpots with handles . Most of t h is ea rthenwa re i s yel lower

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t han we usua l ly see, glazed or unglazed as the case maybe . But a good dea l of i t is unevenly ename l led in peacock co lou r, turquoi se colour, t he b l ue-green of the domesof Kazvin .

And they tel l me there is noth ing to see in H amadan !

LEAF FROM THE BOOK OF SER MARCO POLO

At the straits leading into the Great Sea, on the west side, thereis a hill called the Faro—But since beginning on this matter Ihave changed my mind, because so many people know all about

it; so we will not put it in our description , but go on to somethingelse. And so I will tell you abou t the Tartars of the Ponent andthe lords who have reigned over them.

Co lonel Henry Yule : THE BOOK OP SER MARGO POLO

S A MATTER of fact , there i s someth ing to

see in H amadan . I regret to confess , however,that I never saw i t , or more than the out s ideof it—wh ich was one of the things I glanced

at the fi rst day I Vis ited the Bazaar. Yet , reader,I sha l l further confess t hat some t ime afterward , s itt ingin a window above New York harbour, I went to thepain s to write out by hand and to copy on the typewritera long chapter about that ta l l-domed mausoleum , whosesquat porch and sol id stone door open upon a spec iesof lumberya rd neighbourly to the potters of Lalein . Tothat end I turned , very di l igent ly , the pages of HolyWrit and of the Apocrypha , not to ment ion those ofsecu la r volumes not a few . I then set about sugaringfor you such p i l l s a s t he history Of Med ia , of Persia , ofAssy ria

, of J udaea . I t reated of the Babyloni sh Capt ivityand adventured so far afie ld a s Lydia and Greece , bringing

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you back to the campa igns of S i r Arch ibald Murrayand Sir Stanley Maude . I even made an excursion intothe H igher Crit ici sm , steering in a subt le manner b etween the sensibil it ies of the god ly and of the p rofane .

But the outcome of t he H igher Crit ici sm , reader, has beento cut that chapter out of you r book . For when I beganto turn over the ta les of earl ier t ravel lers I found thatevery one Of them had someth ing to say about Estherand Mordecai , and the ir tomb in H amadan . And mostof t hose conscient ious men had been into that tomb .

Whereas I , who passed it so much oftener, never set footthere .

Why, do you suppose, was that ? Certa in ly not b e

cause Hamadan , or Ecbatana , the summer cap ita l ofKing Ahasuerus, seems to me too unl ikely a place for

Queen E sther to have died in , or because I find no interestin the origin of t he H eb rew Feast of Purim , or because thet rad it ion of the tomb is too recent . As early as thetwelfth centu ry, at any rate, the famous J ewish t ravellerB enj amin of Tudela saw our mausoleum . The personage

a round whom Kit Marlowe wrote h is “Tragedy of Tamb urlaine t he Great ” dest royed i t two or t hree hundredyears later . The Turk Khosrev Pasha , general of Su l tanMurad IV, dest royed it aga in in 1630. And the h istorian Von Hammer says i t then lay with in the p rec inct sof a mosque of a t housand and one columns ; whi le theFrench father Sanson , who V is ited H amadan about 168 3,ment ions our h igh dome a s being a remnant Of a magn ificent temp le, ornamented w ith t i les . The exi st ing monument

,however, seem s to be the work of two pious J ews

of Kashan , who restored it i n 1 7 1 3 . But noth ing about

it s p resent appea rance i s so picturesque as a piece of

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Persicos odi, puer, apparatus.

Quintus Horat ius Flaccusc CARM INA

O SUCH vague and i l lusory pu rposes does onego to schoo l ! One scans incomprehensiblel ines , one desperately thumbs the dog-earedlexicon of youth , and one promptly d rops the

whole affa i r into a s ieve of a memory - in order to pickup , years later, out of some c logged corner of that sames ieve , a t it le to one

’s hand ! I t came to me, wit h anamused grin , when I behe ld that new house for whichwe had foregone the unseen enchantment s of Resht andhad fa l len into confl ict with the paramount Power innorth Pers ia . But if I steal t he phrase it i s not becau seI agree with the poet . The poet I agree with i s our own,

who says something—does he not ? —about doing in Pers iaas t he Pers ian s do . At any rate, I share with pacifi st s,opt imists , and other dangerous classes of cit izens a disposit ion to be too eas i ly plea sed by th ings as I find them .

And I can never too pos it ive ly dec la re that I passed inthat house one of the most agreeable winters of a misspentl ife . Yet I cou ld not he lp th inking, t he fi rst t ime myeye fel l upon it , that Horace had someth ing in common

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with my Belgian lady , and that the poet of white Romanv i l las might have sung a d ifferent song if he had had al i t t le actual experience of Pers ian pomp .

These reflect ion s were inspi red by the simple but perfect ly obvious fact that the man s ion toward which wehad been hasten ing day and night , as fast as asps couldcarryus, was made of nothing more sp lend id than— mud .

Adobe i s perhaps the more gracefu l name . And , unl ike

the beaver, you pour i t into l itt le rectangular mould swhich you afte rward set out to dry i n the never- fai l ingPersian sun . You may even , i f so you be minded , bakesome of it in quicker fu rnaces and produce ye l lowishbricks for the enrichment of a gateway or a facade . Bute lemental earth and water are the foundat ion of all Persian a rchitecture . The Pers ian arch itect therefore needwaste no t ime in hesitat ing between t imber, brick , stone,hol low t i le , reinforced concrete , and what not . He hason ly one possible bui lding materia l ; and the lot on whichhe bui lds , however humb le, conta in s as much of it a s heneeds . The very roofs are Of mud , spread thick on camelthorn and popla r t runks .

Our roof, nevertheless , was not that k ind of roof, beinga low-pitched , broad-eaved t imber one, overlaid by somekind of ta r paper imported from that ville lumiere of this

quarter Of As ia , Baku . And that was only one reasonwhy our house was a worthy goal of so. rapid a journey ,and an object of so great curios i ty to the good peop le ofHamadan . For i t a l so had Craft sman windows widerthan they were long, provided wit h admi rab le windowseats in the four-foot wa l l , to say noth ing of an arcadedveranda more remin iscent of a Span ish patio than ofa Persian talar. Most cont ra ry of al l , however, to the

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laws of t he Medes and t he Pers ians , it contained the unheard-of ra rity of wooden floors —upon which , we l ivedto learn , rugs had a fantast ic hab it of bi l lowing in a ga le .

We l ived to learn severa l other unexpected th ings b efore we got t hrough wit h it . For a new house has idiosyncrasies as d ist inct a s a new sh ip or a new baby— andmost so when it depart s from accepted t radit ions

'

. As

for a new mud hou se, i t i s rather more hab itab l e aboveground , I fancy, than below . St i l l , our st ruggles withthe p rimit ive problems of l ife b rought us nea rer in spi ritto the inhab itants of t renches than to dwe l lers in onyxhalled apa rtment houses , who take no thought how theysha l l wash t hei r hand s or read the i r even ing paper, or

wherewithal shal l t hey be wa rmed . But we belonged to arace that is par excellence t he p ickn icker and camper-outof the earth , and between us we could scrape up humourenough to be amu sed at our experience of Pers ian pomp .

W i th gas or elect ricity , of course we had nothing to do .

For l ight we depended on t he blacke oyle, stynkeng

horryb lye, Of Baku , eked out by Russ ian candles . Ofour va rious st ratagems to keep wa rm , an Oi l stove in theend proved most effect ive . In most of the room s , however, we had fi rep laces , wherein we burned those p iteousfaggots which in Pers i a pass for wood . We l ikewise

made a good start at burn ing the d in ing- room floor,thanks to a bu i lder who had never before set a fi rep laceon anything but a mud underpinn ing and had taken toofew precaut ions . I cannot resist add ing that th is gentleman

, an Armenian ca rpenter, was the inte l l igent Persian” whose topograph ical informat ion P rof . Wi l l iam sJ ackson takes pains to quote . We were fu rther ab le toboast nothing less recondite than a furnace, t he invent ion

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plain of such in imitab l e chameleon changes of colour .I t further possessed a monst rous copper samova r

,con

t rived by the ingenu ity of t he Sah ’b , into two mouths Ofwhich uncomplain ing underl ings fed countless gallons ofwater and numberless bundles of faggots . But the gloryof the room was t he bathtub . The foundat ion of t h is

st ructure was , of course , mud. The mud was faced, however, l ike the b road s i l l s of t he windows , with the square,b lue-green t i les of Lalein . Have I said t hat Lalein is avi l lage in the reg ion of Hamadan where the lost a rt ofglaz ing earthenware i s st i l l humbly pract ised ? Never

have I bathed in anyth ing quite so p retty as that tank oftu rquoise water . The cement that held the t i les together

,

t hough , wa s home-made, l ack ing anyth ing better fromBaku ; and , a las , it was not a success . Not only hadit to be washed off after one had taken one’s bath , butthe ce i l ing of t he room below wa s observed to da rken , tod rip , and most threaten ingly to sag . And t h is i n spiteof t he fact that the water from the bathtub was supposedto run away into the ga rden ! We therefore had to giveup , with b it ter lamentat ions, our peacock t i les , sub st i

tut ing such receptacles of metal or rubber as cou ld beimprov i sed out of the resources of t he count ry .

I may ai ri ly seem to imply t hat I had a persona l handin these variou s a rrangements . As a mat ter of fact Ia rrived on the scene too late to adm ire the invent ion ofmost of them . What I was happy enough not tomiss

was the moving in . I fea r the Sah ’b and the Khanumwere less happy in enterta in ing a guest-friend who hadknown them too long to feel any scruple in combat ing

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thei r v iews and expos ing his own with regard to the furnish ing of thei r rooms . I t was perhaps fortunate thatwe were a fami ly of three , and therefore somet imes ab le tosecure a cast ing vote . As often as not , however, we maintained three perfect ly i rreconc i lab le Opin ions . N evert heless no open rupture or secret coo lness resu l ted fromour l ive ly arguments on interior decorat ion . And I , for

one, found it h igh ly amusing to Open and to dispose ofthe contents of the cases which st range- looking ruffians

brought to the house on thei r backs .Our two rooms of state, to the vast scanda l of Hamadan ,

l iteral ly had mud wa l ls , ungarn ished with p laster, s iz ing,or colour of any kind , but smoothed past a l l resemb lanceto thei r parenta l earth . For ourse lves , we des i red nobetter background for Persian p lates , for Pers ian min iatures , for Persian mi rror frames , for brasses , embroideries,rugs , and other Oriental Object s of art which my wisehost and hostess spent much of thei r leisure in col lect ing .

A good many of these obj ect s had made no great journey .

But others , intended more st rict ly for use, had performedsuch an Odyssey that i t was a wonder we had a dish toeat out of or a chai r to sit in . The sojourner in Pers ia isnot l ike h is happy cous in of I ta ly, ab le to go fort h whereverhe finds h imse lf and pick up delectable furn iture . For

the peop le Of the East use a lmost no fu rn i tu re . Theyrequi re mere ly a few rugs or mat s to s i t and S leep on and afew p lates and bow l s for thei r cookery . So t h e st rangerwho

dwel l s among t hem has to t ran sport from oversea everyth ing he needs for h is own more comp l icated housekeeping . I n a p lace l ike Hamadan , accordingly , you mustfi rst get your goods to Enzel i or to Baghdad , whencethey are t ransported 250 or 3 1 5 m i les by ca ravan . And

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if you have seen the springless gha rries that cl imb t hepasses of t he Russian road , or if you have not iced howmules and camel s d rop thei r packs when they makecamp , you wi l l not wonder tha t a neighbou r of ours hadthe unhapp iness to lose an ent i re d inner set sh e had imported . We were de l ighted to find that on ly about halfof our own ch ina was smashed .

For b reakage and theft we were prepa red, not to say

moth and rust . What gave us someth ing of a shock wasto discover that mice had been a t our books—a s preciousin Pers ia as cha i rs or soup plates . S ince the books werenot mine, I found i t in me to sm i le upon not ing thatBourget ’ s Sensat ions d

’

l talie” had been devoured from

cover to cover . O subt le mice of Ecbatana ! For the

French in genera l t hey exhib ited a remarkab le taste .

They had a l so found nourishment in J ane Austen,Joseph

Conrad , and H enry J ames . I t surprised me more tofind t races of those hungry Pers ian rodents in certainLat in authors , among them the poet of my text , who hadsomehow found thei r way into that Pa rth ian gall re.

H akluyt , too , had whi led away some of t hei r hourshappily in the not i rreplaceab le Everyman edit ion . They

had passed by our rug books, however, together withour books on Persia and such works a s we possessed of t heAmerican Red B lood school . I cannot explain this unaccountable vaga ry

,l merely state .

Our l ib ra ry was on t hose days when a terrific winterwind howled out Of the gorges of E lvend the one comfortable room in the house, be ing smaller t han the othersand hav ing only one b ig window . Thi s was a l so the roomtha t had least in i t to rem ind us where we were, wit h itsrows of Lat in- let tered books , i t s wicker chai rs, its t inted

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though acc idental ly born out side the fold of h is race .Two of us were descended from those contempora ries OfS i r Robert Sherley who th ree hundred years ago sai ledout of Old England to found a New England . Yet there

we sat in Pers ia , the three of us, own ing none but Engl ishb lood , speak ing—whatever Cockney or Cantab rian mightthink about i t —no tongue but Engl i sh , and knowing veryl it t le more about t he land in which we sat t han you whoread these words . I t was a symbo l , tha t cosy l it t le l ib rary , of th e unconquerable v ita l i ty of a race, of t he p rideof a man in h is own house and hi s own acre , which hasb rought forth such m i racles as Athen s and Ven ice andOxford , which flowered once i nto the paint ing of the

Renaissance, t he l i terature of E l i sabeth . But a bettersymbo l was the bare slope of popla rs outside the window,

st i l l Pers ia after t h ree t housand years of conquest , glory,and di saster . After a l l , I somet imes u sed to wonder,what business had we t here? And how about th is modern fash ion of borrowing our ne ighbour’ s a rt ? I f the

Florent ines and Venet ians had fol lowed i t as pers i stent lyas we, had contented t hemselves w i t h col lect ing pseudoG reek marbles and Byzant ine mosaics , th ere would havebeen no ghost of a Lucrezia Crive l l i to smile across aPersian doorway a t t he shadow of a Kn ight of—St . John !

Where sha l l we end w ith al l t h i s t ran sport ing of one

count ry to another? Are we going to w ipe out boundaries and become cosmopol ites al l ?There wa s no t ime to an swer these long quest ion s b e

fore our dest in ies d rew us, one after the other, out

of that l i t t l e room . And when next we met i t wasseven thousand miles away , when the world wa s a l readydeep in the greatest of wa rs . Looking a t i t from a high

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window above N ew ~ York harbour, I have somet imes

seen i t as the beg inn ing of an answer to those quest ionsof our Pers ian l ibrary . Tha t formidab le outburst again stthe ambit ions a-prowl in the earth , does i t not touch toothe dream of the Internationale, and isolate anew the manwithout a count ry? For the pride of a man in h is ownhouse and hi s own acre i s rooted very deep ly—nor need i t

imperi l another man ’s peace . The most permanent agreement of men i s to d iffer . The th ing is to recognise andto respect each other’s d ifferences . I f one happy resu l tof so much unhappiness should be to let the sun shineagain on overshadowed lands, another might be to checkthe standardising of mankind . And if emigrat ions, concession hunt ings , even gent leman adv enturings fa l l for at ime out of fa shion , what matter? There i s st i l l adv enturing to do in a count ry which has not yet achieved aLucrez ia Crive l l i of it s own !

The most cha racterist ic piece of Persian apparatus

in our house, and the worth iest to be considered in theHorat ian sense, was to be seen below stai rs— if you wi l lnot take that technica l phrase too l iteral ly . The Sah ’bu sed to compla in that he never knew how many servant swe had , one of hi s favourite d iversions being to ask the

Khanum how many more She had taken on . Pers iafol lows the rest of Asia in this regard ; though as a mat terof fact we were not so dreadfu l ly at tended as most ofour neighbours . Orienta l servant s work for longer hours ,with fewer out ings , than occ identa l ones , but each one

does much less . The only one of ours who made us fee lthat he earned every shahi of h is somewhat sketchy

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st ipend was a laborious , qu ick-witted , and p ictu resquegodson of t he great Shah Abbas , a youngster whose Vo icej ust began to crack . None of them , for that matter,were fa r out of infancy . And it surpri sed me to see how

fast they p icked up our ways , many ofwhich to them musthave seemed inexpl icab le and cap ric iou s beyond reason .

I often wished I knew what thei r comments were . Wesomet imes caught rumours , however, through confidencesmade to the masters of other servants . When we wentout to d inner our cook , our but ler, or both , wou ld occa s ional ly go, too, to he lp in the k itchen or the din ing room . I n

fact , it i s not good form for a person of such consequenceas a Firengi to leave h is door at all without a servantor two at h is heel s ; t hough I fea r we rather scandal isedHamadan by our backwa rdness in conforming to t h is

custom . A Firengi, I shou ld exp la in in parenthesis , i s aFrank . Strange, i s i t not ? and subt ly comp l imenta ry to agreat race, how since the t ime of the crusades that nameh as stuck in western Asia as descript ive of all Europeanseven Germans l—and thei r cousin s beyond the seas . Theservant s of t he Firengis in H amadan formed a sort ofsoc iety apart , and you may be sure that among them no

news was al lowed to escape . Thus i t came to our ea rsthat the Sah ’b was known to an inner few a s the Chiefof t he Desert— because our house stood by i tself out s idethe town ! And I was enchanted to learn that I , hav ingcome to Pers ia without wives, ch i ld ren , valets, emp loyments

, or other V isible human t ies , had been decoratedwith the p ictu resque t it le of Prince Al l Alone .You of the effete West a re lapped in the soft m in ist ra

t ions of the Ete rna l Femin ine . To us of ste rner Ecb a

tana is perm it ted no such Syba rism . I may note , how

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a re too ignob le for man . Here again a b lue-gl azed bow lcomes into use, being held between t he knees of t heoperator . I might add that for the comp lete success ofthe operat ion it is con s idered necessa ry for t he calfto be t ied in s ight of the cow . Otherwise t he sacredfount infa l l ibly goes d ry . We had t he greatest t roub leto induce our personnel even to t ry t he experimentof milking when no ca lf wa s i n s ight . Thi s , I suppose ,i s why the Pers ians a re so unwi l l ing to sel l or to ki l l aca lf, and why they are so tender of the l i t t l e creatu res .

The fi rst t ime t he stork v is i ted our stab le a smal l an ima lwrapped up again st t h e cold in green fel t was b roughtb l inking into the d in ing room for us to adm i re . And welea rned t hat the calf spent it s fi rst few n ight s wi t h theservant s , in t he i r quarters .These, I hasten to add , were not i n the hou se . While

there a re, espec i al ly in Pers ia , very sol id advantages inhav ing servant s out of t he house at n ight , t here a re alsod i sadvantages—as wi l l appear most p la in ly on a w i n te rmorn ing after a party . We then had the choice of wa lkinga long way through the snow to bang on t he stab l e door,or Of wa it ing for b reakfast . Thei r own b reakfast , andall thei r other meal s , t he servant s were supposed to p rovide ! for t hemselves : primari ly because a Firengi i s animpure being, whose food and d ishes a re defi lement tothoseof the fa ith ; seconda ri ly, becau se a Firengi eat s meat stoo

'

St range for the palate of a Pers ian . We had reasonto bel ieve, however, that at least in our house the Pers ians were not too fast idious about our menu or our purity ! They had quarters at one end of the st ab l e, wit h afireplace to keep them warm and a more ef ficac ious inv ent ion of thei r own wh ich they ca l led a kursi. A kursi i s

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the counterpart of a Turk ish tandur, being a fixed or

portab le brasier covered by a wooden frame, over whicha qui l t or a b ig rug is spread ; and under that asphyxiat ingrug or qui l t a considerab le household can spend the dayor t he n ight , tucking themse lves up to the waist or theneck as the case may be . The boys never could understand why we d idn

’ t have kursis, too . The rest of thei rfurnitu re con s i sted of rugs , wherewith to cover the mudfloor . That i s why there a re so many rugs in Pers iathe mud floors . And there i s another good reason why somany of them are a l i t t le more or a l it t le les s t han s ix feetlong . For a do-

zar, a two-yard , i s al l your Pers ian needsin the way of a bed ; and if you have such a rug that is notbrand new, you may be sure that some very picturesquelooking customer ha s dreamed upon it the d ream s of As ia .

I fear that the dream s'

of our dependent s were somet imesinterrupted . For the roof over the ir heads was a mudone, and being new it was leaky . After a ra in or a thaw ,

therefore, we wou ld h ire the youth of the neighbourhoodto p lay tag on it , in order to pack the mud the harder withthei r bare feet !What to my a l ien eye was most st riking about our re

tainers was thei r d ress . To be served at d inner by a but lerin bare or stockinged feet , according to the season , bearingupon his head a pont ifical mit re of brown or black fe l t ,not unl ike the ta l l brim less hat of Greek monks and Russian p riest s

, was an experience which I d id not l ive longenough in Persia to take a s a matter of course . I t alwaysgave me the sen se of a ss ist ing at a

‘

rite celebrated by theflamen of an unknown creed . I t made no difference that Imyse lf was perfect ly capab le of ba lanc ing upon my browan even more fantast ic erect ion , eaved l ike a house , sh in ier

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

than sat in , and garn ished with a coquett ish ribbon .

What caught my eye was the ext raord ina ry fact that anyhuman being cou ld cherish a headdress different from myown, and account h imself d i sgraced ever to be seen wi thout it . Tal l hat s , however, were not a l l t hat d ist inguishedour serv ing men . Between the i r kola and thei r unshodfeet flap ped a t rouser not so ful l a s that of the count ryTurk but g iving no h int of the leg it contained , and a success ion of ta iled or ki l ted coats . The Pers ian s t h ink tha tFirengi men dress as indecently as Firengi women , i npermitt ing our c lothes to fol low so close ly the l ines of ourbodies . The fit of thei r own coat s stops a t the waist .From there hangs to the knee, or below, a pleated skirtwh ich even a t ravel led Pers ian unwi l l ingly exchanges for aP rince Albert , wh i le a morn ing or even ing coat is to hima th ing of shame . Under h i s outer ga rment , with whichhe u sua l ly d i spen ses indoors , he wea rs a shorter andth inner one, less amply kil ted , the t ight sleeves of wh icha re s l i t to the elbow, and dangle decorat ively if inconv enient ly enough , when not buttoned up or tu rned back .

This tun ic is al so more gai ly hued . And the Open th roatof i t somet imes reveal s success ive layers of inner integument s , of cont rast ing colours .The b rightest V i rtue of Hab ib , our butler, was that he

possessed a beaut iful emerald undercoat in wh ich , whenthere was no company , he was somet imes good enough topass , and eke to b reak , our plates . H e was the offic ia lhead of our estab l ishment , being techn ical ly known as t heChief of t he Service . H e wou ld always receive an orderwith the words “On my eye !” and when he knew not howto answer us he would say : What pet it ion shal l Imake? He was a youth of twenty or thereabouts ,

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though i t was a l itt le more finicky than I would havechosen for bachelors ’ ha l l . So d id the gen ius of his racefor des ign come out even in h is humb le fingers . On the

whole, I learned more from h im than he d id from meas when he would greet us in the morn ing with “ Peace bewith you,

”or pol itely take the Khanum ’ s keys in both

hands, or use instead of the fi rst personal p ronoun the

phrase“you r slave,

”or ceremoniously cal l one as ide in

consul tat ion , say ing Without t roub l e, b ring your honourhere,

”or on state occas ions serve tea on h is knees . And

he gave one st range gl impses of the world he l ived in byspeak ing da rkly of j inn , in connect ion w ith a friend

’ si l l ness , and by tel l ing us , when a lost watch wa s found inthe house, t hat he had burned cand les for i t s recovery .

The t rue head of t he service wa s Mahmad A l i , the cook—or Mehm

’

d Al i a s t he others cal led him . Mehm’

d Al ihad been b rought up a s a butler h imself, and an excel lentone he was, t hough affl icted with a sl ight d isfigu rement ofthe mouth and a stammering of the tongue . But a domest ic cris i s had driven h im into the k itchen , where he quick lylearned to make pancakes and cakes much more compl icated as wel l as he d id sauces and curries for pi lauwhich rea l ly sounds more l ike p ilen, if youwi l l pronounce i tin t he I tal ian way . Consequent ly there were t imes when

we were moved to cal l Mehm’

d Al i out of hi s kitchen andsay to him , with due ceremony : Mehm

’

d Al i , may yourhand feel no pa in .

” You r white- capped chef or darkeyD inah m ight not know how to take so crypt ic a p ronouncement . But the mit red Mehm

’

dA l i knew it for the highestposs ible comp l iment . And being no more than n ine

teen , though al ready old enough to have been marriedand divorced, he would hide h i s b lushes in a lowbow, st am

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PERS IAN APPARATUS

mering in reply : “May honey be to your soul The

des i re ofMehm’

dAl i ’s heart was to possess a wrist watch .

And he served us with a credit that on ly seldom lapsedfor the sum of six tomans a month—which is a l it t le lessthan six dol lars .

I am bound to add that Mehm’

d A l i would have beenless cl ever than he was if he had not made out of us considerab ly more than that . For, being cook , he d id themarket ing . I was astounded to find te lephones in Hamadan , a conven ience at that t ime st range to imperialConstant inople . But very few Hamadanis had one.

We d id not for in stance . N either d id any butcher, baker,or candlest 1ck-maker with whom we dealt . SO there wa sno s itt ing comfortably at home and ordering what wewanted from the Bazaar . Nor did peop le from the

Bazaar pedd le thei r wa res about the st reet s to any suchdegree as do the people of the Mediterranean . There i s

no such th ing , either, a s a del ivery ca rt in H amadan .

The thing to do was to go to the Bazaar in person everymorning after breakfast , and Mehm

’

dAl i was the person todo that thing—Mehm

’

d Al i and his shagerd, or apprent ice .

This was the youngest member of our j uven i le estab l ishment , a round- faced , bright- eyed , ru sset- coloured ragamuffin who toted Mehm

’

d A l i ’s flexible market basket ,peeled Mehm

’

d Al i ’s potatoes , scoured Mehm’

d Al i ’ searthenwa re pots

, and ate Mehm’

d Al i ’s b read . Whichi s to say that Mehm

’

d Al i engaged and theoret ica l ly maintained h im ,

though I suspect that h is face wou ld havebeen neither so round nor so rosy had i t not been for thec rumb s from our tab le .

Going to the Bazaar was evidently the great affa i r ofthe day . I t was amazing how long it took Mehm

’

d

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

Al i to ba rgain for the toasted wafers of b read or the

scarcely th icker flaps of sangak which fi l led in the ch inksbetween Mehm

’

d A l i ’ s own white loaves,for the eterna l

mutton of the count ry , for the frequent hare and part ridge ,or francol in , for the white mast which is the Pers ian v ersion of Dr . Mechn ikov ’ s E l ix i r of Youth , for the famousmelons of I sfahan that tasted to us l ike a flat ter k ind ofsquash , for t he dub ious bunches of grapes that looked fi t

onlyfor the scavenger but that had mere ly begun to turninto rai s i ns and real ly were very good . Beef was fa r ra rerthan game , vegetables were ne ither va ried nor good un lessthey came out of our own ga rden , wh i le such rarit ies a sfish or st rawberries were p rec ious as pounded pearl s andn ight ingales ’ tongues . Certa in minute fi sh , to be sure,were indigenous to our neighbourhood ; but a s t he Pers ian scatch t hem by the s imple exped ient of poison ing the water

,

and somet imes d ie afterward , we thought twice beforeindulging in them . Once in a while a runner wou ld b ringto some member of our colony , from a river nea r Kermanshah or from the fa raway Caspian , a rea l fi sh , which atonce became the foundat ion of a state d inner party .

Mehm’

d Al i was so happy as to possess i n addit ion tohi s other attainments , t he a rt of let ters . He accord inglykept st rict tol l of h i s purchases , rendering an account oft hem every day to the Khanum . There came, however, aday of despai r when the Khanum temporari ly shook off

from her feet the dust of Hamadan , leaving the haplessChief of t he Desert and the Prince A l l A lone to shift forthemselves . The Chief of the Desert , being a man ofaffai rs , t herefore handed over t he hou sekeeping to thevery incompetent hands of t he P rince Al l Alone . The

beauty of t h i s a rrangement was that t he Prince Al l

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lat e and not qu i t e so p lenteous a s we had planned . But

t he subtle Mehm’

d A l i , a l though he had not b lackenedour faces to t he degree he hoped , after all made his point .He knew, and we knew , and each of us knew the otherknew, tha t another cook capab le of mak ing both pilauand pancakes was not to be p icked up in Hamadanouts ide of some one el se

’s k i tchen . For t he sake of the

greater good , t herefore, we that day learned t he lessonof not insist ing Upon a lesser . And t he next day Mehm

’

d

A l i t reated us to qu ite the most magnificent chocolatecake in h is repertory . When we looked at i t our mouth swatered . When we tasted i t we sent for Mehm

’

d Ali .

Mehm’

dA l i ,” said the Sah ’b in all gravity ,

“may yourhand feel no pa in .

Sah ’b ,” repl ied Mehm

’

d Al i , may honey be to yoursou l .”

And do you know? Part ridges grew a l itt le cheaperafter t hat !

I I 2

J IMMY CO .

His star is a strange one one that leadeth him to fortune bythe path offrowns to greatness by the aid of thwackings Trulythe ways of Allah are wonderful I

George Meredith : THE SHAV ING OP SHAGPAT

AD I ES and gent lemen , I have the honour to present to you M r . J ames—not Henry . J immy ,the ladies and the gentlemen—if any have succeeded in wading so fa r into our long-winded

book .

Thi s int roduct ion i s necessary to sketch our householdin it s t rue colours , not on ly because our dog i s so im

portant a member of our fami ly , but because he i s so

admirab le a proof of t he saving incon s istency of humannature . For if t here be a creature which a Pers ian ismore unwi l l ing to touch than a pig or a Christ ian , thatc reature is a dog . An orthodox Persian , espec ia l ly if hebe e lderly and turbaned , wi l l do anyth ing to avoidshaking hand s with us or drinking our impure tea . Butif J immy chances to touch so much as the hem of h isgarment

,the on ly remedy i s to go st raight to the bath ,

take off his turban , and jump into the t reasury . And

about the water of that t rea sury I have a l ready told you ,or insinuated to you, something . Yet mark the subt let ies Of ort hodoxy when I a l so tel l you that J immy , i n

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spite of t he doub l e d isadvantage under wh ich he suffersby being i n al l l ite ral ness a Christ ian dog , find s favour inmany an I ran ian eye . Al t hough in the p rime of l ife hefalsely passes , by reason of his d iminut ive stature

,the

curl iness of h is hai r, and the affab i l ity of hi s manners,

for a tuk h , a puppy . Now a puppy i s j ustly exemptedin Persia from the ful l—grown deprav ity of a sag , or dog .

SO our house-boys pet J immy out rageously . And whenever he goes out with us I not ice that he is fa r more l ikelyto d raw admiring t han d i sgusted glances , however ind i screet ly he may sn iff about the feet of t he faithful .D iscret ion , I fea r, was never J immy

’ s st rong po int .Where he was born I do not know, but h i s character i sall of t he quixot ic i sland from which I ri sh terriers spring .

H e is a handsome l it t l e gentleman —I u sed the word ad

v isedly—w it h a white coat wh ich he finds none too easy

to keep unspotted from the world , with a black patch onone quizzical ly upl ift ed ear, w it h a humorous eye . I t

twinkl es, does t hat eye , l ike every eye of E rin , l ike theeyes of al l who a re i rres ist ible to the softer sex and whomost savour the rel ish of adventure . J immy is t he bestof companion s, l ive ly , affect ionate, sympathet ic , a lwaysready for th e unexpected , enduring mi sadventure withouta whimper . He i s not defic ient , either, in the more homespun qual i t ies of grat itude and respect for authori ty .

But , devoted as he is to u s , he finds our house too smal land our garden too na rrow a field for h is inqui ring anddemocrat ic sp i rit . We a re domest ic and sedenta ry whi lehe i s debona i r, i rrespon s ible, a b it of a bouleva rdier . T o

be out 0’ n ight s i s what he adores . Wh i le I wi l l not l ikenh im to t he ill knight in Malory, who went about d ist ress ing and dest roy ing all ladies , I fea r Jimmy is not

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hea rt s . Moreover, Mrs. B rowning’ s excess ive sensib i l i tyd isgusted us . H e rega rded the most ind ifferent gestureas a persona l menace, and was forever cringing and yelping . H is one v i rtue was t hat he cou ld run . How he

could run , though ! We cou rsed with h im once or twice,and that crimped bundle of nerves actual ly caught us t hemakings of a jugged hare. But when Mrs . B rown ingfina l ly made use of h is un ique gift to run away , all we re

gret ted about h im was the toman or two we had paid forso poor a creatu re .J immy, in the meant ime, fai l ed to come back . So

Habib made one day a second at tempt at con solat ion byproud ly bring ing in a b i rd which he named a hawk .

Falcon ry is by no means a lost a rt in th is part of the world ,where hunt ing Khans keep thei r hawks and the i r fa l conersqu ite l ike any ba ron Of the th irteenth centu ry . But th ishawk, while he consumed chunks of raw meat with theutmost greediness, happened to be an owl, wi t h two immense yel low eyes that b l inked b l ind ly at us a s he stumb led about the b rick floor of the veranda ! And to theinfinite d isappointment of Habib we refused to add himto our al ready large enough l i st of pensioners .Among these was an obscu rer member whom I have

not yet ment ioned , belonging to the pa ri ah cast e of sag .

Where he came from nobody knew. Nor did we takevery k indly to h im at fi rst , the more SO as the meat b i l ltook a tu rn for t he worse about that t ime . But a s Oftena s we ordered h im away he infal l ibly turned up aga in ,generally in the V ic in ity of t he stab le . I ncidental ly theboys kept h int ing that dwel lers in the desert requ i redsome sort of watchman . Many a dark word t hrewthey out a s wel l about wolves t hat ravened down from the

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J IMMY co .

mountains on winter n ights , plain ly giving us to understand that nobody could keep the wolf from the door, orprotect ou r s lumbers , to say nothing of t hei r own, betterthan this humb le c it izen of the count ry . So what d id i t

avai l us to kick against the p ricks ? We gave in , withoutadmitted surrender or t riumph on either side, and beforewe knew it the sag was on terms of famil ia rity with us al l .H e rece ived , of course, none of J immy ’s honours . H enever came into the house, being nothing but a pla in

yaller dog, rather bigger and redder than the ord ina ry,with a pai r of c l ipped ears that gave h im a vague dist inct ion . But I not iced that Mehm

’

dA l i ’s rosy-cheeked apprent ice was not too far gone in the canons of the orthodoxto take the interloper into hi s a rms or even to t reat h im tosurrept it iou s kisses .At last it began to be whispered that the powers of t he

a i r were again st u s , for the new watch-dog proceeded todevelop a mysterious malady . H e would tw itch spasmodically at inopportune moments , and most dolorouslywould he howl in season and out . These symptoms , Habibexpla ined , were due to the fact that an enemy , probab ly ath ief who had set apart our house for some midnight foray,had fed the unfortunate creature with a p iece of b read ora lump ofmeat conta in ing an in s id iou s needle . The need le ,of cou rse , had stuck in the dog

’s th roat , and was the causeof h is woe. Whether the needle was final ly fatal to h im ,

or whether, as the servants vowed , the implacable robbershot h im , we never knew . At any rate, he too, disapp eared, and another reigned in h is stead . T h IS was a ter

rifying anima l , b igger and ye l lower, without the d ist in

guished ears , who at once made h imself so much at homethat he at fi rst res isted al l our at tempts to get into or out

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PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

of t he ga rden . We stuck to the point , however, and heended by grudg ingly recognis ing our rights .But J immy st i l l stayed away— as we fe l t convinced

,in a

state of capt iv ity . Yet when two or th ree month s hadgone by we gave h im up as gone for good . Then one of

t he house-boys confided to us—we suspected because h i stenure of of fice had become a l it t le insecureb t hat his

mother, whi le pay ing a ca l l , had seen in the garden of herhostess a white puppy . Obscure a s t h i s c l ew was, we cou ldnot but fo l low it up . And it led to a deed of high-handedness wh ich en l ightened me not a l it t le on some of the waysof Pers ia . For before we knew it we were told t hat theson of t he lady in whose ga rden a wh ite puppy had beenseen had been captu red by our ret inue, and was held in thestable a t our d isposal as a hostage !There is th i s beauty about j ust ice in Persia , that every

body admin i sters it to suit h imself . There exist in Hamadan munic ipal dungeon s , genda rmerie p risons , and B lackHoles of Calcutta in the Governor’ s pa lace, whereinl ie in chain s the more notorious ma lefactors of the

province . But in general people find it s impler andmore sat i sfactory to attend to a private enemy themselves—when they can catch him . NO great Khan , forinstance

,would dream of carry ing on h is affai rs without

Shutt ing up h is v i l lagers whenever he chooses . And

somet imes he shut s up another Khan ’ s vi l lagers . Evenin a certa in Firengi office known to me have I seen anupper chamber reserved for the entertainment of recalcit rant rug weavers who eat up the money advanced themfor wool and dyes . There they s i t , not too uncomfortab ly,nouri shed at the expense of the Firengi, and no doubt morerichly than they are used, unt i l t hei r friends p roduce t he

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captors . There they a l l spent the n ight sociably underthe same kursi, and the next morning the V ict im depa rtedin peace about hi s own unholy affai rs .We had quite given up hope of ever see ing J immy aga in

when he wa s b rought back one day by a pol iceman whoflat ly refused to say where he had found h im . Alas , poor

J immy ! N ever have I seen a humb ler l it t l e dog . Ofcourse he knew us . He cou ld not have forgotten us . Wesaw i t in h i s half-averted eye . But we a l so saw that heentertained no hope of forgiveness . What was mostp it ifu l , however, were the marks of chafing around hisneck, the wound s on hi s head , and the unutterab le di rt iness of hi s once white coat . So we ki l led—well , not afatted calf for h im , s ince that wou ld have t ransgressed thelaws of the Medes and the Pers ians . We let h im gobbleup more chops and chicken bones than were good for h im ,

t hough , and he was nearly gobbled up in turn , out of

j ea lousy , by the common or garden sag who had taken theplace of hi s old friend the ye l low cur with a need le in h isth roat . And it wa s not long before J immy became as

handsome and humorou s as ever, and a fi rm friend of

t he hard—hearted watch-dog .

