In the land of the lion and sun, or, modern Persia

by C. J. Wills

In the Governorship of the Zil-es-Sultan at Shiraz curiosity took me, with some of the rest of the telegraph staff, to see two men blown from guns; the roof of the doorway of the telegraph-office commanded the maidān, or square.

One man was led out and blown from a gun; a second was then brought forward, and they prepared to lash him to another gun; but as he was very short, a good deal of time was lost in getting some bricks, which were piled in a heap for him to stand on; he was then lashed to the gun, the executioner advanced with a port fire, the priming fizzled, but the gun did not go off—they had forgotten to load it; the man was unbound, the artillerymen went for more powder. I ran across the square to try and beg him off from the prince, being at that time in high favour. He kept me chatting, and in the meantime I heard the report of the gun which killed the poor fellow. About this time a man was blown into the air from a mortar by the Zil-es-Sultan’s order in the square at Shiraz.

When I was last at Shiraz twenty highway robbers were caught by the Governor, Khosro Mirza, the king’s uncle; nine escaped death by bribery, but eleven were walled up alive.

Fourteen hollow pillars, four feet high, built of mud bricks, were each built around a small hole in the ground, thus leaving a cavity six feet deep.

One morning we heard that eleven men had been walled up in them alive; it appeared that three of the fourteen men were reprieved, that the farrash-bashi (chief carpet-spreader literally), or principal of the police of the Governor, was ordered to wall up eleven men, and that, fearing a disturbance, it was done suddenly. At midnight he, with a force of some two hundred soldiers, four executioners, and numerous farrashes, marched the eleven highway robbers in irons some mile and a half through the deserted streets to a place outside the town where the pillars stood. They were accompanied by several masons whom they had impressed, and a donkey-load of plaster of Paris. It seems that the farrash-bashi had received from the friends of one of the robbers forty pounds (one thousand kerans) to allow him to escape, so on the road he seized on a poor porter, intending to wall him up and let the robber go. Day dawned ere they reached the place, and fortunately for the porter a crowd assembled; among them were some who recognized him; the farrash-bashi was forced to let him go, for had he carried out his intentions Khosro Mirza, the Governor, would not have spared him. Each robber was placed in a pillar alive, then loose earth was poured in up to his chest, then a quantity of earth was hurriedly mixed with the plaster of Paris, water was added, a kind of mortar made, and the top of each column was plastered over having the man’s head enclosed in a mass of mortar which, had there been enough plaster, would have set, at once destroying life. Unfortunately the plaster was insufficient in quantity, no more was to be had; the mud did not set, and many of the men were alive and crying for water at the end of two days. The Governor on hearing this sent the executioner to put them out of their misery, which he did by opening the top of each column and cutting their throats. As my wife and I came home from a ride we passed the columns freshly plastered; this was in 1877.

Just prior to my first arrival in Persia the “Hissam-u-Sultaneh,” another uncle of the king, had burnt a priest to death for a horrible crime and murder; the priest was chained to a stake, and the matting from the mosques piled on him to a great height, the pile of mats was lighted and burnt freely, but when the mats were consumed the priest was found groaning, but still alive. The executioner went to the Hissam-u-Sultaneh, who ordered him to obtain more mats, pour naphtha on them, and apply a light, which after some hours he did. A terrible death!

On another occasion a young slave who had shot his master’s son by accident was “crucified,”[17] lived fifty hours, and was then put out of his misery. There was no cross—the men are nailed to walls. I was passing one day the outer wall of the “ark” or citadel of Shiraz; I saw a small crowd, I rode up, the crowd made way, and I found a poor fellow, very pale, standing with his face to the wall; a horse-nail had been driven through each foot, also through each of his hands, which were extended on the wall, and three more nails had been driven through his chest into the wall; he groaned occasionally, and I was informed he had smoked and drunk water offered him by compassionate bystanders.

He lived thirty hours, and the executioner took him down then, and put him out of his misery. His crime was that he had stolen a jewelled horse necklet of the Zil-es-Sultan’s; this in the eyes of Persians is high treason.

The sentence, however, was not the prince’s, then a mere boy, but his minister’s. He is now averse to blood, although he is given to making severe examples to avoid continual executions. With some Governors there are executions weekly, and this in such a sparsely populated country as Persia, is even more sad than the occasional cruel examples made by Khosro Mirza, the late Hissam-u-Sultaneh, and the Zil-es-Sultan, to avoid continual bloodshed, which I believe to be the true reason of their occasional great severity; and this policy is successful, for in their governments crimes of violence are unusual, their severity being deterrent; and the total of their executions very much smaller than that of the so-called merciful Governors. In justice to these three Governors this must be allowed, that the cruelty is much more apparent than real.