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

by C. J. Wills

So much for discipline.

Pierson, who played the concertina, cornet, and piano, suggested to me as a pastime that he should teach me the cornet. To this I assented; and the first thing was to learn to blow. This is not so easy as it seems, and as the noises I produced were not pleasant, Pierson only allowed my practising in the house when he was not at home. The flat roof at sunset was my place to practise, and here I blew to my heart’s content. I only blew one note of various loudness, and to my astonishment found I had a rival, whose lungs were stronger than mine; he, too, blew one note in rapid succession. I blew—he blew—but his were decidedly the stronger sounds, and he blew longer. I kept up my blowing, but soon came down, feeling my inferiority.

The next night I was alone, my rival absent. I blew my one note in rapid succession till I could blow no more. Suddenly I heard cries, and sounds of beating, and shouts of men and women—a row evidently. I blew on.

Next morning the British Agent, Syud Houssein (these native agents are appointed by the English Legation in lieu of consuls throughout Persia at the great cities; they are really news-writers, but act as consuls, and look after English interests), came to Pierson, with a long face, saying that a complaint had been made to him by the Governor, of the conduct of the sahibs in his (Pierson’s) house.

It appears that when the bath is full of men, and the time allotted to them expires, the bath is cleared, and the bath-man, on its being empty, blows on a buffalo horn for a few minutes a succession of notes. This is the signal to the expectant women, and so on, when the time for the ladies expires, for the men. The bath-man was my unknown rival.

The day before, the bath being full of women, I proceeded to our roof to indulge in cornet practice. My efforts, alas! were so like the solos of the bath-man, that the Hamadan men of our quarter rushed to, and into the sacred precincts of, the bath. The women who were inside were furious at the unexpected intrusion, and called on their male relatives for protection. A fight ensued, which only ceased on both parties uniting to give the innocent bath-man a sound thrashing; which having thoroughly accomplished to their satisfaction, and broken his buffalo horn, they retired, hinc illæ lachrymæ. The matter was soon explained, and a small present consoled the beaten bath-man, and I gave up the cornet.

Syud Houssein was a dignified little man, with the dark complexion and scanty black beard that is supposed to characterise the true descendants of the prophet. I fancy myself that while his duties consisted merely in looking after the few Persians who were British subjects in Hamadan, and writing a monthly news-letter to the Legation at Teheran, he was quite happy; but that the actual presence of the unbeliever in the city itself was not very palatable to him. However, we ever found him kind and courteous, though he avoided breaking bread with us, save in secret and when there was no escape.

There are a great many Armenians in Hamadan, and there are villages in the immediate neighbourhood of the place inhabited only by them. They have mostly adopted the Persian dress and language, Armenian being in disuse as a language among those living in Hamadan, and there being no distinctive mark by which one can tell them in either indoor or outdoor dress; unlike the Armenian of Teheran, who adopts the dress of those of his nation who are Russian subjects, or the Julfa (Ispahan) Armenians, who affect the fez to simulate the Turkish subject, or at times pretend an ignorance of Persian, and disguise themselves as sahibs. A ludicrous instance of this occurred once when I was coming into Shiraz chupparee. In the distance I saw under some trees, by a running brook, where generally travellers from Shiraz bid their friends farewell, what appeared to me an officer in the full-dress uniform of the English (?) army. I was intrigued, and as the trees were off the road I cantered up to the group.

I found one of our Armenian signallers in an engineer officer’s full-dress scarlet mess jacket, jack-boots, a full-dress uniform cap, lambswool drawers (sewn up in front) to simulate buckskins, a huge cavalry sabre, and three revolvers. The fact was that he had assumed what he supposed to be the correct get-up of an English officer of rank, in order that if any highway robbers met him (the country was very disturbed at the time) on his seven days’ march to Abadeh, they might refrain from attacking him. He arrived safely. Unfortunately these assumptions of the appearance of the European by Armenians does not add to the respect which the real sahib receives.

Some of the tales these people tell to increase their own importance in the eyes of their oppressors, the Persians, are ingenious and amusing. When I was living in Julfa, an Armenian village close to Ispahan, which had been for divers reasons made the headquarters of the Persian Telegraph Department in that place, I was called upon by a great personage, the farmer of the taxes, a Persian, one Rahim Khan.