But did that escapade cure h im of runn ing away? Ofcourse not ! Can J immy change h is spots, or the Et h iopian h is skin ?

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TH E GREAT SLAUGHTER

The Passion Play at Ammergau, with its immense audiences,

the seriousness of its actors, the passionate emotion of its specta

tors, brought to my mind something of which I had read an ac

count lately; something produced, not in Bavaria or Christendomat all, but far away in that wonderful East, from which, whateverairs of superiority Europe may justly give itself, all our religionhas come, and where religion , of some sort or other, has s till an

empire over men’

sfeelings such as it has nowhere else .

Matthew Arnold : ESSAYS IN CRIT ICI SM

E HAD been in Hamadan barely a weekwhen , one afternoon as we went about ona round of ca l l s , we met .

a fi le of sma l lboys who did not concea l thei r d ispos it ion

to hoot at us . One cou ld hard ly b lame them . Of a l lhuman emp loyment s , that of d i sseminat ing pasteboardshas a lways seemed to me the most imposs ib le to takeseriously . What further att racted me to the sma l l boys ,however, was a toy flagstaff t hey were p lay ing with , fly inga three-cornered green rag and t ipped with a piece of t incut into the s i lhouette of an open hand . And that nightor the next a s we came home from a d inner pa rty wepassed severa l l ighted mosque windows , wide-pointedarches fi l led with wh ite paper and crisscrossed by heavy

I2 !

THE PLAGELLANT S

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Persians take much more to heart than any of thei rneighbours .When the P rophet d ied in 632 , he left no expl ic i t direc

t ions as to h is successor in the leadership of the new

theocrat ic state he had founded . I t had, to be sure,been more or less vaguely understood that h is mantlewould fa l l upon h is cousin and son- in- l aw Al i . Th isAl i , gloriously known a s the Lion of God,

had been afterthe Prophet ’ s fi rst wife, Mother of the Moslems (on whombe peace the P rophet ’ s fi rst convert . Al i had a l somarried the P rophet ’ s daughter Fatma , by whom he hadtwo sons . These two , H asan and Hosein , were the solesurviving male descendants of the P rophet , who hadpronounced the i r father h i s son, h is V ica r, and h i s delegate .

And the Pers ians cla im that during Mohammed ’s fare

wel l p i lgrimage to Mecca the a rchangel Gab riel appearedto him , inst ruct ing h im to procla im A l i a s h is legal successor, and that on h is way back to Med ina the P rophetd id so .

Be that as i t may, t here was enough indefiniteness withregard to h i s intent ions for the Arab s to elect as the fi rst

Cal iph or temporal successor of Mohammed another

member of hi s family, h is father- in- law Abu Bekr. This

Abu Bekr—o therwise Father of the Fu l l Moon , or of

Mohammed ’s youngest wife Aishah —was succeeded in634 by Omar, who ten years later met a violent end ; andafter h im came Osman or Othman , assass inat ed in tu rnin 656 . Then only d id Al i , no longer a young man , whohad h itherto been accorded merely a vague sp i ritualp rimacy

,inherit the tempora l power as fourth Cal iph .

I n t he twenty—four years s ince the Prophet ’s death , however

,the new Mohammedan state had grown so rap id ly

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THE GREAT SLAUGHTER

that to t he pa rent p rovince of Arab ia had a l ready beenadded Sy ria , Egypt , and Persia . I t was a state of imperia l s ize, and the Lion of God proved not to be of thetemper of an emperor . D issen s ions accordingly arosebetween him and the warl ike governors of Egypt andSy ria , which cert ain fanat ics undertook to sett le by stabbing t he three of them and holding a new e lect ion . But

this p ra iseworthy project was successfu l on ly in the caseof Ali . He wa s ki l led in 66 1 at Kufa , a town Of thatMesopotamian region known in t he N ear East as I rakArabi . The Cal iphate then passed to A l i ’ s elder son

Hasan , who soon abdicated in favour of Moav ia, gover

nor of Sy ri a and founder of the Ommayad dynasty of

Damascus . Hasan ret i red to the ho ly c ity of Medina ,where about 669 he was poisoned by one of his numerous

wives .

When Moav ia died in 680, t he peop le of Kufa sentword to A l i ’ s second son Hosein , who a l so l ived in Medina,t hat t hey would recognise him as the new Cal iph insteadof Moav ia

’

s son Yezid. Yezid, however, lost no t ime intaking steps to secure hi s own succession . When Hoseinarrived at Kufa with h is fami ly and a smal l ret inue thegates were closed aga inst h im , and he was surrounded by avast ly superior force under the command of Amr ibn

Saad , the conqueror of Egypt . Seeing h imself bet rayedand hopelessly outnumbered , Hosein a sked permiss ionof Amr to return in safety to Medina , or even to proceedto Yezid’

s court at Damascus . This parley was cutshort by Ob eidullah ibn Ziad , the governor of Kufa justappointed by Yezid, who sent h is l ieutenant Shimr toinsist that Amr demand Hosein ’s uncondit ional surrenderor res ign his command . Hosein refused to surrender.

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PERS I AN M IN I ATURES

In Spite of t he odds against h im , he took up h is pos it ionon t he hi l lock of Kerbela , above the Euphrates, and prepared for bat tle . This was on the n inth day of Mohar

rem, in t he year of the H eg i ra 6 1 , or 68 1 of our era .

H istory and legend are so i ntertwined in the storythat t he forces of the Arabs from Medina a re va riouslyreported to have been from seventy to six hundred men

,

horse and foot , whi le those of t he Syr ian caval ry amountedto four or five t hou sand . The chief Al Hurr

,who had

fi rst int imated to Hosein t hat the gates of Kufa wou ldnot Open to h im , now went over to the latter with h i s

b rother, hi s son , and one of hi s sl aves . So sma l l a reinforcement , however, natura l ly had no effect on the final

outcome . After a heroic res i stance of two days , duringwhich the beleaguered Arab s had al so to fight again stsun and thi rst , Hosein a lone remained a l ive of the menof hi s party . At n ightfa l l of t he l ot h of Moharrem h e

was shot in the mouth by an arrow , whi le attempt ing toget water from the Euphrates . H i s S i ster Zeineb , ru shing out from her tent , ad jured the Sy rian s to spare the

grandson of the Prophet . But thei r an swer was to set thecamp on fi re and to st rike down Hosein under thi rty- three

swords and lances . H is head was then cut off by Shimrwho ,

accord ing to t he h istorian Masudi , carried the b loodyt rophy to hi s chief Ob eidullah , chant ing exult ingly '

Cover me with gold and with Silver to my stirrups,For I have kil led the Seid of t h e Veiled face.

I have slain t h e most noble ofmen by his father and his mother,T h e most noble when they produce tit les of nobil ity .

The governor of Kufa sent the head , together wi t h thewomen and chi ldren of Hosein ’ s fami ly, to Yezid at

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wit h the greater zest because he was stabbed by a Pers ianSlave . And one of t he ways by which they st i l l ma rk t hatday of rejoicing is to burn the hated Cal iph in effigy .

The case i s t he more curious because the conquest ofOma r all but put an end to Zoroast rian ism . Only insoutheastern Pers ia and in Bombay do there rema in afew adherents of t h i s ancient fa i th . But the Pers iansfiercely contend tha t Al i and his descendants alone werethe t rue successors of t he P rophet . The tombs of Al iand Hosein at Nejef and Kerbela , in

' Mesopotam ia , areto t hem places of pilgrimage a lmost if not qu it e a s sacredas Mecca and Med ina . Other members of the holy familya re buried at Kazimein and Samarra , north of Baghdad ,while in thei r own count ry the Pers ians venerat e at M eshed the tomb oi t he eighth of the descendant s of theProphet , Riza . I n all t here were twelve of these per

sonages, who a re known as the Imams. They a re re

ga rded a s more than mortal s , whose natures were withoutS in and whose bodies cast no Shadow . The last one

d i sappeared in 873 ; and a l though a tomb of him exist s atSamarra t he Pers ians bel ieve that he never d ied , but wi l lreappear in the great mosque of Meshed at the JudgmentDay as the Mahdi or Guide .

Another element of nat iona l i ty enters into the legendof Hosein in that the Pers ians devout ly bel ieve h i s wife,Ha ra r or Omm Leila , to have been the daughter of Yezdigird I I I , th e last of the Sasan ians . Accord ing to Pers ian h istory a s set forth by Firdeusi, in the Shah Nameh ,th is second nat ional dynasty was descended from theea rl ie r myth ica l dyna sty which has part ial ly been ident ified w ith the Achaemen ian s of the heroic period . The

story i s t hat t he Pers ian princess wa s ca rried away to

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Medina as a p risoner of wa r, where Oma r (may h is namebe cursed !) ordered her to be sold as a S lave but Al i intervened and gave her to h is son Hosein . And , S imilarly,t he Pers ians t race the ancest ry of the Safev i dynasty,which restored the independence of Pers ia in 1499, to

the seventh Imam, Musa Kazim . Thus the ceremonies

of Moharrem are, i t i s t rue , a rite of the rel igion whichtook the place of thei r own more anc ient one. But theyare at the same t ime an assert ion of nat ional p ride againstt he Arab conqueror and against those Turki sh and Afghanneighbours who have so often encroached on Persian soi l .T ime , of course , has a way of soften ing re l igious d issensions . When , however, they a re so int ricately entangledwith others of t he sent iments that l ie deepest in the heartof man , i t i s not safe to count too much on the un ity of

the Moslem world . At any rate, t he Pers ian s st i l l p iouslychant i n Moharrem:

T he black-hearted people who S lew the offspring of theProphet with mal ice :They claim to belong to the rel ig ion, but they murder the

lord of the rel igion .

Although it had for several day s been patent tha t someth ing was in the a i r, the fi rst pos i t ive S ign of it we had inour own house . Then the servant s , who had unaccountab ly been going about with thei r clothes unbuttoned atthe th roat , announced that a s i t was the day of t he Li tt leS laughter, otherwi se the seventh of Moharrem, theywould be ob l iged to do as l i tt le work as possible . This , Imust confess , seemed no new resolut ion in those p ictur

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esque underl ings , no one of whom ever gave us the impression that he would d ie of overwork . But an inquis it iveea r could not help being caught by that name of Litt leS laughter—wh ich I be l ieve is t he ann iversa ry of the daywhen the Imam Hosein and hi s pa rty were turned as idefrom Kufa by the ch ief Al Hurr.I afterward rea l ised that if I had known Pers ian

, or ifI had been an o lder res ident Of H amadan , I might haveseen a great deal more than I d id . But there was someth ing even for the most ignorant newcomer to see on the

tenth of Moharrem. This greatest ann iversa ry of the

Pers ian year is known as the G reat Slaughter. And it i scommemorated th roughout the count ry by a spec ies ofPassion Play which has a more fami l ia r counte rpa rt in theEaster celeb rat ions of the Greek Church , as in t he d ramat icrep resentat ions of Oberammergau and other pa rt s of theCathol ic world . I n Teh ran and el sewhere theat res exist ,or are improvised , in wh ich the t ragedy of the Family ofthe Tent , a s the Pers ians name the heroic campers atKerbela , i s acted out w i t h more than h istorica l deta i l .I p resume some such th ing might have been found inHamadan , t hough no one Of our colony had ever seen it .One of our number, indeed , was highly scanda l ised thatChri st ians shou ld bet ray any interest i n p roceedings SOheathen i sh . We d id , however, see someth ing . And in it sway it wa s something st ranger and more p icturesque thanI had ever seen before .We saw i t from the roof of a bui ld ing that had been

erected for a “mov ie ” t heat re ! The inner workings oft hat theat re rema ined immovable during the whole ofmy sojourn in H amadan ; but no fi lm t hat has s ince beenexh ibited there can have come up to the sett ing and the

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fore, was a fantast ic l it t le Spangled green pav i l l ion thatstood at the rear of t he ri s ing stage . This was supposedto represent Damascus , or Yezid

’

s palace therein . A

less ornamenta l red tent downstage at the right was atonce Kufa and t he camp of the V i l lains Amr and Sh imr .In t he cent re and toward the left of the stage were p itchedtwo smal ler white tent s , for the camp of Kerbela .

A l l t h i s made enough to look at , in the c lear Persiansun l ight , t i l l a st range object sudden ly advanced into sightbeh ind the ruins Of the mosque . I t looked l ike a furledstandard , horizontal ly st riped with b ri l l iant bands of

colour, and it s ta l l staff was surmounted by an uprighthand of b rass . According to Hab ib t h is hand commemorated the mut i lated one of t he Imam Abu Fazl , t houghMasudi says i n The M eadows of Gold ” that Sh imr cutoff the right hand of Hosein a s wel l a s h is head . And I

bel ieve a hand i s a common symbol of t he Holy Fami lyof I slam , whose five ch ief members a re Mohammed ,Fatma , Al i , H asan , and Hosein . At any rate, th i s p icturesque furled standard , which is not meant to be unfurled , being merely a sort Of ci rcular gonfalon , p resentlyreached the end of t he st reet below us. I t was fol lowedby a quant ity of decorat ive banners on shorter staves .Some of t hem were black, others were fringed and inscribed wit h Arab ic let ters , while two t riangu lar oriflammeswere made to stand st raight out by being fastened togetherat the point . Beh ind the banners c lat tered a cavalcadeof men at a rms, some in sca rlet , others carry ing long, slender lances . And after them marched a company of men

on foot . What wa s most unu sua l about the lat ter wasnot that they wore b lack, but that they were ba re- headed .

For to uncover the hai r in pub l ic i s the last th ing for a

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TH E GREAT SLAUGHTER

Mohammedan to do . These beat thei r bare b reasts inunison , a s they marched . Which in stant ly made merecogn ise, i n the i rregu lar measured thud of right hands onleft shou lder b lades , the curious sound of c lapping I hadheard behind the l ighted paper windows of the mosques .This process ion passed under us and took it s place atKerbela , on the left s ide of the square. N ext there appeared a band of water carriers , each with a goat skinslung across hi s back and swinging i n hi s hand a hol lowgourd or an ob long brass bowl . The pat ron of th is gui ldis the standard bearer Abbas , the Imam

’

s uncle, who was

ki l led in a desperate attempt to bring to the be leagueredwomen and chi ldren at Kerbe l a a l it t le water from theEuphrates . B eh ind the water carriers t rotted a caravan of t rave l lers from M edina , on mu le back . Themost notab le thing about them wa s thei r luggage

, con

s i st ing of funny l i t t le painted t runks and the most env iab lesadd lebags . They took thei r places immediate ly be lowu s , facing the square . And after them came more bannersand flagellant s . Thei r leader, who bore the ta l l furledand banded gonfa lon , j erked it up and down in a sort ofrhythm , and the flagellant s hopped in t ime to it , beat ingthei r b reast s and chant ing Hosein ah !” This commot ion SO a la rmed one of the mu les of the caravan that heupset h is un lucky rider, together with h is boxes andsadd lebags , into a sea of mud .

There was quite an interva l before a la rger and morepicturesque process ion made it s appearance . I t emergedfrom the Bazaa r at the left , a s if to emphasize i t s dist inct ion from the party of Hosein , and for greater pomp it wasp receded by two l ines of genda rmes . This touch had aspecia l savour for some ofus, in that those gendarmes were

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the creat ion of our own compat r iot M r . W . M . Shuster,ex-Treasurer-Genera l of Pers ia . Th is more magnificentSy rian p rocession flaunt ed severa l fu rled gonfalon s of t heb rass hand , and many more banners and oriflammes.

They were fo l lowed by the caval iers and lancers of Amribn Saad , and by a caravan of camels . The riders of thelatter were d ressed in t he Syrian c loak and sca rf, whi le thet rappings of thei r beast s were fa r more gorgeous thananything disp layed by t he humb le mu les from Medina .

And next appeared a most mysterious ornament or emb lemthat advanced gl i t t ering above the head s of t he crowd .

On top of the pole that carried i t was a cross bar, and ateither end of the c ross ba r some l itt le domed and pinmacled edifice of bras s , whi le between t hem stood upright ,it s point nodding forwa rd a s if by i t s own weight , whatmight have been a sword of s lenderest steel . What th i ss ignified , if anyth ing, no one could te l l me . But I forgotto wonder about i t when I saw who edged next into sight ,bare- headed l ike the breast-beaters , but dressed in whitesmocks , commemorat ing t he Shroud worn by Hosein atKerbela , that were st reaked scarlet with thei r own b lood .

They marched S ideways i n two long l ines , the left hand ofeach in the be l t of hi s neighbour, holding in h is right asword with which he S l ashed h i s own head . A few of those

ext raordinary flagellant s I had seen before , i n Con stant inOp le . But there i t was in an enclosed courtyard , at dusk,among an unfriendly people . Here in the bri l l iant sunl ight oi thei r own count ry, p ressed by thei r friend s andneighbou rs , chant ing so hoarse ly after that mysteriousth ing of b rass and steel t hat gl i t t ered above the darkcaps of the c rowd , t hey made an effect wilder and morefrenet ic than anyth ing I have ever seen . Many of them

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a l ifeless body ly ing on the ground not fa r from the cent ra ltent .

An Arab hurried out of the tent of Hosein and knel tbes ide the corpse, fol lowed by a woman who burst intoloud sobs . Who cou ld the dead man be? Was he the

standa rd bearer Abbas? Was he Al i Akba r, the Imam’

s

son, who al so lost h i s l ife in an at tempt to get water fromthe Euph rates? Was he the young Kas im , Hosein

’s

nephew, whose story i s one of the most affect ing incidentsin the Pers ian legend ? Kas im was , I bel ieve, the fifthto volunteer for t he peri lous adventure of b ringing waterfrom the river, during those two burn ing days underthe Mesopotamian sun . He was only s ixteen years old,

and both h is mother and h is uncle d id thei r best to d i ssuade h im . But the matter was final ly set t led by the d iscov ery of a letter or wi l l of hi s father, t he Ca l iph Hasan ,prophesy ing for h im the glory ofmarty rdom and d irect ingthat he was fi rst to ma rry h is cou s in Zob eida. The wed

ding accordingly took place On the batt lefield . But if

i t took place at Masj id-i- Shah I saw nothing of it—unlessa second encounter between the two t roops of cava l ierswas t he at t ack wh ich b roke up the marriage fest iv it iesand cost the l ife of the young b ridegroom .

At t he c lose of th i s melee the Syrian s held t he field .

Whereupon they set on fi re the cent ra l tent , wh ich wassupposed to Shel ter t he Imam’

s Persian princess, h iss i ster Zeineb , the young w idow Zob eida, the widow of

H asan , and other women and ch i ld ren . This suddenblaze in the cent re of t he square, made more Spectacularby a quant ity of st raw concealed in the burn ing tent ,was the signal for a passionate outburst of weeping fromthe crowd . There had been tea rs and sobs before, es

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pecially when the corpse was left on the ground at theend of the fi rst brush between the lancers . But now therearose so general a sound of grief t hat one cou ld not he lpbeing impressed . Near us sat a Pers ian lady who had fi rst

been ext reme ly scanda l ised by the loose way in which themen and women of our party sat together, and who thenhad Shown every S ign of uneasiness lest her ski rts be defi led by those of the miss ionary next her— the more soas a wet Christ ian i s fa r more impure than a dry one.

This evident ly orthodox person was one of the fi rst toShed tears over the peri l s of the Fami ly of the Tent . Theywere rea l tea rs , because I saw t hem Splash down her

cheeks . She was not so orthodox, I must add , but whatShe l ifted her thick vei l in order to see what was goingon . And now not only did her tears Shower anew, but

she beat her breast , tore her ha i r, and very nea rly jerkedher vei l Off a l together . Even SO impure an unbel iever a smyse lf cou ld not help fee l ing touched at such evidencethat a t ragedy over twelve hundred years old cou ld st i l lwork so

'powerfully upon the heart s of those who behe ld

it . Then the weeping lady sudden ly d ried her tea rs anddemanded of another lady i n a b lack domino, rathercrossly

,why she d idn ’ t cry . And hav ing received what

was no doubt a sat isfactory an swer, the tea rs began torain again out of her own better d isc ipl ined eyes . Atthat

,I must admit , I , who am natura l ly of a suspic ious

nature,began to dart scept ical glances about me . I

remembered that at the theat re of the Passion P lay inTeh ran there i s a funct ionary known as the Auxi l ia ry of

Tears . I went so far as to ask myse lf if there could beonions in any of the innumerab le handkerchiefs I saw .

But it opportunely came back to me that th i s was at

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once a rel igiou s and dramat ic performance , in a land whereother d ramat ic performances do not ex i st , that I myselfhad more than once nearly d rowned in the tears of myown compat riot s, shed over no greater a mat ter, for instance, t han

“The Music Master,” and t hat if I chose

that moment to probe the dark subj ect of fema l e lamentat ions I would miss what was going forwa rd in the squareof Masj id-i-Shah .

The flames of t he tent were put out by the water ca rriers, who drew from thei r goat sk ins the wa ter of t heEuph rates wh ich Hosein and h is companions had so b itterly l acked . I n t he meant ime the flagellant s i n blackmade a ci rcl e about the place of the tent , beat ing the irb reast s more vehemently t han ever, st riking thei r headsin despa i r, and Showering on thei r heads what rema inedof the half-burnt st raw of the tent , as wel l a s fresh-choppedst raw from a supply they had— represent ing t he sands ofMesopotam ia .

By the t ime the last scene was ready to take place thecrowd had bu rst all bounds , fi lling the amphitheat rewith an uneasy mass of da rk fel t caps . Through it theflagellant s in b lack S lowly made the i r way, led by themysterious b rass emb lem , to the standards massed nea rthe red tent of Amr ibn Saad . The flagellant s in whitefol lowed them , with thei r flying gua rd of pointed ori

flammes . Then the sca rlet lancers and the Syrian camels—one of t hem , splendidly capari soned , mounted by apersonage in green , and others bea ring aloft t he capt ivewomen and ch i ld ren from Med ina , with wooden t rianglesabout thei r necks—performed a serpent ine progressth rough the crowd from Kufa to Damascus . At Oberammergau, of cou rse , there never wou ld have been such

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ly ing on uneven ground and enc i rc led by the mud wal lsand houses of the town . A Pers ian cemetery i s a lwaysto be recogn ised by it s flat , haphazard stones, withoutsh rub or t ree for beauty . They say, alas , that cemete riesmay a lso be recognised by other sen ses t han that of S ight .For In Pers ia no regulat ions ex ist as to the depth of graves ,and your I ran ian is no man to d ig deeper than he need .

Wh ich does not prevent h im from co l lect ing the frozensnow of winter in ho l lows among the graves , and storingi t in some conven ient dugout between them for the

sherbet s of summer . I d iscovered no such arrangements in th i s part icula r cemetery ; but the waters of a

jub, an irrigat ion channel , out of which no one ever

hes it ates to d rink , ran merri ly along it s lower s ide . Onit s h ighest point , in suggest ive prox imity to the graves ,stood a gal lows . At t hat moment no highwayman happened to be swinging from it— to the regret of Habib ,who coveted for me the most characterist ic impress ions ofh is nat ive town .

T o that end he escorted me to the roof of a publ ic bathencroaching upon one edge of the cemetery . NO housein H amadan i s a skyscraper ; but as bath s l ike to burrowunderground , thei r roofs are not too difficul t to reach .

This roof we found in the possess ion of a company ofladies , who looked a l it t l e doubtful a t my appearance inthei r m id st . However, t hose of them who occupied thehighest point of vantage at once recognised t hat it wasthei r duty to ret i re in my favour . And in the face ofso evident a rul ing of pub l ic op inion wha t could I dobut scramble up in t hei r stead , accept a basket which ayouth handed me to sit on , and endow him with the ridiculously excess ive t ip of some two cents .

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TH E GREAT SLAUGHTER

From the fact that this youth wore noth ing but onest riped towel , which he seemed to find ent i rely adequate

protect ion aga inst the eager and the n ipping ai r of awinter cl imate of Colorado or the Engad ine, I took h imfor an at tendant of the bath beneath us . His bus inessamong the ladies on the roof was to turn over wit h h isbare feet a quant ity of manure spread out there in thesun to d ry , and to regulate the unfathomab l e operat ionsof a ch imney covered with an Al i Baba ja r of blue glaze .

Every so often he would remove th is j ar, by means ofthe handles conven ient ly enc i rcl ing i t s neck . Between

t imes he held impass ioned conversat ion s wi th h is col

leagues below, th rough a hole in a dome where a glassbu l l ’s eye had once been .

‘ Out of i t escaped a lazy cloudof steam into the clear a i r.Other youths appea red from t ime to t ime, Offering forsale mysterious condiment s which the lad ies were moreeager to taste t han 1 . One such dainty looked l ike a messof boiled beets , wrapped in the grandfather of all fi lthyrags . Another was a species ofmaca roon . The favouritewas a co l lect ion of poisonous looking cand ies , which t h elad ies fed incessant ly to bab ies in funny l itt le roundSpangled caps . As for the bab ies , towa rd whom thei rmothers othe rwise exhib ited undisgu ised affect ion , t heydid not curl up and die . On the cont ra ry, they c rowedand waved thei r a rms and legs , quite l ike the most scient ifically b rought up babies i n t he world , and t ried to jumpoff the roof of the bath in order to join thei r papas on theopposite S ide of the st reet . These gentlemen sat com

fort ably on t hei r hee l s in the sun, engaged in the pleasuresof The Chase or smoking th ick st raight pipes , and nodoubt exchanging scandalous opin ions with regard to

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the not too rigorously vei led beaut ies perched on the

roof of the bath . I had heard terrible stories of thefanat ic i sm of t he Pers ians during Moharrem, and had infact been rather st ruc k by thei r unwi l l ingness to allowme to see the in s ide of a bath or a mosque . Conse

quently it pleased me not a l i t t le to d iscover these goodHamadanis so human and friend ly , and so di sposed tolet both me and my camera into what had the a i r of beinga l a rge fam i ly party .

The process ion , when a t last it appea red , was verymuch l ike the p rocess ions Of Masj id-i-Shah . Thi s t ime

,

h owever, I enjoyed the advantage of seeing it very muchnearer at hand , if in a l ess p ictu res que perspect ive . And

it contained several new and interest ing features . Thefi rst S ign of it was one of t hose fi les of small boys carryinga l it t l e banner and a hand , beat ing thei r b reast s andchant ing sh ri l ly the names of the martyred Imams . Be

h ind them rose a sound of deeper voices , inte rmingledwith a barbaric b la re of b rass . Then from the narrowst reet debouch ing upon the cemetery emerged two longl ines of M r . Shust er’s genda rmes and th i rty- two pai rs ofhorses . Some were mounted , others were led by groom s ;and the h igh sadd les of the lat ter were covered with handsome stuffs and embroideries . One fine sta l l ion —a mare,for t hat mat ter, i s ra rely seen on the st reet s i n Persia ,and a geld ing almost never— was caparisoned i n black,being the charger of Hosein . N ext came the th ree kindsof banners we had seen the day before . The staves of afew were t ipped by the symbol ic hand of the Holy Fami ly,those Of most ending i n a spherical gi l t cone . There fol

lowed the more enigmat ic metal emblem at the head ofthe flagellant s. As borne by the men of Kolapa t h is d i s

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S ide locks which are the p ride of a Pers ian dandy. Others

exhib ited a wide ha lf moon of naked skin , Sweepinga round the temples and the c rown , or a great cowl t hatleft noth ing of the i r ha i r but a fringe l ike a Japanesedol l ’s ; whi le the heads of a few were shorn completelyba re .

The second pa rt of the p rocession wa s led by a band ofbug lers and t rumpeters , whose copper t rumpet s werelonger t han any t rombone I ever saw in the t riumphalmarch of

“Aida . And what sound s burst from them !There fol lowed a squadron of lancers , and a sma l l boy ingreen on a horse w i th b lack t rapp ings . Th is sma l l boyimpersonated , according to my companion , t he youngImam Al i Asghar, who wa s t aken capt ive to Damascus .And beh ind him were borne , on two ornamenta l biers,the head and the headless t runk of the martyred Hosein .

At sight of these amazingly cadaverous rel ics , whichseemed to be made ofwax or pap ier mache, t he spectatorsfel l in to thei r wi ldest tears and sobs .So many featu res of the rest of t h is pa rt of the pageant

were new to me that I cannot be qu ite sure of thei r order .But I saw a white box of some kind , surmounted by animage of the dove that flew from Kerbe la to M edina totel l t he Prophet in h is tomb of hi s grandson ’s t ragic end.

There was al so a l ive wh ite dove , perched on a white

l i t ter wh ich was supposed to contain the young widowZob eida. The Imam’

s daughter wa s impersonated by asma l l boy whose sobs exc i ted the l ive l iest sympathy .

SO d id the s ight of severa l other l i t ters , bearing away toSl avery in Dama scu s the unhappy Zeineb and other

women and ch i ld ren of the Family of the Tent . In me ,however, the emot ion they ch iefly excited was the baser

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ZOBEIDA’

S L ITTER

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

one of covetousness , at the spectacle of the shawl s , rugs ,and figured stuffs that p rotected the t ravel lers from thesun .

Behind t he palanquins of the Holy Fam i ly appea red aseries of quaint floats , which were genera l ly no more thanS labs of wood ca rried on t he heads of one or two men .

One of the fi rst of t hem supported a rock ing cradle,per

haps that of the ch ild kil led in Hose in ’s a rms . On an

other stood a sma l l l ion , cou sin , german to the friend of

Androc les, who befriended the defenders of Kerbela .

He bent over a wounded Arab and a ttempted in none tooleon ine a manner to pu l l an a rrow out of h is b reast .The greater number of t he object s thu s borne past weremore gruesome, be ing the mut i lated members of the

lesser ma rtyrs . A pai r of legs wou ld be represented by apai r of b ig Russ ian boot s , lying hee l to heel . Othermore real ist ic human part s would mi raculous ly twitchas you watched them— in respon se, I d iscovered , to thej erk ing of a secret st ring . But once in a while t he movement of an eyel id or Of a l ip bet rayed the fact that t hecorpse was a boy w ith pa rt of hi s body concea led . Andin front of many of t he d ismembered t runks a head wasborne on a p ike—too smal l to look very l ifel ike but fromthe necks of which d rops of some sanguine l iqu id d rippedon the heads and hands of those carry ing the p ikes .Among t h e float s

, one that interested me not leastt hough perhaps it wa s intended to represent an open l it terof the kind you see on Pers ian journeys—conta ined , if

you please , two youths d ressed a s European s . One of

t hem,in ahelmet and a Norfolk jacket wh ich must once

have come out Of some cupboard in our colony , held a

smal l spyglass with wh ich he would intently search t he

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Moses, prophets, angels , and other holy persons . Andthe fai r infidel is so moved that on waking up sh e at onceannounces her bel ief in I s lam . But a l l t hese storiesagree in the essent ial fact t hat even a dog of a Christ ianis more humane and access ible to the cla ims of t he t ruththan the hated Syrian Ca l iph . A counterpa rt of th i sfact is t he Old procl amat ion of the conquering Sultan s ofStambul that t he deat h Of one Shiite was more agreeab leto God than t hat Of seventy Chri st ian s . Which aremat ters to remember in discussing Ho ly Wars and thespread of Pan- I sl ami sm .

I have not ment ioned t he grave diggers who fol lowedthe corpses Of t he s l a in , ca rry ing on thei r Shou lders thei r

pointed spades w i t h a crossbar for t he foot of the digger .More moving to t he spectators was t he t rain of captivesnea r t he end of t he p rocess ion . Some of them were on

mule back , and b loody knives pierced t hei r heads andthei r bodies in the most startl ing fashion . Severa l ofthese wounded prisoners were u rchins of no more thaneight or ten , whose pal lor and fa intness were so wel lS imulated that a louder choru s of sob s accompan ied themup t he st reet . Others marched afoot , with wooden yokesOf s l avery a round thei r necks ; and mounted lancers inhelmet s and scarlet coat s d rove them from behind withwhips . Once in a whi le a fl ick of t he lash wou ld be toomuch l ike the real t h ing, d rawing from the v ict im a ye l lof the most unfeigned . The a rch-Vi l la in of the piece,though whether Amr or Sh imr I cannot say, surveyed h isbondmen haught i ly from the rea r, riding in gorgeou s

Sy rian robes between two fi les of l iveried attendant s andgreeted by the groans and deris ion of the populace .

And last of a l l , loaded with saddlebags and those funny

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l it t le painted boxes , ambled the mules of the humb le rt rave l lers , who were not too overcome by the p rospectof t h e miseries that awa ited them at the hand s of Yezid

(may hi s name be cursed !) to exchange the l ive l iestsa l utat ions with thei r friends a long the way .

For th ree days the pageants of the Great Slaughtercont inued to fi l l the st reet s wit h c lamour and co lour andweep ing . What I saw as I st rol led about the town wastoo much l ike what I had a l ready seen to bear rete l l ing .

The same p icture was repeated innumerab l e t imes inevery conceivab l e sett ing— though a lways against thesame background of t awny wa l l s, with the same st rangeness of gonfalon and oriflamme and nodding emb lemat icblades, of l ances and copper t rumpets , of b lack and scarlet , and sway ing pa lanquins . One such p icture comesback to me the most v iv id ly because it was set on the

pointed stone arch of a b ridge across the river. One of

the horses in the p rocess ion wore on h is b ridle a fantast icruff of wh ite peacocks ’ feathers , ri s ing above the head ofthe rider . And somewhere beh ind h im a boy kneeledon one of the float s two men were carry ing, h is up l iftedhands s i lhouetted aga inst the sky l ike the symbol of anat ion ’ s fa ith and pride .

That n ight the servant s told us that there would be nomore pageant s in the st reet s . The Governor had forb idden them . Was it , I wondered , becau se a customremin iscent of P i late and B arabbas permit s these pass ionplayers to demand of him the release of any prisoner they

choose to name?

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t ion used to te l l me, about the relat ion s that exi sted between different exp lorers after they had glared at eachother a year or two across t he same igloo . Our igloos ,I hasten to add , a re rather more commodious, and therea re enough of them to afford us an occas ional change ofa i r . St il l , for people b rought up to go to the theat re ,to l isten to mus ic, to v i s i t museums and l ib ra ries , tolounge in clubs , and to read newspapers, Ecbatana ,agreeab l e as it i s , i s after al l a l i t t le barer of resources thansome cap itals . There i s a post , to be sure ; but it a rrivesonly twice a week—when i t doesn ’t happen to be held upby storm s in the Caspian or snow in the passes— and ourmail i s anywhere from two weeks to two months Old bythe t ime we get it . So when we have an swered our

letters , balanced our accounts, beaten our servants , andotherwi se deal t w it h the estate to wh ich i t hath pleasedGod to cal l us, what else have we to do, bes ides exerc i s ingour legs and our horses and play ing at bowl s with our

Swiss friends , but to enterta in or be enterta ined by eachother? And how should we do it otherw ise than as we

used to do it at home?I t i s curious , t hough , how an old mat ter wi l l renew it

self in an unfamil ia r set t ing, and how a man wi l l nevert i re of a game he has played a l l hi s l ife , s imply because hecannot l ive long enough to exhaust i t s possib i l it ies . Themost hardened diner out , for instance, could hardly failto be amused by a dinner party whose exact t ime cou ldnot be set . That is one charm of our d inner part ies .For wh i le H amadan recognises the ex istence of noon ,Hamadan set s i t s own watch by the variab le hour of

sunset— which a l so marks the boundary between dateand date . Our unbe l iev ing clocks therefore go t hei r own

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gait with the most refresh ing independence, save forrare correct ion s by a not too access ib le miss ionary sun

dia l . And a guest who a rrives at d inner in t ime forthe coffee can a lways invoke the slowness of h is watch ;whi le those of the more moral sort make a pract ice ofcomparing t ime- pieces beforehand , in order not to

appea r on the scene of act ion an hour too early or too

late !

