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

by C. J. Wills

I explained that these Syuds were really personal friends of the missionary as well as my own.

“All disaffected people are friends of missionaries, as you very well know.”

I again asked him if they would be spared or not?

“I can tell you nothing more,” he said; “one has cursed Baab, he will not die. As for the others the king will decide; for me, I wish personally to kill no one; you have known me long enough to know I dislike blood. I am not the Hissam-u-Sultaneh” (the king’s uncle, a very severe Governor). He changed the subject and declined to return to it. I cannot tell if the two elder brothers had been offered their lives or not. I went back to Julfa hoping that they would all be spared. The town was in great excitement. Next morning at dawn their throats were cut in the prison, and their bodies flung into the square. The prince had not dared to execute them publicly for fear of a tumult.

Their houses were looted, and part of their estates; the Imām-i-Juma’s share of the plunder was large, and he never repaid the eighteen thousand tomans. Such was Persia in 1880. The youngest brother, who had cursed Baab, was spared, and afterwards reinstated in part of his family property.

CHAPTER XIV.
JULFA AND ISPAHAN.

Julfa cathedral—The campanile—The monk—Gez—Kishmish wine—The bishop—The church—Its decorations—The day of judgment—The cemetery—Establishment of the Armenian captives in Julfa—Lost arts—Armenian artificers—Graves—Story of Rodolphe—Coffee-house—Tombstone bridges—Nunnery—Schools—Medical missionary—Church Missionary establishment—The Lazarist Fathers.

The sights of Julfa are very few—the cathedral, or Egglesiah Wang, and the schools of the Church Missionary Society, the cemetery, and the nunnery, being the only objects of interest.

The Egglesiah Wang, or “big church,” is a part of the monastery of Julfa. At the entrance, which is by a stuccoed doorway surmounted by a Latin cross in a mud wall, is a sort of stone drinking trough, something like our old English fonts; it is embedded in the wall. The door is of great thickness, so that in disturbed times the monks would be safe against attacks of Mussulmans; and for the same reason the entrance is narrow and winding. On emerging from this short passage, one comes to the outer court, in one corner of which are the graves of a few Europeans who have either died in Julfa or been brought here for burial. These are noted in Sir F. Goldsmid’s ‘Telegraph and Travel,’ and some of the Latin inscriptions are translated into English verse by him. A large campanile of imposing appearance and peculiar (qy. Russian) style, stands in the centre; it is new and well made, and consists of a brick tower standing on stone columns, and containing three bells. The rest of the courtyard is occupied by logs of wood from the monastery garden brought here to season previous to being sold to the Julfa carpenters. Armenians are very unromantic. The monastery church has a door opening into this courtyard, but entrance is usually effected through a passage, in which are the tombs of former bishops; these are mostly mere blocks of stone let into the ground, but the two last bishops have more ambitious mural monuments; the last, Thaddeus, having a black marble tablet, probably cut in India, with an inscription (in English), setting forth his virtues; over all is his photograph. There is an inner entrance in this passage of railings, and the walls have some small trap-doors through which the monks in stricter days used to confess the laity—at least the females.