“‘My master has lost a pipe-head, O prophet, and I—I, the innocent Hadji—may be suspected; the hearts of all the servants are tightened (idiom) by this sad fear.’
“‘Be not afraid, son Hadji; if you look at the top left-hand corner of your master’s tank, you will find it.’
“I swooned away with delight, sahib, and am only waiting your permission to make a search.”
I smiled, and of course there they found my pipe-head. As I knew theft was not intended, I said nothing, but I did not reward the vision-seeing finder.
One day in Kermanshah I was surprised to meet a procession in the streets. First came all the lutis or buffoons, the public musicians singing and dancing, then a crowd of drunken roughs, then a few soldiers with fixed bayonets, then the “farrash-bashi,” or “principal tent-pitcher”—in reality the Imād-u-dowlet’s head-man—on horseback; then the executioner, clad in red, and his aides; then two wretched women, their heads shaved and rubbed with curds, their faces bare and blackened, dressed in men’s clothes, and both seated on one donkey, led by a negro, with their faces to the tail (their feet had been beaten to a pulp); then a crowd of some two thousand men, women, and children. On inquiry I learnt that these women were attendants at a public bath, and had betrayed the wife of a tradesman into the hands of an admirer, who had secreted himself in the bath with their connivance. The woman complained, the man fled, and justice (Persian justice) was being done on the two unfortunate women. The Imād-u-dowlet had severely bastinadoed them and then gave them over to the executioner to be paraded through the town and then banished—after they had been handed over to the tender mercies of all the ruffians of the city. The first part of the sentence had been carried out, and they had been led thus through the bazaars from dawn till afternoon; the executioner taking, as is customary, a small tax from each trader according to his degree. Such is the Persian custom from old times. I learnt afterwards that the mob defiled these women, and one died of her injuries; the other poor wretch either took poison or was given it by her offended relatives the next morning.
Such is Persian justice.
CHAPTER XI.
I GO TO ISPAHAN.
Deficiency of furniture—Novel screws—Pseudo-masonry—Fate of the Imād-u-dowlet’s son—House-building—Kerind—New horse—Mule-buying—Start for Ispahan—Kanaats—Curious accident—Fish in kanaats—Loss of a dog—Pigeons—Pigeon-towers—Alarm of robbers—Put up in a mosque—Armenian village—Armenian villagers—Travellers’ law—Tax-man at Dehbeed—Ispahan—The bridge—Julfa.