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

by C. J. Wills

Next morning when I went to see him no one was there, but the servant’s clothes lay on the ground. He may have died in the night and the servant may have decamped with his clothes, arms, and horse; but what did he do with the body? The river would not have carried it away, and he could not have buried it without tools; he may have carried it off on the horse, or the master may not have died, but ridden away; but why the clothes? who knows? But a Persian servant does not throw away a suit of clothes for nothing.

We returned to the town without any casualties among the staff or their servants.

During the very hot weather it was my habit while in Shiraz to stay in the garden of “Resht-i-Behesht” (glory of heaven), coming or sending into town to inquire if my services were required and to attend to my dispensary. In this garden there was a building with three large windowless rooms, but having many doors and air-holes; these, when carpeted and the doors covered with “chicks,” or fly blinds, were very comfortable indeed. I slept on the roof, which was free from mosquitoes, and lounged about the garden, which was very large, sitting and smoking beside the streams, which were numerous, or by the side of the gurgling “shitūr gūlū,” or “camel’s throat.”

The garden was all shade, and, in addition to the building, had two large brick platforms ten yards by ten, for day sleeping—one being shady in the morning, the other in the afternoon.

The shitūr gūlū was appropriately named, for it was a long channel constructed to cause a gurgling noise—camels have a habit of “gurgling.” The stream irrigating the garden, which made a refreshing sound of running waters, was widened, and at the edge was a hole some five feet deep and two in diameter; at its bottom it branched off into a tunnel of some four yards at a right angle; it then ascended at right angles, opening into the bottom of a channel a little lower in level than the first one; this it supplied, and the air drawn in at the one hole and ascending at the other with the rush of water made a gurgling noise. The gardener’s boy used for a present of a few coppers to allow himself to be sucked down the one hole, scramble along the earthen tunnel and appear at the further opening. The tame bear kept by the gardener nearly lost his life by jumping into the water (to avoid my dogs who pursued him), and getting sucked down by the “shitūr gūlū.”

One day I was sitting with a young telegraph clerk of the cable department, Mr. P⸺, recently arrived from England, and on a pleasure trip (on leave) to Shiraz. As he knew nobody, I put him up. This youth had a very high idea of the dignity of the Englishman, and looked on the Persians as “niggers.” While we were sitting in chairs on one of the brick platforms reading the newly-arrived Times, the prince, his Royal Highness Zil-es-Sultan, entered the garden with two attendants only; he had on a blue satin coat with gold and coloured embroidery, a pink tie, and white duck trousers.

He was very polite, and of course I rose to receive him, but Mr. P⸺ remained in his chair reading his Times, and declined to take any notice. The prince, astonished at being treated in so cavalier a fashion, asked who he was. I told him.

“Ah,” he said, “he is very young,” and made no further remark to him.

He then began to question me respecting the capabilities of my bull-terriers who bayed at him from their chain pegs, asking me if they would tackle the gardener’s bear. I suggested that the bear was a tame one; but his Royal Highness was not to be denied, and ordered my servants to loose the dogs, and the weeping gardener was told to produce his bear. This was a smallish, pale-green coloured animal about the size of a big St. Bernard dog, but heavier.

Here Mr. P⸺, being interested on the appearance of the bear, rose.