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

by C. J. Wills

A painful daub, framed, and meant for the Entombment, is gravely exhibited as a Raphael, and once it was intimated to me that a good offer would not be refused. It is even copied on the outer wall near the bishops’ tombs.

But the bouquet of the whole collection is the great picture of the Day of Judgment. All the persons of the Trinity are depicted, and the heavenly hosts are shown with the delights of heaven. These are, however, in the upper part of the picture, and of small size; but in the lower part, that representing the pangs of hell, the artist has given free vent to his taste for horrors.

New ideas for bogey might be derived from his very vivid treatment of the devils. George Cruikshank, the devil-drawer par excellence, is nowhere with the Eastern artist. These devils are life-size, and so are the nude male and female figures suffering torments. The mouth of hell is represented as a yawning beast, vomiting fire and smoke, into the jaws of which the nude wicked are tumbling. As a popular preacher is reported to have said, “The devil feeds you on fire, and if you don’t take it properly you get touched up with the spoon.” This is actually represented.

The position of the picture is well chosen, being over the door. All the congregation must see it on going out; and if they feel certain of getting their deserts, it must make them uncomfortable indeed.

Julfa was once a very large place, having twenty-four well-populated parishes, and the Armenians were extremely prosperous. A large village, with valuable lands, and an energetic trading population, the agricultural portion of the community being market gardeners, within a couple of miles of the then capital Ispahan; it was a very different place from the Julfa of to-day, which contains merely a population of old men, women, and girls, the better description of male having all emigrated. Ispahan, too, is now merely a vast ruin, with small local trade and few wants. Shah Abbas the Great brought away the entire population of Julfa on the Araxes, which now marks the Russo-Persian frontier on the road between Tabriz and Tiflis, and is now merely a village of a few hovels; and, giving them lands in the immediate and best part of the environs of Ispahan, in fact its present site, called it Julfa. The far-seeing monarch sought to introduce the thrifty trading habits of the Armenian among his own subjects, and to give an impulse to the commerce of his country, and the Julfa artisans in those days were not to be despised; travelling east and west, they brought many arts from Europe, India, and China. The weaving of shawls at Kerman and Yezd is still an important trade, and only the connoisseur can detect the difference between the Cashmere shawl and its imitation, that of Kerman: probably the European would prefer the Kermani one. Silk weaving was doubtless brought from China to Yezd. Coarse imitations of the Chinese porcelain are to this day common in Persia, but the art is dead. Enamelling, which the Armenians practised, and even patronised—for in the Persian collection in the South Kensington Museum may be seen a large enamelled tray, quite a unique specimen, which bears an inscription saying it was made for ⸺, prince of the Armenians—is a dying art.

As jewellers these people attain great proficiency. Any really difficult work was always brought by the native gold or silver smiths of Ispahan to be finished by an Armenian of Julfa, one Setrak. The trade of watchmaker, or rather watchmender, is almost monopolised in Persia by Armenians; and my former dispenser was a very good drug-compounder, having received his instruction when a convict in India, serving his time after committing a burglary with violence.

The cemetery lies on a bare and stony plain, under a lofty hill called the Kūh Sufi. When Ispahan was the capital this plain was all under cultivation by irrigation, the remains of the canals being yet visible: here lie the inhabitants of Julfa, and also a few Europeans. Each ancient grave is marked by a huge block of stone of a cube form, the upper face being, however, generally larger than the under one. Some are nine feet long, a yard high, and two feet wide. Many of the stones have Dutch, Latin, and French inscriptions. One of these latter is the well-known one of the watchmaker to Shah Abbas the Great. “Cy gît Rodolfe” is the inscription it bears; and here lies Rodolphe, who was a great favourite of the king, Abbas the Great. He was a youth of great beauty, and the king was much attached to him. Having killed a Mahommedan after being struck by the latter, he was offered the usual choice of Islam or death. He preferred the latter; and though the king is said to have given him ample time for reflection, and to have promised him rank and wealth if he would apostatise, preferring death to dishonour, he was executed, and interred beneath this stone. It is very difficult to get at the exact details of this story, as there are many versions. It is told first by Chardin or Tavernier. Just at the entrance to the burial-ground, by crossing a ditch, over a bridge composed of old tombstones, one comes to the Kaweh-Khana of the Armenians, a mud building of two stories. Here in wet weather the funerals halt, and here on their return the mourners stay to partake of wine and arrack. All through Persia the habit of utilising tombstones for building bridges occurs, and is not confined to the Armenians. Ispahan, which is surrounded by huge cemeteries and intersected by many watercourses, presents many instances of these tombstone bridges.

There is little to see in the nunnery. The revenues which have been, and are, plundered by the priests and those in authority, are very small. Very few nuns are now encouraged to take the veil. The scandals have been many, and instances of cruel punishments have not been wanting. One nun was expelled, but is now leading a reformed life in the Church Missionary Society’s establishment, being employed as a teacher of sewing. The nunnery has a large school, and the girls are taught to sew and embroider, also to knit socks. Long portions of Scripture are committed to memory, and the ancient Armenian Bible is read, but not translated. Of course, as the ancient and modern languages are quite different, the power of reading what one does not understand is rather useless.

But the schools of Julfa have received a great accession in the establishment of those of the Church Missionary Society, which are now (1883) conducted by Dr. Hoernle and Mr. Johannes, the former being a medical missionary (i. e. a medical man in priest’s orders), and the latter a young Armenian gentleman, who was educated in England, and at one time a master in the Nassick School in India. All that is taught in a middle-class school in England is taught in the Church Missionary Society school in Julfa; and the upper form proceed to the first four books of Euclid, Algebra, Latin, and French, in which, unlike the smattering of a middle-class school at home, a thorough grounding is given. Dr. Hoernle, too, sees all comers gratuitously, and administers to their ailments. He has a large apartment as a consulting-room, with convenient waiting-rooms for either sex. Another room has been set apart as a hospital, where the more serious cases are treated surgically; and the Church Missionary Society certainly has not spared money in benefiting the inhabitants of Julfa.

Some orphan-boys are fed, clothed, and educated with the others, and gradually it is hoped to make the school self-supporting; but I fear that the Julfa people will hardly pay for what they are used to get gratuitously. A girls’ school has also been commenced by Mrs. Bruce, and sufficient funds having been collected to obtain a schoolmistress, in November 1882 one went out. The Rev. Dr. Bruce, who commenced the work in Julfa, is engaged in translating the Bible into Persian, and portions of it have been completed and published.