Our Little Persian Cousin

by E. Cutler Shedd

At last they went down a steep slope into a valley. Here was a spring of cold water. Around it were willow trees, and near by melon and cucumber patches, and an orchard of mulberries and apricots. They unloaded the donkeys and for a shahi bought a melon from the man who was in charge. They then untied the handkerchief and sat down on the ground to eat. After the meal they stretched themselves at full length under the trees, and were lulled to sleep by the deep "boom, boom" of the bells that swung from the necks of some camels who had just passed with their heavy loads.

In an hour Dada waked Karim and they started again. Soon the road grew wider. All of the streams were now spanned by bridges, while on every side were vineyards and orchards. They met many people, and many droves of donkeys, and at last entered a long avenue bordered by willow trees. At its end was the gate of the city.

In front of the gate the road crossed a ditch forty feet wide and in some places half full of water covered with a thick green scum, where the frogs were singing cheerily. Behind this was a wall, half in ruins, with broken down towers here and there. Inside the city gate the street was about fifteen feet wide, and one could not see anything on either side except high walls of dried earth, with here and there a gate or a narrow alley. There was a narrow sidewalk, but people did not seem to care much whether they used it or walked in the middle of the street.

In a few minutes they had passed more donkeys than there were in the whole of their village. Some carried baskets of grapes, some looked like moving piles of yellow straw, and a few were loaded with dripping lumps of ice carried in black bags. Some were dragging poles whose ends were for ever getting under one's feet. One had a dead sheep strapped to its back. These were small, mouse coloured, half starved donkeys, like the one on which Karim had been riding, without any ambition or pride, but jogging along because their drivers would prod them if they stopped. They passed a few larger donkeys as well, with handsome saddles, ridden by well dressed men in long brown robes and white turbans, who were mullahs, or by women who were so bundled up that one could not see even their eyes.

In a corner was a group of beggars sitting in the dirt, dressed in rags. Some of them were holding up the stumps of their arms, or pointing to their blinded eyes.

"Give me money for food!" was their cry. "May God bless your sons! For the Prophet's sake, give me a shahi!"

It was a pitiful sight, yet very few paid any attention to them.

At a turn of the crooked street Karim and Dada came upon three shops. The goods of one were spread upon a platform next to the sidewalk, and the shopkeeper sat upon his heels behind within reach of everything. Dead sheep were hung up by their legs before another shop, and a dead ox was lying upon the sidewalk upon its own hide, spread flat on the ground. At the third a blacksmith was shoeing a horse, and everyone had to dodge by with an eye upon the horse's heels.

Fifteen or twenty people were gathered around a man with long, uncombed hair and fierce, wild eyes who carried a small ax in his hand, and was waving it about and talking loudly in a singsong tone, while a boy was going around with a carved cocoanut shell, asking for shahis. Dada said that he was a "darvish" or holy man who was telling stories about the saints.