CHAPTER V MY SECOND JOURNEY TO THE EAST
As I have published several books about this my second journey to the East, and as these, being translated into various languages, have become public property over the civilised world, I intend in these memoirs to touch only upon such points as are of a purely personal character, and could therefore find no place in the general accounts of my travels written for the world at large. And I want to lay particular stress upon such details as led to the gradual transformation of the Stambul Effendi into the confirmed Asiatic and the mendicant Dervish. In their light my many strange adventures will appear but the natural outcome of my career. This I consider the more necessary as it will enable my readers to note both the psychical transitions and the ethical and social influences to which the constant and intimate intercourse with the natives necessarily subjected me. It will help to show how, in a comparatively short time, changes were effected which even I myself cannot quite account for.
After leaving the hospitable roof of Emin Mukhlis Pasha, the Governor of Trebizond, I continued my journey to Persia in the company of a small trading caravan. As I laboriously climbed up the Pontus mountain slope, and watched the sea gradually receding in the distance, a feeling of anxiety came over me, and for the first time I experienced that internal struggle between the craving for adventure and a sickening dread of the uncertainty and perilousness of my undertaking. It was springtime. The glorious scenery and the charms of nature all along the road as I ascended the Propontic mountain had well-nigh dispersed these dark forebodings, and my enthusiasm had almost gained the day. But when at night I had to put up at a dirty, loathsome caravansary, and after spreading my carpet on the bare floor, tired out as I was with my first ride, had to prepare my own frugal evening meal, the cold gravity of my position overwhelmed me, and I realised for the first time the awful difference between dark reality and rose-coloured imagination. My rice was burnt, the fat rancid, and the bread one of the worst kinds I had ever tasted in Turkey. My bed on the cold floor was anything but comfortable, and when, in spite of all, I fell into a heavy sleep, I had only the exhaustion after my first ride to thank for it. That first long ride left its painful effects for two or three days. The stretch between Trebizond and Erzerum, a foretaste of the long ride to Samarkand, was altogether the most painful I have ever experienced; for in the first place I had to ingratiate myself with my fellow-travellers, mainly consisting of raw, dirty, fanatical mule-drivers, and, worst of all, I had to get used to the vermin with which every night's lodging swarmed. Arrived at Erzerum, where I enjoyed the hospitality of my former principal, Hussein Daim Pasha, who here occupied the position of military governor, I enjoyed a good rest. The kind-hearted man, an enthusiastic religious mystic, was firmly convinced of the pious motives of my journey to Bokhara, and both he and his adjutant, Hidayet Effendi, instructed me for hours in the mysteries of the various orders, and especially of the Nakish Bendi, to the grave of whose founder I was to make a pilgrimage. It was during my stay at this house that I witnessed quite an original use of superstition in the service of the law. One day the Pasha lost a valuable diamond ring, and as he had not been out of the house one might justly suppose that the ring would be found, unless one of the numerous servants of the establishment had made away with it. As all investigations were fruitless, Hidayet Effendi sent for a celebrated wonder-working Sheikh, who squatted down in the middle of the great entrance-hall, where all the servants were assembled. I impatiently waited the issue of events. At last the Sheikh, sitting cross-legged, produced from under his mantle a black cock, and holding it in his lap he invited all the servants, each in turn, to come up to him, stroke the cock softly and straightway put his hand into his pocket; then, said the Sheikh, the cock, without any more ado, will declare who is the thief by crowing. When all the servants had passed in turn before the Sheikh and touched the cock, he told them all to hold out their hands. All hands were black, with the exception of one, which had remained white, and whose owner was at once designated as the thief. The cock had been blackened all over with coal dust, and as the thief, fearing detection, had avoided touching him, his hand had remained white, and consequently his guilt was declared. The servant received his punishment and the Sheikh his reward.
My sojourn in the house of the Pasha and in Erzerum generally, was very pleasant and comfortable, but hardly a good preparation for my further journey over the Armenian heights to the frontier of Persia, one of the most troublesome étapes of Asiatic travel. The poor Armenian houses, mostly underground holes, looking from the outside more like molehills than anything else, consist of one apartment in which the inmates live, crowded together with from ten to twenty buffaloes, and the first night I spent in company with these evil-smelling animals, tormented by smoke and heat and vermin, will ever remain vivid in my mind. The crisp morning air of the high Armenian plateau acted like a tonic upon my weakened nerves. I felt supremely happy and drank in the pure, keen air with delight. One would like to shout for very joy if it were not for the constant dread of an attack by the Kurds who make their home in these Körogly passes, and are ever more keenly on the watch for small caravans than even for single travellers.
It was here on the Dagar mountains that I had my first encounter with the Kurdish robber hordes. It was my baptism of fire, but instead of filling me with enthusiasm, a deathly cold shiver came over me when at the request of my Armenian fellow-travellers I took up my pistol to act the protector. The precious bales of goods of the Armenian merchants had already been unloaded by the Kurds, and we stormed up the steep incline to call the robbers to account. Bravery, quick decision, and contempt of death are noble virtues, but one is not always born with them; they have to be learned and practised. The bold front, the keen eye, and the blood coursing wildly through one's veins are all symptoms of valour, but they may also be those of a more or less reckless temper. Since that first episode on the Dagar I have in my subsequent travels often been exposed to attacks and surprises of various kinds, until at last I learned to face all dangers boldly, and had no more fear of death. But I still hold to my opinion, that heroes are not born but made, and that the most timid home-lover can by a gradual process of compulsory self-defence become a very lion of strength and valour. Thus and thus only is produced that much-exalted virtue of personal courage and heroism. The pressing need of self-preservation is the real source of all heroism, and in the physically strong this psychological quality can hardly fail to show itself.