There are other ways in which going out to d inner inHamadan i s given a flavour of it s own . I n front of us

marches Habib , and perhaps Mehm’

d Al i , too, bearing al i ly . A l i ly? A l i ly— though not the same kind as theimmortal one borne by Mr . Gi lbert ’s pure young man inh is med iaeval hand . This l i ly—o r laleh , which meansthe same th ing—guides our patent- leathered feet past thepitfa l ls of Hamadan , being a candle stuck in to a t in tube,with a sma l l glass globe at the top to p rotect the flame

from the wind s of Elvend . By the l ight of i t we make ourway through dark and muddy st reet s to a subl ime porterecessed in a semic i rcle of decorat ive plaster panel s .

At one end of th is recess i s a Loggia dei Lanzi, tenantednot by Benvenuto Cellinis but by a dozing beggar ortwo, who do not fai l to profi t by t he t ime it takes thatlow wooden door to Open . I t i s studded , the door, with

spikes , bosses , knockers , locks , clamps , and h inges Of

brass which answer the fl icker of the l ily whi le Habibpounds , Shout ing

“Mesh’

di Hasan ! Ker’ Hasan ! Haj j iHasan !” in a c l imax of honorific t it les that a re long inproduc ing thei r effect . At last Hasan let s us into avau lted b rick octagon , with a door or a n iche in each faceof i t . Whether Hasan be Meshed i or Kerb elai or Hajj i ;however, we sha l l never know, for he suddenly d isappears .

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We, therefore , not knowing wh ich way to tu rn, natu ra l lyturn to the right and come out into a cou rt with a poo lin the middle and a house at t he farther end , where awoman c lutch ing her ve i l in one hand and a laleh in theother waves us wi ld ly away . H eavens ! An anderun

Or a s you m ight understand bet ter, a harem .

“ I t isbet ter to dwel l in a corner of the housetop than with ab rawl ing woman in a wide house !” We flee precip itatelyin the oppos ite direct ion , b l undering thi s t ime into anothercourt , without a poo l but with two more houses at e itherend of i t . Wrong aga in , we learn , after more knockingand Shout ing . By th is t ime H asan has found t he houseboy he went to look for, and we a re led out of the octagonby a t h ird door, th rough a low b rick tunnel , into a Cloi sterthat i s worth t ravel l ing five hundred m i les from a ra i l roadto see, enci rcled a s i t is by p i l la rs of the in imitab le Pers ian S l imness, wit h sta lact it e cap ital s, set between a narrow ambulatory and a b lack pool . Our candles fl ickerthe lengt h of it , past a swimm ing sta r or two, to anothercrooked l itt le passage of mystery that final ly emerges intothe b iggest court of all, with a high talar at each end andanother enormou s pool between them . Up a steep fl ightof brick steps we cl imb , across a talar, t hrough a hugeroom as cold a s an iceberg, and on into a cosy l itt l e onewhere faggot s snap in a stucco fi replace .

“ Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than astal led ox and hat red therewith . But best is a d innerof p i lau , and gossip therew ith , on leav ing wh ich youStumble in the hal l over a kursi with a c ircle of b l ack hat sst icking out from under i t . Why th i s unusua l ornamentin a front hal l ? Because a few n ights ago a th ief eitherb roke in or was let into the place, and , being discovered ,

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count ry that had it not been for the person who passedthe turkey and the cranberry sauce, a stocking- footedind iv idua l magnificent i n wh ite t rousers and a longta i led b rass—buttoned coat which looked as if it mighthave been cut out of my grandmother ’ s Cashmere”

Shaw l , I never wou ld have known that some of my fe l lowdiners counted thei r ab sence from America not by yearsbut by decades . I f t hey t reated me the more k ind lybecause my grandfather, who was one of the fi rst Americans to set foot in Pers ia , cleared the way for them nearlya hundred years ago, t hey did not cast me off when theyd iscovered me to be a wolf in sheep ’s cloth ing . So do not

expect me to make copy out of them— beyond say ingthat they taught me how friendly and human a miss ionarymay be .The house to which we go oftenest of all has least in it

to remind us where we are . I t does , to be sure, remind usof the cousin ship between Persia and I ndia , being bui lton t he l ines of an I ndian bunga low, with wide verandasrunn ing the whole lengt h of i t in front and b eh indfand

b lack hat s bring in the tea or serve the d inner . But oncethey a re gone the drawing room i s a piece of England ,

down to the very coa l s on the hea rth and the carpet onthe floor— in t h i s count ry whose rugs are in demand theworld over ! I t i s a perfect examp le of the steadfastnesswith wh ich the Engl ishman st icks to h is own . And we

are su re to find t here the modern descendant of t hat famous old B rit ish type of t he gentleman adventu rer, whol ikes a b it of a l a rk and the s ight of st range suns , whorides , Shoot s , plays tenni s and tent-pegging, and otherwise comport s h imsel in a manner which no Persianand no German— can understand , any more than they

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wil l ever understand how such men have come to inheritso good ly a port ion of the earth .

What might cause the German in part icu lar to th rowup his hands i s the mus ic to be heard there after d inner .Do you S ing or p lay ? Never mind : in that hospitab led rawing room you have to , j ust as at Mr . Brit ling

’

s everybody had to t ry thei r hand at hockey . And not many ofu s can acquit ourse lves so creditab ly as t he master of thehouse , as one of the lady missionaries , or as t hat Visitorfrom afar who ent ranced us one n ight wit h h i s estudiantinasongs of Smyrna , accompany ing him self on his lute . Buti t i s gay , i t i s human , i t i s homey . And afterward wedance . We dance on that Engl ish ca rpet ! And as t hesoc iety of gentleman adventurers inevitab ly has a st rongmascul ine t inge , the men can often get no better partnersthan each other . Nor do we fox- t rot and I don ’ t know

what . We dance the good old- fashioned waltz—not ,mind you, that hybrid two- step in wa l tz t ime which inmy generat ion was the th ing i n America . An occas iona lconcess ion to America i s a t rue two- step ; and I have seen

there a hes it at ing one- step and a perfect ly unhes itat ingH ighland F l ing . At any rate, we caper, on that magiccarpet flown from England to Pers ia , t i l l unheard of hoursin the morn ing, whi le b lack hats peer in from the verandaand ask them selves what ext raordinary , if not immora l ,th ings t he Firengis can be up to .

There i s another and more essent ial savour of our 50

ciety,to be tasted in the hou ses of us a l l . I happen to

have seen a few foreign colonies i n my day , but Hamadan isanother pai r of sleeves . For we are neither peop le of

lei sure l iv ing i n Pers i a for the enrichment of aesthet ic

souls or the eas ing Of depleted pocket books , nor are we

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hewers of wood and d rawers of water for a plutocrat icrul ing caste . On the cont ra ry , we rather g ive ourselvesthe a i rs of a rul ing caste, albeit most of us are merchantsor m iss iona ries . These, I take i t , a re the most populousestates in Pers ia , though the Service and t he Bank takep recedence of t hem at dinner . I n Hamadan the Servicei s very t h inly represented by one consul , a Turk , andtwo bachelor V ice consul s , an Engl ishman and a Russ ian .

Upon the Bank, t herefore , fal l s the social p rimacy amongus , the manager of i t being known to al l mank ind a s t heReis, the Chief. That o t her Pers ian estate, the Te legraph , i s foreign to us , s ince

?

we a re Off the ma in l ine ofthe Anglo- I ndian wi re . To make up for it we havethe Genda rmerie, t he Customs , t he Road , and theAl l iance—t he Alliance Israé lite Universelle, of whichmore anon .

Now you have here the ingredient s of a sufficient d iver

sity . And th i s d ivers ity is further va riegated by thenumber of flags we fly . Among us— I take pain s to fo l lowthe alphabet - a re Americans , hyphenate Armenian s ,B elgians, a Bulgarian , Engl ishmen , Frenchmen , a German or two, Greeks , Russ ians , a Swede, Swiss , and Turks .What d raws out , however, the t rue flavou r of th is peacockpie i s that no one e lement i s la rge enough to suffi ce toit self . So whether I wi l l or no , I , who am in theory anenraged enemy of cosmOpOlitanism, see every day somesuch cont rast of race or of worldly estate a s del ights mysecret hea rt better than al l el se in l ife . What , for examp le

,can be a more touch ing example of t he l ion lying

down with the lamb than to behold an elderly missiona ryfrom rural America pour a cup of tea for a handsomeyoung Frenchman—very much awake, a s t hey say in

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Where t h ree people l ive within thi rty-th ree m i les ofeach other, two of t hem a re su re to form a cl ique . Thisi s t he law of l ife, and I sha l l not be fool ish enough to cryout against i t . 1 am rather sorry, t hough , that we see sol i t t le of t he Russ ians . My fi rst impu l se is to make friendswith a Russ ian . But Half a dozen buts . D istancei s one. None of them happen to l ive very near us. Language is another Tha t b lessed Anglo-Russ ian Agreement of 1907 is a t h i rd , by v i rtue of wh ich Engl ishmenand Russ ians in Pers ia are genera l ly at swords ’ points—o r were, under the old régime . Then mysterious countess-cooks do not fit into the Anglo-Saxon scheme of

th ings . And t he v ice- consul , who is a l so offi cia l head oft he bank : i t is remembered of h im that he was once porterof the Russian bank in Meshed , in a muzhik

’

s smock .

And he studies French w i t h Mlle . Celest ine . That M lle .

Celest ine somehow cast s an unfortunate a i r a round theRussian v ice-consulate . Noth ings, noth ings, wh ich addedtogether cont rive to make a someth ing.

I , of cou rse, am not frightened by Mlle . Celest ine, orby a countess-cook, or even by a b anker v ice-consu lwho has been a muzhik . On the cont ra ry, t hey look tome l ike uncommonly good—copy— to use a gross p roiessional term— and I am dy ing to ca l l on them . But whatto do—if I am the guest Of the B rit ish half of t he Agreement of 1 907, whose face I cannot b lacken ? Againnoth ings, wh ich added together make a someth ing !Nevertheless

,accident b rought it about not only that

I should meet M l le . Celest ine , but that I shou ld d ine atthe Russ ian v ice-consulate And 0 dea r how I cont rived

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to b lacken my own face if not that of my ent i re race !I t came about iii

—

th is W ise . The in it iated had told methat no matter at what hour you were invited to dine atthe Russian vice-consulate, dinner ‘ was never servedbefore eleven . Now i t happened that on the appointedevening Hamadan produced one of her rarest mi racles .I t rained . I t ra ined so furiou sly , and I had so far to

wa lk through swimming and unfami l ia r st reet s , that Ithought myself pe rfect ly safe in sta rt ing about n ine .

And I found my host at h is dessert . I attempted lameapologies by saying that I had lost my way . My hostwas good enough to apologise in turn for h i s promptness

,

informing me that as it was neither Wednesday norSaturday he was free of the courrier de Petersbourg . I

have so much to do, my God !” he cried , clapping h is

hands . “ I have so much to do !” He must , poorwretch , what with h is vice-consulate and hi s bank and hisFrench lessons . But he was s imple and friendly, as aRuss ian knows how to be to a st ranger, and he kept fi l l ingup t he glasses around my plate so fast and so indiscriminately , with vodka , beer, champagne, and l iqueurs, tha tI had to be careful what I d id with them .

What t roubled me most about this acc ident was thatanother guest was the new commander of the Pers ianCossacks—a grave and handsome officer who quite ev ident ly had never been a muzhik . He further upset myca l cu lat ion s by d rinking on ly wine, and next to none ofthat ; and very quizzica l ly did he look at the two of

us . At fi rst he had very l i tt le to say , say ing i t in a Frenchwhich fi l led me with envy . He told me that h i s superiorshad not quite made up thei r minds whether to chooseHamadan or Kermanshah for a post of Cossacks . He

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hoped Hamadan , because it is h igher and cooler. Hewas a man of t he mounta i ns h imse lf, from T iflis . Andhe sa id h i s wife was German . I have often thought aboutthem s ince . I n the meant ime , he said , he had been looking for a house to l ive in , and had taken on t ria l t heroomy mans ion of a H amadan i with twenty wives—e ight

of whom , to be sure, l ived in other places than Hamadan .

I t seems there is a high ly popular and perfect ly lawfulinst itut ion in th is count ry whereby in add it ion to the

four lega l consort s approved by the Koran , a man mayhave tempora ry wives to any number !Among other interest ing th ings t he Colonel told us

that there had been a good deal of talk in the Russ ianpapers of l ate about a certain mysterious t ravel le r inPers ia , of whom I had a l ready hea rd . I had hea rd abouth im becau se he owned one of the few automobiles in the

count ry . What I had not hea rd about h im was that ,hav ing a French name and a B raz i l ian passport , he wassupposed to be a German and a secret agent . At anyrate

,he seemed to make most of h i s journeys in that part

of Pers ia wh ich adjoins the Baghdad t ra i l , and the Russ ian papers reported tha t he had been buying land , or

lend ing money to landowners , in the region of I sfahanpresumab ly to estab l ish “interest s” for the Germans

against t he day when t he quest ion of t he Pers ian b ranchof the Baghdad rai lway shou ld come up . The Czarand the Ka iser, t he Colonel rem inded me, had an interview about that mat ter at Potsdam in 1 9 1 0 . Inpursuance of t he understanding at wh ich they arrived the Russ ians were to have according to one account five years,accord ing to another ten , in wh ich to bui ld a l ine from thenorth to Khanikin . And if they d idn ’t do it wit h in the

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five roub les a day ; but he went home woeful ly in debt .He was del ightful , and an indefat igable b ridge player .No less de l ightful , t hough rather more respons ible as aninspector, was a dazzl ing young man who came to makereport s on Russian commerce . I remember hearing h imsay one n ight after d inner that h is people had decidednot to bu i l d that ra i lway to Khan ikin . Why should they?

I t would only favour compet it ion against themselves .I f t he Germans chose to, let t hem . As for the Engl ish ,he had been a stounded to find out t hat t he i r famou s oilconcess ion extended right up to t he front ier of the Caucasus, where there i s plenty of Oil as yet untapped . Ve ry

clever of them ; but very disagreeab le for Baku . But

those Engl ish , lucki ly, are so unenterpris ing ! They wereenterprising enough , t hough , he added , to have suggested arevision of t he Agreement of 1907. He though t it mightbe a good idea .

All t h is wa s said in an Engl ish house, wit h that d i sconcert ing frankness of wh ich a Russ ian has the secret . I ,however, being of an incurable l ight-mindedness , waseven more enchanted by hi s vignettes of the characters at ravel ler wi l l encounter . He told us , in h is fluent but notperfect ly id iomat ic Engl ish , about a lady who had beenunfortunat e in husbands . One fel l out of a window,

another got him self shot in the Caucasus , someth ing elsehappened to the thi rd . And then sh e had found it in herto ma rry an av iator . But what a carelessness !” hecried .

“They perish !”

I t i s a sample of those curious st rata of ignorance thatdarken the mind of man that I cou ld have l ived so many

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years in the same world with the A lliance Universelle

Israelite—o r i s i t‘

the Alliance Isra'

e’

lite Universelle ?

wi thout hearing anyth ing about it . I n Hamadan , however, I hea rd about i t very soon . And I gave myse lfthe pleasure of going with the Sah ’b and the Khanum tocal l on it .H av ing done so, I cannot boast that I made the most

of my opportun it ies . All I can say i s that the lateBa ron H irsch of V ienna had someth ing to do with founding the A lliance, that it s headqua rters are in Pari s , t hati t ma inta in s excel lent schools for t he J ews in many partsof Asia and Africa , and that it has ma inta ined one in

humble Hamadan s ince 1900 . Whence i t i s that mirzasmay be picked up here who Speak a very fai r French . The

school i s carried on ent i rely in that language . There aretwo schools , real ly , one for g i rl s and one for boys . Theystand in the same enc losure in the heart of the city, thoughin a northwestern quarter of it with which I never becamevery famil ia r . The gateway let us into a b ig t rim court ,set about with bui ldings quite the most imposing and themost European- looking in Hamadan . Over the port icoof one were emblazoned in Lat in letters the names OfBaron Hi rsch and other ph i lanth ropist s of h is race . And

the one where the res ident teachers l ive has more of aLatin than a Persian look, w ith it s long p il lared porch .

The d i rector and his wife rece ived us in a drawingroom not so d ifferent from one Of ours , t hough rather

ch il l ier. They a re ev idently of the Chosen Peop le ,longer-nosed , quicker-witted , speak ing infin itely betterFrench than we . Mon s ieur was born in Constant inople,has l ived long in Pa ri s , and enjoys more than a bowingacquaintance wi th Egypt and Algiers . Madame is a

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sma l l , plump, prol ific person , d isconcert ingly cross-eyed ,who admin isters adv ice and rebuke to her numerousp rogeny whil e a l lowing none of t he conversat ion to escapeher. We have t he more in common because the Khanumhas been good enough to help out t he mi ss iona ry schoolduring an absence of a member of t he '

staff. Some one

put s the case upon t he plane of humou r by say ing thatthe Khanum has become a rival of t he ladies of the Al l iance .

“ But no !” obj ects Monsieu r amiab ly . You do

good and we do good . I n good there i s no riva l ry .

He confesses that Pers ia makes h im regret northern Africaa l it t l e . Pursuing compari sons , he tel ls us that in Algiersthe French have effaced t he Arab , whereas in Egypt onest i l l feel s h im . The Sah ’b, nevertheless, i s a l i t t le disi l lu s ioned to hea r t hat for all t hat h is fel low count rymenare not absolutely adored by the nat ives of the N i le !There a re fou r foreign ass istant s in the school— two

young men and two young women . The lat ter, who

hai l from Syria , wear sunbonnet s and b lack aprons . Theyare very gay, very coy , very given to the S idelong glanceand to the confident ial whi sper . Why not , when upont h em

’

devolv es so much of the respon s ib i l i ty of represent ingthe sex in H amadan ? But there is no shadow of doubtthat t hey could Show us all t hei r heel s in arithmet ic,geography, or any other b ranch of human science . The

young men are more Orienta l i n appearance, being sl ight ,dark, unfathomably eyed , yet of a v ivac i ty that remindsme of Sa lonica quay . One of them , who is a nat ive ofTangier, mourns the lost glories of Cai ro . Even afterPa ri s, he tel l s us, Cai ro d id not d isenchant h im . As forthe other, he sings the p raises of Baghdad . At least t herei s l ife there, he says . There a re ca rriages in the st reet s,

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t he two dark young gentlemen . And they all shout a tt he tops of the i r voices .

The saint s and the poet s lament or boast of be ing inthe world but not of i t . I , being neither poet nor saint ,find tha t H amadan gives me the same sensat ion . And

I know not whether to lament or to boast . I n t he meant ime I speculate , admi ring how East is East and West i sWest and how seldom . the twa i n do meet . I n theory Iregret it . I n p ract i se I incl i ne on the whole to approvethat inst inct wh ich makes us d ist rust or even d isl ike a“ foreigner .” A man , genera l ly , must be one t h ing or

another ; and t he more cl ea rly he i s one t h ing or the other,t he more does he usual ly amount

,

“

to in th is unin tel l igibleworld . A Richa rd Burton , a Lafcadio H ea rn , an Arminius Vamb é ry , can cont rive to be one t h ing and another ;but most of us degenerate into noth ing better than spiesor t ramps if we at tempt i t . Or in the end we get swallowed up by what we too int imately explore . SO I bel ieve that t here i s something human and natural , something not a l together shameful , at t he root of such de l icatematters as ant i sem it i sm , say , or t he re lat ions betweenJ apan and America . I do not d is l ike a man because he isa J ew or a J apanese . I l ike or d is l ike J ews and Japaneseon t he same grounds that I l ike or d i sl ikeother people ;and so , I fancy, i s i t wit h nearly everybody else . But

not many people feel t hei r heart s d rawn out toward menwho look too d ifferent from themselves , or have too difforent manners , or a re steeped in too d ifferent associat ions . That is al l there is , rea l ly, to ant i semit i sm or to

the quest ion of t he J apanese in Cal iforn ia . Why shou ld

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we not recognise so s imp le a fact ? I t operates on boths ides of any g iven case—and on both S ides of many morecases than I have named . Nor is i t incompat ib le withexce l lent relat ions between count ries . The t ruth of t he

matter i s that two races , l ike two persons , apprec iateeach other best from a distance ! I t i s not a thing towrangle about . I t i s of the essence of a l l human t ies .Piracy and purse-cutt ing are of course intolerab le ; buti t i s just as intolerab le to find our neighbours perpetua l lys i t t ing i n our own chai rs . Thi s i s the perfect ly honestin st inct which has formed so many persona l it ies and c ivi l isat ions and brought them to a flower of thei r own . A

world motley enough for the fl ags wh ich now fly i n it i s aricher world than any dreamed Of by t he flag-me lters . For

my pa rt , at any rate, nothing t errifies me so much a s t hepossib il ity that mankind may be run into one mould

,and

that on a l l the six cont inents we shal l one day eat and wea rand read the same th ings And from the papers I haveseen since August 1

,19 14, I gather that a s imila r terror

burns in worthier bosoms .

Nevertheless, being myself of t hose whose tendency iti s to degenerate into t ramps or spies

,I am rather sorry

we meet so few Persian s ! Yet what we do see of

them i s perhaps all the more interest ing to a st rangernewly come into a st range lan :l . That Khan , for instance , whom we pa ssed in the st reet one snowy moon l ightn ight—what a picture he made of customs d ifferent fromour own ! We , of cou rse , were hurry ing home unat tended ,

l ike pickpocket s . And he? I n front of h im went amirza i n an aba, or so he seemed to be by h is cap . N extsta lked the Khan , i n a European overcoat , very S lowly ,

as befit s one who i s no s lave of t ime . On either s ide

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of h im walked a servant swinging an enormous lantern ofwhite l inen—t he s ize of t he lanterns test ify ing to t he consequence of t he Khan . There fo l lowed another mirza i nanother aba . And l ast of a l l ma rched a couple of b ravoeswi t h r ifles ont hei r shou lders—or matchlocks , most l ikely .

Another deta i l of socia l p rocedure in Pers ia is t hat acal l can never be in the nat ure of a su rp ri se . Not icemust be sent beforehand and an appointment du ly made .

NO chance there for a hostess to be out—or for a ca l ler toempty a ca rdcase in an afternoon . You r Pers ian i s notso dest itute of manners as to rush away after fifteen or

t h i rty minutes , as if unable to si t st i l l another in stant .

An hour i s none too long for a forma l cal l , whi le twohou rs , or fou r, or six, a re not uncommon between ac

quaintances of some stand ing . We have less experienceof these V is itat ions than the m issiona ries , who followthe loca l custom of ca l l ing on t hei r friends, Persian , Hebrew, or Armenian , on t he local hol idays . And thei rfriends acknowledge th i s cou rtesy by ca l l ing on t he missionaries on Chri stmas Day . At least t h is had a lwaysbeen the ca se unt i l t he Ch ri stmas I was i n H amadan .

Then , after consul tat ion among ourselves , the not icewas sen t out that cal lers wou ld be received instead on

N ew Yea r’s Day —which corresponds more exact ly to thePers ian custom . But certa i n old stagers were so offendedby th is lapse of precedent that t hey refused to ca l l a t al l .Yet even so, one of our m issiona ry friends told us tha t Shereceived over t hree hundred N ew Yea r v is itors .Rather to thei r su rpri se, t he Sah

’b and t he Khanumcame in for a sha re of t h i s at tent ion . I suspect t he newhouse may have had something to do wit h i t . Any Hamadan i who had seen t he outs ide of t hat ext raord ina ry

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missionaries , unl ike thei r col leagues of the All iance,make i t a point to carry on thei r affai rs in the language ofthe count ry . What surp rised me more was to have oneof the n inety pointed out to me as an Engl i shman . Yet

he knew Engl i sh no better than the rest , being at t i red ,furthermore, in the Short b lack kola and long pleated coatof a Persian Khan . I could ha rdly wa it to hea r the explanat ion of t hese myste ries , wh ich after all was simp leenough . H e was merely an example, that Engl ish boyin a Pers ian kola, of what happens when East meets West .His father, al t hough born in England , had des i red l ikeme to know !more of Pers ia . H e had therefore turnedMohammedan and married a Pers ian , wit h a j ewel inher nose—from whom t he son t akes h i s costume, his language, h is looks . And h is mind? And h i s future? Themother’ s , too , no doubt . But— l ife— l

The Khanum in the meant ime was having experiencesof her own . H er v is itors, as was p roper, entered by theback door and were received in t he d in ing room , from

wh ich t he chai rs had been removed toourpart of t he house .

That , of course , made no difference to t he lad ies , whowould not have known what to do w it h them . They sat

on t he floor, where young Abbas and the cook’s infant il e

apprent ice handed t hem thei r sha re of what t he olderboys were serv ing the men . I f t hey obj ected to our impurity, t hey b ravely swa l lowed thei r scruples with t hei rtea , and perhap s went to t he bath afte rward . AS for us,I know we a i red t he house for a good hour ! But I mustadd that most of our callers were of the humbler sort .The Khanum told u s sh e had answered innumerab lequest ions wi t h regard to her é tat civil. A l l t he ladieswanted to know how old sh e was, how long she had been

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married , how many children she had , etc . , etc . They

were scanda l ised to hear t hat her parent s had not found ahusband for her t i l l She was twenty . I t is by no mean sunheard of, you know, for a Persian b ride to be n ineyears old, while an unmarried g i rl of fifteen or s ixteen isno better than an old maid . They found i t unfortunat e

,

too, that the Khanum had ma rried late in the yea r aswell as late in l ife . For a wedding Shou ld take place i nthe Sp ring . Otherwise chi ldren wi l l be long in coming

,

or wil l never come at a l l . And that , for a Pers ian woman ,i s t he d isaster of disasters .My own regret at having been cut Off from half of so

interest ing a social event was tempered for me by an acc ident which later befel l me in a miss ionary house . I

chanced to open the door upon a gathering of lad ies ,who were Armenian s and who t herefore countenanced myi l l- t imed int rusion . They a l l wore b lack l ace sca rvesover thei r hai r, wh ich gave them rather a Spanish look ;but what rem inded me more of t he J ewesses of Sa lonicawas a certain outstanding b l ack fi l let bound about thei rb rows . The greatest lady of t hem all, a banker

’s wife,

dazzled me by the stupendous emeral d She bore in themidd le of her fi l let , l ike an elderly Lucrez ia Crive l l i .Now it happens that I am consumed by an unappeasab lepassion for emeralds . The person in h istory whom Imost envy i s Abdaz , daughter of t he tenth century Ca l iphAl Muizz of Cai ro, who left at her deat h no less than five

bushel s of those most secret of gems . I cou ld not keep myeyes off that astounding old lady

,She rec ip rocated my

interest to the degree of t ry ing to ta lk to me . Her

effort s were not very successfu l unt il it t ran spi red thatshe came from Azerbaij an and Spoke the Turkish dia~

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lect of that p rov ince . Ha lf of th is i s Pers ian , to be su re,and t he rest i s gargl ing . Nevertheless I , know ing a l it t leof t he Turk i sh of Stambul , was able to ca rry on a brokenconversat ion wit h t he happy proprietor Of so magnificenta j ewel . She inquired without forms how old I was

,

where my fat her l ived , why I had left h im , what I d id for al iv ing, how much money I made at i t , and what steps Ihad taken aga inst race- su icide . And her umbrage athearing that I had taken none was noth ing to her outcriesover my adm is s ion t hat a l t hough qu ite old enough to

know bet ter I had found no more respectab l e businessthan writ ing stories— and not godly ones . I n Short

, sh e

Showed me my place , did t he lady of t he emera ld . But

if we had not been encompassed by so great a c loud of

witnesses I would have b l u rted out to t hat frank old

Lucrez ia Crivel l i t hat I was ready to reform and runaway with her— and her emerald .

I t was permit ted me, at last , to enter more than one

t rue Pers ian house . But no t rue Pers ian house I enteredseemed to offer me qu it e so concent rated a flavour ofOrienta l hosp ital ity as t he one occup ied by the Turkishconsu l . Th is was pa rt ly, of course, because I have morein common wit h a Turk than wit h a Pers ian , and becausethe speech of t h i s Turk was mus ic to my ea rs after t heaccent , say, of t he old l ady of t he emerald . But a re

cep t ion of this more honey- tongued Old gentleman , givenlong after I fi rst met h im , l eft in my memory quite themost adm i rab l e among severa l p ictures of society inHamadan . Two Slouchy local pol icemen stood guardat t he gat e . I n s ide we were met by a fa i r-hai red Turki shso ldier in a fez , looking very t rim and European in compa rison , who escorted us th rough the ga rden to the tent

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most elegant young man in the world . He wore wh iteduck t rousers, a b lack b roadclot h coat , yel low shoes , aPanama hat tu rned up in front , a gl ist ening b l ack moustache, and a gold-headed cane . And when I saw t hat hecarried in h is other hand a red red rose, he reminded meso i rresist ibly of t he gentleman in “ Pat ience”—is it ?with h is affect ion a la P lato for a bashfu l young potatoor a not too French French bean , that I nearly burst outbefore a l l t he fezzes and tu rbans and kolas and hat s with :

I f he’ s content with a vegetable love, which would certainlynot suit me,Why, what a most part icularly pure young man this pureyoung man must b e !

But that no doub t was j ealousy . And they told me thathe was al so a c lever young man , having been born inJ udaea'

, educated in Pari s , and chosen a s head of the

Beba i school in H amadan , before he came to t he Turkishcon sul ’s recept ion .

How long we sat , heaven knows . We t ried to be a spol ite as possib le . At any rate , we were late to lunch .

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To grapple eflectually with even purely material problems re

quires more serenity of mind andmore lofty courage than peoplegenerally imagine.

Joseph Conrad : AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS

T I S an Object of vast curios ity in Hamadanto the greatest number of eyes , no doubt , b ecause Of the windmi l l t hat pokes it s bald American head above the wal l . That is a story, too

the Odyssey of that windm i l l by t ra in , sh ip , and camel ,from young Chicago to New York, Port Said, Basra ,Baghdad , Kermanshah , and old Ecbatana , where anexiled French chauffeu r set it a- sp inn ing in the Pers ianair. People come from mi les a round to adm ire that

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hand iwork of t he Firengi, wh ich pumps up t he unwi l l ingwater of t he East for t he

a

dyeing of rugs to be la id on

Western floors . After t hat fa r-flown bi rd had waggedits ta i l for some months in the gust s of E lvend, it wasthought advisab l e to deepen the wel l out of which thewater a l it t l e too unwi l l ingly rose . Well-diggers wereaccordingly cal led, t he ir craft be ing a common one int h is count ry of h idden st reams . And there came a daywhen one wel l-d igger, in a fit of sp ite , kicked anotherwel l-digger into the seventy-foot shaft . I f you wi l l b el ieve it , noth ing untowa rd happened to h im who tumb l edseventy feet . But he who did t he kicking was takenby the pol ice and bast inadoed on h is too impul sive soles .As for me—so doth t h e world move by cont ra ries !

a lmost anyth ing else in the factory compound interestsme more t han the w indmill . The wel l-diggers , for instance, t h rough whose dusty rags I fi rst learned thatkhaki is a pure Pers ian word, meaning earth- coloured .

Shal l I be pedant ic enough to add that t he h is there for areason , and t hat t he Pers ian s accent the last syl lable ?

The p il ing up ofmud p ies into the new dye house ch imneyinterest s me, too, to say noth ing of t he beaut iful gro inedvaul t ing of that house, in l ight b rick . A Pers ian can doanyth ing with earth , water, and h i s ten fingers , so sure inh im i s the inheritance of those who fi rst dev ised t he secretof t he dome . The old dye house i s al so someth ing to see,

where huge copper kett les bubb l e over fi res of popla r andtapeh . Nor a re t he dyes an i l ine that bubb l e in thosekett les . They a re a l iza rin , if you must know, aga instwh ich no man can compla in that they run or fade . I fthere be room for complaint , it is that the colours concocted by the ingen ious Firengi out of coal ta r and heaven

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t he magnificent ca rpet s of the early Safev i period . The

other mirzas a re younger, some of them no more thantwelve or fifteen . The b ig mirzas paint ent i re designs ,in t he exact colou rs wh ich the weavers a re to use—suchdesigns as Pers ians have a lways pa inted , save when someFirengi desolates t hem by ordering a vast ca rpet wh ichis noth ing but a border a round a cent ra l desert of p inkor blue, empty and flowerless a s a b i l l iard board . The

l itt l emirzas paint the actual working pat terns, copy ing enlarged sect ions of the design on paper ofwhich each squa restands for a knot or a fixed number of knots . They al lhave lean , dark, intel l igent- looking faces , and such thin ,long, intel l igent- looking fingers . After seeing the hand swhich so many Pers ians have I can understand how i t i sthat SO many beaut iful t h ings have come out of Pers ia ,and how ne ither t ime nor m isfortune has been ablequite to do away wit h the t radit ion of them .

The greater part of the build ing i s the factory proper .They tel l me that i t is the fi rst estab l i shment of it s kindin Persia . People have always made rugs t here , of course,but they have not a lways made them out side of thei r ownhomes ; and least of a l l have women been accustomed todo so st range a th ing . The th ing was so st range, for aFirengi to th ink of bu i lding a great house and hi ring women to weave for h im , and Pers ians a re so sens it ive aboutthei r women , t hat t he affai r had to be gone about veryd iplomat ica l ly . The S heikh ul Islam, who is t he chiefre l igious funct iona ry of a Pers ian town , had fi rst to beapproached wit h a l l possible deference and ceremony .

He then had to ca l l together h is associates in the cu l t ,and del iberat e whether t here were anyth ing in law or

div in ity to forbid t he p roposed innovat ion . I t was at

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last dec ided that the ladies of Hamadan might work forthe Firengi without los ing t hei r reputat ion s, i n case theFirengi took due steps to insure t hei r p rivacy . To t h is

end all communicat ion between the wool room and theroom of the looms was l imited to a ho le in the wa l l ,rather l ike a post-offi ce S lot . Furthermore, s ince the

master weaver was a man , and s ince i t was necessary forthe Firengi or his deput ies occas iona l ly to make inspect ions , a chaperon was appointed from among the e lders ofHamadan . This chaperon i s a man of God , of canonica lage, who receives a st ipend from the Firengi and whoseduty i t i s to c i rcul ate among the looms for t h e maintenance of decorum and good manners and for the safegua rding of the honour of the husbands of Hamadan . For the

greater peace of mind of t he latter i t is known that t hemaster weaver i s al so a man of God, wea ring the greenturban of the seed of the Prophet and being addressedas Sheikh . H e, as it happen s , is no Hamadan i , butfrom Tabriz . For you may be surprised to lea rn tha tHamadan i s not a c ity of weavers . I t may once havebeen ; but if it becomes so again , thanks w i l l be due tothe Firengi.

I am happy to report that under these condit ions noscandal has a risen to t roub le the relat ions of East andWest . There was, to be sure , t he affa i r of a certa in Mrs .Pot ipha r, who comp lained that an Armen ian or J ewishmirza had insulted her whi le handing out wool t hroughthe hole in t he wal l . This news caused an immediateexodus from the factory , and the Governor fe l t i t necessa ryto make an invest igat ion . The in su l t , however, wasevident ly too deep for words . Wh i le M rs . Pot iphar wasunab le to utter it , she did spec ify the day and the hour on

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wh ich it passed through the Sl it of the wool room , as wel la s t he name of the offend ing mirza. That , somehow or

other, She knew ! But , as it happened , Joseph was ab leto prove so good an a l ib i t hat the charge fe l l to the groundand the d isquieted husbands al lowed t he i r w ives to re

turn .

