[84] I beg leave to remark that the word ‘Tilawat,’ which the translator has rendered ‘read,’ is an honourable signification of that act, almost exclusively applied to the perusing or reciting the Koran. The making use, therefore, of this term or expression shows the degree of respect and estimation in which the Shah holds the New Testament.—Note by Sir Gore Ouseley.
CHAPTER XIII
IN PERSIA AND TURKEY—TABREEZ TO TOKAT AND THE TOMB
On the evening of September 2, 1812, Henry Martyn left Tabreez for Constantinople, on what he describes as ‘my long journey of thirteen hundred miles.’ The route marked out for him by Sir Gore Ouseley, who gave him letters to the Turkish governors of Erivan, Kars, and Erzroom, and to the British Minister at Constantinople, as well as to the Armenian Patriarch and Bishop Nestus at Etchmiatzin, was the old Roman road into Central Asia. Professor W.M. Ramsay describes it as clearly marked by Nature,[85] and still one of the most important trade routes. It was the safest and speediest, as well as the least forbidding. ‘Sir Gore, wishing me not to travel in the same unprotected way I had done, procured from the Prince a mehmandar for me, together with an order for the use of chappar horses all the way to Erivan.’ Thence he was passed on to Kars similarly attended, and thence to Erzroom. He took with him ‘near three hundred tomans in money,’ or about 130l. On the eve of his departure he wrote: ‘The delightful thought of being brought to the borders of Europe, without sustaining any injury, contributed more than anything else, I believe, to restore my health and spirits.’
But travelling in Persia and Asiatic Turkey, even at the best and for the strongest, is necessarily a work of hardship. The chappar, or post-stations, occur at a distance of from twenty to twenty-five miles, measured by the farsakh, the old parasang in Greek phrase, of four miles each. What Mrs. Bishop has recently described has always been true: ‘The custom is to ride through all the hours of daylight, whenever horses are to be got, doing from sixty to ninety miles a day.’ Henry Martyn rode his own horses, and his party of two Armenian servants (a groom and Turkish interpreter), with the mehmandar, had the post-horses. Out of the cities he had to trust, for rest and accommodation, to the post-stations, which at the best were enclosures of mud walls on three sides, deep in manure, with stabling on two sides, and two dark rooms at the entrance for the servants. Occasionally an erection (balakhana) above the gateway is available for the master, but how seldom Martyn was lodged in any way better than the animals, will be seen from his Journal. He had travelled in this way, in the heats of two summers, from Bushire to Shiraz, and from Shiraz to Tabreez, the whole extent of the Persian plateau from south to north. He had nearly died at Tabreez.
Yet now, with his Persian New Testament ready for the press and his longing for Lydia, he again set forth, sustained by ‘the delightful thought.’ With intensest interest we follow him in every step of his march north-west through the Persian province of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Eastern Asia Minor, the unconquerable spirit sustaining the feeble body for forty-five days, as Chrysostom’s was fed in his southern journey to the same place of departure almost within sight of the Euxine Sea.
1812, September 2.—At sunset we left the western gate of Tabreez behind us. The horses proved to be sorry animals. It was midnight before we arrived at Sangla, a village in the middle of the plain of Tabreez. There they procured me a place in the Zabit’s house. I slept till after sunrise of the 3rd, and did not choose to proceed at such an hour; so I passed most of the day in my room. At three in the afternoon proceeded towards Sofian. My health being again restored, through infinite and unbounded mercy, I was able to look round the creation with calm delight. The plain of Tabreez, towards the west and south-west, stretches away to an immense distance, and is bounded in these directions by mountains so remote as to appear, from their soft blue, to blend with the skies. The baggage having been sent on before, I ambled on with my mehmandar, looking all around me, and especially towards the distant hills, with gratitude and joy. Oh! it is necessary to have been confined to a bed of sickness to know the delight of moving freely through the works of God, with the senses left at liberty to enjoy their proper object. My attendant not being very conversant with Persian, we rode silently along; for my part, I could not have enjoyed any companion so much as I did my own feelings. At sunset we reached Sofian, a village with gardens, at the north-west end of the plain, which is usually the first stage from Tabreez. The Zabit was in his corn-field, under a little tent, inspecting his labourers, who were cutting the straw fine, so as to be fit to be eaten by cattle; this was done by drawing over it a cylinder, armed with blades of a triangular form, placed in different planes, so that their vertices should coincide in the cylinder.
The Zabit paid me no attention, but sent a man to show me a place to sleep in, who took me to one with only three walls. I demanded another with four, and was accordingly conducted to a weaver’s, where, notwithstanding the mosquitoes and other vermin, I passed the night comfortably enough. On my offering money, the mehmandar interfered, and said that if it were known that I had given money he should be ruined, and added: ‘They, indeed, dare not take it;’ but this I did not find to be the case.
September 4.—At sunrise mounted my horse, and proceeded north-west, through a pass in the mountains, towards Murun. By the way I sat down by the brook, and there ate my bread and raisins, and drank of the crystal stream; but either the coldness of this unusual breakfast, or the riding after it, did not at all agree with me. The heat oppressed me much, and the road seemed intolerably tedious. At last we got out from among the mountains, and saw the village of Murun, in a fine valley on the right. It was about eleven o’clock when we reached it. As the mehmandar could not immediately find a place to put me in, we had a complete view of this village. They stared at my European dress, but no disrespect was shown. I was deposited at last with a Khan, who was seated in a place with three walls. Not at all disposed to pass the day in company, as well as exposed, I asked for another room, on which I was shown to the stable, where there was a little place partitioned off, but so as to admit a view of the horses. The smell of the stable, though not in general disagreeable to me, was so strong that I was quite unwell, and strangely dispirited and melancholy. Immediately after dinner I fell fast asleep and slept four hours, after which I rose and ordered them to prepare for the next journey. The horses being changed here, it was some time before they were brought, but, by exerting myself, we moved off by midnight. It was a most mild and delightful night, and the pure air, after the smell of the stable, was quite reviving. For once, also, I travelled all the way without being sleepy; and beguiled the hours of the way by thinking of the 14th Psalm, especially the connection of the last three verses with the preceding.