As I crossed the Persian frontiers at Diadin, and actually found myself in the land of Iran—the land which hitherto I had only viewed in the light of poetic fancy—the bare and barren wilderness which met my eyes added to my physical and mental sufferings, rudely tore away the last vestige of the glamour which my imagination had woven round this blissful spot. I was thoroughly disillusioned. Here I was, an Effendi, the greatest monster in the eyes of the Shiite Persian, in virtue of my antecedents, subject to scornful remarks, derisive laughter, and continually exposed to gross insults; for the Persians on their native soil are bold and audacious fanatics. As if I had not suffered enough of this in my early youth! The Hydra of religious fury now attacked and tormented me in a new form, and the "Segi Sunni!" ("Sunnitic dog!"), a variant of the "Hep! Hep!" of former days, resounded day and night in my ears. The villainy and knavery of the Persian merchants and Mollas were not less offensive than the stones thrown by the Christian street-boys and the invectives of the Catholic college instructors. But this trial also I learned to overcome. Patience and endurance disarm the bitterest opponent, and when in a melodious voice and with strict Shiite modulation I recited a Sura from the Koran, or a passage from the Mesnevi, the sacred books common to both sects, their anger subsided and my fanatical fellow-travellers comforted themselves by saying, "He is not quite lost yet, he may yet grow to be a good Mussulman," i.e., a Shiite. As will appear from the following pages of this work, it was for the most part religion, the product of Divine inspiration and the supposed means for ennobling and raising mankind, which made me feel the baseness of humanity most acutely; and from my cradle to my old age, in Europe as well as in Asia, among those of highest culture, as well as amid the crudest barbarism, I have found fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, malice, and injustice emanating mostly from the religious people, and always on behalf of religion!
Arrived on Persian soil, my material troubles and struggles were further enhanced by physical sufferings. I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the furtive looks of anger and disdain cast upon me by the Persians I met in the streets or in the bazaar of Khoi. The national language is Turkish there, but as soon as I opened my mouth my pure Stambul accent at once betrayed my Sunnitic character. This ill-will is a retribution for the insults and the chicanery to which the Shiite strangers in Turkey are exposed, but I could not help asking myself, "What have I done to these people? Have I in any way aided in preventing Ali from succeeding to the Prophet?" But all speculations and arguments were useless. I came in the character of an Effendi, and the profound disgust which this word awakens in the Shiite mind accounted quite sufficiently for all the insults I had to bear. Even for money these fanatics would scarcely sell me anything. The question arose whether Sunnites, like Christians, were to be accounted nedjis, i.e., unclean, whom to touch is a sin; and it was only after prolonged and violent discussions that I could pacify their scruples on this point. If there had been a livelier intercourse between Turks and Persians I should probably have had less to suffer, but I was the first private Osmanli who, for many years, had travelled in Persia, and therefore I must take weal and woe into the bargain. I was surprised to find that the women were far more vehement in their expressions than the men; many spat at me as they passed me on the road, giving expression to their hatred by pithy oaths. Truly woman everywhere is more passionate than man! Thanks to my excellent health and vigour, still further improved by abnormal physical exertions, I was able to cope with these mental distractions. I even enjoyed the excitement of them; and when at Tebris, in the Emir caravanseray, I had for several days been an attentive spectator from within my little cell, of the mad carryings-on of the Persian traders, craftsmen, beggars, Dervishes, buffoons, singers, and jugglers, I felt that I was gradually being transformed into an Oriental, and that my existence as a poor traveller was quite bearable. Exchanging my semi-European dress, piece by piece, for the long, wide Persian garments, I gradually accomplished the metamorphosis of my outward appearance; I was no longer conspicuous in a crowd. Once, as I was loitering about in the courtyard of the caravanseray, I noticed among the bargaining groups collected round the loaded and unloaded beasts of burden a European, who while unpacking his bales was evidently at a loss for a Turkish word. Impatiently he turned over the leaves of a small octavo volume, and I was not a little amused to recognise in it my own Turkish pocket dictionary printed in Pera many years ago. When the merchant (he was a Swiss, a Mr. W., commission agent at Tebris), after a fruitless search, put the little book impatiently aside with no very complimentary remarks, I suddenly addressed him in German, remarking that the writer of his little dictionary was not exactly a fool, only that he had been looking in the wrong place. To be addressed in German by a ragged semi-Turkish, semi-Persian individual in the bazaar at Tebris was a little too much even for the equanimity of this son of Mercury. We exchanged a few words, reproaches and irritation were followed by apologies, and the end of the comical intermezzo was an invitation to his house and lavish hospitality for a few days. Amusing adventures of a similar nature befell me on other occasions, and it was always and everywhere my linguistic skill, and the ease with which I could reproduce foreign accents, intonations, and constructions, and in many instances quote suitable maxims and passages of the Koran, accompanied with the usual gesticulations, that took with my audience, and made me pass for a native in spite of my foreign physiognomy.
I had noticed this with pleasure on the banks of the Bosphorus, and more still on the first part of my journey in the interior of Asia. I could not say that I was proof against all suspicion, for the typical expression of the face always excited doubt, and was detrimental to me, but in the variegated national mosaic of the West Asiatic world, where types and races of all zones meet and mix in ever-varying amalgamation, there language is everything and looks nothing; and when this language, moreover, expresses respect for Allah and the Prophet, one becomes incorporated de jure et de facto in the all-encompassing bond of religious community, and one ceases to be a foreigner.