Having been duly advised of these mat ters,I,as a

friend of the manager, was permitted by the whiteturbaned chaperon to v is it t h e sacred p rec inct of thelooms . I found there no whi rring bel t s or clatteringmechan isms of steel , as certai n pessimist ic writers on rugshad half led me to expect . I n th is factory, a s in a l l othersof its kind in Persia , t here a re no other belt s than thoseenc i rcl ing Persian wa ist s , and on ly such motor power asworks most effi cient ly on tea and p i lau . There a re

,to

be sure, rows of impos ing looking appl iances, of whichth e most imposing are the pa i rs of big popla r post s t hatconta in the warp of a loom . The thread s of th is warphang perpendicu larly from a fixed t ransverse beam at t hetop to a movable t ransverse beam at t he bottom, on

wh ich the rug i s wound up as it grows in length . There i sal so a smaller t ransverse st ick , running in and out b e

tween the t hreads and separat ing t hem enough for theinsert ion of a hand Shutt le which carries t he t h read of t hewoof between each row of knot s . Add to t h is a pa i r ofshears for cutt ing wool and a sort of heavy, i ron-hand ledcomb for beat ing down the knot s and t he cross th reads,and you have a l l t hat is mechan ical in the making of arug . There rema ins only the na rrow wooden platfo rmon wh ich the weavers squat and wh ich if they l ike cancl imb the up rights, by means of pegs, as thei r work growsUp the loom .

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stood in too great awe of t he tu rbaned censor of mora l s .The sex is a lways temperamenta l , but in this facto ry

t he unhappy manager is often put beside h imself w it h t hewhims of the daughters of I ran . I t i s a very human t ra i t ,in a l l pa rt s of t he world, to take the l ine that t he companyis rich and can afford to st retch a point . Therefore noweaver ever takes t he t rouble to save wool , which is t hemost serious item of rug making . The different coloursnatura l ly have to be dyed in different hanks . To make aknot of a requi red colou r a b i t is cut off ; when the knot ist ied the two ends a re cut again ; and when the rug leavesthe loom the rough su rface has to be cl ipped smooth by anexperienced hand . Al l t h i s wastes a good dea l of wool ,wh ich i s pract ical ly useless because i t is a l ready dyed andtoo short to use aga in . But can you induce the women tocut off no more than t hey need to t ie t hei r knot ? Never !Nor could t he manager persuade t hem to use a pai r of cl ippers he invented , to cut t he knots of uniform length . The

weavers have, too, a great way of borrowing wool fromeach other, and of not being too careful to get the colourthey need , i n order to save a journey to the hole in thewal l . They have a l so been known to borrow wool fromthe factory and not to return it , carrying it off under thei rloose clothes when they go home at n ight . There consequently came a day when the decree went fort h that eachloom was to be provided wit h a box, contain ing woo lenough for the carpet in hand , of which the ustad wasto keep the key and to be a l lowed to take home the excessor compelled to make up any defic iency . This caused a

terrib le upheaval , being not on ly a reflect ion on a lady’s

honou r but a reason to make her suspect t hat t he factory

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THE FACTORY

in tended to cheat her of her due amount of wool . At theend of that day some one wai led : “Whoever comes tomorrow will have

'

a bad name !” On the morrow, ac

cordingly , out of three hundred women , twenty came towork . And it took both t ime and argument to conv incethem that the manager rea l ly knew how much wool wentinto a carpet of a g iven s ize and wou ld see t hat t hey gotenough .

What i s less comprehensib le is t hat they wi l l not takecare of the ca rpet they a re weaving . The new mud roof

of the factory leaked v i l lainously, as a new mud roof wi l l .The weavers regarded it a s so much a matter of course thatthey would not take the t roub le to report the p resence of apoo l under a loom or of the mildew which would gather ont he rug above it . The consequence wa s t hat certa inca rpets were almost ruined before they were fin ished .

G reat p ieces had to be cut out and knotted in aga in . Idon ’ t know whether t he ustad foresaw more labour andtherefore more pay for herse lf. The work ing of the feminine mind is past finding out .Another t ime a long s l ash was discovered in the middle

of a carpet that had been months on t he loom . Themanager at once caused it to be announced that no onewould be paid unt i l he found out who had cut that ca rpet .At fi rst nobody bel ieved h im ; but when t he painfu l factbecame p lain that he meant what he sa id , informat ion wastaken him that a certain M rs . Angel had done the wickeddeed , a certa in M rs . Parrot having been witness t hereof .On interrogat ion , both M rs . Ange l and M rs . Parrot den iedknowledge of any carpet cutt ing . Tears and outcriesfol lowed , and loud general demand s for pay withhe ld .

The manager stood firm , however—unt i l M rs . Angel

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went so fa r as to admit t hat sh e had incited Mrs. Pa rrotto s la sh the carpet . Mrs . Pa rrot indignant ly repudiatedthe ins inuat ion . More tea rs and more lamentat ions !And at last the force of pub l ic op in ion compelled M rs .Angel to confess herself t he culprit . Having a grudgeagainst Mrs. Pa rrot , she had t hought to sett le it by defac ing the lat ter’s carpet . But what can the Firengido to me? ” Sh e boastful ly demanded of her companion s .What the Firengi did to her wa s to dock her of ten tomansof her pay . He then cal led in the elderly chaperon

,who

gave her a wigging of t he fi rst class and appl ied twentyfive st ripes to her peccant hands , she sobb ing out at eachblow :

“ I was at faul t !” I f t he Firengi had wie lded theswitch , t here might have been a massacre in H amadan .

As it was, Mr . Angel saw to it t hat M rs . Angel workedout her ten tomans. And afte r t hat t here was no more

ca rpet slashing.

Where in the weavers most fi ll t he hea rt of the Firengiwith despai r i s t hei r cap ric iousness about tu rn ing up atthe factory . H e has room for seven hund red of t hem ,

but he is happy if he can find half t hat number at t helooms on any given day . Not angel s , powers , or princ i

palit ies, not even the censor of moral s, can induce themto work Six days a week, rest on Friday, and t hen comeback for six days more . A rel igious ann iversa ry fal l s due ,a v isitor comes to cal l , they a re invited to a picn ic , or ahusband pinches thei r cheek, and they stay at home—whi lethei r ca rpet hangs idle on t he loom and dealers in Firengistan telegraph angrily about delays i n fi l l ing cont ract s .They l ike money a s much as any one ; but a toman i nhand i s worth ten in the ca sh ier ’ s safe . Threat s , bonuses ,t he most gl it tering p ictu re of t he advantageous pos it ion

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THE SATRAP

Noble andmild this Persian seems to be,

If outward habit judge the inwardman .

Christopher Marlowe : THE TRAGEDY OP TAMBURLA IN E THE GREAT

H E Governor ’ s pa lace is outward ly indist in

guishab le as such . One ent rance of it , to besure , Opens on a sma l l squa re, wh ich i s genera l lyfu l l of d ry ing towel s from a pub l ic bath . The

ent rance we made for was at t he bottom of a b l ind a l ley,whence an inner lane bounded by high mud wa l l s led to asecond gateway . H ere lounged a company of ratherS louchy- looking individua l s who rega rded us with someuncertainty . For al though we had conformed to the

et iquet te of the count ry in mak ing an appointment for ouraud ience, we had been S imple enough to th ink, beingt hree men sound ofw ind and l imb , t hat we needed no p roteet ing ret inue at our heel s . However, we ind isputab lywore hat s, which proved u s to be persons of a certa indegree of consequence . Accordingly a gent leman in ad i rty red coat , carry ing a s i lver-headed mace, wi shed us

peace and led us into a cou rtya rd wit h a b ig ob long poolin t he cent re of it , up a steep fl ight of stone steps at t hefa rt her end of the cou rt , th rough a h igh talar, and to thedoor of an anteroom . More S louchy- looking personslounged about it , hav ing rat her the aspect of masters

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TH E SATRAP

of the pen than of t he sword . I n thei r hands Silverst ick

abandoned us, to be d ivested of our hat s , coat s , and galoshes—most ind isp ensab le art icle of at t i re in Persia

,

where everybody takes off hi s Shoes before going into thehouse . We were then passed by a sent ry with a fixedbayonet over hi s shou lder i nto a second anteroom . More

loungers— some mirzas, some interv iewing them on affai rsof state . One of the mirzas knocked soft ly at an innerdoor, and we were admitted into t he presence of the Sat raphimself .East and West were curiously m ingled in the sanctum

of H is H ighness . The L- shaped room was ca rpeted withbig rugs , t he whit e wa l l s of it were broken by niches succeeding each other at regular interval s , the windows thatlooked out on the court and the b ig pool were mult itudinously glazed wit h t hose l itt le Pers ian panes . Above themwere smal ler windows of stained glass whose larger squarepanes stood on thei r corners , d iamondwise . The Sat rap ,however

,while younger than a Sat rap should be and

dressed in a t ight Pers ian coat wit h of ficial b rass buttons,sat not on the floor but on a chai r, behind noth ing lessexot ic than a desk of new Pers ia . Old Pers ia sat besideh im

,albeit on another cha i r, i n the person of a Seid, a

descendant of the Prophet , wi th a round gray beard anda green turban . But t h i s benevolent personage did not

disdain to fol low t he example of H i s H ighness and Shakeour pol lut ing hands .What st ruck me most was H is H ighness ’ s exce l lent Eng

l i sh . I knew he was not a very distant couSin Of the Shahand a member of the same Kaja r t ribe that seized thethrone of Persia after the death of Nad i r Shah , i n theperiod of our own revolut ion . I d id not know unt i l he

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told us so t ha t t h i s Perso-Turkoman pri nce had beeneducated at Ha rrow and Sandhu rst . And there

,among

other sciences , he acqu i red t hat of footbal l ! But he wash ighly amused by the Sah ’

b’

s suggest ion that he take pa rtin the matches got up by the Engl i shmen of Hamadan .

H e said he might t h ink about i t if t he games were p layedbeh ind a wal l i nstead of in an open fie ld . Tha t the Reishimself, manager of t he Bank and rega rded by the Pers ians as t he offi c ia l ch ief of our colony , cou ld so fa r forgeth i s dign ity a s to muddy h imself in these ignob le scrimmages , wa s no doubt an inexpl icab le myste ry to the b lackhat s who used to crowd t he side l ines .On His H ighness ’s tab l e my wandering eye was notslow to detect a copy of t he London Times . Sha l l Iconfess that I was rude enough to wonder if, by any chance ,it might be our own—which had fai led to a rrive by the lastpost ? All our t elegrams , at any rate , pass under HisH ighness ’ s eye before reach ing t h eir

'

dest inat ion . Letters

a re rather too numerous and too st rangely writ ten . Be

s ides , a s they come from Baku and t ravel up count ry overt he Russian road , t he Russ ians might have something tosay about that . But it i s a perpetua l mystery what b ecomes oi so many copies of the Times, to say noth ing of somany more copies of the Graph ic and other i l lust ratedpapers . And whenever they fa i l to tu rn up we somehowth ink of t he Governor— t hough we do not forget , eit her,that the Postmaster has a fa i r knowledge of t he Romanalphabet .

As the old gent leman in the green tu rban lacked theSat rap

’ s g ift of tongues , H is H ighness was perfect ly safe inconfiding to us that he detested Hamadan , finding it t heworst city in Pers ia . H e suspected me of t rying to p ro

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One of them i s in the north , nea r Lake Urumia, where theold caravan t rai l went from Trebizond to Tab riz . The

other i s the Older and steeper caravan t rai l wh ich th readsthe passes of t he Zagros range between Baghdad , or Khanikin , and Kermanshah . The t rans-Caucas ian ra ilway hastaken away the glory of t he Trebizond-Tab riz route,about which Xenophon knew someth ing, and wh ich MarcoPolo t ravel led in h is day . But the Baghdad Kerman shahroute is st i l l t he one—or was before the wa r— by whichEngl i sh and I ndian cottons and teas , after sa i l ing up t heTigris to Baghdad , t ranssh ip themselves to camel back andc l imb the ladders of Persia . Now those passes are noton ly the borderland between Mesopotamia and Persia ,but they are a l so the borderland between two of t he mostredoubtab l e t ribes in Pers ia , t he Kurd s and the Lurs .These good people have a habit of pounc ing down on

caravans , a s t hey wend t he i r toil some way through thestony defi les, and of either p i l laging them to t he quick or

extort ing from them a ran som Of SO much a camel . Thecurrent rat e before the war ran from six to twelve krans

an anima l . I t i s whispered , however, t hat t he mu s ica lwarden of the marches is not al together a st ranger tothese Operat ion s , and that he is capable of t aking from thet ribesmen h is fifty to n inety per cent . of t he proceed s ofthei r enterpri se .P icturesque as these Operat ion s a re, they a re looked at

somewhat cold ly by the Engl ish , whose Pers ian t rade inthe four yea rs before the wa r fel l Off —notwit h

stand ing the fact that t hey are said to pay Sat rap Sen iortomans a year to keep t he passes open . On the

other hand , t he Russ ian s are said to pay himtomans a yea r to keep the passes closed ! When th ings get

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THE SATRAP

too d ifficul t for him he res igns . And then no one get sthrough the passes at a l l , for love or money . He i s thereupon reappointed

,as he was for the eighth t ime whi le I was

in Hamadan . During t he same yea r t he Engl ish paid theLurs a mat ter of £400 to let a lone a pa rty of engineers whowanted to survey a poss ibl e route for a railway betweenthe Karun

,t he on ly nav igable river in Pers ia , and a town

in the region of Kerman shah ca l led Khorremab ad. Whereupon some one e l se paid the Lurs more to keep the surv eyors out . At any rate, they broke thei r agreement withthe Engl ish . Another high ly interest ing examp le of theworking

,under the old régime, of the Anglo-Russ ian

Agreement of 1 907—and perhaps of the Potsdam Agreement of 1 9 1 0 .

I do not pretend to know whether these things be t rue .

I am merely quot ing current goss ip- which further reports that Sat rap Senior i s an exceed ingly wel l- to-

'

do and

exceedingly th rifty old gent leman . He maintain s , nevert h eless, a s becomes a p rince Of the blood and a warden ofmarches , a standing army of hi s own . And whenever hetakes the fie ld with hi s army at h i s heel s it i s miraculou show quickly t he passes Open—not to ment ion how generous t he mounta in chiefs become of thei r flocks and herds .As for Sat rap J unior, he suffers under the doub le disadvantage of being a much younger man than the KaraGozlu grandees of Hamadan and of having no profitab lepasses under h i s j uri sdict ion . At any rate, the Russ ian shave kind ly re l ieved him of the responsibil it ies of Su l tanBu lagh . He complained b itterly to us that he had abudget of on ly 500 tomans a month , out ofwhich he cou ldnot poss ib ly defray his personal expenses , let a lone beaut ifying the town . I t was not he, however, who told us the

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tale of h is bodyguard of twenty horsemen . Emulous nodoubt of hi s celebrated parent , he sent in to the Reisi—Malieh , t he local representat ive of the Treasury Department , a bi l l for the pay and upkeep of fifty caval iers . TheReis-i-Malieh , who i s one of M r . Shuster

’

s old l ieutenant s

and an honest man , asked fi rst to see a rev iew of the t roop .

The t roop was accordingly rev iewed , and among it s members t he Reis- i-Malieh and h is friends recogni sed variousrowdies and idlers of the Bazaar . These, being privatelyquest ioned , rep l ied without any hesitat ion that they hadbeen

‘

offered five krans apiece to appea r on t hat place andday, mounted , in order to swell t he Sat rap

’ s t ra i n . The

Reis- i-Malieh t herefore refused to honour the requi s it ionofHis H ighness— who thought best not to press h is cla im .

SO who sha l l say that M r . Shuster went to Pers ia in va in !As my two companions were interested in rugs , t he

conversat ion turned to'

t hat topic . The Sat rap professeda des i re to fol low in the footsteps of h is i l lust rious father,who had so forwa rded the manufactu re of rugs in Kermanshah . H e added that the weavers there a re not womenbut men and boys , who in stead of working from a pa intedpat tern fol low inst ruct ions t hat are sung to them by aforeman

,i n some old technical language which i s no longer

understood out side the p rofess ion . At th i s t he Sah ’band his friend looked so flabbergasted t hat I rushed inwhere they feared to t read and asked H i s H ighness if hecol lected rugs . My quest ion d iverted h im as much as

if'

l had asked the Mayor of B rockton if he collected boot s .For I had yet to lea rn that rugs a re as much a matter ofcourse in Pers ia as kolas . Everybody has t hem , from the

richest to the poorest , and nobody sent imental ises overthem . And I a l so had yet to learn why the Sah ’b looked

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( BUT To B E SKI PPED BY THOS E WHO N E ITHER R EAD NOR

W R IT E T H EM .)

A judge at common law may be an ordinary man ; a good judgeof a carpet must be a genius .

Edgar Al lan Poe : PH I LOSOPHY OF FURN ITURE

HENEVER we a re hard Up for amusement—as may happen even in roya lEcbatana , s ince Alexander went awaywe turn over our rug books . Of these

We have qu it e a col lect ion . For the Sah’b i s h imself a

man of rugs ; and when a new book about them appears,as is sure to happen once a twelve-month the good peopleat home send him out a copy . I don t th ink he everbought one on h i s own account—in Engl ish . But they

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ABOUT RUG BOOKS

help to console h im for the fact that only one copy in threeof Life or Punch reaches us. What can we do? Ourdest iny has g iven us to know from our youth up a quant ityof s imp le matters which to th is day remain dark to mostwriters of rug books . And man must laugh . At any rate,I must confess t hat we find it impossib le to t ake thesevo lumes very seriously : not even t he fattest and mostexpensive of t hem , whose authors

’ name s are pronouncedin whispers by a l l ladies i n America . They remind u s toomuch of Babu Engl ish , and of what Pers ian s say aboutour own S ide of the world .

There are, of course, rug books and rug books . I t i snot for a l ight-minded nomad to mock a t the famousAu st rian fol ios , at Bode, M art in , or St rzygowski, or evenat M r . J . K . Mumford . M r . Mumford is by no meansinfa l l ib le . But h i s l imitat ion s have been those of op portunity , rather than of good faith . T o him a lone i s due , inour count ry , t he credit of having made some sor t of orderout of a picturesque chaos . He inqui red , he studied , het ravel led ; and h i s book remain s the most inform ing thathas h itherto been pub l ished in America . I f he pays the

pena l ty, so does he deserve the glory , of t he p ioneer . AndI hereby offer h im a humble t ribute of respect for hav ingb lazed out a way which many fol lowers have done almostnoth ing to widen .

Having acquitted one ’ s con sc ience of th is debt of honourone is bound to add that if we take M r . Mumford down ,on those dark days when Life and Punch fa i l toturn up , i t i s chiefly for certain inessent ial i tems of informat ion which he lets d rop . As for the flock of which hei s the Spi ritual father, I grant that they genera l ly give morepract ical info rmat ion , wherever they got it , than the ir

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cous ins oversea , who love to b ring forth sumptuous tomesmore en l ightening wit h regard to the myt h of the Go ldenFleece or t he tomb of IOUiya and Touiyou t han to theknot s and knott inesses of rugs . But it is ha rd to escapet he conv ict ion that without M r . Mumford the names offew Of t hese lad ies and gentlemenwou ld ever have seenp rint . What enab les t hem to get away with i t , as thesay ing so express ively goes , i s the great popula ri tyofOrienta l rugs in our count ry , and the greater ignorance of thecount ries from wh ich they come . These authors have , ofcourse, t hei r own regroup ings and emendat ions . But

e ither the l iteratu re to which t hey cont ribute is a newproof of an old saying about great m inds, or one recognisesagain and aga in M r . Mumford ’s general plan , Mr . Mumford ’s facts , Mr . Mumford

’s text i le tab les , and M r . Mumford ’s m istakes , down to h is very quotat ion s and turn s ofphrase . Or was it al ready an estab l i shed j a rgon of thet rade to abound in “ conceit s ,

” and never to fail to say of

a border st ripe that it “ carries ” such and such a design ?At al l event s, whenever I come across a reference to Professor Goodyear, to Owen Jones, or to S i r George B i rdwood—he who had t he courage to writ e at the top of a lea rnedsheaf of paper “The Termless Ant iquity of I ntegralI dent ity of the Orienta l Manufacture of Sumptua ryCarpets !”—I can ’t help asking myself if the author knowsany more of the works in quest ion than he gleaned fromthe pages

T

Of Mr . Mumford . But i t is not because anyof them ever so much as b reathe the name of t hei r ghost lyparent . “

For fifteen yea rs ,” says M r . Mumford in the

preface to his fou rth ed it ion , I have pers istent ly ‘winkedat ’

Omer down the road,’ and !

Omer ’ has never oncewinked back .

’

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a re equal ly wrong, s ince the word to which they refershould be kiz, with a vowel sound that neither a Greek noran American can p ronounce . You pay s your money and

you takes your choice .

Not SO incorrect , perhaps, but more mislead ing, i s awhole fami ly ofwords which our authors quote i n cla ssifying rugs accord ing to thei r uses . Thus they te l l us thatthe long rugs technical ly known as runners were orig ina l lyintended for d ivan covers ; and t hey make quite a storyof the a rrangement of an Oriental interior, d ragging i nthe c l ass ic t ric l in ium and fixing t he places of greater andof lesser honour on rugs of different sorts . I have nodoubt that M r. Mumford has seen Turkish room s surrounded on t h ree s ides by d ivans , and divans covered withrunners ; but I doubt very much whether he ever saw anyt h ing of t he sort in Pers ia or other part s of t he East t hatare farther from Western influences . Nor can t he al lus ion to the t ric l in ium be otherwi se than imag inat ive whenthe habit of t he N ea r East is to eat on the floor, squatt ingabout l it t le round t ab les six or e ight inches high . The real

origin of the runner was probably in the t radit ion of thetent . I n Persia part icularly sets of rugs a re quite common , of t he same pattern and colour, con s ist ing of one

large carpet , of one runner as long a s that carpet i s wide ,and of two more runners whose lengt h i s equal e ither tot hat of the ca rpet or to that of t he ca rpet p lu s the widthof t he fi rst runner . Such a set is cal led , l ike a team of

horses, a dasteh, l iteral ly a handful ; and it s purpose is forfurni shing tent s or rooms of different s izes with the samerugs, piecing out t he carpet when necessary with the accompany ing runners . Mr . Mumford ’ s name for thoserunners, makatlik, has j ustly been discarded by h is suc

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cessors, who give them thei r t rue name of kenari. Ma

katlik , as the word shou ld be, may rough ly be t ranslatedas sofa covering , and kenari as bordering—from kenar,

edge , which i s common to Pers ian and Turkish a l ike .

As for the SO- ca l led odjalik or odjaklik, which I wou ldcorrect and s imp l ify a s ojaklik , many descant on i t s p lacein Oriental hospita l i ty , though no one attempts to fix it sp lace wi th relat ion to those doubtfu l divan s . I t mean s ,if you insist , a hearth rug . But I quest ion if many Ofthem can have been made for that purpose, for the simp lereason that noth ing i s ra rer in an Oriental house than ahearth . The cooking i s done when poss ible outside , i nthe open or in a detached kitchen , while for heat ing , fi rep laces a re much less popular than a device wh ich I havea l ready ment ioned , ca l led in Pers ian a kursi. I f a rug

were used in connect ion with i t , the last t h ing a guestwou ld be invited to do would be to take h i s place thereon .

At night , however, he would be g iven such a rug to sleepon , and perhaps another for a quil t . So most of yourhearth rugs , good peop le, are noth ing more or les s t han beds .The various other words ending in lik which M r . Mum

ford was the fi rst to int roduce are not much more t rustworthy . I n the fi rst place, t hey a re all t aken from theOttoman Turkish language, and t herefore do not app lyto weaves from other count ries . I n t he second p lace

,

that lik must be accepted wit h d iscret ion , being a suffixsometh ing l ike our own suffi x -ing . Hehbelik, for in

stance , mu st be accepted with doub le d iscret ion becausei t Should be heibelik and because heibeh alone meanssadd le bag—heibelik mean ing, among other th ings , thematerial out ofwhich sadd le bags are made . And , in the

th i rd place, the vowel sound of that suffi x undergoes va ria

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t ions which this is not the place to explain but wh ich t herug books never indicate . Mi slead ing in another way ist he so-ca l led hammamlik, or bat h rug ; for while rugs maybe found in the dress ing rooms of baths, t hey a re never ofany one class , nor a re they ever u sed , a s t he rug booksaf fi rm in any pa rt of a Turkish bath , at any rate,where theycome In contact w it h soap and water . St i l l more misleading, however, i s t h e t erm turbehlik . I t does not mean agrave rug , nordo t he peop le of the Nea r Ea st leave rugs incemeteries . What t hey very frequently do i s to leave rugsas vot ive offerings in mausoleums , wh ich are much com

moner than wit h us and wh ich go in Turkish by the nameof turbeh . Thus the so-cal led grave rug i s rea l ly ident ica lwit h the SO-ca l led Mecca rug , wh ich is o ften a p rayerrug but wh ich t h e more discern ing of our authors recogn ise as forming no dist inct Species .The most serious of t h is fam i ly of errors is t he one re

lat ing to t he word sedjadeh—o r sejjadeh , as I would preferto spel l it . Mr . Mumford ’ s d isc iples have improved uponh im in certa in m inor deta i l s, but no one of them has everyet d iscovered t hat a sejjadeh and what they unid iomat ical ly t e rm a namazlik are both one and t he sameh —namely,a . p rayer rug . Th i s i s a case where a l it t le knowledge ofOriental l anguages is good for writ ing about mat tersOriental . For sejjadeh i s derived from the Arabic rootmeaning worsh ip , and by no means sign ifies a ca rpet ofmedium s ize . I t may

,however, be a carpet of medium

s ize , or of t he la rgest poss ible S ize . Many Turk ish mosques contain huge U shak carpet s whose design consist s ofa mu l t itude of pointed panel s . Such a ca rpet i s as mucha sejjadeh as a smal l rug of one panel . But to say of t he

lat te r that every Mohammedan carries one around wit h

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ea rth from Mecca ; and the p reparat ions for prayer havemore to do with runn ing water t han w it h a comb

,wh ich

most decided ly i s not an emb lem of the Mohammedanfa i t h . Neither a re you ever l ikely to see a rosary of

ninety-n ine beads— t hough you might see one of s ixty-sixbeads . The common number i s th i rty- th ree . But the

rosa ry plays no part in the rite of t he p rayer rug ; and whenused its place i s in the owner’s hand , which at no momentof h is devot ions does he st retch out from h is s ide . Nordoes he remove money and j ewellery from h is person

, un

less they happen to be gold and he happens to be ext reme lyorthodox . That i s why so many fine Orienta l stones a reset i n s i lver. As for the p rocedure of prayer, the devoteefi rst stands, t hen drop s to h i s knees , and fina l ly p rost ratesh imself, repeat ing these th ree pos i t ion s a d ifferent numberof t imes according to c i rcum stances . And the pointedpanel of the p rayer rug ne ither represents t he door of amosque nor the mihrab of the temple at Mecca . Thetemple at Mecca conta in s no mihrab, being itself the cent reof the axes of t he Mohammedan world . Moreover, Mo

hammed,a s i t happen s , i s buried in Medina . What the

panel of a p rayer rug rep resents , if anyth ing, i s t he mihrabof an ordinary mosque— a n iche roughly corresponding tothe a l ta r of a church ; and t he finest of s ingle-pane l ledrugs were made to put into such a n iche . Most devotees

content themselves with any k i nd of carpet or mat t ing topray on—o r even t hei r own coats , if other conv eniences lack .

Do you wonder, t hen , t hat rug books are capab le ofaffording us a k ind of pleasure that thei r authors neverintended? On t he whole, I t h ink Dr . Lewi s i s our favouri te . H e is a l so the favourite of t hose who buy rug books ,if one may judge from the fact that he went in two years

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into two ed it ions . And his book would have deserved itst it le if he had only taken the t rouble to make it accurat eand consistent . AS i t is , how can we keep st ra ight faceswhen he talks about G reek Mohammedans (p . or

reveals to us that a tal ismanic t riangle i s often tat tooed on aTurk ’ s body (p . or says that green i s a favourite colourof Pers ian rug makers (p . or announces that a dog iscon s idered in the Near East a sacred an imal (p . or

emit s such samp les of Turki sh as she i s Spoke as ubrechand sechrudisih—for ibrik (pitcher) and sichan dishi (rat

’ s

or mouse ’s tooth) ? The pearl of th i s col lect ion , however,i s h i s statement that lule, or luleh , of all words the mostmyst ify ing to h is b rothers of the craft , i s

“ a corrupt ion ofthe Pers ian word ‘ roulez ,

’ meaning ‘ j ewel ’ ” (p . 349 ; cf .Some Armenian rug dea ler must have stuck a

fluent tongue in a capac iou s cheek when he achieved thatetymology—for I would glad ly enterta in the hypothes i sthat i t d id not burst from the b ra in of Dr . Lewi s . So faras I am ab le to learn , there i s no word in Pers ian whichremotely resemb les roulez . There i s a word lu ’

lu , whichis a less common word for pearl ; and in another place Dr .Lewis provides the form roules with that meaning . But

luleh i s no corrupt ion of it—nor, as Mr . Mumford avers ,of the French router, though he is on the right t rack .

Luleh i s a word which both in Pers ian and in Turkishmeans p ipe or tube . And it i s app l ied not on ly to B ija rbut to any sma l l ish carpet s which are too heavy to befolded when out of use, and a re therefore rol led .

On mat ters of geography and Spel l ing I am will ing totouch the more l ight ly , knowing how fa r the East is from

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the West and how reca lc it rant the Engl i sh a lphabet torender it s own sounds , let alone those of other languages .But after all l ib ra ries do exist , conta in ing fa i rly rel iab lebooks of reference . And even in N ew York and Ph iladelphia , whence emanate most of these inst ruct ive works,t here dwel l oriental i st s of repute , who m ight conceivablyhave informat ion to impa rt . Yet our authors seem to

prefer to consult , if not one another, then the Armen ianrug dea l e r a round the corner, or haply some t rave l l er returned al ive from what they invariab ly term the Orient .Thus we lea rn from Mr . W . D . El lwanger of the mostaccess ible reg ion of “ t he Orient ” that “most of the rugs

of commerce in th i s count ry come from Pers ia , Turkey ,As ia M inor, Turkestan (

“The Oriental Rug,”

p . I I s a surpri sed reader wrong i n drawmg t he inferenCe that Turkey and As ia Minor are supposed to haveno connect ion with each other? Of t he latter Dr . Lewisinforms us that i t is bounded on the south by Arab ia ,t he Mediterranean and Red Sea s (p . And Anatol ia i s usua l ly Spoken of a s if i t existed in some fourthd imen s ion ent i rely out s ide the penin sula in quest ion .

Whereas t he name is merely t he Greek one for As ia Minor—from wh ich the Turks derive thei r Anadol .I t i s perhaps not unnatu ra l t hat the rug

-geographerbecomes more involved in obscurity as he penet ratesfarther into the Orient .” Kurd istan , for instance , i sto h im a constant stumbl ing b lock— as i ndeed it i s tomost westerners, who do not readily take in the concept ionof t hat As iat ic Poland , wi t h it s loose ly related , semi~

independent t ribes l iving pa rt ly under Pers ian and partlyunder Tu rk i sh suzerainty , and produc ing with in a fewmiles of each other Such tota l ly d ifferent weaves as t he

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not stake my head on the certa inty of it s so remain ing tothe end of t ime . But no Russ ian ever made a rug, orl east of all a Yuruk rug, as M r . E l lwanger seems to int imate (p . Nor, a s the rug books inform us

‘

with

wonderfu l unan imity, i s Kazak a corrupt ion of Cossack,t he case be ing exact ly the cont ra ry . And if t he Caucasusbe Russ ia , so a re t he t rans-Casp ian provinces . To cal l

them so, a t any rat e, would save the rug- scriveners fromthe No Man ’s Land t hey make of that vast and l itt lev is ited region . You wou ld th ink , to read the i r classificat ions, t hat east of the Caspian one name is good as another, and that i t is all the same whether you say Bokhara ,Merv , Kh iva , Sama rkand , or Turkestan .

I n t he finer point s of orthography the rug book peoplea re not wholly to b lame for t he fantast ic things t hey do .

Engl ishmen and Americans have a lways been notoriousfor t he l ibert ies they take with foreign names . But there

is more t han a susp ic ion of unscholarl iness in the unsystemat ic spel l ing of t hese books , t hei r general failure togive a key to t hei r own p ronunciat ion , and the importancethey at t ribute to va riant forms . Dr . Lewi s perhaps ex

p resses t he i r genera l state of mind when he confides to us

(p . 34 1 , note) t hat“ in the Turkish and Pers ian languages

the vowel s a re frequent ly s i lent and the characters donot stand for S ingle con sonants , but represent combinat ion s of sounds a s in short-hand , so that t he same wordis spel led in a great va riety of ways when it i s t ranslatedinto Engl ish Ma rk t hat “ t ran slated ” ! I t ist rue that t he Arabic alphabet is short of vowels, and thatt he different races who use it twist it as variously as dothe people of Europe the long- suffering Roman alphabet .But neither in Pers ian nor in Turkish a re t here short-hand

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combinat ions of consonants—unless the same thing maybe said of Greek and Russian , which are richer thanEngl ish in hav ing Single let ters to represent such soundsa s th or sh . The bottom of the matter is t hat neitherD r . Lewi s nor any one else wil l take the t roub l e to findout how a name is p ronounced in its own count ry, and tochoo se a con s istent method of rendering that name inEngl ish . Thus i t i s t hat the author of The Pract ica lBook of Orienta l Rugs ” encumbers his pages with aquant ity of so cal led synonyms , which are noth ing butva riant— and usua l ly very incorrect— spel l ings he haschanced to pick up . A case in point i s the town of El i sav etpol, i n t he T ranscaucasus, whose older name of Ganjaor Genjeb has caused founta in s of ink to flow . Dr . Lewisca l ls the rugs of t h i s d ist rict Genghis , which he di rect s usto pronounce J en'-gi s, giv ing as

“ synonym s ” Guenja,

Guendja, and Guenjes . H e goes on to state tha t “ authorit ies d iffer great ly as to the orig in of t he name . Some saythat the p roper name shou ld be Guenja, wh ich was theanc ient name of Elizab et h pol, from whence they came .

Others insi st that they shou ld be cal led Gengh i s , whichis the name of the t ribe of Nomads l iving in the v icinityof Elizab et h pol who weave them

”

(p . I f D r. Lewishad thought fit to consu l t other authorit ies t han h is p redecessors i n t he American l iterature of rugs , one or two

ofwhom relate “Gengh is ” to the conqueror Ch ingiz Khan ,he wou ld very eas i ly have found out that Ganja i s aperfectly wel l-known town , founded by Kobad I , Sasan ianking of Pers ia , in the fifth or s ixth century of our era ,and famous as the b i rthplace of the Pers ian poet N izami ,who wrote the epics of “Khosrev and Shirin” and “Maj nunand Lei la”. H e would a l so have found out that the elus ive

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vowel sounds of that Pers ian name—wh ich is used to thisday by thousands of Caucasians— va ry between a and e,

and that a fina l i is a Pers ian and Azer i Turk i sh suffix oforigin , equ ivalent to the Ot toman Tu rkish li—by whichM r . Mumford not too correct ly des ignates a man of

Hamadan . A man or a thing from Hamadan is local lytermed Hamadan i . And so, by a perfect ly comp rehensi

b l e cont ract ion , Ganj i or Genj i . Wh ich , about as nea rly.

as can be a rrived at in Engl i sh , i s the correct fo rm .

Of Hamadan it self D r . Lewis gives the baroque syno

nyms Hamadie and Ham idieh . Where in the worldhe fi shed up Hamadie I can ’t imagine ; but Ham id ieh is aTurkish adject ive made out of the name Ham id

,hav ing

no more to do with Hamadan then our own adj ect iveAugustan . D ivert ing as h is “ synonyms ” a re, however, itis when we come to t he glossa ry at t he end of h is book thatthe rafters of Ecbatana Well , t hey can hard ly ring,because they a re neat ly encased in mud . And how shouldthe rug book people know any better, poor dea rs? Yet

why Should t hey voluntari ly, and wit h so l it t le pa ins atverificat ion or proof- read ing, t h row themselves to thel ions? One reason i s t hat it is eas ier for a camel to passth rough the eye of a needle than for an Anglo-Saxon toget it into h is head t hat t he h i n Bokhara and Daghestanmeans someth ing, and that p ract ica l ly every word in h isOrienta l vocabula ry must be accented on the last syllable .

