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

by C. J. Wills

The place was alive with snipe. I went to the left, or more open side, and was over my ankles in a moment. My enthusiastic friend was in to his knees. We blazed away, and were getting on well, when my friend lost his ramrod. Persia being a very dry place, all wood shrinks, and it had probably slipped out. There was nothing for it but to take the cleaning-rod from the case and use that; the difficulty was how to carry it, as we were firing frequently, and he didn’t want to unscrew it. My friend had no belt, and so thrust it down his back, between his shirt and waistcoat. We began again, and were soon in the thick of them. We had now got to the widest part of the swamp; I was separated from my guest by deep water-holes, and was looking at him when with a shout he suddenly disappeared, and it was evident he was in a water-hole. I rushed out and ran round the head of the swamp to his assistance; the servants were out of call. When I got there he was nearly done for; he had fallen head foremost into a hole, and could not get out, as the reeds gave way when he pulled them, and there was only a bottom round the edge of soft mud. The loading-rod had somehow got down his back, and he could not get hold of it, while it crippled him; and he had a very white face indeed when I helped him out by holding my gun out to him. He had lost his gun, but my groom dived and brought it out.

I wished him to canter home at once, but he did not like to be seen in the pickle he was in—mud, green mud, from head to foot; and he insisted on waiting till his man brought a change. This took an hour, and the day, though bright, was cold and windy. So there he stood in his wet clothes, his teeth chattering, trying to keep himself warm by jumping; but his struggles in the water-hole had so weakened him that he could hardly stand. Of course he had a severe go of intermittent fever, which laid him up for a fortnight. In after excursions he was content to leave me the right or dangerous side, which I from habit was able to safely travel in.

Pierson and I visited a magnificent palace which was in course of construction by the Imād-u-dowlet. Some idea of its size may be given when I say that there was stabling for two hundred horses. In Persia, when a man passes fifty, he begins to be seized with a mania for building, but he takes care not to finish the works he undertakes, being thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of his own death in case of the completion of the edifice.

Some ten years after I had left Kermanshah, Imādieh—so the place was called—was presented (I dare say much against the grain) to the king. At that time the Imād-u-dowlet had become the actual freeholder of the whole of the Kermanshah valley, and his wealth was immense in money and flocks and herds. But the inevitable evil day arrived. The Shah recalled him to Teheran, and the squeezing process commenced; large sums of money were wrung from him, and the royal treasury correspondingly enriched. It is always so in Persia; a man is allowed to quietly enrich himself, but when he has achieved immense wealth he becomes a mark for oppression in his turn. To use the common expression of the country, “He is ripe; he must be squeezed.”

THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. (NAKSH-I-RŪSTAM.)

Just by Imādieh, at the base of a high cliff, is an excavated arched chamber, at the back of which, carved from the living rock, is an equestrian statue armed with a lance; it is of colossal size, and some fourteen feet high (?). Both figure and horse are much damaged by time and the hand of man, and it is difficult to make much out of the detail. There are two other figures, one at either extremity of the back of the arch.

Over the entrance of the arched chamber, which forms a delightfully cool place to have tea in, are carved in the face of the cliff itself two figures of Fame (?) (or winged female figures); to the best of my remembrance they have trumpets. These are more in the Roman style, or may be even modern (pseudo-classic), for the early Kings of Persia employed foreign artificers to decorate their palaces; instance being seen in Ispahan, particularly in the large oil-paintings, which are certainly not by Oriental artists. Of the great antiquity of the figures within the arch there can be no doubt, and they are more than alto-relievo, for they are only affixed to the rock by a small strip, and are much under-cut. They have been frequently scientifically described, and appear to be the work of the Sassanian kings.

There are several similar though less pretentious figures: one at Naksh-i-Rūstam,[14] near Persepolis; another, called by the people “Ferhad and Shireen,” near Shiraz; but these latter are simply rough carvings in relief.

A stone platform has been built in front of the archway, and below this flows a great volume of spring-water that comes from a natural tunnel beneath the statues. A large hauz or tank is kept constantly full by this, and when we were there it was ornamented by a flock of some sixty tame geese, the only ones I had seen, save those in Teheran, and the recent sight of them had something to do with my hesitation when in search of sport on the occasion which I have noted.