From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

23d June.—Kirmánshah to Mydasht, twenty-three miles. Owing to the promptitude of the Wakiluddaula in meeting my wishes and expediting my journey (for I had told him my object was to reach Basrah in time for the first July steamer to Bombay), we were enabled to set out from the city at ten o’clock last night. I had given the order to load and start at six P.M., but the mulemen rebelled, led away their mules, and caused much trouble. Shukrullah Beg, however, advanced them some money, and by alternate threats and conciliations, persuaded them to return; and just then an escort of four horsemen arriving from the governor with letters for the commandant of the troops at Zuháb, I left three of them in charge of the baggage, with directions to bring it on so soon as loaded, and with the other as guide, set out from the city without further delay, calculating that my departure would decide the mulemen on their course, and hasten their movements.

After clearing the city and the low ridges to its west, we halted awhile for the rest of our party, who presently came up and joined us. The change from the close air and foul smells of the city to the pure fresh breezes on the open plain was most agreeable, and quickly dispelled the headaches, nausea, and feverish malaise most of us complained of in the filthy pent-up courts of our temporary residence. If the choice were mine, I should never enter these filthy Persian towns and villages, but camp under the shade of the trees in the gardens and vineyards surrounding all such habitations. In this time of famine and pestilence, one never knows what sickness may have occurred in the empty houses we took up our quarters in, whilst their state of neglect and impure atmosphere only suggested very disturbing fancies, and speculations we had no means of correcting.

We reached Mydasht Sarae at 4.30 A.M. The morning air was so cold that we were glad of a fire to warm ourselves, and the midday sun was so hot that we took off our coats as superfluous. At daylight, the temperature was as low as 40° Fah., and in the middle of the day it rose to 136° Fah. in the sun’s rays, and 88° Fah. in the shelter of the sarae.

At half-way on our march, descending a long winding gully that opens on to a plain covered with some crops, we met a very large caravan of pilgrims and merchants on their way to Kirmánshah from Karbalá and Baghdad. There were nearly two thousand mules, camels, and asses, and fully as many men and women. We heard the sounds of their approach some minutes before we met. The escort with me and Shukrullah Beg were at first disconcerted by the sounds, and hastily collected our baggagers and party into a close compact column, and moved cautiously down the slope. Presently, on turning a rock, we were suddenly challenged by a party of four or five horsemen.[4] “It’s all right,” said Shukrullah Beg, “let us go on in the order we are now in. The caravan is a large one, and we may get confused with those in it.” The warning was quite necessary, for the caravan was the largest I have ever seen, and we were fully half an hour passing each other. Amongst the crowd were many mule-litters bearing veiled ladies. I counted one string of thirty-five out of several others.

I rode my dromedary on this march, and was, in the dim light of dawn, taken for a pilgrim by the people of the caravan, and received many a “Salám alaik Hájí!” from those nearest to me. I was so fatigued by the excitement and wakefulness of the past twenty-four hours, that soon after arrival at the sarae, I fell asleep in front of the fire lighted to warm our numbed hands and feet, and was for a time dead to the assaults of the vermin that swarmed all over the place. Their voracity, however, soon roused me from my slumbers, and I found myself violently attacked by the hosts of bugs, lice, fleas, spiders, and cockchafers, on whose domain I had intruded. They punished me so severely that I was glad to beat a retreat, and take refuge in my own tent, which, the baggage having come up, I had pitched at once. The delights of a tub and a clean suit can be better imagined than described.

Our next stage was twenty-eight miles to Hárúnabad. We set out at ten P.M., and marched all night in a south-westerly direction by a very good road over three successive ranges of hill, where the path is very stony. The rocks are limestone and magnesian limestone, and are thickly covered on their slopes with dwarf oak-trees. Except a small hamlet and a tiny stream at the first hill pass, called Kotal Cház Zabbú, we passed no village nor water in all the route. We saw, however, some ilyát camps, and small patches of corn cultivation in the nooks of the hills.

At five A.M. we arrived at Hárúnabad, a dilapidated village occupied by only twenty or thirty families. The rest, we were told, had gone off for the six summer months to their aylác or summer quarters in the hills. The kishlác, or winter quarters on the plain, are now mostly abandoned. The people here are all Kurds. We found the sarae here (there are no post-houses on this road west of Kirmánshah) so dirty, and occupied by such dreadfully unwholesome-looking beggars, that we gladly availed ourselves of the offer of the chief man in the place to alight at the residence of the governor, who is at present absent on a tour in the district.

The house stands on the slope of a laminated limestone ridge, and overlooks a stream of beautiful clear water, full of fish and tortoises. It is apparently a new building, and is tastefully decorated with ornamental plaster. We found the rooms in the upper story quite empty, but very clean and sweet. The servant in charge of the house spread some felt carpets on the floor; and I stretched me down, and went to sleep till our baggage arrived, and the noise of the men woke me.

We hear disquieting reports regarding the safety of the road ahead. The country about Pul Zuháb is said to be in possession of the Khaleva tribe, who are now in open rebellion against the authority of the Sháh, by whom they were, to the number of a thousand families, transported a couple of years ago from the vicinity of Baghdad to their present settlements on this frontier. Their cause of dissatisfaction is the attempt to exact revenue from them. They are described as nomads of very unsettled habits, and predatory at all times. They possess valuable mares like the Baloch, and mounted on them, they now harass the country from Pul Zuháb to Hájí Cara. They are committed to this course of rebellion on account of a rupture with the Persian Government.

It appears that the governor of Karriud, Malik Nyáz Khán, went amongst their camps to collect the revenue; in a dispute at some tents, he was set upon and killed. The Sháh’s troops were consequently brought out to operate against the tribe. They have captured some principal men and their families, and have dispersed the rest of the camps into the hills.