To do so, at a l l event s , would save h im from such horrorsas Af-ghan’-is-tan , An-

go’-ra, or Fer

’-a-ghan . Of the last

I am happy to recogn ise that Dr . Lewis does not d irect u sto sound the g . And, after a l l , i t i s useless to at tempt toreform the Anglo-Saxon world i n t he mat ter of p ronouncing those two guttu ra l s gh and kh . They a re disagreeab le

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descript ion, or possess ion , li. Hochlt, therefore, is aTu rkish form , mean ing crossed , or hav ing a cross .Truth further ob l iges me to confide in the reader t hat I

fai l to find any part icula r evidence of Miss or Mrs . Dunnhav ing avai led herself of the ample Opportun ity She men

t ions . She m isses her chance of writ ing someth ing rea l lyfi rst -hand and persona l about rugs, even in that l imitedpart of thei r nat ive land with wh ich sh e i s acquainted ,and sh e repeat s many of t he stock m i snomers which therug books bid fa i r to make permanent . Thus Sh e classest he Mosul—Musul , I am told , is t he local p ronunc iat ionamong Turkish p roduct s , and states that more rugs aremade in and Sh ipped from that d ist rict t han from anyother except Smyrna (pp . 86, As a mat ter of fact

,

comparat ively few rugs a re made in the neighbourhoodof Mosul , and pract ical ly none a re now sh ipped fromthere—or were before the wa r . The sole connect ion thata Mosul rug has wit h Mosul is that a certa i n class of smal lKurd ish rugs were once col lected i n that city by Jewi

'

sh

deal ers, on behalf of thei r p rincipa l s i n Baghdad . Since1900 t h is t rade has passed to the other S ide of the mounta ins , and Hamadan is now the market for

“Mosuls .

”

They a re smal l , loosely woven , high-pi led rugs of t he poorerqua l it ies , pa rt ly from Turki sh , oftener from Pers ian Kurd istan , and from the region a round Hamadan extend ingeven a s fa r south a s Malayir.

There are other t h ings about the obscure subj ect ofKurdistan t hat a lady who has l ived in the fa r interior ofTurkey m ight have told us. But sh e l eaves us to gather

what is fa r from the fact— that the inhabitant s a re all ofthe one Ders im t ribe sh e ment ions (p . And she

let s sl ip a b ri l l iant Opportun ity to tel l her fel low connois

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scurs what none of them except Mr . Mumford seems tosuspect , that the town they oftenest name

“ Sehna ” i spurely Kurdish , be ing—as Sauj Bulagh used to b e—thecapita l of Pers ian Kurd istan , and that Sehna

” rugs are

Kurdish and not Pers ian . With regard to her t ravels inremoter regions of “ t he Orient ” our authoress ma inta ins adiscreet ret icence . But we can hardly assume that theyincluded Pers ia when she makes a d ist inct ion between“Kirmansha

” and Kermanshah , and assert s of carpetsbearing the latter name that they a re made in Tabriz .

I hasten to add , however, t hat sh e i s by no means a lone inth is aston i shing be l ief . Mr. Mumford was the fi rst to g ivevoice to it , and it has been fol lowed more or less fa ithfu l lyby every one of his successors whom I have consu l tedexcept Mary Beach Langton , in her l it t le book on

“HOW

to Know Oriental Rugs ” (p . I might add i n pass ingthat the serious student wi l l hardly learn from Mrs .

Langton how to know Orienta l rugs , but that she showsother ev idences of hav ing gone out s ide the pages of hercol leagues for her informat ion . The t ruth is that Kerman s , Kirman s, Kirmanshas, and

“Kermanshah s

” are

a l l one and the same . They have noth ing whatever to dowith either Kerman shah or Tabriz, except th at t he modernindust ry in Tabriz was started by weavers from Kerman ,who imported thei r own des igns and methods of work .

The T ab rizis, in turn , have influenced the modern outputof Meshed . As for Kermanshah , which does happen tobe an important wool and t rad ing cent re, i t is hardly anexaggerat ion to affi rm that no rugs a re Or ever were madethere . What t he Sat rap told U S to the cont ra ry was eitherthe except ion that proves the rul e or a quotat ion from h isrem in iscences of another prov ince . The name grew out of

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t he ignorance or perverted ingenuity Of dea le rs, who

knew nothing about SO remote a town as Kerman, whowere

confused by its s im i la ri ty to the name of Kerman shah , andwhose romant ic eyes were att racted by the terminat ion ofthe lat ter . A Kermanshah ” i s merely a better exampleof a modern Kerman . And when the rug is unusua l lyb ig, and t he dea ler wishes to be unusual ly impress ive,h e pronounces it , out of the magn iloquence of hi s ownexuberant hea rt , a royal Kerman shah .

” A prec ise lysim i la r case is t hat of the SO-cal led roya l or princess“Bokharas

”-wh ich , as i t happens, do not come from

Bokhara .

E l iza Dunn makes a less pa rdonab l e confus ion , and onet hat I do not recol lect hav ing encountered el sewhere,when she speaks of “Meshed or Muskabad

”

(pp . 1 03,

Meshed and Muskabad, or Mushkabad, are, inPers ia, very nearly as fa r as t he East i s from the West .For Meshed is Meshed, while Mu shkabad is Su l tanabad—oi t he better cla sses . Mushkabad was t he name of atown between Kum and Sultanabad wh ich the longbea rded Fa t ’h Al i Shah dest royed about a hundred yearsago, and Su l tanabad is it s modern successor . E l iza Dunnmight be surprised to hear that most modern Sa ruks arewoven in the lat ter place, as I a lways am in museumsto find a certain kind of med iaeva l pottery label led Sultanabad .

I am del ighted to give th is lady the credit of recogn i singthat t he so-ca l led Bokha ra rugs a re real ly Turkoman .

But othe rwise She does noth ing to d ispel t he haze of

ignorance that makes possible so preposterous a m i snomeras “ Kh iva Bokha ra . A Kh iva Bokha ra means j ustabout as much as a Boston New York one, and it i s t ime

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laugh a t t he m isnam ing of t h ings and places fam i l iar tohim , I wi l l grant the reader that it is someth ing for anin habitant ofN ew York or Phi ladelph ia to have found outwhere so many of t he rugs on h is floor came from— andt hat the present crit ic, for h is own pa rt , knows very muchless about it than t he most unrel iab l e Of the writers he crit icises . I wi l l a l so grant that rugs and words a re someth inga l ike in t hat t hey a re the common property of all man

k ind, and not , l ike marb les or canvases or other product sof the more a ristoc rat ic a rt s, t he gua rded possess ion of achosen few . Con sequent ly the bounds between a rt andindust ry in these two forms ofweav ing a re vaguer than incertain other department s of creat ive act iv ity . And t heowner of t en or twenty-fiv e or s ixty As iat ic rugs needs lesscourage to make a book about t hem than the possessor of aS im i l a r number of old Ch inese porcela ins or I ta l ian paintings . Moreover, t here i s not yet , a s indeed more than onewriter of rug books has pointed out , an authoritat ivel iterature on t he subj ect . The field is st i l l Open to whomever wi l l t ake it .But it w i l l never be taken in any such way a s t he one

hitherto fol lowed by American writers . I t i s no flatte ringproof of what we know of t he East and it s a rt s , or of t hestandards of cri t ici sm accepted among us , t hat pub l i sherscan go on i ssuing these more or less expensive p icture

books, improv ised out of Mr . Mumford and water .Whether we regard rugs a s works of a rt or as househo ldconven iences , surely they deserve a study no less specia lised than etch ings , say, or text i les . The s implest handbook of any other a rt or indust ry presupposes a background of knowledge ent i rely fore ign to t hese books . Thefact is that not one of t hei r authors possesses t he equip

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ment to write a sat i sfactory rug book . I f I include M r .Mumford in th is assert ion , I must repeat t hat he deservesgreat credit for h is p ioneer work in an empty field . Hisfol lowers, however, have done pract ically noth ing to

clarify and add to the data which he made ava i lab l e tothem . For they pers ist i n fo l lowing a method by whichit i s hopeless to a rrive at any sol id resul t .Thei r method , one gat hers from thei r books , is to sit

down with M r . Mumford in one hand and a school geograp hy i n the other, d ictat ing unt il they feel t he need of

i l luminat ion on some obscure point—when they seeken l ightenment from an Armenian rug pedla r or from thebuyer of a department store who has been three t imes toSmy rna , Constant inople, T iflis, and Tabriz . Thei r concep t ion of the Orient ,

” a t any rate, seems not to d iffervery material ly from the Persian idea of Firengistan,

which for the common run of I ranians lumps Americawith Europe and presupposes for us al l a common h istoryand language . Otherwi se how cou ld Mr . E l lwanger, forinstance,

‘

declare that Arab ic i s the lingua franca of the

Near East (p . or Dr . Lewis a i r h is views of the Arab icalphabet , or thei r colleagues one and all t rot out thei r“namazlik ,

” “hehbelik,

” etc . , a s app l icab le to all prayerrugs , sadd lebags , and so forth? They are not to b lame fornot knowing Arabic and all the other languages and dialects of Asia . But they a re sca rcely to be commendedfor volunteering informat ion about matters of which theyknow l itt le or noth ing . I t natu ra l ly makes one dist rusteveryth ing they have to say . And I , for one, am unableto comprehend thei r chi ld l ike fa it h i n the gentlemen of

the t rade .

I t i s t rue enough that our knowledge and enjoyment of

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Oriental rugs has been gained ch iefly in the way of t rade,and that dealers were long, perhaps st i l l a re, our bestauthorit ies . But wh i l e some dea lers a re educated men

,

and have enjoyed wide experience in cent res both of rugsel l ing and rug weav ing, they do not appea r to be the onesto whom the rug book people apply . IS it necessary topoint out that because a man happens to buy or sel l rugs ,and knows how to dist inguish many va riet ies of t hem ,

or even to speak one or two of the languages of t hei rmakers, it does not fol low that he is infa l l ib le with regardto every phase of t he subject ? For t he rest , few A rmenianrug dealers in America ever set t hei r foot in any cent re ofrug weav ing, or ever t roub led t hemselves about l itt lemat ters l ike geography, orthography, ph i lology, or ethnology. Few of t hem , e ither, ever in thei r l ives hes itatedfor an answer . For t he Oriental point of V iew is thatcourtesy requires an answer to a quest ion , t h e actualt rut h of t he reply be ing qu ite a seconda ry mat ter . Few

American buyers, furthermore, remain in t he count riesthey v is it long enough to acqui re much fi rst -hand informat ion . And t he profess iona l rug buyer i s fi rst and foremosta bus iness man , not much more l ikely t han h is Armeniancol league to ask h imself or any one el se quest ions aboutt he b roader aspect s of t he commerce in which he i s engaged . H e I s I l ike to t h ink , const itut ional ly more w i l l ingto utter t he S imple phrase I don ’ t know . But i t i s a seasy for him a s for any one el se to give a pa rt icula r facta genera l appl icat ion , or to t h ink t hat

“ I ran ” and Kermanshah ” and Kh iva Bokhara ” a re good enough namesfor certain recogn ised kinds of rugs .l have perhaps gone too fa r about to int imate what

m ight have been said i n a sentence : t hat the writer of a

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making dist inct ions between Ardelan and Eastern Kurd istan wh ich do not square with the facts . As for thegreat north-cent ra l Pers ian p rovince of I rak Ajemi,orig ina l ly extending from the Elburzrange to I sfahan , i tnow means to the Pers ians the count ry a round Sultanabad , t he Fera

’

han-Sa ruk-Serabend count ry, wh ich may best retched to include Kum and Kashan . Th is comparat iv ely smal l a rea produces more rugs than any other inPers ia , and it is by no means inaccessib le . Yet over itreigns in the rug books a twi l ight of darkest Africa . How,

t hen , unt i l the writers of the books know what they areta lk ing about , and what perhaps no one in the Americant rade i s competent to tel l them , can they poss ib ly class ifywit h accuracy or perspect ive?The p rob lem , I adm it , i s fa r from simple . But it wi l l

never be solved in a New York l ib ra ry—or even in thesaloon of an excurs ion boat on the Grea t Lakes , where, Iam informed, one of t he most popula r ofour aut hors , whileon a m idsummer hol iday, composed h is magnum opus .

Dr . Lewis t el l s us t hat t here a re over fifty va riet ies Ofcommercia l rugs (p . I f he had said five hundredhe would have fa l len short of t he t ruth . The fact i st ha t t here a re many more kinds of rugs than any one

seems to suspect . Wh ich part ly account s for such absurdt rade names as I ran ” and Kerman shah . Such t radenames a s Maha l , Mushkabad , and Sava lan , on the otherhand, a re more legit imate, having been invented by modern manufacturers to designate d ifferent grades of t hei rown Su l tanabads . But t here a re undreamt of sub t let ieseven beh ind the most st raightforward name . A Hamadan , for example, i s un iversal ly described in the books ashav ing a camel border, or a camel ground diapered in a

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l ighter shade , ornamented with wha t ou r authors elegantlyname a pole medal l ion . Whereas the majority of Hamadans a re of quite other types . And unt i l 19 1 2 , or there

abouts , not one of them came from the town Of Hamadan .

The p la in shotori (came l-coloured) Hamadan i s made inthe adjoining d ist rict Of M ehraban , wh i le the d iapered orshireh-shekeri (sy rupy !) i s from a place ca l led Dargezin .

Others are from Borchalu, Erzamfud, Famenin , Injelas,Kabut raheng , etc .

—a l l as t ru ly Hamadans a s the camelrugs , because they a re woven in the region of Hamadanand marketed here , yet each dist inct ly recogn i sab l e to theexpert by it s own local cha racteri st ics . And every otherrug cent re has similar local subdiv i sions, t he vast majorityofwhich remain unknown to the books .A prima ry essent ia l , then , of a sat i sfactory rug book is

that i t shou ld include rel iable maps . I n th i s respect theexi st ing books a re woefu l ly deficient . Few of them con

ta in even approximately accurate plans of any As iat iccount ry , whi le none of them Show the whereabout s of allthe places they ment ion . Much less do any of them g ivedetai led cha rt s of the princ ipal cent res of weaving . Thi si s the less excusab le because the whole background of th isa rt whose masterp ieces bea r the names of t ribes , provinces ,and c it ies is geography . Only on geograph ical l ines canany clea r idea be gained of the d ifferent school s of rugs ,or any foundat ion be laid for their history and an understand ing oi thei r mutua l relat ions . But i t i s not enoughto fo l low a contempora ry atlas

,however exact—as these

are at t imes to teach us. For no contempora ry atlas canShow how boundaries have shifted even in the l ifet ime ofexist ing rugs . Thi s i s part icu larly t rue of a count ry l ikePers ia , whose interior provinces and exterior front iers

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have varied enormously th roughout t he long period duringwhich weavers have sat at looms . And smal l matters l ikecolour and design a re Often int imately connected with thoseva riat ions . Thus the eastern ha lf of the T ranscaucasuswas Persian fa r longer than it has been Russian . Northern Armenia and Mosul have frequently been subj ect toPers ia . Mesopotamia ha s oftener than not been a partof that emp i re . As for Khorasan , it is now sca rcely aqua rter of t he immense Prov ince of the Sun wh ich formerly ran out to the Oxus and included much of modernAfghanistan . Yet writers of rug books apologise forrelat ing Herat to Meshed—when it i s not a hundred yea rsS ince an imaginary l ine was d rawn between them , andsca rcely two hundred s ince the Afghans made t he ir offi cia lent rance into h istory . I t is ext remely important , too , to

remember that T ransoxiana was for centu ries a s mucha pa rt of Pers ia a s Fa rs : is supposed , indeed, to have beenthe bi rthplace of t he I ran ian race .

The geograph ical background , again , i s int imately a ssociated wit h the h istorica l . The lat ter has h it herto beent reated in fa r too summa ry a manner wit h more informat ion about the J ews and the Egypt ians than about t hepeopl e of t he colder regions which a re t he t rue hab i tatof t he rug . As yet we know next to noth ing about theorigins and affi l iat ions of our a rt . The oldest exist ingsamples of rug weav ing a re fragment s of t he

'

t h irteenthor fou rteenth centuries , whereas we a re wel l awa re thatthe secret of knott ing st rands of coloured wool on a foundat ion of t aut st rings i s of fa r more ant ique invent ion .

And it would be ext remely interest ing to find out who

discovered th i s sec ret . The Chinese, perhaps , whoseciv i l isat ion developed SO ea rly and so widely? We know,

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and t ravel lers of t he M iddle Ages ment ion that famousp roduct of Pers ia .Other documents that wait to be dec iphered a re the

historic rugs in pub l ic and private col lect ions . These a rethe oldmasters of t he a rt , wh ich with t he except ion of theArdebi l of South Kens ington and a few other celeb ratedca rpet s remain st rangely unknown to most of our experts .There a re en t ire books to be made out of the museums .And more to the point than quot ing Scripture and theOdyssey, or describing the enormous j ewel led ca rpetwh ich the Arab conquerors found and cut up at Ctes iphonin

'

637, would be a chapter— there is room for a fat monograph—on t he rugs of pictures . The old Dutch andI tal ian painters could furn ish between them a pricelesscol lect ion , wh ich should shed no l it t le l ight on the h istoryof our a rt . Of th i s Mr . W. A . H awley, at least (

“Oriental

Rugs,Ant ique and i s aware, if he hasnot found

t ime to go SO t horoughly into t he subj ect as Bode andLess ing.

A detai l of l ess importance , but one ofwh ich a schola rlyrug book would take cogn isance, i s one al ready touched on,

namely spel l ing . There i s the more excuse, as I sa id a fewpages back, for the inaccu racies and incons istencies inwhich our authors abound, because the Roman a lphabetwas not invented to spel l the Engl ish language, and b ecause the users oi that language have not yet ful ly agreedon how to convey it s sounds . The case is further compl icated by the fact that other sha rers of the Romanalphabet have sounds and systems Of the i r own, intowh ich the rug book people, as wel l a s geographers andwriters of t ravel , occasional ly d ip . Hence that d in“sedjadeh and t hat t in “

khatchli, Wh ich a re necessa ry

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to the Frenchman but superfluous for us. More Superfluous is t he unwieldy German dsch wh ich I have occasionally come across in place of a s imple Engl ish j. Anothercompl icat ion is t hat Oriental languages contain sounds forwhich we have no exact equ ivalent . Then the same namemay be p ronounced or writ ten d ifferently by an Arab , aPersian , or a Turk, or even by dwel lers in d ifferent part sof the same count ry . A case in point i s t he habit of t heArabs of us ing a j where the Pers ians use a g . Nor, again ,i s i t easy to sett le on the form of a name . To the peopleof Pers ian Kurd istan t he name of thei r cap ital , known tous as Sehna or Senna, is Senendi

’

ich , while Pers ians andTurks Speak of i t as S ineh . The anc ient c ity ofGordium,

equal ly wel l known in ca rpet l i teratu re, enjoys a no lesswonderful va riety of t it les, of wh ich the Turki sh i s Gyordez and t he modern Greek YOrthes—with the th ha rd .

But even when we agree on a form , we seldom agree howto convey the sound of t hat form to the Anglo-Saxon eyeand tongue . I th ink it quite hopeless to attempt to doSO by means of any phonet ic system relying on the morepurely Engl ish comb inat ions, l ike ee, 00, final ie, and all

t he rest . There a re too many phonet ic systems , and toofew people understand each others . ’ Moreover they are

rarely cons istent or complete . Mr . Mumford and h isfami ly, for instance, usual ly refer to a wel l-known Pers ianprovince as Azerb ijan . Thi s Spel l ing takes for granted ,I suppose, t hat the reader wi l l pronounce the i a s in k ite,but neglect s to con s ider the fact that t he other vowel smust be uttered in a way which does not come natu ra l toAnglo-Saxons . Our only hope is to adopt some systeml ike that of the Royal Geograph ica l Soc iety, happilycoming into vogue among our own editors and map

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makers . I f you have to lea rn i ts convent ions in order tobe ab le to use it , so do you with any other system— Engl ish being the patchwork language it is . And t h is systemhas t he great merit of be ing both s imple and logica l .A lesser but by no mean s negl ig i ble detai l in which

t he ex ist ing rug books fa l l short is that of i l lust rat ion .

And it i s t he less negl igib l e because SO many of them bidfor favou r on t he score of thei r coloured plates . As ayouthfu l reader of romance I wa s a lways deeply offendedwhen a heroine expressly described by the aut hor as b londewa s port rayed by the i l lust rator as a b runette, or whenthe deat h of t he v i l lain was dep icted a dozen pages before or after t he event . I n t he cou rse of yea rs mydest iny led me into t he ret reat s where these crimes a recommitted , and I have come to understand how t hey t akeplace . But wit h me, I fear, to comprehend i s not topardon . AS a mature reader of rug books I cont inueto be offended—by p ictures that seem to be chosen fora i ry reasons of decorat ion or ava ilab il ity, that put thestudent to t he greatest poss ib l e inconven ience in comparing them with t he text , or t hat fai l to do all t hey can forh im in the t horny mat ter of class ificat ion . Mr . Hawleydoes more for h is reader than any one el se, and Dr . Lewisi s in th is respect more sat isfactory t han M r . Mumfordthough I have reason to suspect that if M r . Mumford hadbeen a l lowed to make h i s later ed it ion s more than re

p rint s he wou ld have improved t hem in th is as in otherpart icu la rs . But no rug book t hat I have come acrossi l l ust rates al l t he stock designs , or insert s the i l lust rat ionsat t he right place . A sma l l b lack-and-wh ite, sett ingforth an essent ial point a t t he psychologica l moment , i swort h more t han t he most elaborat e colou red plat e stuck

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key, a t all event s , an i l ine dyes a re employed by no meansso genera l ly as t he rug book people imagine . Not only

a re there in Pers ia p ena l t ies against t hei r importat ion ,and agains t t he exportat ion of rugs in wh ich they a reused , but i t is qu i t e incorrect to say a s D r . Lewis does

(pp . 78 , 2 18) t hat two- t h i rds or t h ree-qua rters of modern Tu rkish rugs a re an i l ine dyed . What ne ither he norany one el se ment ions i s t he growi ng employment ofal iza rin dyes . These a l so tend to ha rden t he wool ,t hough it remains for a later centu ry to determine theu lt imate effect of t h is p rocess . But t he i r greatest fau l ti s t he myth ic v irtue a scribed to t he vegetab l e dyes : t heywil l neit her fade nor wash out . Whence i s it t hat t hosewho use t hem incl ine to soft shades unknown to t he oldweavers , in an at tempt to ant icipate t he tone of age soprized by western buyers .There i s more to be learned t han we yet know about

t he colou r sca l e of d ifferent weaves , and t hei r schemes ofcolou r comb inat ion . A point in th is connect ion whichhas never been taken Up is t hat of out l ine . I f you lookinto a Pers ian rug you wi l l d i scover _ t hat each figu re i sbounded by a l ine of another colou r, somet imes so fine asto be a lmost impercept ib l e . Yet t h is inconspicuousout l ine has an ext raord inary effect on t he field of colouri t encloses . The same t int wi l l have an ent i rely d ifferent look, or shade into d ifferent di rect ions of t he spect rum , accord ing to the colou r of it s out l ine . Some

school s of rugs, l ike t he B ija r, have been found to fol lowinva riab le rules for out l in ing . A wider knowledge of suchlaws , t herefore, would of cou rse be a help in ident ificat ion .

A subj ect of t he utmost complex i ty, and one whichawait s a profounder schola rsh ip than has yet dea l t with it ,

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is that of des ign . There i s much easy talk in the rug booksabout t riba l marks and symbols , about G reece, Egypt ,further Asia , and Cent ral America , about palms , lotuses ,and Trees of Life, to say nothing of knots of dest iny ,sta rs of the Medes , sh ields of David and Solomon , andS ’ s of the Fi re Worshippers . I t all tends , however, toexcite rather than to sat isfy our cu rios ity . When Dr.

Lewis announces (p . 147) t hat he has devoted more considerat ion to thi s topic than any of h is p redecessors , heforces the cri t ic to add that if one removed from Dr .Lewi s ’s chapter on design everyth ing re l at ing to Chinaand I ndia t here wou ld be l itt l e left besides hea rsay orguesswork . And the va lue of h is cla im may be judgedfrom the fact that in the rest of his book he omits any ment ion whatever of I ndian rugs , whi le to the subject ofChinahe devotes a grand total of six pages .As our authors study the map and read— perhaps inM r . Mumford , whose t reatment of th is vast subject ,however inadequate, i s aga in more worthy than thatof hi s fol lowers—oi t he ca ravans , t he conquest s , the m i

grat ions, which have swept back and forth across Asia ,i t no doubt seems h ighly plausible to them tha t a mot iveoriginat ing i n Egypt or I ndia should find lodgment in aPersian or Caucas ian rug . Nor can any one deny thatthe t ransfusion of decorat ive ideas is as old as the swast ika .

How else should Pers ian miniatu res and port rait s of

Lucrezia Crivel l i be hang ing i n an Engl ish house in Hamadan? The period of ch inoiserie i n European ornament isone fanc iful chapter of this tendency . I myself mightwrite another on the unexpected places where I have foundfami l ia r detai ls of rugs . I have seen on an old Resht

embroidery, and above a dado of very Chinese- looking

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

t i les in a fifteenth century mosque at Ad rianople, asin the marb le a rch of more than one Tu rk i sh door, theident ica l pat tern of reciproca l t refoi l s so cha racteri st icof Caucas ian borders. I have a l so seen Bu lga rian towe l sdecorated after t he fash ion of Anatol ian rugs , to say

nothing of Kurdish and Pers ian ones . Then many ofthe so- ca l led Rhod ian plates , as of t he Tu rkish t i les of thesixteenth centu ry , bea r t he ben t and serrated lance- l eafof themahi (fish) or H era t des ign . And as for t hat lozengeor sp indle which t he rug books cal l a pole medal l ion , thereis no end to t he repet it ions of i t I have come across— inrugs, in text i les , in emb roideries , in the pa i nted panel sof rooms , on t he t i led wa l l s of tombs and palaces in Constant inop le, wrought in i ron for the en richment of anEgypt ian door, i l lum inated in min iatu res or in manuscript s of t he fou rteenth and fifteenth centu ries , tooledon t he covers Of innumerab l e Arabic, Persian , and Turkishbooks , the oldest of wh ich I have noted was bound inBaghdad in the elevent h century . And in New York,in the twent iet h century, an American pub l i sher reproduced it aga in for the cover of t h is book—from the backof a Persian m i rror .At the same t ime, no one who has not been in the East

can real ise t he immense conservat i sm of Orienta l peoples ,thei r inst inct ive susp icion of anyth ing foreign , or the

ext reme difficu l ty they st i l l have in communicat ing wi t hone another, And a l t hough some myst ic l aw of a ssociat ion inva riably causes t hat ample phrase “

the Orient ”

to ca l l up in western minds a p ictu re of the t ropics , thefact rema i ns t hat wool rugs a re p rima rily the p roduct ofcold cl imates . One Should think twice t herefore, beforeadopt ing the t heory that so cha racterist ic a Pers ian design

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gu ise of a cypress with a bent top . Only under the mostserious reserves , t herefore, shou ld one countenance anylegend of crown j ewel s, Hindu rivers, and what not . I ft he butch represent s anyth ing at a l l—on wh ich there is noreason to ins ist—it is p robab ly a convent iona l isat ion of

some plant form , and fa r more ancient t han the rega l iaof so modern a dyna sty as t hat of t he Kaja rs . I n anycase, t hese a re quest ions not to be answered by rug pedlarsor by gen t lemen who have been th ree t imes to T iflis.

H av ing been there, myself, only twice, and t hen havingpursued my invest igat ions no fa rther than the rai lwaystat ion , I say no more !I wi l l say one word more, nevertheless, with regard to

the future of Orienta l rugs . Th is is a top ic on which therug books make most lugub rious p rophecies , j ust ly anat hemat ising t he use of anil ine dyes and a suspicious tendencyof t h is Asiat ic craft to t ake on a European colour . For

myself, I amless agitated about the an i l ine peril thanabout the othe r. But I recogn ise one or two point s wh ichthe ladies and gent lemen of t he rug books apparentlyignore . The fi rst of t hose point s is one about which Ihave a l ready said a l itt l e . St rong a s i s the inst inct ofOriental

’

weav ers to goon repeat ing themselves indefinitely,t here have a lways been indiv idual s among t hem who werenot averse to a novel ty . Thus t he so-ca l led I sfahan carpet s of t he s ixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem to

bet ray that Eu ropean influence wh ich was so st rong at t hecou rt ofAbbas Shah . The same th ing sporad ical ly occursin places so fa r away from each other as Ka rabagh andKerman, whose weavers appear to have found an irresist ib l e att ract ion in t he European t reatment of the rose, sodifferent from the usual Pers ian convent ional isat ion of

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that flower. The Mongol and Turkoman kings of Persiamay have had something to do w ith the former case,s ince Ka rabagh was for t hem a favourite summer resort ,vis ited by many a European who brought p resent s fromhis own land . And freaks of design tu rn up every nowand then from the most unexpected source— no doubt thewhim of some Pers ian seigneur who happened to take afancy to a European gimcrack .

One of the most unusual examples I ever saw was arug which hung i n our own house, con s idered by theSah ’b to be a Hamadan . This Hamadan , a l t hough properly knotted , and bearing a name and a date in Arab icletters , had t he effect of a bit of French tapest ry . Yet it

looked a s if i t might have been des igned after a pictureby Francesco Guardi . I t represented , dist ingui shablyenough , St . Mark

’s bas in and San G iorg io Maggiore, withgondolas and figures and suggest ions of rococo drapery !The beauty of i t , however, was t he lovely Aubusson redof the ground , into which amaz ingly managed to d issolvea symphony of del icate blues . Such a piece, of course, isan ext reme type . But it i s a type of a t h ing wh ich hashappened in every a rt and every t ime .

Now the reason why th is th ing i s happen ing in Pers iato—day , happily on a fa r less subversive sca le, i s t he veryreason why so many interest ing and successful rug booksare being written . For the seigneu rs who keep busy thelooms of the East now l ive ch iefly in t he West . And tha ti s why the simple oldcolours , which any Pers ian orTurki shchi ld had an in imitab l e secret of combin ing, tend to refinethemselves into the pastel shades of the Smyrna , Hamadan ,and Sul tanabad factories ;why t he compl icated old des ignsrun more and more to open grounds of a s ingle t int ; why

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we see fewer of t hose i rregu la rit ies, both in colou r andexecut ion , which add cha rm to many a nomad rug ; whydealers a re d riven to so many doubtful expedient s forb l each ing and ton ing . The t rut h is t hat most Americansdo not l ike t he rugs wh ich most Pers ians p refer to weave .

They are afra id of p r ima ry colou rs , and t hey are more

afraid of t he i r interior decora tor, who t el l s t hem tha t noh igh—minded person put s into h i s house anyth ing whichdoes not ma tch or complement everyth ing el se . They

a re afflicted, furthermore, with an incu rable mania forwhat t hey a re plea sed to ca l l ant iques . Is i t su rp ri s ing,t hen , t hat t hey get what t hey want ? Yet it is only fa i rto acknowl edge what the West has done for t h is

.

Orienta lartfat a t ime when in the N ear East taste and pat ronagea re a t t hei r lowest ebb— in keeping up standa rds of deSign , colou r, materia l , and c raftsmanship . I f i t were notfor U S, everybody in Pers ia and Turkey would now be us ingan il i ne dyes and im itat ing sta ring European pattern s .The t rue danger l ies in qu it e another quarter . WhilePersia has for centuries exported her ca rpet s , the na rrowing of t he modern world has made it easy to exploit th i scommerce on so la rge a sca l e t hat t he weavers can nolonger sit for months and yea rs over such carpets as theywove a hundred , two hundred , five hundred years ago .

As i t is , work requ i ring so much t ime and labour cou ldnot poss ib ly be p roduced in western count ries, save inexcess ively sma l l quant it ies . Our standards of l ife are sod ifferen t that an American workman of the ski l l requi redto weave a fine rug would requ i re twenty or t h i rty t imesthe wage with which a Pers ian is sat i sfied . I t thereforepays to make rugs in Pers ia and export them to Eu ropeand America—and wi l l pay so long as t he Standards of

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THE GRAMOPHON E

I have not made one complaint against Fortune, since I know she

acts under compulsion .

The one thing which from time to time troubles me is my longingfor Lahore.

Masud- i-Sad—i-Salman

GRAMOPHONE , God wot , i s a th ing of horror . The scrape of i t s needle wou ld be detestab l e enough to the ear, w it hout i t s cheapnessof im itat ion . And the seriousness with which

mil l ions of honest c it izens l isten to that screech ing echoof an echo, cal l ing i t mu sic, i s a t h ing to stagger one

’s

fa i t h in mankind . For absolute music, t hat creat iveinterl inking of sound and s i lence which the hand of geniu scan cha rm out of dead wood and meta l , is what thewretched eng ine evokes l east successfu l ly .

And yet I And yet what a t h ing it is that a l iv ingvoice or an immortal v iol in can count on even so poor animmortal ity ! And as t he camera , whose una ided miracles a re in themselves too l iteral to be engaging, has doneso much for t he study of a rt and for a dozen d ifferentk ind s of comparat ive research , so t he gramophone, or thephonograph , might be an invaluab le note-book . I re

member a sp ring day long ago on which I rowed from one

to another of t he gray monasteries wh ich look out from

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THE GRAMOPHON E

Mt . Athos to the /Egean Sea . To be st rict ly accu rate, Imyself d id not row . A monkish- looking person did that ,in a rusty b lack robe and a rusty b lack fe l t cap for all theworld l ike a Pers ian kola, tel l ing most unmonast ic storiesas he rowed . I lo l led in the stern , enchanted now byhim and now by a young Greek who sang in the bottomof the boat . The latter was a stone-cutter from Sa lonicawho had been ca rv ing the marble gate of a monastery forh is uncl e t he abbot . And hav ing pocketed a pound or

two for h is handiwork, he lay on h is back in the sun,

between the boatman ’ s feet and mine, s inging a love- songof his people—so long, so quaint , SO new to me and wild ,t hat

’

l thought I never Shou ld forget it . But I did , as Ihave forgotten the st range march I heard in the n ight a tKazvin , and the mad music of t he Great Slaughter, andmany a melancholy ai r that has made me wal k mores lowly past a tea garden . Whereas if I had only possessed one of those horn s of myste ry into wh ich favouriteOpera singers bel low thei r favourite ai rs , I might havedecorated th is page with an out land ish enough a rray of

minor notes .Having pretended , however, that I would l ike to see

myself a collector of folk songs , I must make one or two

confess ions . A symphony, it is t rue, is t he form of a rtwhich Upset s me more than any other—unless it be ast ring quartette . The k ind coup le who once took me tohear St rauss’s “

Tod und Erk larung” wou ld have smiled

to know what a new heaven and a new earth they openedfor the most youthful of t hei r guest s . N evert heless , Icannot deny i t : I l ike an Opera ! I t isn ’ t because I prefera l iv ing voice to a viol in . For me an Amat i rather thanan Amato, except when it i s too dark for any d ist ract ing

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image of a costume or of a self- con sc iou sness or of a th irstfor applause . The s ingers , t hough , are not the opera .

Tha t is someth ing more complex , interwoven of mus ic ,co lour, and d rama . Not that t he latter counts for anyt h ing by itself . Otherwise who cou ld keep from snickering at t he absurd ity Of an overfed tenor baw l ing I

love you !” a t t he top of h is voice , or ordering a super in

l iqu id rou lades to shut the door? I may have heardAida ,

” say , forty t imes , and to th is day I haven’ t an idea

what on ea rth it i s about . A mere poet ic flash of the

human i s al l an opera should suggest , a pret ty face, agesture of despa i r, to warm the intertwin ing of sound

and colour . I t is a shameless po lygamy of art s at best ,but one—dare I adm it it ?—wh ich in my t ime has beenmore potent than b lack coffee to keep me awake 0

’

night s .

But the worst is that no man has th rown away moregramophone needles or used up more record s than 1 !

Why, do you suppose, i s that ? We l l , i t need not be b ecause I l ike the scratch or t he screech . I t might be b e

cause any st rong rhythm— a cook beat ing eggs, a t rainbumping over ra i l- ends , a Pers ian pounding a drummakes someth ing in me tw itch . I t might be because Ican read both Dostoiev sky and J ack London—or John

Kendrick Bangs , if you prefer . I t might be because Isomet imes find quite a s much profit in the art ist ic worksof Messrs . Goldberg, Maurice Ketten , and Fonta ineFox as in the exhib i t ions of t he Academy . I n Hamadan it might be because we h ave prec ious few ways ofamus ing ourselves . And what d id Kipl ing say about

raft ing a B roadwood up the N i l e ? Somebody rafted a

Stei nway up the Tigris safely enough for a m iss iona ry

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PERS IAN M IN IATURES

t ha t ended a t ten o ’clock Sharp—or was i t nine? Im

poss ible to find out now, even from a Konversazionsdame.

