From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

The Persian officers were dressed in European military costume with the Persian hat, and in their general bearing no way differed from European gentlemen. Each was, however, attended by a calyán bearer, who, on a nod from his master, lighted the tobacco, and urging his horse forward, handed its long tube to him, and following close in rear, awaited another nod to receive it back. Our friends smoked nearly the whole way, and very obligingly offered us a whiff. The “weed” is the finest-flavoured in the world, but the fashion of inhaling its fumes so constantly cannot but prove injurious to the lungs. As we rode along exchanging commonplace remarks, I observed that the plain was an uncultivated waste, dotted towards the east with numerous Turkman towers.

On approaching the city, both our processions coalesced, and formed a very gay cavalcade of about three hundred horsemen. The costumes of the Persian cavalry were very varied, and generally handsome, and the types of physiognomy were not much less so, whilst the horses of all were the most divergent in blood and bone. Altogether, the cortége formed a crowd very interesting to look at and study, but very difficult to describe; and I will, therefore, not attempt to do so, lest I confound Kurd with Karai, and Dághistani with Daingháni, and Cajar with them all.

We entered the city at the Darwazae Khayábáni Páyín, or the “Gate of the Lower Avenue,” and proceeded up the avenue to the railings of the court of the holy shrine of Imám Razá. Here we turned off to the right, through some narrow lanes and covered passages, into a cemetery completely choked with tombstones, and emitting a very disagreeable effluvium, dank, mouldy, and strongly sepulchral. Beyond this, turning to the left, we regained the avenue on the farther side of the shrine, where it is called Khayábáni Bálá, or “Upper Avenue,” and presently alighted at an ornamental garden, where tents had been pitched for our accommodation.

The avenue is a very fine street, broad and straight from east to west. Down its centre flows a stream brought from the Dorúd river, and on its sides are rows of tall, shady, plane-trees. In fine weather it must be an interesting and agreeable promenade, to the foreigner especially, if only to study the variety of the Asiatic races to be met in its bazárs; but as we traversed its best portion at a season of continued rain, its fancied delights pale before the recollection of its black mud and offensive odours—too real to be easily forgotten. The shops and saraes on either side the avenue presented a busy scene, though nowhere crowded, nor did the people evince any curiosity or commotion at our appearance amongst them. I was surprised to find many of the people quite fair and ruddy, and hardly to be distinguished from Europeans in this respect. They were, I was told, merchants from Bukhára. Some veritable Turkmans, too, were pointed out to us at one of the saraes as we passed, and a couple of them at the entrance smiled with an expression of good-natured curiosity, as they found themselves made the objects of our attention. They were light-ruddy complexioned, and large-limbed men, with thick short beards, and a distinct trace of the Tátár physiognomy in their high cheek-bones and small widely-parted eyes. The expression of face was agreeable than otherwise, and betrayed none of the well-known ferocity of their nature. There are nearly a hundred of these men detained in this city as hostages for the good behaviour of their tribe. They are allowed full liberty within certain quarters of the town, but are not allowed to pass beyond the gates. They are said to abuse their liberty pretty freely by conveying intelligence to their tribe, of caravans and travellers arriving and departing from the city.

We halted a week at Mashhad, and on the day following our arrival and that preceding our departure, paid ceremonial visits to the Prince-Governor, Sultán Murád Mirzá, uncle of the Sháh, from whom he has received the title of Hisámussaltanat, or “sword of the state,” for his services at the siege of Herat in 1856. His palace is situated at some little distance from the garden allotted to us, and on each occasion we were conducted to the august presence with a minute observance of all the tedium of Persian etiquette. At the hour appointed for our departure, a couple of tall Turkman horses, richly caparisoned, were sent over from the Prince’s stables for Sir F. Goldsmid and General Pollock. These, with our own horses, and a long file of servants, were ranged outside the gate of our garden; and as we mounted, the latter fell into two lines, Indian-file, one on each side of our path. They were about fifteen men on each side, all dressed in their own best, or, as I suspect was the case with most of them, in borrowed clothes. At all events, they looked very decent people, and were hardly to be recognised as our grooms, tent-pitchers, and valets, so complete and sudden was their metamorphosis. With these men leading the way, and ourselves in full-dress uniform, our procession cut a very respectable figure. We proceeded leisurely, guided by the measured paces of our conductors, who each and all, with hands folded in front and heads slightly bowed, looked as solemn and lugubrious as sextons at a funeral.

