After inspecting a number of applicants I fixed upon one man whose features showed firmness of character and unusual determination. He was a man of few words—one of the rarest and best qualities in a travelling servant, and—he had no relations dependent upon him—the next best quality. He could shoot straight, he could stick on a saddle, he could walk. He required little sleep. He was willing to go to any country where I chose to take him. He required a high salary, but promised by all he held most sacred that he would die before he would give me the slightest trouble. This seemed all fair, and I employed him.
Only one drawback did this man have—he was an excellent European cook. I had to modify him into a good plain cook, and then he became perfection itself. His name was Sadek.
On October 2nd I was ready to start south. My foot was still in a bad condition, but I thought that the open air cure would be the best instead of lying in stuffy rooms. Riding is my favourite way of progression, but again it was necessary to submit to another extortion and travel by carriage as far as Kum on a road made by the Bank of Persia some few years ago. The speculation was not carried on sufficiently long to become a success, and the road was eventually sold to a Persian concern. The same company runs a service of carriages with relays of horses between the two places, and if one wishes to travel fast one is compelled to hire a carriage, the horses not being let out on hire for riding purposes at any of the stations.
This time I hired a large diligence—the only vehicle in the stables that seemed strong enough to stand the journey. It was painted bright yellow outside, had no windows, and was very properly divided into two compartments, one for men and one for women. The money for the journey had to be paid in advance, and the vehicle was ordered to be at the door of the hotel on Friday, October 4th, at 5.30 a.m.
It arrived on Sunday evening, October 6th, at 6.30 o'clock. So much for Persian punctuality. Sadek said I was lucky that it did come so soon; sometimes the carriages ordered come a week later than the appointed time; occasionally they do not come at all!
Sadek, much to his disgust, was made to occupy the ladies' compartment with all the luggage, and I had the men's. We were off, and left the city just in time before the South Gate was closed. There were high hills to the south-east, much broken and rugged, and to the north beyond the town the higher ones above Golahek, on which snow caps could be perceived. Damovend (18,600 ft.), the highest and most graceful mountain in Persia, stood with its white summit against the sky to the north-east.
Even two hundred yards away from the city gate there was nothing to tell us that we had come out of the capital of Persia—the place looks so insignificant from every side. A green-tiled dome of no impressive proportions, a minaret or two, and a few mud walls—that is all one sees of the mass of houses one leaves behind.
Barren country and dusty road, a graveyard with its prism-shaped graves half-buried in sand, are the attractions of the road. One comes to an avenue of trees. Poor trees! How baked and dried and smothered in dust! A couple of miles off, we reached a patch of verdure and some really green trees and even signs of agriculture. To our left (east) lay the narrow-gauge railway line—the only one in Persia—leading to the Shah-Abdul Azim mosque. The whole length of the railway is not more than six miles.
To the right of the road, some little distance before reaching the mosque, a very quaint, large high-relief has been sculptured on the face of a huge rock and is reflected upside down in a pond of water at its foot. Men were bathing here in long red or blue drawers, and hundreds of donkeys were conveying veiled women to this spot. An enormous tree casts its shadow over the pool of water in the forenoon.