There were two Konversazionsdamen—one b londe, who

sat a t the Korpulententisch , and one b runette, who sat a tt he Magerntisch . The i r bus iness wa s to converse withthe maniacs and to int roduce them one to another .There subs isted , of course, a b i t ter enm ity between t heseladies, so t hat if you danced wit h one you wou ld be refusedby the ot her . And you should have seen how beaut iful ly the b runet te Konversazionsdame waltzed wit h theCount from the Korpulententisch , when the orchest raplayed “N ight of sta rs ! 0 n ight of love ! AS for me,I wa l tzed wit h t he widow from Lodz . Poor cl ears ! Iwonder what has become of t hem all now.

“Mignon” a l so has host i l e af fi l iat ions, of course ; but aFrenchman wrote t he score , and i t never fai l s to take meback to t hat d i rty old Teat ro Ross in i where I fi rst heardit . I was very young then , and ext remely poo r, andd idn ’t mind i t a b it . So I used to go to the Opera asOften a s I could afford ten or twelve cents for t he topgal lery, where the seat s were not reserved and whereif you a rrived late you saw noth ing . The night I fi rst

heard “Mignon” I a rrived lat e. I t herefore saw noth

ing . Noth ing, that is ,“ but one gl impse Of somebody ’ s

long whit e hand, wi t h a ruffle fal l ing over it and a magnificent stage j ewel spa rkl ing on one finger. I t was aman ’s hand, too , I fea r. But when the gramophonescratches out

“ Kennst Du das Land, wit h an ext rascratch every second because the record i s cracked , i tonly sounds more l ike those I ta l ian fiddles . I t evensmel l s l ike that stuffy I tal ian gal lery , fu l l of b road-b rimmedblack hat s and fringed b lack shawl s folded cornerwi se .

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Then Caruso : I am of such an ant iqu ity that I happened to be on hand during h is fi rst American season ,when he came to, saw, and conquered New York . I don ’ tt h ink I went to h is fi rst n ight . But I d id go to h is l astone, when he sang Lucia ” if I remember correct ly, andwhen in almost h is final solo h is voice cracked worse thanany record , as I never hea rd h is or anybody else

’s voicecrack on the stage . And how we cl apped h im after it !And how in Hamadan we can l isten to those thread-bareold I tal ian songs , hearing not them but al l manner ofqueer th ings behind them from which t ime and distanceshut us away !Of a l l I tal ian songs none can be more th readba rethan the Miserere, from

“11 Trovatore .

” Yet the most

ignob le confess ion I have to make is that I h ide in thebottom of my heart a gui l ty love for it , compounded outof amusement at the senseless plot of the Opera , wh ich Ihave never fathomed and never want to, out of the ki l l ingway in which the tenor rushes out of prison to kiss h ishand to the aud ience when the pack- th read duet is done,and out of some theory I used to have about it s be ing moretypica l ly I tal ian than anything e lse ; but ch iefly out of

the fact that it was t he fi rst Opera I ever heard . I hea rdit in Engl ish , too, in Boston , and it rav ished my innocentsou l to the seventh heaven . However

,there came a day,

or rather a long succession Of n ights , when I used to l iein bed and hea r t he G rand Cana l lap under my window .

The sound of it , and of oa rs d ipping between the darkpalaces, was better than any Opera . And so was the disembodied voice that sang one n ight

,to the st rum of a d i stant

gu ita r, with a pass ion no tenor cou ld pump out of a canvasdungeon ,

“Non ti scordar ! Non ti scordar di me!

”

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PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

No, caromio; I never shal l , to my dying day . And if t heday after t hat I find myself in a p lace half so heavenly asVen ice on a summer night , and the golden harps soundin the least l ike a gu ita r on t he lagoon , and t he angels s inganyth ing that begins to be so perfect a pa t tern of a lyric,I shal l count myself not so badly off afte r a l l . And whatha s a l l t h is to do w it h Pers ia ,or gramophones e ither? Veryl itt le , reader ; very l itt le . I t is odd, though , how unex

pectedly a l eaden hour may be l ightened , and how muchof the qual ity of th ings l ies outs ide themselves .

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and they a re not hered ita ry . I n a few princely housesthey have a hered ita ry colour from the fact that the son i sgranted t he t it le worn by h is father . These resonantt it les a re glorified n icknames , real ly, bestowed by theShah in reward for personal merit or serv ices, and t heythereafter take the p lace of t he bearer’s t rue name . The

majority of them have in thei r flowery way a governmenta lflavour— a s Sabre of t he Dynasty, or Stab i l ity of t he

Realm . l have read of a smal l boy, son of a p rovincial

Ch ieftain , who wa s decorated with a patent as Tiger of theSovereignty . A certa i n Capta in Massak roff of Tehrani s announced at court as Un ique One of t he K ingdom .

A great lady may be Chast ity of t he State , Ful l Moon oft he Domin ion , Gaiety of the Dynasty, or s imply Solaceof the Eyes . A palace eunuch s igns h imself Magnificence

of the Royal I nt imacy ! A profess ional man may earnthe right to be known as I l lust rious among the Phys ic ians,or Sun of the Learned, or Adorner of the Monarchy .

The last , if you please, i s a pa inter of m in iatures . Twofamous a rt ist s of t he Timurid period were the Pilla r of thePainters and the Choicest of the Penmen . The name of

t he poet Bed i-al-Zaman of Hamadan , whose panegy ricof h i s nat ive town I quoted at the top of an earl ie r chapter,means M i racle of t he Age . A c it izen who made anaddress of welcome to the Shah was instantly dubbedTongue of t he P resence . And I have heard of a characteri n a comedy who was sat i rical ly honoured with the styleof Uncl eanness of Commerce . Thi s i s the t rad it ion out

of which sprang the n icknames Chief of the Desert andPrince Al l Alone, by which the Sah

’b and I are knownbelow sta i rs .I have the honour to take lesson s in Pers ian from the

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Sea of Sc iences . The Sea of Sc iences is not , as you maysuppose, a man in years . H e might be th i rty . He mightbe forty . At any ra te, the taste of l ife i s st i l l sharp on

h is tongue . Noth ing aston ishes h im more than that Ido not take h is adv ice and let a ski l led barber of h is racet reat my hai r, fi rst with red henna and t hen with b lueindigo, in order to h ide the all too ev ident ravages imprinted Upon me by the cares of th is world and t he deceitfulness of r iches ; and I not ice that he relishesa risqué story .

H is dark robe, however, h is white turban , and his c l ippedround bea rd , are marks of the cult . St i l l , I do not gatherthat he belongs to the h ierarchy of t he church or t he law .

I take it t hat he i s t he natura l product of a land in wh ichlea rn ing has always worn the colours of d iv in ity . H ist rue place is among the mirzas—and not among those whoa re p rinces . I n fact , t he Sea of Sciences st rikes me a sbeing not quite a gent leman . He prefers to enter the

house by the kitchen door . I t h ink he l ikes to get thenews from the cook— and perhaps a cooky . He hasvery much the ai r of being engaged in making his fortune .

He Should make a good one, with h is quick wit , his senseof humour, his va ried informat ion , and the bel ief I seemto d iv ine in h im of t he end just ify ing the means . But I

must not give the impress ion that he has no manners .He always comes up to my study in h is stocking feet , asan Oriental shou ld , i n order to preserve the house fromthe defi lement s of t he st reet . Arrived at my door, heknocks—which i s more than the servants can be countedon to do—h e bows , he puts h is hand to h is heart , and heenters into the most comp l icated inqui ries about my exactstate of hea l t h . I l ikewise bow, I make a feint of putt ing

an awkward hand on the place Where a hea rt shou ld be,

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I em it grotesque concatenat ions of plu ral noun s and s ingula r verbs . The Sea of Sciences then lays off h is aba,

looksdoubtfu l ly at J immy, pokes the fi re , and set s about teaching me Pers ian .

The beauty of th is operat ion is t hat the Sea of Sciencesknows not a syl lable of Engl ish or any other Europeanlanguage, while I am acqua inted w ith no word of Pers ianor Arabic . Ne ither of us, furthermore, own s such a th ingas a grammar, a reader, or a d ict iona ry . But the Sea of

Sciences, t hey say, al though he does not l ike to admitdescent from a race considered by the Pers ians to be allthat i s gross and stup id , i s of Turkish origin ; and I havel ived in Stambul—or as the Sea of Sciences prefers me tosay, Islambol . There a re many Turks , or Turkish

speaking people , in and around Hamadanm more t han

anywhere el se in Pers ia except Azerbaijan . They belongto the Turkoman t r ibe of the Ka ra-Gozlu , t he B lackEyed , wh ich has p retens ions to equal rank with that ofthe reign ing Kaj a r . I t su rpri sed me not a l it t l e to find

these people in Ecbatana , t hough I understood it betterwhen I cons idered t hat the Turks had to cross Pers iabefore they cou ld get into Turkey , and t hat they musthave begun do ing so a long t ime ago . So long ago was it ,however

,t hat Turki, as t he Sea of Sc iences ca l l s h is

d ialect , and S tambuli, a s he cal l s m ine, are about a s muchal ike as Span ish and I ta l ian . St il l , necess ity i s the motherof comprehens ion . H ence we succeed , part ial ly, pa inful ly,and even more darkly t han is usual of human intercourse,in communicat ing onewit h the other . And the resu l t is thatI p ick up a certa in amount of Turki, if very l itt le Pers ian .

For t he learn ing of l et ters a book is not necessa ry, andleast of al l Arab ic letters , wh ich a re written and p rinted in

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PERS I AN M IN I ATURES

The Sea of Sc iences enterta ins qu ite different ideas asto what was in the beginn ing . H e was good enough tog ive me some account of h is own ideas , and I found themnot qu ite ident ica l with t hose so poet ica l ly put forwa rd inthe Book of Genes is . I t seems that what rea l ly was inthe beginn ing was water, Upon wh ich floated the throne ofthe Creator: H e began the work of creat ion by caus ing adense vapou r to r ise from the water and subj ect ing thel iqu id remainder to a p rocess of dry ing . Th is resulted inthe format ion of the seven-fold ea rt h and it s seven seas .The earth rested on t he fin of a fi sh , t he fish and its encircl ing element were supported by b locks of stone, t hosereposed on t he back of an angel , the angel stood on a rock,and the rock was upheld by the wind .

These operat ions took place on Sunday and Monday,t he first and second ofApri l—in so much detai l is it knownto the Sea of Sciences what happened in the beginn ing .

On the Tuesday mounta in s were added to t he newly

created ea rth , in order to increase it s stab i l ity . Whenceis it that eart hquakes are rarer than they were in thebeginn ing, when the movements of the fish bearing our

worl d caused terr ib l e commot ions . The work of Wed

nesday wa s the invent ion of t rees, plants , and all vegetablel ife . On the next two days d id t he Lord perfect h is fi rst

rude sky of vapou r, d iv id ing it into seven heavens of

wh ich the fi rst was green emera ld—I quote from the Seaof Sc iences—the second s i lver, t he th i rd red ruby, thefourth pearl , t he fift h pu re gold , the s ixth topaz, theseventh and highest a fi rmament of burn ing fi re, in wh ichhover unscorched a myriad of angel s s inging the p raiseofGod. And t h is fi rmament is so immense that a l thoughthe angel s stand wit h one foot enough higher than the

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THE SEA OF SC I ENCES

other for a man to need five hundred years to make thejourney between them , the ir heads are yet fa r below t heuppermost th rone of the Most H igh . Beneath h is throneGod fixed a sea contain ing sustenance for al l l iv ing beings .From t ime to t ime, the Sea of Sc iences a ssures me, t hereis let down from the seventh heaven to the first such aquant ity ofwater as i s meted out to man for the i rrigat ionof fields . God then g ives orders to the W ind s to carry thewater to t he clouds above the ea rth , out of which it isS ifted in the form of ra in .

This work was comp leted on Friday, Apri l s ixth . Friday is ca l led j uma, or union because on that day thecreat ion of the skies was un ited to that of the ea rt h :whence a l so do the fa ithful make that day the one on

which they unite in mosques for part icu la r p rayer . But

what the Sea of Sc iences fai led to make quite clear to meis how the creat ion of man fit ted into th is calendar. I tseems that before Adam there were j inn , created out of

the fire of the seventh heaven , who were set upon the

earth to gua rd it . They behaved in so unbecom ing amanner, however, that one of thei r

'

number, named I b l is,begged to be separated from the other j inn . H e wasaccord ingly named gua rd ian of the first or emeraldheaven , h is former compan ions be ing scat tered into spaceby the angel s of the seventh heaven . And th is p re

'

e'

mi

nence of I b l is was the cause of h is downfa l l , because p ridehad invaded h is heart , as the Sea of Sciences pointed outto me . God in the meant ime imparted to the angel s h isintent ion of creat ing another gua rd ian of the earth , whoshou ld be his vicar there . T he angel s, hearing that thedescendants of th is new being wou ld in turn cover theearth wit h b lood and d isorder, l ike the dispersed j inn ,

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permitted themselves to express su rprise that t hey shou ldnot rather be chosen , who spent the i r days in pra is ingGod and b less ing h im . Whereupon the Most H igh re

buked them , say ing :“ I know what is unknown to you.

He then sent the a rchangel Gabrie l to b ring h im from theeart h a lump of c lay out ofwhich to mould t he new being ;but the ea rt h protested in such ala rm that Gab rie l returned to t he sevent h heaven without fulfi l l ing his mi ss ion . The same thing happened wit h t he a rchange lMichael , t he ea rt h crying out :

“ I invoke God aga in stt hee if t hou do me hu rt .” So Azrael , i n turn t he darkangel of death , s i lenced the earth by rep ly ing : God pre

serve me from ascend ing aga in to heaven without carry ingout hi s command !” The clay which Az rael took backto heaven was of t hree kinds , wh ite, red , and black, whichGod wrought with h is fingers and t hen let l ie for fortyyea rs . Th is , t he Sea of Sciences tel l s me, is why the racesof men a re of differen t colours . For two more periods

of forty yea rs did t he Creator a l low the c lay of the ea rt hto l ie inan imate, after knead ing it wit h his hands . I nthe meant ime he commanded t he angel s and I b l i s tobow down before hi s new creat ion . The angel s at onceobeyed . As for I b l i s , whose heart was fi l led wit h p rideand envy, he refused , even contemptuous ly kicking theclay—h e who was formed out of the fi re of t he sevent hheaven . Wherefore was he cast out of h is emera ld heavenin d isgrace unt il t he J udgment Day . Then the Lordbegan to b low into t he clay , wh ich became l imp andflexib l e a s the b reat h of God entered every part of i t .And Adam ’s first act of l ife was to sneeze.

The Sea of Sc iences did not at tempt to ha rmon ise th isaccount with h is statemen t t hat the creat ion ofAdam was

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t ion by men of t he most un impeachab le authority , so

t hat t here cou ld be no manner of doub t about t hem .

He d id adm it , t hough , t hat different authorit ies gaved ifferent vers ions of severa l of t he deta i l s, adding p iously :God better knows t he t rut h .

I know not whet her it is t he ev ident interest I bet rayin t hese mat ters , or a des ire to implant sound doct rine,t hat leads t he Sea of Sc iences to tel l me many moret hings about h is bel iefs and customs than you wou ld havepat ience to hea r . I f a certa in book of poet ry downstairsin the l ibra ry Opened my ea rs to what he had to say aboutt he seven seas , to say noth ing of t he seven heaven s,I d id not close t hem when he ment ioned seven planetsand the seven cl imates of ea rt h subject to t he same, eachhav ing a doo r by wh ich one may penet rate into l ife, unlocked by myst ic polygonal keys of which t he fi rst is at riangle and the sevent h a nonagon . The seven doors

a re sc ience, wea l t h , power, wil l , p ity, w isdom andwhat ? Experience? Common sense? I cou ldn t quitemake out ! I d id make out , however, t hat Hamadanl ies in the fourt h c l imate . The Sea of Sc iences further informed me that t hat name i s derived according to somefrom the name of a g reat-grandson of Noah , and according to ot hers from two Arab ic words mean ing Al l Knowing .

For t he rest , he flat ters Hamadan no more t han d id oldB ed i-al-Zaman . H e is frank to say t hat out of our

hundred thousand inhabitants— fore igners put t he figureat twenty-fi v e to seventy t housand—no more than fortyor fifty a re t rue Mohammedans , read ing t he Koran , sbaving the i r heads , making thei r ab lut ions wi t h due regu larity, and t hen caus ing the water to run from the elbow tot he fingers and not from the fingers to the elbow l ike those

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heret ical Turks . Of that other a rch heret ic the Ca l iphYezid of Damascus , who caused the murder of the ImamHosein , i t i s enough for the Sea of Sc iences to tel l me thathe d rank w ine and

‘

hab itually petted dogs . Th is w ith aglance over the shoulder at J immy, snooz ing in front ofthe fire, who pricks up that qu izz ica l ea r !Dim and d ivided a s our counc ils are, they do not by

any means run chiefly in channel s of propaganda . The

Sea of Sciences al lows me to perceive that much as t heKoran and the Trad it ions count for i n t rue educat ion

,

t hey a re not enough . Noth ing amuses him more thanto hear t hat Oma r Khayyam is supposed by the Firengisto be a poet of some consequence . Oma r Khayyam , he

assures me, was a mat hemat ician , an ast ronomer, aphilosopher, a lesser Av icenna . True, he wrote a fewquat ra ins , but not enough of them to be considered a poet .Any one can write quat rains . Moreover, many of t hose

ascribed to h im a re rea l ly by his masterAv icenna,orot hers .

And even Oma r, he tel l s me , experimented in other form s .Shal l I give an example I came across not long afte rwardin the “Journal of the Roya l As iat ic Society,

” t ranslatedby H . Beveridge?

Yesterday I jested with Reason .

My heart wanted some exp lanations .I said : ‘

O fulness of all knowledge,I desire to ask you some questions .What is this l ife in t he world? ’

He said : ‘A Sleep , or some dreams .’

I said : ‘What is t he result of it ? ’

He said : Headache, and some griefs .’

I said to h im :‘What is marriage?

’

He saidPleasure for an hour and irritation for years . ’

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I said : ‘What is the troop of oppressors? ’

He said : ‘Wolves, dogs, and some jackal s .’

I said : ‘What wil l tame this sensual soul ? ’

He said : ‘When it has got some buffets .’

I said to h im :‘What are Khayyam’ s writ ings? ’

He said : Wrong calculations and some frenzies .

That , at any rate , should p rove to a m isguided worldthat Fitzgerald had someth ing to do w i t h h is poet ’ s fame .

Why , a s t he Shah said anen t t h is very mat ter to Si rMort imer Durand , I myself Of t he greater poetsnamed to me by the Sea of Sc iences , he ev ident ly t hinksmost h ighly of Sad i and Firdeusi. The sayings of t heformer are forever in hi s mouth , to point al l mora l s andto adorn all tales . As for Firdeusi, I lea rn that he i s thet rue and only h i storian of his count ry . On the authorityof t he S hah Nameh do I hea r t hat J amshid , and not thegreat—grandson of Noah , wa s t he actua l founder of Hamadan , as of Persepol is and T us. Th is Jamsh id seems tohave been the originator of pretty nea rly everyth ing el sein Pers ia , including plaster, baths , tents , sea l rings , N ewYear ’ s Day, and the pearl fi sheries of t he Pers ian Gulf .He reigned seven hundred years and he had two famousmini sters , one of whom was a J ew and one a Greek . Thename of the lat te r, if you plea se, was Py t hagoras . To himdo the Pers ian s owe t he sc iences of mus ic and ast ronomy .

When I exp ressed su rp ri se t hat a Pers ian king should haveunbel ieving viz iers , t he Sea of Sciences rem inded me w it ha toleran t smile t hat Jamsh id h imse lf was an unbe l iever .None t he less d id J amsh id hesitate to authorise the useof w ine , even in those i rrel igious days , unt i

‘

. one of his

w ives was cu red of a fever by a sip of Sh iraz . But what

pleased me a s much as anyth ing was a wonderful tur

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Why do I sepa rate myself from my fami ly? Why do ISpend long months in Stambu l , and others in Hamadan?Why do I a sk so many quest ions? There is ev identlysometh ing queer abou t a man who leaves h is own countryand wanders in t hose of other men .

N evertheless , I found out , t he Sea of Sc iences is a t ravel ler himself . And what ea rs I pricked up when I hea rd it !

And how Sharply I saw again the fantast ic p icture wemade of East and West s it t ing together over a PersianGospel of St . John ! But nothing is more impossib le t hanto get out of t he Sea of Sciences any exact detai l s of hisvoyages . Maps a re to h im unknown . The point s of

t he compass a re useful only in finding t he direct ion of

Mecca . H e has been t here , it seems, no less t han threet imes . Yet he does not wea r t he coveted t it le of Hajji;for each one of t he t hree p ilgrimages has been performedat t he expense and on t he account of another . The Seaof Sciences i s Meshedi only . I s he very d iscreet , I wonder,or is he l ike a sai lor, t hat he has so l i t t le to tel l me abouth i s t ravel s ? By mere acc ident do I lea rn that the watersof the Tigris a re a powerful anaphrodis iac , cool ing theunholy des ires ofmen and stopp ing the neigh ing of horses .Unless used in moderat ion , however, t hey cause t he Skinto shrivel up and t he d rinker to fa l l in to a decl ine . Whatseems to have made t he p rofoundest impress ion upon theSea of Sciences a re t he elect ric l ights Of Bombay . For

l ike Sindbad the Sa i lor he ha s sa i led out of Basra , and inan Engl ish sh ip l ike Conrad ’s Patna has he, wit h otherpi lgrims of an exact ing fa i th , crossed t he I ndian Ocean .

H e i s ready to admit that the Engl ish , as wel l a s theRussians , are up to a t rick or two beyond the Kurds andthe Lurs . But h is adventures have not k indled i n h im

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any sympat hy towa rd those enterprising neighbou rs ofPers ia .

The Sea of Sciences one day b roke to me the news thathe wou ld have to d iscont inue our lessons . An old ladyhad d ied and left in her W i l l a p rov is ion that her body wasto be buried in the ho ly soi l of Kerbe la . He, being knownfor an experienced t rave l ler, had been chosen to take itthere ; and having done so he was to perform hi s fourthpi lgrimage to M ecca— th is t ime, again , in the name andfor the cred it of t he old lady . Before he got ready tostart , however, the wa r had broken out . Nothing cou ldhave del ighted him more . He so lemn ly warned me thatI wou ld now see what wou ld happen . England andRussia wou ld both be dest royed . But t he bui lders of

t he Baghdad ra i lway might have been surprised to hearh im add the p rophecy that a man wou ld come out of t heEast who wou ld raise Pers ia to her old p lace as mist ress ofthe world . And then al l t he Christ ians, he assured me,wou ld be forced to turn Mohammedan or to leave t hecount ry .

After a l l , can you blame him? But do you know? Iwould g ive t he eyes of my head to find out whether theSea of Sc iences rea l ly went to Mecca—o r whether heperhaps took lessons in German !

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Valentin était un saint pretre. L’

Empereur Claude se le fi tamener, et lui dit: Pourquoi done, Valentin, ne t

’

acquiers-tu

pas notre amitié en adorant nos dieux et en renoncant c‘

i tes vaines

superstitionsTeodor de Wyzewa : LA LEGENDE DOREE

I have heard it stated that hunting is a business for the idlebut those who really understand are aware that hundreds of secretsfor the government of kingdoms are hidden in this art.

Colonel P . M . Sykes : THE GLORY OF THE SH IA WORLD

F TH E eye of some honest N imrod , st randed on adesert island or in a snoring count ry house, withnoth ing better than th is book to begu i le a boresome hour, should b righten a t s ight of t h is chap-1

ter But why shou ld I , for my part , spoi l my chapterby te l l ing t he end at t he beg inning , or h int what was sofa r from being t he case, t ha t we came home wit h an emptybag?The head and front of t ha t boa r hunt was t he Sah ’b , whohad seen a boa r hang ing up in t he Bazaa r to seduce theeye of some corrupt Christ ian , who had found out t hat itcame from the region of Erzamfud, who made up a partyfor a t h ree-day expedit ion to t hat v il lage, who on t he

appointed morn ing routed two members of the squad out

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Up by the t ime we got to Erzamfud. An even handsomerhorse was t he one ridden by the B eau B rummel of ourparty—a big b lack brute wit h a magn ificent flying tai land a nasty t rick of t hrowing his head up where you cou ldleast manage h im . Another b ig horse was t he gray ridden by the Sold ier . H e was not a sold ier t hen . H e wasan I rishman , being pa rt of t he t ime an accountant ; andnothing would have surp rised h im more t han to be toldthat a year from that day he would be hunt ing not boa rin Pers ia but Boches i n France . And

_

perhap s you wi l lnot m ind if I am s imple enough to add that the Somme wil la lways wear for me a different colou r because I knew one

out of t he many sold iers who l ie Upon it s banks . Thenthere was—Adon is shal l I cal l h im , the youngest of our

crew, whose horse fel l under h im so many t imes thatafternoon but who came home ungored by any boar?And t here was a l so Askar, t he groom , an impress ivelooking person wi t h a purple mou stache and wit h a b rassp laque, set in front of h i s b lack kola, of which he wasinord inately va i n , who d iv ided wit h Beau B rummel thehonour of knowing the way .

As it turned out , nei ther of t hem knew it too wel l . Acount ry looks very d ifferent under snow from what itdoes at other t imes, and we veered not a l i t t le out of ourcourse . Yet I , for one, d id not m ind . A boa r hunt wasan adventure ent i rely new to me, and I had been inPers ia too short a t ime for t he st rangeness of i t to haveworn off. We sta rted sout hward into the easterly footh i l l s oi E lvend , which i s a range a s wel l a s a S ingl e peak .

The road was fi rst t he fami l ia r one, l ined by bare poplarsand wi l lows and wel l b roken out , which run s from Hamadan to t he vi l lage of Fakhi reh—otherwi se Boast or

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G lory ! After that we found ourselves in a wi lder andmore t ree less region , riding up and up long s lopes of snowto another flat - roofed v i l lage, on top of a hi l l . I t h ink Icou ld count on my fingers the days I Spent in Pers iawhen no sun was to be seen . This looked as if i t were

going to be one of those days ; and every now and then aflurry of snow came down out of t he wind less gray sky .

There was someth ing about i t , in t hose wide white spaces ,t hat for no part icu lar reason reminded me of my fi rsts ight of the Pers ian high lands . There were, at any rate ,v iews to be looked at from the top of t hat white hi l l .We d ropped down the farther s ide into another va l ley

of bare poplars . The vi l lage sprawl ing among t hem was

of a kind I had not seen before, in that t he houses werebui l t of gray stone . Chi ldren were playing on t he flat

roofs, not so fa r above our head s , and a round a b ig poo li n the cent re of a smal l square . The t rees stood SO close lya round the houses , and the s l im l ines of t hem cont rastedso pleasant ly wit h the heavier and more i rregula r l inesof the garden wa l ls , and behind t hewa l l s were so manyof those snow humps which mean a vineyard , t hat I atonce made up my mind to go back to that v i l lage in thesp ring and rent a gray stone house for a cent a day andwrite the Great American Novel . There were any number of st reams there, too, gurgl ing i n and out of t he icethat sheathed thei r borders with that sound wh ich i s sodifferent from the gay splash of summer .The largest Of those st reams was quite a rive r, which

we fo l lowed for a l it t le t ime . Presently we crossed i tby a Viaduct rather l ike the knife-edged b ridge of Al Si rat ,over which the fa ithful pas s into Parad ise—unless theyplunge into t he Bottom less Pit . I t was a S ingle narrow

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plank, peri lous ly icy , which I never would have dreamedof t ry ing to nav igate on foot , much less on horseback, ifI had been alone . As i t was I gave Bobby h is rein

,and

over my ex-man-eater marched as unconcerned ly a s ifthat sl ippery lat h had been B rooklyn B ridge . Such isi t to have had a past , and to have wormed your way outof many a t ight corner . A real t ight corner was a ledgeto which we next came . From Bobby ’s back i t lookedabout th ree inches wide, and that st rip of glare ice s lantedfrom the rocky wa l l on one s ide of i t towa rd the smal lp recipice on the other . N evertheless, we all got over.

safely except Adonis , who dashed down the p recipicewith h is nag . But the d rop , l ucki ly , was not so morta las it sound s ; and a s Adonis had t he qu ick w it to stepout of h is st i rrups as he went down , ne ither of them gotanything worse t han a jol t .We now had to cl imb a gul ly that stood up in front of

u s l ike the s ide of a house . The deep snow of the t rai lhad been so l it t le b roken by other t ravel lers that thehorses had double work . I can ’t qu ite say t hat Bobbytook it l ike a b i rd ; but being a Pers ian horse he had beenbadly b rought up to ga l lop up h i l l , and being an eater ofh i l l s a s we l l a s of men he got to t he top long before h iscompan ions . There I gave h im t ime to get h i s breath ,while he gave me t ime to adm i re t he magnificent View .

The most st riking th ing about i t was t hat t he whiteval leys th rough which we had come were b l uer t han theMed iterranean . Even the plain of H amadan that

opened out beyond them was less S i lver than v iolet ,touched here and there by t he st ray gold of a sun that

was inv isible to u s . The dark masses of houses in theva l leys, t he vert ical l ines of poplars, were all but lost in

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Nevertheless, t he man from Simin p resent ly informed usthat we were not to mind the wo lf t racks we saw in thesnow, as we were seven and we l l a rmed . Do you fancy Iam about to t reat you to a tale of t he kind that came intomy head upon the interpretat ion to me of th is interest ingnews , by some admi red if anonymous author of my youth ,describ ing how Skaters on frozen rivers , or drivers inRuss i an forests , would t hrow back coats , hams, or hap lyt he least popu lar of thei r own number, to delay the pursuing pack? Alas , our ham s , if we had any , were with

Habib and the charvadar, of whom we had seen no S ignand who were perhaps a l ready eaten up t hemse l ves .And hav ing been b red up to te l l t he t rut h on al l occas ion ssave when it wi l l degrade or incriminate me, I am ob l igedto confess that noth ing more th ri l l ing happened than asudden outburst of barking from the dogs of an all butinv is ible v il lage . We just made out it s cub ic Shadow on ad im hi l l above US . The man from Simin advised us not

to go any nea rer to it , as vi l lage dogs at n ight a re worsethan wolves . But a s he fel t t he need of a l it t l e coun se lw it h rega rd to the route he Should fo l low, he proposed toengage another guide, from that same vi l lage ! To thatend he began bawl ing at the top of hi s voice . Where

upon the dogs barked more savagely than ever. Thenanswering shout s faint ly repl ied to the man from S imin ,out of t he dark hi l l town , where not a l ight was to be seen .

After a long interchange of stentorian civ i l i t ies wh ich Ib it terly regretted not being ab le to understand, i t t ransp i red tha t t he shouter in the vi l lage had no mind to guidethe man from Simin at so late and ch i l l an hour . But

he gave Copious inst ruct ions as to the whereabout s of

Erzamfud, to wh ich the man from S imin l istened with

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attent ion . Then he led us into a dark and devious val leywith the reassuring rema rk : I t wi l l be a good thing ifwe don ’ t get lost .The rest of the way was a kind of a rct ic dream . I t was

b it terly cold ; and as we rode s ingl e fi le after the man fromSimin , t hrough a country as ghost ly and st range as t heNorth Pole, we somehow seemed to have exhausted t hosefount s of conversat ion which had been SO l ive ly earl ierin the day . Beau B rumme l and Adon is , to be sure,hav ing been born on the shores of the Med iterranean

,

gave utterance to thei r emot ion s . AS for me , I was nottoo numb to note anew that interest ing difference betweenthe races of the nort h and Of the south , which the formerare somewhat too quickly g iven to const rue as a differencein endurance . As a matter of fact , who can endure more,when it comes to the point , than a Vineya rd t i l ler Of theMed iterranean ? But he never loses h is power of say ingwhat he thinks about it , whereas we perhaps embitterthe sorrows of our heart s by con s idering it bad form togive them voice . What interested me more, however,were certain st range flashes that occas iona l ly i l luminatedthe gray cloud s . The th ing looked exact ly l ike the periodical flare of Sandy Hook, before Sandy Hook it self i sv is ib le, a s you come in from the ocean at n ight . But as

there cou ld not poss ibly have been a l ighthouse or a

search l ight nearer than Baku or Baghdad , and a s i twas not the t ime of yea r, with a the rmometer somewherearound zero , for thunder- storms , I suppose that flashmust have been from some st ray Aurora Borea l i s—in alat itude of B iskra , Charleston , and LOS Angeles .As we stumb led on we st ruck into what was ev ident lya better t ravel led road than the one we had been fol low

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ing . Patches of t rees began , too , to darken the snow,t he

sound of ice-bound water fi l led the wh ite n ight,t he

horses inst inct ively quickened thei r pace, and a t last thedogs of Erzamfud ba rked in front of us . To have asl itt l e to do wit h them as poss ib l e, we made across afield of deep snow for t he house of a person known to theSah ’b , on t he lower edge of t he vi l lage . How we found

the sl it of an al ley below tha t house I don ’t know, t houghI do know t hat we had some t roub l e in at t ract ing theat tent ion of our host s . However, a Shutter p resent lyOpened above a b lack arch , a woman looked out , a mancame down with a l antern , and we discOv ered that wewere not too frozen to tumble Off our horses . Then wefo l lowed the lantern into the a rch , th rough a tunnel solow that we had to stoop to get t hrough it , into an innercourt , and up some steep , sl ippery sta i rs to a loggia withrooms open ing out of t h ree s ides of i t . And we no longercons idered i t good form to keep our sorrows to ourse l veswhen we hea rd t hat neither Hab ib nor our prov is ions hadyet turned up . Nor can I t rut hfu l ly report that the mostpoignant pa rt of our sorrow was any fear lest Hab ib , thecharvadar, and the mu les had been eaten up by the wolveswho had been good enough to spare the impure Firengi.I n the m idd le of t he room set apa rt for our enterta in

ment stood a big kursi which d id not a l itt le to consoleus . I can assure you we lost no t ime in gett ing Off leggings and boot s as fast a s numbed fingers could undothem and st icking our legs under the quil t of tha t b lessedkursi. And no sooner had the grateful wa rmth begunto thaw us out than Hab ib arrived wit h the wherewitha lfor a magnificent d inner . While he was gett ing it readywe had t ime to look about . Ou r room was , I suppose,

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p resence of st rangers . Hav ing affa i rs of her own in theinner room , sh e kept going back and forth a l l n ight b etween t ha t room and the logg ia . The beauty Of th isoperat ion was t hat both doors were c losed and locked .

Being Persian doors, however, t hey were doub le, t houghnot qu ite so pretty as the painted ones from a palace i nI sfahan wh ich you may see in the Metropol itan Museum ;and they fit ted so badly tha t by press ing again st thebottom ofone leaf t hat wretched cat could wriggl e t hrough ,making an immen se clat ter as sh e did so . Every t imeshe squeezed in or out somebody woke up and t hrew aboot a t random , wh ich general ly h it somebody el se

’ shead . Then poor Beau B rummel , who was one of t he

two to be d ragged from the ir beds of pa in upon thi spleasure pa rty, had a turn and requ i red succour. At

ha lf-past two, accord ingly, we all sat up and had a genera lconfab , to say noth ing of another round of refreshment s .And the pleasantest t h ing about it was to look out of theholes i n the roof and see a sta r or two g ive prom ise of apleasant day for the boa r hunt .

After that fantast ic night I don’t know whether we

would have got up at al l if ha lf t he vi l lage hadn’t fol lowed

the example of t he cat and broken in Upon us . Theyadm ired us while we performed a somewhat Sketchy toiletand consumed t he far from sketchy b reakfast improv i sedby t h e accompl ished H abib . Th is was the worse halfof Erzamfud, of course, and i t const ituted t he force ofbeaters with which we, or al l of us but the unhappy BeauB rummel , at last set forth , under the most b ri l l iant ofPers ian suns , to t rack the wi ld boa r to h is snowy lai r.

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The hil l s were ful l of them , the v il lagers swore, and theywarned US against k i l l ing more than we should be ab le tocarry home .

Again , reader, do syl lab les fal l t rippingly from mytongue, again st wh ich you are to be warned . I set forthwith the others , i t i s t rue . Like them I j ibbed a t cross inga river on a succession of t ree t runks coated with ice, tothe vast amazement of the beaters in preferring to hopfrom boulder to icy boulder of the st ream . With them I

t ramped into the mouth of a rav ine of unb roken snow,

whose crust was j ust th ick enough to let you in to yourknee at the in stant the bal l of your foot was bent for thenext step . But I b lush to confess that before we hadgone up that ravine a mi le 1 caved . I caved b ecause lhad not yet got accl imated to the a i r of those h igh places

,

which makes the newcomer’s legs lag beneat h h im,which

causes h im to puff at the least exert ion , which gives h imcracking headaches when he least wants them , and whichin Erzamfud, a thousand feet or two above Hamadan ,brought upon me the faintness that had lost me a shoein the pass of Sultan Bulagh . So, in order not to holdthe others up , I d ropped after a l l out of the hunt , andploughed shamefaced ly back l ike a fainéant through thesnow to Erzamfud.