Arrived at the palace gate, we dismounted, and were ushered into an outer court paved with flat red bricks and enclosed by high blank walls. Here we drew india-rubber goloshes over our boots, and advanced through an inner court to the reception room, in which our host was seated. At the threshold our goloshes were removed and taken charge of by our servants, and stepping in we each in turn, without doffing our hats, saluted the Prince-Governor in military style. He was seated, hat-on-head, in a chair at the farther end of the room, and, without rising, merely motioned us to the chairs ranged on either side his own at right angles. The usual inquiries as to our health were dispensed with, I presume, because the court chamberlain had called on us the previous afternoon for hál púrsí, that is, to ask after our state; and instead thereof, the Prince, so soon as we were seated, asked the name and rank of each of us, and then started the conversation with a string of inquiries regarding our journey up, and maintained it for some time on various topics, proving himself a remarkably well-informed man. The room of our reception was richly carpeted with splendid Birjand carpets and magnificent floorcloths of purple satin. During the visit a number of servants—one for each visitor and the host—marched in successively with loads of sherbet, coffee, tea, and ices, and between each tour another set of servants marched in with a calyán for each of us. The cups were of very superior china, and the spoons of solid gold. The finjans of coffee were richly jewelled with pearls and emeralds and rubies, set in a delicate filagree of gold. The calyans, too, were mostly costly, the jars being of Sevres china, decorated with French pictures, whilst the bowls were of solid gold, studded with brilliants and pearls, and the mouthpieces of gold studded with turquoise. No two of them were alike, and yet all were alike costly, enamelled, and jewelled. The Prince is reputed to be one of the most wealthy men in the country, and one of the most stingy. He has done nothing for the starving poor during the famine, and the suffering and loss has been something frightful. He himself reckoned the loss of population in Khorassan alone at 120,000 souls, and the British agent here informed us, that of 9000 houses in the city, not one half were tenanted. The picture he drew of the suffering here during the winter was awful. Hundreds died in their cellars and huts, and in the lanes and passages, from sheer cold and want of food, and remained unburied for weeks.

In this respect, however, the Hisámussaltanat is no worse than the rest of those in authority in this country; for, from the Sháh downwards, it is said not one has moved a finger to alleviate the general suffering. The consequence is, the country has lost a million and a half at least of its population, and cannot regain its former prosperity for a full generation to come.

We paid a third visit to the Prince-Governor, and spent the afternoon with him in the garden adjoining his palace. We were here received under a marquee, erected over a carpeted platform, and the same course of ceremonies and refreshments were observed as on the other occasions. In this garden we saw a Turkman tent of the kind called khargáh. It is of circular shape, about eighteen feet in diameter, and dome roofed, and is built up of lattice-work frames of wood, fixed together by leather thongs, and is protected from the weather by a covering of thick felts. The whole takes to pieces, and forms a single camel-load.

On this occasion the Prince spoke at length regarding our experiences in Sistan, and the conduct of the Hash-mat-ul-mulk, and alluded in very plain terms to the rapid encroachment of Russia upon the countries of Central Asia, and the inevitable consequences of her aggressive policy in that direction. Khiva he considered as doomed since the base of Russian operations had been changed from the side of the Aral to that of the Caspian. The Jáfar Bai section of Yamút Turkmans had already been conciliated, and they would help to win over the others. Further, he laid stress on the sympathy and support the Russians would receive from the captive Persians in Khiva and Bukhára, whose numbers are not far short of fifty thousand.

On the last occasion of our visiting the Hisámussaltanat, we were all photographed in a group, with himself in the centre, by a Persian who had learned the art in Constantinople. He might have learned it better at Tehran, though, considering the locality, his work was creditable. We were obligingly presented with a copy each, as a memorial of our visit, which I may say is remembered as the most agreeable portion of our long journey. We had been favoured with a distinguished reception, were accommodated in a delightful garden swarming with nightingales, whose clear strong notes resounded on all sides night and day; and enjoyed as much of the society of the Prince as circumstances admitted of. Our treatment here, notwithstanding the irksome forms of Persian etiquette, and the pride that prevented a return visit, was, after our experiences in Gháyn and Sistan, very gratifying; whilst the assimilation of the terms of social intercourse to those of Europe—so different from the absurd prejudices and caste obligations we had been accustomed to in India—was alone a subject for congratulation. But as every good has its counteracting evil, so it was with us in this last case; and we more than once had cause to wish that our Persian servants, in place of their unbounded freedom in the matter of dressing and eating, were bound by the same rules as our Indian servitors. We might then have been spared the mortification of seeing our shirts and trousers airing on their persons, and our meats and drinks disappearing ere they had been well tasted.