“What do you mean by refusing to give the European quarters? Vacate post-house at once, and proceed instantly to Abadeh for orders.”
Now had this Persian been as sharp as he was ill-mannered and dog-in-the-mangery he would have known that he would never have received such a message; but he gave credit to it, supposing that I had complained by wire, and he cleared out with many apologies. Poor devil! He started for Abadeh, seventy miles off, the nearest halting-place twenty-eight miles, just as day was fading and my caravan marching in to the post-house. The weather was very bitter, and this rather Persian way of getting the man out did not weigh on my conscience. I told the Governor of Fars, and he said simply, “Serve him right, he ought to have given you at least one room.”
Ispahan was surrounded by gardens and full of ruins. Here a street, of which a fourth of the houses were inhabited; there a ruined quarter; then miles of bazaar full of buyers and sellers, who shouted “Bero, Armeni!” (“Be off, Armenian!”) with occasional gaps of ruins. Then a huge maidān, or public square, the largest in Persia, one end thronged by hucksters, at the other the Musjid-i-Shah, or royal mosque; more ruins, then a magnificent and lofty bazaar, also in ruins, through which we rode; then the Char Bagh, a royal garden, with its tile-domed college and golden ball, and with its rows of magnificent planes, and its dry and ruined tanks and watercourses; then a fine and level bridge which crossed the river Zendarūd, which just at that time was full of rushing muddy water, passing furiously under the many arches.
At length we arrived in Julfa, the Armenian village on the further side of the Ispahan river, after seventeen days’ marching from Kermanshah, and two occupied by our halt in Gougas. We had found the grass and young wheat high there, and plenty of lambs to be bought; but Ispahan was not so forward, the trees being only just in leaf, and weather cold.
CHAPTER XII.
JULFA.
Illness and death of horse—Groom takes sanctuary—Sharpness of Armenians—Julfa houses—Kūrsis—Priests—Arachnoort—Monastery—Nunnery—Call to prayer—Girls’ school—Ancient language of the Scriptures—Ignorance of priests—Liquor traffic—Sunday market—Loafers—Turkeys—Church Missionary school—Armenian schools.
I was given quarters in Ispahan that did not possess a stable, and I had to hire one a good way off. This cost me one of my horses, for my careless groom, instead of giving the animals “teleet,” the mixture of grass and straw, simply filled their mangers with clover, and, leaving them to their fate, went to enjoy himself in the town. The natural result followed: I was hurriedly summoned to the stable, and found my Myedesht horse “Armchair” (I had given him this name on account of the ease of his paces) flinging his head about against the ground, from which he was unable to rise; he had acute inflammation of the bowels, as I found from an examination after death.
At that time, knowing little or nothing of the diseases of horses, I was compelled to send for a native farrier, and let him work his wicked will on the poor beast. The treatment he employed was to put on a quantity of heavy clothing, canter the animal furiously about, and deprive him of water; in about four hours he died. I have since had horses who suffered in a similar way, notably in one case where I was offered ten tomans for a horse which cost sixty. I bled him largely and saved his life, but his hoofs were never any good afterwards, becoming hollow, and he was chronically foundered. I had better have dealt. Bleeding, in my experience, is the only remedy; of course, the violent cantering is the very worst possible thing.
During the excitement, my groom, a Persian of Kermanshah, slipped away, and I found that he had taken sanctuary in the Armenian Cathedral. I, however, as he was a Mussulman, got him with some difficulty away, gave him the thrashing he deserved, and kicked him out.