I found Erzamfud, such of i t as had not gone boarhunt ing, squatt ing ha lf naked in the sun, engaged for themost part i n the more int imate pleasures of The Chase .

In Hamadan I had grown more or less u sed to seeing barelegs in snow . Here, however, there were no except ionswhatever to that s imple rul e of l ife, and everybody wa smore or less décolleté . But though th is is supposed tobe the coldest pa rt of Pers ia , i t was su rprising to find how

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comfort ing t he sun could be .

“

Under it Erzamfud sat

very picturesquely in i t s s i lver val ley , bes ide it s ice-chokedst ream , wit h poplars pricking Up darkly here and thereagain st the snow .

As I mooned about w ith my camera , st i l l feel ing a bitShaky and more than a bit con sc iou s of my unworth inessas a rep resentat ive of t he hunt smen of Firengistan,

Iran into B eau B rummel and Askai. They were on thei rway to pay the horses a vis it , so I went along, too . We

found Bobby and h is friends stowed away in such a stab l eas they had no doubt put up in many t imes before . I twas a sort of cel la r without a crack of a window in it , asdark and a s hot as Eth iopia and as a romat ic as I don ’tknow what . Certa inly much more so than Araby theBlest . And I bel ieve Askar had breathed tha t a i r a l ln ight . At any rate, Beau B rummel and I l eft h im there,after pat t ing certa in warm muzzles and feel ing of sund rypai rs of t i red legs . Then , catching s ight of a loom throughan Open door on the oppos i te s ide of the st reet , we wereindiscreet enough to poke our heads th rough the door .Whereupon some lad ies who were weav ing at t he loompromptly t h rew a pai r of sc issors at us .I , who have long been imbued with a sense of the d i s

t ress caused to fem in ine sens ib i l it ies in Mohammedanlands by the int ru s ion of man , interpreted the sc issors asa host il e demonst rat ion . Beau B rummel , however, more

adept than I in the dark pol it ics of the sex, and an olderPers ian though a much younger hab itué of th is curiousplanet , read the omens otherwise . He informed me thatthe lad ies of t he loom would be h ighly insul ted if we didnot respond to so compl imenta ry an overtu re by return ingt he scissors and mak ing them a present or at least pat

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as , for instance , exact ly how he dyed the wool for hiswives ’ rugs , and whether h is hands were a lways b lue orwhether they and h is bea rd and h is turban were somet imesye l low or green .

When a t last we succeeded in gett ing out from underB lue Bea rd ’

s kursi we went back to our own . But wefound it so much less tolerab le than last n ight

,thanks to

the smudge of tapeh that wa rmed i t , and the windowlessroom was so stuffy and disma l on so sunny a morn ing,t hat Beau B rummel , out of h is greater experience, suggested a move to t he roof . There, accord ingly , we ca rried rugs , pi l lows , and books , and there was revealed to mean ent i rely new phase of Persian l ife . I had seen , of

course , t hat most of the roofs in Pers ia a re flat , but I hadnot taken in the fact that people l ive on t hem and evenuse them as t horoughfares , passing from house to housewithout t he inconven ience of descending into the muddyst reet . The cat who had dest royed our night dozed nea rus in the sun, w it h one eye open for an indiscreet neighbour of a watch-dog . The height of her infamy wasthat she wasn ’t a Pers ian cat at a l l , but a pla in , Shortha ired tabby who m ight have been born anywhere . Hensp icked busily about , and occas ional ly were shooed squawking across the narrow chasm of the st reet . Ladies whowere not too pa rt icula r abou t concea l ing thei r charmseyed u s in rows ; ch ildren played tag from roof to roof ; afew men came to ta lk to us. One of t hem was B lueBea rd . Perhaps he wanted to be su re where we were .But when it final ly became appa rent that no amount ofShout ing could make us understand more than half adozen Pers ian words, Erzamfud left us to our own devices .

I remember it as a part of that Pers ian p ictu re tha t

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Beau B rumme l told me about a windmil l belonging to anuncle of his , not a windmi l l l ike the one a t t he factory,but a stone one

‘

with arms sweep ing just clea r of t heground , and how he once Spent certain early Spring dayson top of i t , looking out on the blue st ra i t between themain land ofAs ia M inor and the island of Myt i lene, bui lding fi res of driftwood to keep himse lf wa rm , and read ingbooks I had never assoc iated with a B eau B rumme l .He told me, too, about that blue st rait , i n which he hadoften sa i led and of which t he Greek fishermen say t he

crosswinds and crosscurrents clash so fiercely that theyst rike sparks . SO wi l l even the modern Greek poet isethe phosphorescence of hi s nat ive seas . And I nearly fel loff the roof for laughing over a story Beau B rummel toldme about a duel he had t ried to fight wit h an elderlyscient ist . I need not bet ray to you t he cause of

t hat unsuccessful duel . Have duel s ever more than one

cause? Out Of the cause of th is one Beau B rummel ,who had yet to see h i s twenty-fift h b irthday, made mecopy for a three-volume novel . Who knows? Imigh t

write i t some day—in that va l ley of stone houses andpop la rs and vineyards and running water . At any rate ,Beau B rummel showed me, on our Persian roof, a goldcha rm wit h in it ial s on it not h is own, and the myst icwords atwndre pour atteindre. And he said what fewAnglo-Saxons of hi s years would have said , at least to SO

much of a st ranger a s I , that there a re t imes when one

wants to get away from one’s own l ife, and that he l iked

Pers ia because of its S impl ic i ty . I Often thought of thatafterward . I st i l l th ink of it , when I hea r peopl e rai lat the ignorance of t he East and the peri l of i t s low standard of l ife . After al l , is i t a low standa rd of l ife to be

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content with a l itt le, to be ab le to endu re much,and

to know t hat happ iness, if i t ex ist s , l ies not in th ings ?However, I thought then h ow many d ifferen t kinds ofpeople there a re in the world , and how good it is, thoughhow disgust ing to be of a kind subj ect to fits instead of

the kind that can sta rt out on a boar hunt seven or eightthousand feet above the sea and go t hrough with it .Then t he intense b lue of the sky gradua l ly pal ed, fi lmedover with an impalpab le gray, and a t last snow began tofal l again , powdering us al l over as we made Up a l itt leof the Sl eep we had lost in the n ight .It was Hab ib who fina l ly got us Off t he roof, say ing

that t he boa r he had expected to roast for lunch was notyet a rrived and that he had consequently made otherth ings ready for us . Wh i l e we were eat ing them , not

th inking how much better they were than we deserved ,t he hunt ing pa rty came back—more dead than a l ive .

When I left them the snow was up to our knees . Theywent on t i l l i t was up to t he i r wa i st s ; and then , havingfloundered t h is way and that as t he v i l lagers guided them ,

t hose egreg iou s v i l lagers announced there was too muchsnow thi s winter. for hunt ing and they would better comeback in Apri l or November . And i t was a t least someconsolat ion to me for having made a fool of myself twicein three months that t hey had ne ither Shot a boa r nor somuch a s seen the t rack of one, t hough wolf t racks theyhad crossed in plenty .

As for t he hunters , t hey were a t first past consolat ion .

,But after lunch on top of t he kursi, and after changinginto d ry clothes , they rev ived enough to make up thei rminds t hat we would a l l be happ ier without the kursi.

,M ine host was vastly su rp rised at th is fresh manifesta

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of them were, the wooden uprights being made of suchcrooked t ree t runks , and the cross-p ieces of such crookedb ranches, that we did not wonder at t he crookedness ofsome of t he rugs . What was more surpris ing wa s tofind how much st raighter certain of t he rugs on such

looms were than others on t he st raightest looms of a l l .Once or twice the Sah ’b , who had more to say about i tt han you might th ink, because he had agreed to buy all

t he rugs woven in Erzamfud during a term of years ,made the weavers rip out I don ’t know how many squarefeet of what t hey had woven . And in one house hepointed out to me the d ifference between two kind s ofwool the women were using . The weavers were a l l womenand g i rl s , I might add : never a man in this region stoopsto SO soft a craft , as t hey do in other p rovinces . Some ofth is wool was much dul ler and st iffer than the rest , andwhen the Sah ’b t axed them wit h hav ing Shorn it from adead Sheep , t hey could not deny h im . One reason forthese shortcom ings might be that in Erzamfud t hey hadnot long been weav ing rugs of any such s ize as many of

those we saw, hav ing a lways made what t he Pers ians cal la do-

zar. This , as I have a l ready said , i s a two-ya rdthough a gar is real ly thi rty-n ine inches . A two-yard ,t he Sah ’b told me, cost s in the Bazaa r of Hamadan whenit i s new and not of too good a qual ity perhaps S ixteentomans, of wh ich the wool , t he dye , and the th read forthe foundat ion would cost not less than twelve . I t wou ldtake a woman about fou r months to weave, if She keptst rict ly at it , and for her four months

’ work sh e would besat isfied to get back a p ittance more than what she spentfor t he materia l s , count ing her t ime and her maintenancein her own house a s th ings hardly to be paid for.

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Wherever we went we found the weavers working froma vagireh , a piece cut out of an old rug, and not from thepa inted patterns they u se in the factory at Hamadan .

This vanda l ism scandal ised me in the h ighest degree ;but it taught me, after a l l , how common rugs are in Persia ,and how l itt le anybody thinks i t necessary to sent imentalise about them . I saw more of them ly ing on t he mudfloors of hovel s that afternoon than hang ing on looms .To an ignoramus l ike myself, too , i t wa s quite a lesson indesign to be told of the figure on one ha lf-finished rug

t hat i t went by t he name of the l i ly or of the henna flower,and of a p rett ier pattern of open b lossom s in a loose whitelatt ice that it was one of t he O ldest des igns in Pers ia

,

named after one M ina Khan . But who t hat M ina Khanmay have been nobody knows—and least of a l l the gent lemen who write rug books , t hough they confident ly namehim a ruler of western Pers ia . The spec ia l ty of Erzamfud,

however, i s t he butch, that decorat ive l it t le figure with a

bent point , so common on the shaw l s of Kerman , whichEuropeans ca l l t he pear pattern , t he p ine pat tern , and athousand other things . Erzamfud i s famou s , too,

for it s

beaut iful red dye, which i s a sort of Aubusson red on alower key . I was pa ined to hear that the blue of the dyerwith the scissors-t hrowing wives is not quite so successfu l .But I am happy to add that nobody threw any moresc issors at us . We were now much too form idab le aparty , what with the inspectors, t he husbands that wentwith the looms , and Odd relat ives who h appened in toinspect the Firengi. What the weavers might better havethrown at us, and what in that case would have kil led usl ike a Shot , were the combs with wh ich they beat downthei r rows ofknots . These heavy i ron tools, wh ich weavers

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often represent on t he i r rugs and wh ich weste rners expla inin the most fanta st ic ways , are much bigger and clums ie rt han the ones u sed in Hamadan— l ike most of t he otherappl iances we saw, for t hat matter .All t h is was h ighly interest ing if you happen to be in

terested i n rugs . I f, l ike me, you a re more interested inpeople, t here were th ings to see in the rooms conta in ingt he looms . They all had mud floors, of course, and rugsto S i t on . Nobody could afford such a t h ing as a b ig ca rpet . Most of t hem were a l so p rov ided with a kursi, andwere redolent of t hat penet rat ing odour of tapeh . Manyof t hem had no windows at a l l . The loom wou ld be setup , for the sake of t he l ight , in front of a door so low thatyou had to stoop to get through it . And once inside youhad to walk soft ly lest you step on a baby . The t rue

p lace for a baby, of course, i s under the kursi ; but babieshave a shifty way of not st aying put . When they do , i t

is somet imes because the poor l i t t le wretches rema i n lostto S ight too long under the qui lt , and get smothered in the

stench of t he tapeh .

One loom we inspected was in a p itch-dark back room,

reached th rough two others . There two women wereweav ing away w ithout seeing a S ign of what they were

doing, or without mi ss ing a knot . For our benefit t heylighted a lamp—and such a l amp ! I t was a blue ea rt henwa re bowl of oil, wi t h a n ick a t one end to keep the wickin place, set in a hand led t ray . As t he afternoon drew

on we saw many more lamps of t he same kind , some ofcoloured ea rthenwa re , some noth ing but a t in pot . The

b est of t hem gave out no more than a spa rk . SO rememberi t t he next t ime you r right-angl ed Ango-Saxon eye isoffended by some inequal ity of design or colou r in a Per

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every d ispos it ion to reach down and n ip Off somebody ’ s

ea r if they got half a chance . They got none, I am happyto report , t hough in the end they began to be reconc i ledto our p resence among thei r friends . So we went homeat last , pass ing through a t i l ted square with a b ig pool ini t . Women and chi ldren came and went about the poo lwith ea rthenware amphorae on thei r shoulders , quite inthe most approved c lass ic manner . A les s c la ss ic mosquestood a t one s ide of the square, wh ich we recognised on lywhen a smal l boy mounted to one corner of the roof andchanted t he cal l to sunset p rayer . Be low us we couldj ust d i st inguish the gl immer of the river, w inding awayunder the afterglow between i ts bare pop lars . They stoodout t he more darkly because of the pal e mpe beyond ,topped by a diamond sta r .

On our second n ight in Erzamfud i t i s not necessary toenlarge . I t was a rep l ica of the fi rst , minus t he kursi.Even the cat d id no t fa i l u s w i th her devil i sh performances .Yet Hab ib , i t i s t rue , saved us from monotony by theheights to wh ich he rose in the way of d inner . And thed inner

,after a l l , was fol lowed by a suffic ient ly h istoric

event . For be it known that on St . Valent ine ’ s Day , 19 14,Erzamfud saw what I confident ly bel ieve to have been it sfi rst game of bridge, played by an Engl i shman , a Frenchman

, an I ri shman , and an American— wherein the last ,accord ing to h i s wont , was ignom in iously routed by theforces of the Entente .

Nor i s there much to say of our return the next morn ingto H amadan . Erzamfud gathered a s one man , not to

say as one dog , to see us off down the long white valley

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of mufiied water . The sky was covered again , and so

much the colour of the top s of the h i l ls that we cou ldbarely detect where one stopped and the other began .

From the v i l lage t rai l we presently st ruck in to a we l lt ravel led road that led us home by the way we ought to

have taken before—and a las,I never saw again the name

less v i l lage of stone houses where I meant to write theG reat American Nove l ! But I was perfect ly wi l l ing notto have to pass again the b ridge ofA l Sirat .

‘

Other bridgeswe passed in p lenty , severa l of them brick ones withpointed arches , though more often than not we fo

'rded the

ha lf- frozen st ream s . I t gave me a pang to hear that if wehad on ly started in the Oppos i te d i rect ion we might haveended in I sfahan . As i t was, the h ighway gave me a newcomprehens ion of the stories I had hea rd about motoringin Pers ia . There were bou lders st rewing the midd le of i tand gul ches gouged out of i t which noth ing but a tank

cou ld possib ly have coped with . M ere horses cou ld nomore than fo l low a t rai l at one side—unt i l they met acaravan . Most of the caravans were mule or donkeyt rains . But several t imes we encountered long st rings ofcame ls , rocking down to I sfahan by dayl ight in th is coldweather . Bobby pretended to be alarmed by that ext raordinary Oph id ian a i r of thei rs , having seen a mi l l ion ormore of them during h is checkered ca reer

,and he jumped

about more skitt i sh ly t han became hi s years .After pass ing th rough one or two big mud Vi l lages , in

one of which some boys were p lay ing on the roofs a gameof ba l l I had no t ime to look into , the count ry flat tened

out i n front of u s . Below the fa rther edge of i t we couldsee t he p lain of Hamadan , uncann i ly b lue under the graySky . You would have thought the horses recognised it

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a s wel l a s we—and very l ikely they d id bet ter . At anyrate

,there was no keeping them together after that . Each

went h is own gait in a th ick snow that soon began to fal laga in . Then , if ever, was my best chance to b reak myneck , for we soon took to the fields . And with fields crisscrossed by irrigat ion d i tches , and p it ted by the yawn ingmouths of holes that end in subterranean st reams , crosscount ry r iding in the land of the Sun furn ishes the elements of an exc it ing Sport . I t was the more excit ingnow because the flurrying snow made i t impossib l e to seewhere Oiie was going . However, Bobby leaped b rooksl ike a grasshopper and by the grace of God he landed mein no bottomless p i t but a t the Khanum ’s lunch tab le

,

very hot , not a l it t l e out of b reath after that long gal lop ,and high ly exh i la rated by the pleasures of—boa r hunt ing

,

I am sorry, N imrod , to have told you after all not verymuch about the wi ld boa r of northwestern I ran . But

what wou ld you? Life i s l ike tha t . Who ever came homewith that in h i s bag which he set out to get ? And if you

choose to spe l l my t it le i n a different way ‘

, I Shal l not be theone to comp lain .

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loophole . And the Major : hav ing served h is t ime unscathed, he gave my lords of t he h i l l s one more chance tosqua re accounts by organis ing a farewell drive again stthem before going home to wed . For after all he is ahuman Major, subject to l ike passions as we . Do I

not remember a party when we sta rted asking h im in

d iscreet quest ions? It came out , a t last , t hat he had justbeen shoot ing one of his p rec ious cut- th roats . Th is wasa genda rme of whom it had been d i scovered that he wasbet ray ing informat ion to b rigands, let t ing impri sonedones go, and supply ing them with rifles . H e then deserted, but was caught and courtmart ial led . And i tfel l upon the unhappy Major to cast t he dec id ing vote asto what should be done with h im . At t he word , not al lt he fi ring- squad pul led thei r t riggers . But enough of themdid for the Major to come late to d inner, to eat next tonoth ing , to refuse to dance afterwa rd, and to stay longerthan the other guest s, wit h a funny look in h i s gay b lueeyes , say ing he was t i red of talking Pers i an a l l the t ime .

Of the house where he l ived by h imself I knew onlythat there wa s noth ing in it but rugs and a couple of

orderl ies who knew how to boil rice and grea se rifles .For the rest , t he Major was general ly out of it , co l lect ingcopy for success ive chapters of the tale ofAbba s the H ighwayman , wh ich ran l ike a cont inued story t hrough myyea r i n H amadan . That Abbas , you may remember,was the indiv idua l who robbed a messenger of the Bankof tomans . He was a young gent leman of twentyfou r, reputed to be of most agreeable manners and ap

p earance, who owned vi l lages here and there and wives in

eve ry one. His favou rite res idence was not un l ike thatof the Old Man of the Mounta in , being perched on a crag

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of Sultan Bulagh , surrounded on th ree s ides by prec ipices .To get h im out of i t was not s imple, without losing moremen than the Major l iked to Spare . But every now and

then the Major wou ld pounce on one of hi s more access ib le vi l lages , tu rn it ins ide out to see if Abbas happenedto be there, and rase every one of its mud houses to theground , after confi scat ing valuab les and making a se lect ionof wives and confederates for prison or the fi ring- squad .

Whi le the secret serv ice of the Young Man of the

Mountain was much too good for h im to get h i s neckinto any such sl ing, the Major made many a fru itfulhau l on these l itt le ra ids . On one of them he unearthed

of the miss ing tomans. On another, not havingread h is “Arabian N ight s” for noth ing, he surprised in anAl i Baba j a r of pretty blue earthenware

,apparent ly ful l

of flour, a powdery person who knew someth ing about theremain ing A good many of them , i t appeared ,were to be looked for in the pockets of certain personagesin Hamadan too lofty for me to .name. The resourcefulAbba s accordingly p roposed , th rough neut ral channel s ,that he be made a gendarme h imself and be put i n chargeof his favourite sect ion of the Russ ian road ! But hefai led to keep the m idnight t ryst which the Major agreedupon for the discuss ion of th is t ickl ish subject , and t ran sferred h is act ivit ies to another part of the count ry . So,quite by acc ident , d id that amusing v i l lain meet h is end .

For, encountering a carriage in which another Swedishoffi cer happened to be making a peaceful journey , followed by no more than th ree gendarmes , the doughtyAbbas began to shoot . The th ree gendarmes repl ied inkind and got ki l led for thei r pains . As for the Swede,he drew a bul let , too . But i t d id not prevent h im from

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wh ipp ing out h is revolver in t ime to lay low the YoungMan of t he Mounta in and two of h is band . And never

,

never wi ll the Major forgive him for that undeserved p ieceof luck .

Such, in t hose quaint old t imes, were the ways inwh ich act ive young men found out let for thei r superfluous energy . Curious to look back on, eh? Yet morecurious is it to consider tha t out of such stuff as th is

were concocted ha l f the books we used to read in thatp rehi storic age wh ich ended in August , 19 14. Being myself no romancer, but a sober recorder of fact , I have attempted to make no copy out of the Major and h is Pers ian b rigand . Can you not see, t hough , how somebodyel se, putt ing in a pett icoat or two and deflect ing one of

those numerous bul let s into t he Major’s h ide or dogginghim to h i s wedd ing day, might have cooked up a prettyenough novel of the Zenda school ? And can you imagineanybody reading it—now? How pa l e and impossib lemost of t hem have automat ica l ly become, t h rough thes imple fact that after a long period of mere existence theworld suddenly began to l ive ! And who but the h ighlords of romance l ike K ipl ing and Conrad wi l l be savedfrom t he scrap-heap of convent ions , subterfuges, andt imid it ies p i l ing up a round us in these epic days? EvenStevenson : how wi l l he come off, I wonder? For adven

tu re has grown poignant S ince h is t ime , and there a renew test s of cou rage and endurance s ince that popula rlegend of h im was put together wh ich left so st rangelyout of accoun t the very human man beh ind i t . At

any rate, who can read to-day the stories of sab re and

spur he fat hered? Or those desolat ing American nove l s,I bel ieve one cal led them, about t he offi ce boy who made

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War makes a people run through its phases of existence fast.It would have taken the Arabs many thousand years to have ad

vanced intellectually as far as they did in a single century, had

they, as a nation , remained in profound peace. They did not

merely shake ofi that dead weight which clogs the movement of a

people—i ts inert mass of common people; they converted that massinto a living force. National progress is the sum of individualprogress; national immobility the result of individual quiescence.

J . W. Draper : H I STORY OF THE INTELLECTUA L DEVELOPMENT OP EUROPE

T I S perhaps fi t t ing tha t among the few “s ight sof so anc ient a c ity a s Hamadan , the greaternumber are tombs of famou s people who havel ived t here . But i t is a samp le of the capric iou s

ness of fame that t he tomb most frequently pointed out

to the t ravel ler from afar is that of Queen E st her and hercous in Mordecai—who, if they ever existed , owe t he

memory of them that l ingers in a forgetfu l world to one

unknown pen , and to t he accident of a young g i rl’s beauty

Wherea s Avicenna Well , perhaps gen ius i s an acc ident , too , if a rarer one, and one that demands more of it spossessor . And beauty is beauty, wh ile ph i losophy is

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merely ph ilosophy . So it is t hat Laya rd , t he excavatorof N ineveh , inqui red in vain for the grave that now addsmost honour to the name of Ecbatana . So it is thatProf. Wil l iams Jackson places it in quite a d ifferentquarter of t he town from the one where I was told tolook for i t . And so i t i s that I , who warn you aga instJ ackson ’s honest ly named “rough draft ,

” cannot say, as

he apparent ly can , that I ever set foot in the mausoleumof the Prince of Sages .This i s not because I never saw that low mud dome

fac ing a l i tt le wa l led garden on the right bank of the river,

as you -

go from Ko lapa to the Bazaar . Nor i s i t becauseI had any reason to doubt it s authent icity . I t is muchmore certa in t hat a wise man named—not Av icenna

, to

be sure , but something l ike i t , once breathed the th in a i rof E lvend than that t he beaut iful J ewess Esther ever d id ;and t radit ion seems always to have marked the place ofhis bu ria l . Another t radit ion , indeed , has ma rked h ishouse, in a wa l l ofwh ich I am told on very good authoritythat some t reat ises of his were once uncovered . But

when they sa id to me That is Avicenna ’s tomb , theyhad no more to say about i t . Nor was I very much w iserwhen I turned over the odds and ends of books at mydisposa l in Hamadan . Only after I had gone away andhad turned over other books, in a world unknown toAvicenna , did he who once fi l led the world with therumour of h is name beg in to become for me anyth ing morethan a name . SO I can no more than make be latedamends for my ignorance by weav ing to h is memorythis ragged wreath .

Know, then , tha t th is Av icenna was a Pico del la M i randola of the tenth centu ry , named Abu Al i al-Hosein

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Abdal lah ibn S ina . Al though accounted the last andthe greatest of the Arab ph ilosophers of the Ea st—a

century or two after h im there were others , you remember

,in the West—he was rea l ly a Pers ian . H e wrote in

Arab ic because i t wa s the l earned language of the t ime,j ust a s the Europeans who fi rst t ranslated him wrote i nLat in . His fat her was a nat ive of Ba lkh or Belkh , nowin Afghan istan but then one of the fou r ch ief c it ies Of thegreat p rov ince of Khorasan . I bn S ina h imself

,however

,

was born in 980 in a v i l lage nea r Bokhara where h is fat heris said to have been a tax col lector . Bokha ra , too , wasthen a pa rt of Pers ia , and t he lad p assed t he greate r partof h is boyhood in that c ity .

I n our t ime, thanks to the invent ion of p rint ing and theease wit h wh ich we get about the world , there i s an infinity of places where a scholar may lay t he foundat ionsof hi s scholarsh ip . At t hat t ime, on t he cont ra ry, t herewere very few c it ies conta ining books and the soc i ety of

those who read or wrote them . But Bokha ra , as i t happened , was one of those cit ies, and one of t he most important . I ncred ibl e as i t seems to us of the self-sat isfiedWest , Bokha ra was worthy to be compared w i th Baghdadand Constant inople in that age when B erl in and Pet rograd d id not yet exist , When London , Paris , and Viennawere humb l e front ier towns of which no st ranger hadheard , and when Cordova was not quite at the p itch ofit s p reeminence . The day of Baghdad , indeed , had al

ready begun to wane . The Cal iph Mamun , under whomand under whose father Harun al Rash id Baghdad hadrival led Athens , Rome , Alexandria , and Constant inoplea s a focus of inte l lectua l act ivity, was a hundred and fifty

yea rs dead . The centre of gravity of the Abbasid ca l iph

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a rithmet ic from a grocer of Bokha ra—no doub t withthe help of an abacus such a s you may see in any Persianbazaa r or Ch inese laund ry . At ten he knew all t here

wa s to know about the I nd ian ca lculus , a s a rithmet ic wast hen ca l led, being thoroughly grounded as wel l in Pers ianand Arabic l iteratu re and the Koran . H e wa s a l so we l lsta rted in algeb ra and t heology . About t h is t ime he fe l linto the hands of a wandering physician , appa rent ly aNestorian , who la id the foundat ion of I bn Sina

’ s medica lcareer, bes ides teaching h im logic, Eucl id , the I sagoge ofPorphyry, and t he Almagest—o the rwise the a st ronomy ofClaud ius Ptolemy . Add to th is the myst ici sm which hep icked up from one Ismail t he Sufi , and t hat t inctu re ofAristot l e without which no man could t hen or for long

afterwa rd count h imse lf educated , and you Wi l l see thatthe young I bn Sina must have been an infant p rodigy of

the most pern icious sort . At s ixteen , if you please,he had begun to pract i se med icine on h is own account , evolving certa in new methods of t reatment . But luckily therewas in him a st rong st reak of the human . A French biograph er whom I have consu l ted says tha t he was of

mceurs dep lorables, and let s i t go at that . I Suppose de

p lorab le hab it s a re deplorab le hab it s t he world over, andi t i s not necessa ry to spec ify ! An Engl i sh biographerlet s us into a few detai l s, dwe l l ing more on the tast e ofth i s remarkab l e young man for st rong waters t han on hi spenchant for fai r persons . The st rong waters , it seems ,he fi rst experimented wit h by way of keep ing awake at h i swork . At any rate

,he wa s not content to invest igate

books . H e invest igated l ife with equa l enthus iasm .

And by the t ime he was seventeen there wa s very l itt leleft in h is world for h im to learn .

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At th is early age I bn S ina made the beginning of h isimmense reputat ion . NUh I I was not t he sick king inBokhara about whom Matthew Arnold has told us , butNuh II fel l ill ; and no one was ab le to cu re h im savemaster I bn Sina , who was t hereupon given the run of theking’ s famous l ibra ry . And in it he d iscovered t hat therewas , after al l , someth ing left for h im to learn . He had ofcourse read Ari stotle long before that . Everybody didin those days , except in unc iv i l ised places l ike London ,Pa ris , or V ienna . I n fact , he had read Aristot le t hrough ,in Arabic, forty t imes—without gett ing much out of

h im , unt i l in the k ing’s l ib rary he found t he Aristotel ian

commenta ries of another great man named Fa rab i . ThisFarab i was a Turk of the n inth century who went toBaghdad , learned Arab ic, found a princely pat ron whotook h im to Mosul , and before he d ied in Damascusacqui red such fame as a ph i losopher that he became knownamong the Arabs as the Second Master, Aristotle beingthe F irst and I bn Sina himself the Third . The d iscoveryof th is great man was accounted by I bn S ina as t he realbeginn ing of h is intel lectual l ife, j ust a s the discovery of

other grea t men has sta rt ed other b rowsers in l ib ra ries onthei r careers . And so enchanted was I bn Sina by h isdiscovery that he went at once to a mosque, performed h isab lut ions, gave thanks upon h is prayer rug—you may beperfect ly sure that i t was not a “ Bokha ra ” !—and madean alms to the poor .

Not long after th is, when he was eighteen , I bn Sinaleft Bokha ra and returned to h is father’ s Vi l lage, ca l ledby some Afshena and by others Harmait in, where heprepa red to become a tax col lector h imse lf. Whetherit was at thi s t ime that the king’s l ibra ry caught fi re I

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cannot say . I bn Sina ’s enem ies accu sed I bn S ina of

sett ing it on fi re in order to keep to h imself the knowledgehe had ga ined from it . But he had barely begun to makeuse of t hat knowledge, by sta rt ing the l itera ry work whichfi l led so much of t he rest of h i s l ife, when both he and hi senemies found other th ings to th ink about . I n the firstp lace h is p rotector, Nuh I I , in sp it e of t he famous cure,died , ne i ther I bn S ina nor any one el se having been ab l eto save h im . Then l ife in Bokhara began to grow ext remely uncomfortab l e by reason of certa in rude neighbours cal led Turks , who were j ust beg inn ing to t roublethat pol it e Pers ian count ry of t he Oxus which the Arab shad fi rst t roubled th ree hundred yea rs before . And about1002 I bn Sina ’s father d ied . That , perhaps not unhapp ily,put an end to tax col lect ing and th rew our young Aristotelian upon hi s own resources . So, perforce, he becamea t rue peripatet ic . His fi rst step in the long series ofwanderings tha t ended nearly forty years later by theriver in Hamadan took h im to a pl ace ca l led Urganj,or i n Arabic Urjensh , ancestor of the modern Kh iva .

H ere another local p rince, Mamun—o i Khwarasm?

Khuarizm? Vamb é ry, who passed there for a nat ive,Spel l s i t Khah rezm— held a court less lordly than that ofthe Samanids but one at wh ich men of learn ing andlet ters were equal ly welcome . And it i s p roof of the

pecul ia r est imat ion i n which such men were held a t thatt ime in tha t part of the world that I bn Sina had not beenlong in Urganj before h i s new protector received a peremptory demand from another and more potent sovereignto the effect that the five most lea rned members of

Mamun’

s court be forthwit h despatched to h i s own courtat Ghazna, in Afghan istan .

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genera l were t reated very much more handsomely thanthey a re now . At any rate, Firdeusi was so disgustedby the I dol Smasher’s appreciat ion of poetry that hed iv ided the money between a bath-man and a sherbetsel le r and ran away to h is nat ive town of Tus. There hededicated h is book anew to the loca l potentate, in a hundred couplet s of s at i re on Sul tan Mahmud . The S ipab

bud accepted the honour, a t t he rate of a thousand dirbems a couplet , and d iscreet ly suppressed t he ded icat ion .

And several yea rs l ater, as the funeral p rocession of

Firdeusi was passing out of one gat e of Tus , t hereentered by another a caravan from the I dol Smasher,b ring ing the dead poet a belated recompense of 1 ,dirhems .

But to retu rn to I bn S ina : he fled from Urganj with h isassociate M as ihi, who died in the desert before reach ingMerv . From there I bn S ina proceeded to Tus andN i shapu r, whence he made h is way into the low count rya t the southeastern corner of the Caspian then ca l ledT abaristan. There he found another pat ron , in the towncal led by the Pers ians Gurgan and by the Arabs J urjan:And there he began the Canon of Medicine on wh ichch iefly rested his med iaeval fame . The story goes thath is success in curing a fel low- t ravel ler at an inn was t hemeans of his perform ing a more profitab l e cu re for th enephew of st i l l another petty monarch , one Kabus,nephew himself of the d i screet S ipabbud who t reatedFirdeusi so handsomely, of that Ziarid house wh ich inthe tenth and eleventh centuries re igned over Tabaristanand I rak Ajemi. I t would appea r that I bn S ina was thefather ofJanet and the Freud ian fam i ly of psycho-analyst s ,if there were not in th is case some echo of an ea rl ier one

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involving Erosist ratus of Alexandria and one of t he Se

leucids. For by keeping h is finger on the pulse of theyoung prince, while ta lking of th is and of that , I bn Sinad iscovered that t he name of a certain young woman p roduced so marked a flutter of the pat ient ’s hea rt that thephysic ian wa s able to d iagnose the case and prescribe aperfect cure . H is fortune,therefore, seemed to be made—in spi te of the fact that the Idol Smasher had causedI bn Sina ’s port rait to be sent to the four qua rters of theEast , with the order that whoever d iscovered the originalshou ld a rrest h im and carry h im to Ghazna. There is

no hope, I fear, that after a t housand years any of thoseminiatures wi l l tu rn up in some one

’ s album ! At anyrate Kabus , himself a poet and a former pat ron of Al

B irun i , paid no attent ion to h is riva l’

s demand . But ,after a career very nearly as checkered as that of h is youngphys ic ian , he d ied or was assassinated somewhere about1 0 1 2, not long after I bn S ina had sett led down under h isroof . And the rumoured approach of the terrible Turkcaused our hero to take the road again , this t ime in thed i rect ion of Rei .The name of Rei , or Rhages, whose ruins l ie not fa r

from Tehran , is now most fami l ia r to col lectors of Pers ian pottery, to say nothing of forgers of t he same .

But in that t ime it was a great c i ty, known as the birthp lace of Harun al Rashid , contain ing one of the mostfamous hospita l s of the East . The fame of that h05pita lwas largely due to an ea rl ier phi losopher-phys ic ian , andby some accounts a greater, whose name the Europeanshave twisted into Rhazes . There I bn S ina found h i snext roya l pat ient and pat ron in the person of Majd edDeuleh , the loca l ruler, who was of the Buyids of I rak

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and Ears. I bn S ina had stayed long enough in,Rei to

write some th irty of his t reat ises , when a quarrel betweenMajd ed Deuleh and h is b rother Shams ed Deuleh of

Hamadan , and more pa rt icu la rly the cont inued encroachments of h is old béte noir the Turk of Ghazna, cau sed theunhappy ph i losopher to exercise h is ph i losophy and packUp anew . So he went on to Kazv in , where he remainedbut a short t ime . And h i s next abid ing place was theone wh ich was dest ined to be h is last—the pleasant townof H amadan .

Exactly in what year I bn S ina a rrived in the c ity wherehe now sleeps I have not been ab l e to learn . I take it tohave been somewhere between 1 0 1 5 and 1 020 . He mu stby th is t ime have been in h is thi rt ies, or nea r them , yet

not too old to interest a pat ron whom the chron icles alltoo obscu rely describe a s a h ighborn lady . The highborn lady, however, soon passed him over to the veryShams ed Deuleh who had been concerned in h i s leav ingRei

,and who at that t ime was the p rince of Hamadan .

And under the p rotect ion of th is personage I bn Sina ofBokhara now became Viz ier of Ecbatana . We accord inglyhave more c0p ious records of th is period of h is l ife thanif he had been a mere ph i losopher or man of letters .Whether it wa s that h is talent s as an adm in ist rator werenot equal to his ab i l i ty as a wri ter and a leech , I cannotsay . But the Kurd ish and Turk i sh sold iers of t he Persian prince p resently made what we cal l in Hamadan asbulukb , a row, in the course of which they p i l laged thehouse and wen t so fa r as to demand the head of t he adventu rer from Bokhara . The latter hid for forty days int h e house of a friendly sbez

’

kb unt i l t he p rince, fal l ing i l l ,caused such minut e sea rch to be made for h is Viz ier

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Buyids re ign ing in I sfahan . At all events, he e ither madeovertures to th is p rince or was suspected of doing so by

the successor of Sham s ed Deuleh—from whom he h id inthe house of an apothecary but who found h im and shuthim up in a fort ress somewhere outs ide of Hamadan .

