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

by C. J. Wills

Shiraz is, however, as I said, embowered in gardens and cultivation. On the right, the Bagh-i-No, or New Garden; on the left, the Bagh-i-Jahn-i-ma, the Garden of my Soul, full of cypresses, which give, from their peculiar deep green, a coolness to the scene very rare in Persia; little oases of garden can be seen in the well-cultivated and smiling plain beyond the whitish city, and within the walls are the palaces of the Governor with their gardens full of trees, and numerous large private houses whose gardens are ornamented by huge planes.

The green swamps of Karabagh, to which Shiraz probably owes its unhealthiness, bound the view; but over the mist that hangs above them tower the dark purple mountains that bound the Shiraz valley.

A steep descent over a broad but good road brings one to the wide space between the two royal gardens. Here on the Thursday night the youth and bloods of Shiraz meet to race and show off their handsome horses and exhibit their gayest attire. Pistols are discharged, and light sticks, flung when at full gallop against the ground, are caught after having rebounded high in air; below the gardens, in the cemetery at one side of this Rotten Row of Shiraz, and only separated from it by a low wall, promenade the Shiraz ladies in search of fun, or it may be intrigue. Veiled as they are, all are outwardly decorous; but the laughter, the songs, and the frequent glimpses of very pretty faces and soft brown eyes of a lustrousness only seen in the East, and the tendency that the gayer of the cavaliers have to saunter or show off their horses along the cemetery side, and their frequent purchases of nuts and melon-seeds from the peripatetic dealers with which the place is thronged, seem to point that the groups of laughing veiled ladies are the attraction. Certain it is that visits to this cemetery are generally made on the sly by the ladies of Shiraz.

One soon finds out that one has reached another country. Instead of the thrift of the Ispahani and his mortified look—his dress made purely for comfort and economy, and his donkey or ambling pony—the Shirazi smiling, joking, singing, clad if he can by any means attain it in gayest-coloured silk, the turban frequently discarded, even among the aged, for the jaunty hat of finest cloth or lambskin, the well-dyed and kept moustaches, and the long love-locks, with the hat of the smallest size and latest mode cocked with a knowing air among the beaux; the universal pistols at the holsters, the well-appointed and gay horse-trappings, and the well-bred, well-fed, well-groomed horses, all with some breed in them, like their riders. These men are a different race from the more northern Persians; polite, at times debonnair, they seem to enjoy life, and are in no way the down-trodden race that the Ispahani seems; with them it is a word and a blow. There is little fanaticism and some religion. Greyhounds, hawks, and even half-bred hunting dogs of sorts abound, and all are clean and well-looking.

As one approaches the walls, which are much ruined and surrounded by a dry ditch, the garden of Dilgoosha (heart’s-ease), the property of the Kawam, the hereditary calamter or mayor of the town, and another huge Government garden, the Bagh-i-Takht (or throne garden), with numerous private ones stretching in every direction, varying in size from two to one hundred and fifty acres, come into sight.

The dry bed of the river—it is only running say for two months in early spring, and is at times for a day or two a raging torrent—is now crossed by a steep bridge, and I canter off to our superintendent’s (Captain St. J⸺) quarters by a road skirting the town ditch, thus avoiding a march through the crowded bazaars. He has kindly ridden out to meet me.

Here Shiraz wine is given me for the first time, and I am sadly disappointed; it is intensely bitter, and not very clear (when I first came to Shiraz it was only bottled for sending up country); it is very strong and very genuine however. After some years I got used to it, and cared for no other native wine than what Moore calls “the red weepings of the Shiraz vine,” which rather looks as if he pronounced it Shī-raz, whereas the real sound is Shēē-rarz.

Here, too, we get delicious early lamb, for there are in all the places south of Shiraz two lambing seasons in the year, consequently young lamb all the year round; what we call lamb the Persian would call mutton. The extravagant Shirazi will not eat mutton when he can get lamb, and they only kill them before they are weaned; in fact, the early ones are, when ready for the spit, only some six to eight pounds in weight, and consequently very young.

Weights differ all over Persia. In Ispahan everything is sold by the Shah maund of thirteen pounds and three-quarters, here in Shiraz is the Tabriz maund[19] of seven pounds.