I don’t know if the last straw was the loss of our cook, or if we had come to the conclusion that definitely Persia was not the place for a lady, but we decided to go home on two years’ leave, to which I was now entitled; and as we felt that it was very probable we should never return, we determined to sell off our entire kit. We accordingly drew out a catalogue of our worldly goods in Persia, and distributed it among the telegraph officials. By a couple of months everything was disposed of but the rubbish. This was sold by auction, and produced a keen competition among the Armenians.
I was enabled to get rid of our phaeton without loss, for a Persian of wealth, the “Mūllavi,” gave me within forty pounds of what I gave for it and the horses; and the severe work we had had out of trap and horses for two years was well worth the difference.
Captain W⸺, who was expecting his sisters out, viâ Russia, took all our road kit and saddlery, and my wife’s mare and the “takhtrowan,” all to be given over at Resht, on the Caspian, so we were quite free to start.
OUR JOURNEY HOME.
March 28th, 1881.—Ispahan Julfa.—At last I hear that a muleteer is found who will go direct to Resht, by way of Kūm, Hajeeb, and Kasvin, avoiding the capital. I go to the house of a Baghdad merchant in Julfa, and find the muleteer, who is being regaled with pipes; he is the head-man of the neighbouring village of Se Deh (three villages), and the proprietor of a hundred mules. I am told that his son-in-law will go with the mules, and am introduced to a young fellow some six feet high and thickly built, who is a Tabrizi, and speaks good Turkish and bad Persian. He is wearing the large heavy sheepskin cap of Tabriz, with the wool long. The merchant informs me that he thinks the hire should be sixty kerans per mule. This is said in English, and he then turns to the elder man and says:
“You will, of course, give this sahib mules at forty kerans per mule?”
The old man replies: “I have, after much persuasion, got Jaffer Kūli, my son-in-law, to agree to eighty.”
The young man, with many vows, raises his hands to heaven and demands eighty-five. “Why do you throw words into air, Jaffer Kūli? as I am this merchant’s friend let us say eighty, and the sahib will have had mules for nothing. Of course we get a present?”
I here get up, saying, “These fellows are quite mad; let us talk to men.”
They in turn rise and say, “Our last word is seventy-five.”