I bn S ina was released, however, when Ala ed Deulehcaptu red H amadan in 1023 or 1 024. And after writ inganother wel l-known t reat ise he decamped, with two slaves,h is b rother, and a person somewhat vaguely sketched asa favourite pup i l , to I sfahan , in what must have beenthe effect ive d isgu ise of a Sufi a scet ic .

I bn S ina was now in middle l ife, he had writ ten most ofthe works on wh ich h is fame rest s, h is reputat ion was already spread fa r and wide th roughout the ext remely int elligent world in wh ich he l ived . I sfahan rece ived h imwith all the honours wh ich in that faraway day and inthat remote count ry were paid to a t alent l ike h is. Apalace was put a t h i s d isposal , he was al lowed a handsomepension , and he fulfi l led for Ala ed Deuleh , on a largerscal e, t he funct ions he had performed for Shams ed Deuleh .

H e now turned h is m ind to l iteratu re and philology, towh ich he had been crit ic i sed for pay ing too l itt le at tent ion .

But he d id not cease to take interest in the more exh ilarating th ings of l ife ; for t h is most successfu l period of h iscareer was if anyth ing the most d i sordered . A more curious example of the constancy of fate was that h is l ife- longenemy, Mahmud of Ghazna, cont inued to th row the dustof perturbat ion into the cup of his security, a s Firdeusisaid of the same personage, and once very nearly succeededin capturing both I bn S ina and his master. The IdolSmasher did capture and carry off to Ghazna a quant ityof I bn S ina’s books . And when the t errib le Turk died

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in 1 030 h is son Masud zealously took up his pol icy of

harry ing I bn Sina and with h im all western Pers ia—unt i la quietus wa s put upon h im by those more terrib le Tu rks

,

the Selj uks .I bn Sina , in the meant ime, advanced in years ; and some

of my readers wi l l no doubt be happy to hea r t hat he pa idpena l t ies . His const itut ion , undermined by h is ca relesshab i t of burn ing the candle a t both ends , was all but shattered by an at tempt which one of his slaves made to poisonhim . Nevertheless , he recovered suffi cient ly to accompanyhis roya l pat ron back to Hamadan . But there, in theyear 1 037, he suffered a relapse into a morta l i l lness . I ti s another t rait of the human in h im that he made a deathbed repentance of h is s ins . He freed h is slaves , he restored—give ea r, 0 followers of /Esculap ius !

—moneyswhich might have been con s idered d ishonest ly ga ined, hed ist ributed h is goods among the poor, and he caused t heKoran to be read cont inuously aloud to h im , hea ring thewhole of i t every th ree days . So he b reathed h is last inthe pleasant month of J une, and was buried by that ca

p ricious river whose waters flow from the snows of E lvend .

I bn Sina d ied j ust in t ime to escape the on rush of theSeljuks , who overran Pers ia and As ia M inor in the middleof t he eleventh centu ry . But it i s one of the i ron ies ofl ife that the tomb which now covers h is grave was buil tby a member of that Turkish race from wh ich he Spentthe better pa rt of hi s days in at tempt ing to flee . This

was another h igh-born lady, the p rincess N iga r Khanum ,

of the Turkoman house of the Kaja rs , and she rea red orrestored that humb le dome in the yea r of grace 1 877.

Under i t l ies , too , I lea rned from Prof. Wi l l iams Jackson, a myst ic poet by the name of Abu Said . Professo r

PERS IAN M IN IATURES

J ackson says no more about him , however, nor wa s theSea of Sciences ab le to tel l me anyth ing very definite .

What wa s my pleasure then , upon reach ing fa raway NewYork, wh ich is now a greater magaz ine of books thanwa s ever Bokha ra or Alexandria , to learn from Prof.E . G . B rowne that a certain Abu Said ibn Abu l Kha ir

,

t he father of Sufi verse, was a contempora ry and friend ofI bn S ina . P rofessor B rowne quotes a quaint story to

the effect that after the fi rst meet ing of these two greatmen I bn S ina sa id “

What I know, he sees,” whi le Abu

Sa id ’s remark was : What I see, he knows .” B rowne

al so t ranslates a couple of quat rain s exchanged by thefamous pai r. T he first , wh ich was I bn Sina

’s, runs asfol lows

Tis we who on God’s grace do most rely,Who put our v ices and our vi rtues by,For where thy grace exists, t h e undone doneIs reckoned, and the done undone thereby.

”

To wh ich the Sufi made response :

0 steeped in sin and void of good,dost try

To save thyself, and thy misdeeds deny?Can sins be cancel led, or neglect made good?Vainly on grace divine dost thou rely !”

Professor B rowne says that Abu Said was born inKhorasan in 968 and that he d ied in 1 049

—h e does notsay where . Let u s have i t t hen , t i l l better p roof be forthcoming , that t hose two forgotten great men of a forgottengreat age a re rea l ly the ones who l ie together under thehumble dome which the Turkoman princess raised on theriver bank of Hamadan .

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quat ra in s of h i s fol lower Omar Khayyam . One of them i svery fami l iar to us in Fitzgera ld ’

s t ran sl at ion

Up from Earth’ s Centre through the Seventh Gate

I rose, and on t h e Throne of Saturn sate,And many a knot unravel led by t he roadBut not t h e Master-Knot of Human Fate.

F itzgerald a l so t ranslated J am i ’s narrat ive poem of

Sa l aman and Absal ,” the story ofwh ich wa s fi rst written

by Ibn Sina .

I f I rea l ly were to do my duty by you, reader of mine,and by th i s t ime either my friend or my enemy, I shou ldnow proceed to expound to you in deta i l t he ph i losophicalsystem of him whom you know a s

' Avicenna , point ing outto you exact ly what he took from H ippocrates t h roughGalen , modified by Ari stot le and t he N eo- P latonists ,what from the Sufi s whose tenet s h is friend Abu Saidfi rst c rystall ised into verse, and what he added out of h isown curious desi re, so characterist ic of the thought of h ist ime and so l ike what Pico del la M irandol a at tempted fourhundred yea rs later, to harmon ise not only P lato w ithAri stot le but the general body of Greek ph i losophy as itcame to h im through the garb led t ran slat ions of Baghdadwith the dogmas of I slam . I nc idental ly, I should warnyou aga inst a certa i n pseudo-Aristotel ian Theology wh ichthe Arabs accepted a s genuine but which was real ly acol lect ion of t he Enneads of Plot inus, of t he th ird or fourthcentu ry . I should then expla in the Orienta l t heory of

Emanat ion , dwel l ing on I bn S ina’ s favourite idea that the

body i s t he tool of the soul . To t h is exposit ion I shou ldadd an abst ract of t he Canon and the Sanatz

'

o, wh ich werethe basis of mediawal medicine . Nor shou ld I fai l to

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ana lyse I bn S ina ’ s d iv i s ion of lea rn ing into the speculat iveand pract ical sc iences , fol lowed in all the European univ ersit ies unt i l the seventeenth century, or to state thath is aim was not to teach t ruth but to p reserve from error .And hav ing done so it would behoove me to ass ign him h ist rue p lace in the h iera rchy of phi losophy, as wel l a s toest imate the l itera ry qua l i t ies of th is author of over ahundred books .I f you a re that k ind of a reader, however, you wi l l not

read th is kind of a book . And I shal l not be so foo l ish asto attempt to d isguise from you the fact that I have neverread Av icenna or h is master Aristot le, and never sha l l .There was a t ime , indeed , when such l i terature had for me

a fantast ic interest . That was the t ime when I began tod iscover that rel ig ion , after all, does not expla in all one

wou ld l ike to know about th is cruel and comfort ing world—neither my rel ig ion nor the other re l igion s of which Ivaguely took cognisance . And I was young enough toimagine that the ph i losophers had been more successfulthan the p riest s in unravel l ing t he master- knot of humanfate .

” But by the t ime I found out that all they cou lddo was to formu late rather more clearly and e laboratelythan myself what we can know and what we cannot know

,

I began to recogni se that the tendency ofmy own mindif I may so d ignify that chaos of in st inct s and impu l sesran to the concrete rather than to the ab st ract

,and that

there was quite enough in the appearances of l ife tokeep one honest and busy without wait ing to so lve theorig i n or t he end of l ife .

Thi s i s no doubt a debas ing confession to make ; butwhat can I do? I am made l ike that . And noth ing interest s or imposes me less than a forma l system of any

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k ind . For I cannot make myse lf bel ieve that the systemever has been or ever wi l l be dev i sed which wi l l not sooneror later be upset . What does i nterest me i s the humanand personal in it al l , the eternal st ruggle ofmen to understand , to l ea rn , to perfect . As a man , therefore, as afriend of p rinces , myst ics , and dancers , a s a persona l i tyso v ita l and so curiou s of l ife that he fi l led hi s l ife to theb rim w it h toi l and play , and made for h im se lf one of t hegreatest names in a t ime not one of the least

,Av icenna

interest s me ext raord inari ly . They say , indeed , that he

does not deserve h i s immense reputat ion : t hat as anAri stote l ian he i s inferior to h is p redecessor Farab i andto h i s successor Averroes ; that in medic ine he was sur

passed by Rhazes of Rei . And who knows? I t i s oftenan acc ident that l ift s one man into fame above anotheran acc ident of bi rth , of t ime, of p lace, of style, ofmethod ,of someth ing so l i t t l e a part of h im as the friend s he happened to make . Yet however Av i cenna acqui red so im

men se a fame, t he fact remain s that he acqui red it . Andthat humb le tomb of h i s in Hamadan is a monument toone of the st rangest inc ident s in the h istory of humanthought , whereby a Pers ian of Bokhara ab sorbed so muchof the lea rn ing of G reece that he was ab le to pass it on toEurope at the moment when Europe began to st i r out oft he ignorance and degradat ion into which our ancestors

had sunk .

One of t he st rongest incent ives to the reading of h istoryi s t hat curious rhythm of hi story which sets one race upand pul l s another down , t he repeated shift ing of the cent reof grav ity of c iv i l isat ion . A case in point i s that of thec i ty of Bokhara , now a ruinou s prov inc ia l town of Turks ,or men of Turkish origin , to at tempt to vis it which i s an

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inspi rat ion , and under the Ptolemies Alexandria becamethe cent re of lea rn ing and art in the West . Thither weret ransported from the a rch ives of Athens the original s oft he grea t d ramat i st s , together wit h all the other manu

scripts that could be col lected . So zealous indeed werethe Alexandrians in the accumulat ion of books that novis itor was a l lowed to go away from the c ity without leaving a copy of any manuscript wh ich he might possess ;and when At ta l us of Pergamum set about assemb l ing al ib ra ry of h is own in 24 1 B C , Ptolemy Ep ip hanes forthwit h p roh ibited t he export of Egypt ian papyrus , uponwh ich all t he books of t he t ime were writ ten . Th i s d idnot p revent t he Pergamenes from invent ing t hat sub st itute for papyrus whose name of parchment i s derivedfrom thei r own . But thei r l ib ra ry of volumes wasdest ined to enrich the Alexandrians after all, thanks toJ u l ius Caesar, who presented i t to the lat ter in pa rt ia lreparat ion for t he burning by h is legiona ries of t he

Brouch ion and it s books . Papyri , however, were not allt hat Alexandria could boast . The school of t he NeoP laton ist s ca rried on the t rad it ion of the Greek p h iloso

p h ers, wh i l e t he Museum of Pto lemy Phi ladelphus becamea p ioneer cent re of scient ific resea rch . There the d i ssect ion of t he human body was fi rst p ract ised , and theredid western ast ronomers fi rst measu re a merid ian of the

ea rth . Nor d id t he host i l ity of the seventh Ptolemy to

wa rd men of learn ing suffice to dest roy the leadersh ip ofAlexand ria among the Greek c it ies .W ith the rise of Rome into an imperia l power, towa rd

the beginn ing of our era , a cap ital of a new kind grew up

in the Mediterranean . Alexandria and At hen s cont inuedto be frequented by schola rs and lovers of the a rt s . But

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the pol it ical hegemony of Rome naturally at t racted so

much weal th and wit t hat the I ta l ian c ity might havebecome the inte l lectual capital of the empi re in a profounder sen se than i t d id , had it not been for certa in unforeseen c i rcum stances . These were the spread of Chri st ianity, the inroads of the barba rians, and t he t ran sferof the seat of government to the East . Con stant inopleaccord ingly became in turn the t rue cap ita l of GrecoRoman c iv i l isat ion . And Constant inop le enjoyed a fa rlonger period of p reeminence, thus not only p reserving onGreek ground a remnant of the prec ious heritage ofAthensbut develop ing potent arts of i t s own .

At the same t ime there is no denying that between theold order and the new antagonisms arose wh ich were l it t leless formidable than the Goth s and the Hun s . Two e lement s in early Chri st ian ity were pa rt icularly fatal to theachievements of the older time . One of these, indeed ,lay in the Greek sp iri t i tself, namely, tha t intellectua lquickness , t hat des i re of definit ion , which out of a s imp leand humane creed b rought forth an infinity of wa rringsect s and ended in an i rreconci lab l e b reach between thechurches of East and West . And this , together withd ifferences of l anguage and d ifficu l t ies of communicat ion ,cut off our own ancestors from the benefits of t he civi l isat ion that grew up i n eastern Europe . The other element

of peril was the new Christ ian spi rit of democracy . Th isi s not the t ime, nor am I of the race, to c ry out again stdemocracy ! But I may say that between democracy andautoc racy l ies a hai r l ine wh ich is not easy to d raw .

Of th is fact recent events i n Russ ia a re the best possib lewitness . For a l iteral democracy is ofcourse an impossib lestate of society . No man is born free of h is ci rcumstances

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or of obl igat ion s to h i s fe l lowmen , nor can all men beborn equa l in abi l i ty and opportun ity . I n any concertedeffort , moreover, some one must lead . Otherwise theeffort i s bound to fai l . The attempt of democracy i s tofind the man best fi tted to lead , to give h im hi s chance,and to p revent h im from abusing it . I n outward form ,

t herefore, democracy and autocracy must necessari ly re

semb le each other . The difference is that the democ rat icleader i s obeyed because he is the delegate of the mass ,not because he is the master of t he mass .Any new state of freedom , however, natura l ly p roduces

a confusion of a ims and personal it ies wh ich does notsubs ide unt i l event s give them thei r p roper level . Whatwas unfortunate for t he world in the coming of Christ ianity was t hat t he new freedom put the most ignorant andb igot ted peasant not on a par wit h the greatest p rince orthe most en l ightened phi losopher, but above h im—ifthat p rince or t hat ph i losopher d id not chance to be oft he new rel igion . And it happens to be a t ra it of t he mosteducated minds t hat they do not , in general , show themost enthus iasm for movement s of an emot iona l ratherthan of an intel lectual kind . The consequences for theold Greek lea rn ing were t herefore of the most d isast rous .For so genera l a zea l for t h e new re l igion made it a cred itable th ing to do away with the symbol s of the old. We

sha l l never know how many priceless works of a rt , howmany manuscript s for which we would now pay untoldsums , were wilfu l ly dest royed with the best intent ion s int he world . So did i t come about that a p ious monk wou lderase a play of z‘Eschylus, a poem of Pindar, or a t reat iseof Plato , in order to have room to inscribe h i s v iews oft he nature of the Trinity . And there grew up that d rea ry

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Now it happened that t h is took place short ly beforeanother abrupt change in the Med iterranean world— theri se of the Arabs“ But the Hel len isat ion of the Eastto use a word which must be app l ied wi t h d iscret ionwas by no means the work of J ust in ian alone . As earlyas the sixt h centu ry B . C . Greece and Pers ia h ad comeinto contact t hrough t he wa rs between Media and Lyd ia .

The greater wa rs of Cyru s , Dariu s , and Xerxes i n the following centu ry had renewed and broadened th is contact ,which i s reflected in the architecture of Persepo l is . Andthe wa rs of Alexander and h i s successors carried the Hellenic influence as fa r as B act ria , in the reg ion of Bokhara ,and I nd ia , found ing G reek c i t ies a l l t he way from Ant iochin Syria and Seleuc ia on the Tigris to Merv in Khorasan ,and beyond . And from the th i rd centu ry B . C . unt i l t he

appearance of t he Arab s i n t he sevent h centu ry A . D .

the Parth ian and Sasan ian kings of Pers ia were constantlyin rel at ion , host i le or otherwise, with thei r He l len i sedneighbou rs of Syria and As ia Minor or with the Romanemperors . During th is t housand yea rs t he Pers ianssevera l t imes extended t he i r borders to the B lack Sea orthe Med iterranean , wh i le the Romans reached t he Pers ian Gul f and long ma inta ined t he Euphrates as the i reastern front ier . I need not repeat here the h isto ry of

t h is confused period . But i t is interest ing to reca l l t hata t the batt l e of Carrhae, i n Mesopotam ia , in 53 B . C. ,

Roman sold iers were captured by the Pa rth iansand deported to Merv ; that the bat t l e where Caesa r came,saw, and conquered took place a t the modern Turki shtown of Zilleh , nea r Siva s and not so far from the upperEuph rates ; that an older b rother of Shapur the Great wasdis inherited because of h is H el len ist ic lean ings and took

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refuge with Con stant ine the G reat , who afterward wroteto the Sasanian king with regard to the status of Christ ian s in Pers ia ; t hat Julian the Apostate lost h is l ife whi lefight ing against the Persians on the Tigri s i n 363 ; that in

489 when Zeno closed the school s of Edessa , the modernU rfa , they were immediately reopened at N is ib is ; t hatwhen J ust in ian in turn closed the school s of Athen s in

529, five G reek phi losophers found asylum with Nush irvan in Pers ia , and at h i s request t ran slated P lato andAri stot le into Pers ian . Thi s was the Sasan ian king whofounded or enlarged the school ofGand-i-Shapur—Jundai-Sabur, in it s Arabic ised form , ident ified by Le St rangewith the modern v i l lage of Shahabad between Shusterand Dizfu l—which was perhaps the one provided withG reek phys ician s by t he emperor Aurel ian and which ,under J ewish and Nestorian teachers , became a celebratedcent re of philosophica l and med ical study, a t a t ime whensuch studies were despised in Europe .

The Nestorians , indeed , p layed a part in b ringing together the East and the West which has almost been forgotten . The seacoast of As ia M inor had been He l lenised from great ant iqu ity . But after the conquest s ofA lexander and the d is rupt ion of t he J ewish k ingdomsSy ria was not slow to feel the Greek influence . Ant iochin pa rt icu la r rose into p rominence as another cent re oflearning, which cont ributed both to the Neo-Platon ic andto the pat rist ic l iterature . I t was there, in fact , t hat the

name of Christ ian fi rst came into u se, and there d id St .Simeon Styl ites stand on hi s uncomfortable pi l la r . Theisolat ion of Antioch from the West , however, and it s

re lat ive p roximity to Pers ia , natural ly enough broughtabout a d ist inct ion between the Christ ians of As ia and

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thei r European brothers . The Syrian Christ ians hadchurches a s fa r East as Tus and M erv in 334 . I n 409t hey were officia l ly recognised by Yezdigird I , t he Sasanian king of Pers ia and in 4 1 0 t he Counc i l of Seleuc ia ,twin c ity of Ctes iphon , showed how fa r the East wasfrom the West by approving the famous Counc i l of

N icwa, held a lmost a hundred yea rs ea rl ier . This

sepa rat ion became a sch i sm in 43 1 , when the Council ofEphesu s condemned Nestoriu s , Syrian B ishop of Con

stant inop le, and h is fol lowers for t hei r heret ica l v iews ofthe supernatu ral b i rt h of Chri st . And the clos ing of t heschools of Edessa by the emperor Zeno prepared the fina lbreak between t he Greeks and the N estorians . Never

t h eless the lat ter cont inued to be the representat ives inthe East of t he H el len ic culture . The fact t hat they wereaccounted heret ics perhaps encouraged t hem to t ran slate into Syriac t he ph ilosophers ofAthen s and Alexandria .

At the same t ime the i r m i s s ionaries pu shed on into Asia .

By the year 500 Sama rkand was a N estorian b ishopric ,and t he fi rst Nestorians arrived in Ch ina in 635, a fewyears after t he fi rst Mohammedans . There exist s inCh ina to-day a monument which in 1907 was st i l l standing in Hs i-ang-fu or Chang-an, cap ita l of t he T

’ang dynasty, record ing the i r p resence there in 78 1 . I n 845they, l ike the Mohammedans , were affected by a decreeclosing t he Buddhist monasteries . And in the fa rtherEast t hey ul t imately became merged with t he fol lowers ofother sect s , cut off a s t hey were from thei r own count ryby the t riumph of I slam and the d i sturbances caused i nCent ra l As ia by the Turks . Many Turks nevertheless,were converted by Nestorians before fallmg under theinfluence of the Arabs . Prester John , about whom Ma rco

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Far be i t from me'

to deplore the v ictory of Cha rlesMartel . But there i s no shadow of doubt that if t heCa l iphs of Spa in had not been held back behind thePyrenees, western Europe would have been civ i l isedmuch more rap id ly . And the most aston ish ing th ingabout it is that the count ry from wh ich the conquerorscame had not even t he memory of greatness . The Prophet h imself, capable of d ictat ing what is said to be themasterp iece of Arab ic l iterature, wa s incapab le of wri t ingh i s own poet ry or of reading the chapters of the Koranwhich others t ran scribed . As for h is fi rst th ree suc

cessors, t hey were p reeminently men of the sword . Yet

so fa r a s contempora ry records go it is fa r more certa inthat the Greek B ishop Theophilus dest royed the books ofAlexand ria than tha t Abu Bekr d id , the legend of h is

burn ing them in the publ ic baths not hav ing been invented t i l l six hundred years later . And Oma r buil t amagnificent mosque in J erusalem , wh i le one of the Om

mayads caused mosaic i st s to come from Constant inopleto decorate the church he turned into a mosque and hi ssuccessors inv i ted to Damascus bo t h J ews and Christ iansof learn ing . I t was

,at any rate, that sudden maturing

of the Arab gen iu s , an epic example of t he l iberat ion , ofthe exal tat ion , which may be p roduced by a widen ing ofhorizons . And t he c iv i l i sat ion of Greece , b rought intocontact w it h the s imp le and a rdent sp i rit of Arabia ,flowered once more i n a m i raculous way .

Only th ree or fou r t imes in h istory has t here been aperiod of so much inte l lectual eagerness, of such creat iveheat , of tolerance so ra re , as when the Arab and the Greekmet on t he borders of Pers ia to perfo rm thei r mi racle ,a ided by the Syrian and t he J ew . For t he hea rt of t he

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miracle was not Damascus but Baghdad , and all it s

comp l icated machinery was set in mot ion in the b riefseventy years between the lay ing out of his new capitalby the second Abbasid Cal iph , Mansur, in 762 and t hedeath of hi s great-grandson Mamun in 833 . Damascu sa l ready had a h i story and t rad it ion s when t he Ommayads set t led t here . Baghdad—meaning God-given—had none, save as a sleepy Pers ian hamlet on the

Tigri s inhabited ch iefly by N estorian monks . I none of thei r monasteries Mansur took up h is res idencewhi le he built h i s “Abode of Peace ”—he and hi sPers ian v iz ier the Ba rmec ide, son of a Mage fromBalkh . This associat ion was typical of the sp i rit in whichMansur gathered a round himself craftsmen , a rt ist s , andscholars of the d ifferent races of the land , in h is ambit ionto riva l the legenda ry splendour of Con stant inople . The

resul t , for art , was the Saracen ic school whose works st rewthe t rack of the Arab from T ransoxiana to Spain . Of theresult for learn ing, Avicenna is but one example . And thepol icy of M ansur was fol lowed by h is immediate successors .H is grand son Harun al Rashid , otherwise Aaron the Orthodox, famou s th roughout the world for h is love of the

human it ies , bui l t a hosp ice in Jerusa lem for Christ ianpi lgrims and granted Charlemagne the custody of the keysof the Holy Sepulch re . As for Mamun , born of a Pers ianmother and brought up among Persian and G reek p h iloso

p hers, he was a bui lder of l ibra ries and hospitals, a splendidpat ron of let ters , and the founder of that school of t ranslators which brought Greek phi losophy into the ken of theEast .Th is great work was al l the more remarkable becauseGreek learn ing had at that t ime a lmost d ied out in i ts

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own land . The task , a s I have said , had al ready beenbegun by the Syrians . The school s of Antioch Edessa

,

and N is ibis , and to a lesse r degree that of Gand- i-Shapur,

had t ranslated many of the G reek writers into Sy riac andPers ian . Then the Ommayads, fo l lowed by Mansur,had caused not a few of t hese versions to be turned intoArabic . Under Mamun , however, the ea rl ier and hast iert ranslat ion s were systemat ica l ly rev ised and new onesmade . The enl ightened Cal iph even attempted

,without

too grea t success, to buy or to borrow Greek manuscript sin Constant inople . For the Syrians had worked chieflyfrom the edit ions of Alexandria , often unhapp i ly editedby the Neo-Platon ist s . As it was, t hei r p reference fort he lat ter and for Aristot le b rought it about that Platobecame less fami l ia r to t he Arabs t han P lot inu s , Porphyry,and t he Almagest , wh i le t he poets and dramat ist s , alas,rema ined unknown to t hem . Harun al Rashid , to besure, had Homer t ran sl ated into Syriac, though not intoArabic . But all t he phi losophical and sc ient ific specu lat ion of the Greeks , from Py thagoras down , became availab le to t he Arabs in thei r own tongue . And when at la stEurope began to take an interest in lea rn ing, i t was foundthat Ga len , for in stance , was more comp lete in Arab ic thanin h is own tongue .

The influence upon the impress ionable Arabs of th isgl imp se into a new world was prodigiou s . The polit icalauthority of Baghdad soon ceased to be acknowledgedeast of the Zagros Mountains or west of the Euphrates ;but in every count ry of I slam l ibra ries , schools , and hosp ital s sprang up to perpetuate the work of t he Abbasids .And t hose inst itut ions inspi red a schola rsh ip fa r worthierof the name than anyth ing known in Eu rope outs ide of

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made p ioneer calculat ions in spec ific grav ity . And they,

whi le our ancestors were t reat ing d isease by means ofcharms, amu let s , and exorcisms , began to apply chemist ryto med icine . I f it was but a beginn ing, and if t hei r cont ribut ions now seem s l ight , we must remember that t heonly advance in med ic ine from the t ime of Erosist ratusand Hierop h ilus of Alexandria down to the seventeenthcentury was made by the Arabs . Among t he 2 37 t reat isesof Rhazes , who flourished from about 850 to about 932 ,

was one giv ing the ea rl iest descript ion of measles andsmall pox , and adumb rat ing the germ theory . Of Av i

cenna and the place he he ld in mediaeval medic ine I haveal ready spoken . Abulcas is , or Abul Kas im , a Span ishcontempora ry of his , pract ised surgery l it t le less scien

t ifically t han he would have done to-day, and wrote asurg ical t reat ise in which i s found the fi rst known descript ion of t he syringe . Averroes l ater conceived the idea ofmaking indiv idual stud ies of the d ifferent d iseases andthei r t reatment , eventual ly carried out not by himselfbut by one of h is pupil s .I n other d i rect ions the Saracens made p rogress no less

ma rked . They ant ic ipated N ewton in the study of

gravity , though i t remained for t he great Engl ishman tomake a un iversa l app l icat ion of the princ ip le .

“

They weremuch nea rer t hose other Engl ishmen Da rwin and Wallacein thei r v iew of the development of l ife than the i r Christ iancontempora ries . I sha l l not c la im for t he former the

superiority in a rt and let ters , t hough Sa racen ic arch itecture, the

“Thousand and One N ight s ,” and the important

Mohammedan l iterature of t rave l , geography, and h i storywere of surp ri s ingly early date . As concern s breeding ,habits

,and comfort the Arabs had an unquest ioned su

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periority . The Saracen c i t ies were paved and cleanlong before those of France . London was seven hundredyears later than Cordova i n l ight ing her st reet s at n ight .The fi rst clock seen in Europe was a p resent to Charlemagne from Harun al Ra shid . Through the Moors of

Spain were int roduced to our fathers such novelt ies aspaper

,cotton , rice, sugar, and several fru it s and flowers

prev iously unknown to them . And there i s no end to theEuropean words derived from Arab ic or Pers ian .

Was i t weariness , in the end , that caused the Saraceninspi rat ion to fl icker and die out ? Was it the con stanthammering of Turks and Christ ian s , the hopeless d isintegrat ion of that empi re which had st retched from theOxus to the Pi l lars of Hercules ? At any rate

,the pendu

lum of history swung again , waking Europe up from it sthousand years of react ion . And it i s st range how thereseem s to be someth ing potent and immorta l in that oldGreek learning, which final ly wrought again in Europethe m i racle it had wrought in As i a so long before . Yet

could anyth ing be st ranger than the journey i t made,

from land to land , from tongue to tongue, a round thewhole c i rcuit of the M ed iterranean , t i l l i t came backthrough Spain to Europe, to the farther shore of it s ownI on ian Sea ? During the twe lfth century there a rose inSpain and Sic i ly schoo l s of t ran slators l ike those of Edessaand Baghdad , whose work it was to render into Lat in ,genera l ly from Arab ic , somet imes from Syriac or Hebrew,

what was left of G reek l iteratu re . A l it t le of i t had beenspared in Constant inop le ; but Con stant inop le was too fa raway and too host i le to be of any help . On ly after theCrusaders captured Constant inop le in 1 204didt here appea rin theWest afeworiginal Greek manuscripts . I n the mean

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t ime there grew up the mend icant orders,among whom

,

and pa rt icula rly among the Dom inicans , were great friendsof learn ing . Then in the twelfth and th i rteenth centurieswere founded in turn the un ivers it ies of Bologna

,Pa ris

,

and Oxford , earl iest of thei r kind in the West , inaugurat ingthe so-ca l led scholast ic period . The German un ivers it iescame a l itt le later, as befi t ted a race not converted t i l l t hee ighth centu ry by Engl ish Bened ict ines ! Th is scholast icperiod occup ied t he th i rteenth and much of t he fourteenthcentu ries, and was a t ime of busy t ranslat ing, comparing ,revis ing, ph i losoph i sing, and t heolog is ing, to say noth ingof anathemat is ing . For the church was slow to give up it sold ant ipathy to the Greeks ; and here worse heathenthan Aristot le were concerned , under whose wing Araband J ewi sh doctors not

.

a few made thei r appea rance inChristendom .

.So it was that Av icenna, the Pers ian of Bokha ra andHamadan , became one of the great names of mediaevalEurope, exercis ing an empi re over men

’s minds such a swas exerc i sed sca rcely by Aristot le h imself. I n 1453

Constant inople fell into the hands of the Turks . TheGreek refugees who fled to I taly took with them preciousmanuscript s , and t he Renaissance received it s final impul se . Yet in sp ite of the cont inued host i l ity of t he

church , in sp ite of t he natura l i l l wi l l between Europe andAs ia

,in sp ite of the j ust p reference of schola rs for orig inal

G reek manuscript s to t hose wh ich had been t h ree or

fou r t imes t ranslated , the last of t he Arab phi losophers ofthe East acqui red so great cred it t hat not unt i l 1650, whenmedic ine fina l ly began to feel the impulse of t he Renaissance , was Avicenna

’s Canon dropped from the cu rriculaof Montpel l ier and Louvain . The book had then , s ince

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THE CARAVAN

With my own eyes I saw in the desertThat the deliberate man outstripped him who had hurried on .

The wind-footed steed is broken down in h is course,While the camel-driver jogs on with his beast to the end of the

journey .

Sadi : THE FLOWER GARDEN

NE of my study windows , catch ing al l the sunof the sout h ,

'

faces a narrow t i l ted count ry ofgarden s , darklywa l led by a semic i rcle of mountain s . One ofmy bed room w indows g ives me

a gl imp se of sparser garden s , and the clay- co loured town ,and the p la in that d ip s and rises de l icately again st t henorth . But both room s look east , in to the desert .I t i s t he kind of desert which the Pers ian s ca l l biaban ,

not the vaster and more desolate lut . Beyond our own,

however, no garden wal l ventures into it . N either house

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nor pop lar breaks the s imp l ic i ty of i ts flowing l ines . Theempty land d roops away toward the left , intercepted on lyby t he Musa l la , that barren b luff which a rchaeolog i st s l iketo fancy t he s i te of seven-wa l led Ecbatana . Not quiteoppo s i te my windows a sma l ler h i l l , bare and pointedl ike a cone, pricks the horizon . Beyond it l ies an invis ib le hol low, the fa rther edge of wh ich marks the l imitof my vis ib le world .

Of the sight s to be seen from the four sides of our house,th is view offers least . Yet because i t i s mine I l ike it ,and because i t i s so Open and sol ita ry , and because thefaithfu l Pers ian sun rarely disappoints me there of h ismorning miracle , and because at night sta rs hang there of ab ri l l iancy I have never seen , and so low that I can watchthem from my bed . And I am new enough from the Westnever to forget t hat those windows look into A s ia . Be

yond that uneven rim of the East l ies Kum. BeyondKum i s the lat, that great desert wh ich ha s sma l l reasonto be less renowned than Gobi or the Sahara . Beyond thelut are Afghanistan , and Kashmi r, and T ibet .I n the morn ing t he sun looks st range to me , because he

i s fresh from T ibet and Kashmi r and Afghan istan . At

night the stars make me wonder what other watcherssee them—what riders of came ls , what p rowlers of thedark , what s it ters by red embers . How many t imes haveI made in imaginat ion that journey ea stward from mywindow, across wastes of sand and sa l t and poisonedwater, through forest s and glac iers that p rop the sky ,

into va l leys the wi ldest and most secret of the earththat journey which no man of the West cou ld make a lone,or undisguised , and come a l ive into the up land s of China !And if he d id , no man of all he met cou ld understand the

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reason of hi s coming . They have no curiosity about us ,t he land s we l ive in the th ings we l ive for. Why have weso cont inuing a cu rios i ty about t hem ? Is i t that in thosed istant and s i lent p laces we wou ld no t once hear a factorywhist le or see a ra il road t rack ? I s i t the lure of thei r

j ealous seclusion ? Of thei r c loudy ant iquity ? Or i s i t as imp le a ston ishment that men can be content with so

l i t t l e—find the s ight of the sun enough , and the sound ofknown voices? Who knows but there might be in i tsome vague ancest ral st i rring of nostalg ia , or a secretquest ion of our own un rest ? What if, after a l l t hey of

t he East see the end from the beginn ing, and l ive a l ifemore intense than we? But even there wh ist les beginto sound . Nearer and nea rer creep the ra i l s that threadthe ends of t he world . And what then ?I could never tel l all I see in t he desert a t n ight .I n t he dayt ime I am more concerned with what passes

between our garden wal l and t he crump led rim of the

horizon . There i s no great pass ing on t hat tawny S lopesave of l ight and shadow, for t he h ighways all march inother d i rect ions out of t he town . Runne l s of water flashin the sun at the ir seasons . In t he autumn and in the

spring oxen t ickl e t he eart h with the l i tt le wooden p loughof Asia . There i s a t ime when I watch the ripp l ing of

wheat l ike a l ake . Tha t i s a lso the t ime when I mayhea r

,heightened by d ist ance , a melancholy singing . Peas

ants occas ional ly pass , with russet rags flapp ing aboutbare knees . A rare horseman ga l lop s afa r, his darkmantle eddy ing behind him . Mules and donkeys areless ra re , t i nk l ing from nowhere to nowhere .

But si lence i s so much the note of t he p lace t hat Iwas aston ished one winter afternoon to hear a new sound ,

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PERS IAN M IN I ATURES

There were more camel s i n that ca ravan than I hadever seen before . I t d id not occur to me to count themunt i l many of t hem were out of sight . Then I countednea rly three hund red . They marched s ingle fi l e i n groupsof six or seven , each group roped together l ike bargesi n a tow and led by a man . Many of t he men had an

odd Mongol ian look in t hei r t ight skin caps , wi t h the furor lamb ’s wool ins ide . The eyes of a lmost all of t hemwere inflamed from the gla re of t he sun on t he snow .

Where had they come from ? Where were t hey going ?

I had no tongue to a sk , nor cou ld I have understood ifthey told me .

They d isappeared a t last among t he ba re gardens .But that st range

,comp l icated mus ic , punctuated by the

deep notes of t he big copper bel l s , sounded so long in theth in winter a i r t ha t I could not be quite sure when i t

ceased to sound . I ndeed I often hear it now at n ight ,when I look at the low stars of t he desert and th ink of

Afghan istan , and Kashmi r, and T ibet .

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