Kermanshah is decidedly the cheapest place in all cheap Persia. Bread was selling at seven pounds for twopence; mutton, seven pounds for fourteenpence, or twopence a pound; and other things in proportion. It costs here threepence a day to keep a horse (1867).
The day after our arrival Pierson went to visit the Imād-u-dowlet, uncle (?) of the king, and Governor of the province. He is a man of very large fortune, and is liked as a Governor, being stern, but generally just, his wealth putting him above any wish to oppress the little people. We rode to the maidān, or public square, then in under an archway and up a steep incline, which conducted us to the interior of the citadel, in which the Imād lived.
As we entered we noticed a man nailed by the ear to a wooden telegraph post.
The Imād-u-dowlet received Pierson very kindly, and laughed and joked a great deal. His eldest son, the “Serrum-u-dowlet,” a man of five-and-thirty, was present; he spoke a little French and was very friendly and complimentary.
The wealth of the Governor was shown in his coffee-cup holders, of gold enamelled, and decorated with rows of diamonds; his water-pipes (kalians) all of gold; and his own special one, the bottle of which was of gold so thickly encrusted with emeralds that it appeared like green glass; all the stones were pale, and consequently of comparatively little value separately.
The Governor in appearance was a man of five-and-forty, with a heavy black beard and thick moustache; but he was really sixty-five: this youthful look was due to hair-dye.
He told us that the man who was nailed to the telegraph-post was a villager who had been detected red-handed in breaking the telegraph-wire, and that he was to remain thirty-six hours, when he would be imprisoned. “It is a capital warning to other offenders,” said the Imād. At this time the line was frequently damaged, several miles at a time often being pulled down by malicious travellers and villagers, particularly on the frontier near Kermanshah. Pierson, however, begged that the man might be removed at sunset, on the ground that he would cease to act as a warning at night. This was reluctantly agreed to.
The latest gossip of Teheran was retailed, and a few vague remarks were made as to the politics of Europe. I was asked to feel the Imād’s pulse, and did not fail to try both wrists, as I found if I did not do so I was supposed not to know my business. This was hardly charlatanry, but merely a deference to the prejudices of the place. After the usual tea and pipes had been gone through we retired.
The man was still nailed to the post, surrounded by a gaping crowd of villagers. He amused himself by cursing Pierson as “reis-i-seem” (“master of the wire”) as we passed him. The Imād, however, unpinned him at sunset, as he had promised.
The next morning the “Serrum-u-dowlet” called to return Pierson’s visit to his father, and asked us to dine with him that evening, entreating us to come in time for tea in the afternoon. The whole forenoon was occupied in receiving visits from the personages of Kermanshah.