It will thus be seen that sensuality is the prevalent vice of the female sex in Persia. An English-speaking Persian at Bushire told me that, with the exception of the women of the wandering Eeliaut tribes, there were few chaste wives in Persia. Although the nominal punishment for adultery is death, the law, as it stands at present, is little else than a dead letter, and, as in some more civilized countries, husbands who are fond of intrigue, do not scruple to allow their wives a similar liberty. Not half an hour's walk from the Tomb of Hafiz, at the summit of the mountain, is a deep well, so deep that no one has ever yet succeeded in sounding it. The origin of the chasm is unknown; some say it is an extinct volcano. But the smallest child in Shiráz knows the use to which it has been put from time immemorial. It is the grave of adulterous women—the Well of Death.
An execution took place about fifteen years ago, but there have been none since. Proved guilty of infidelity, the wretched woman, dressed in a long white gown, was placed on a donkey, her face to the tail, with shaven head and bared face. In front of the cortége marched the executioner, musicians, dancers, and abandoned women of the town. Arrived at the summit of the mountain, the victim, half dead with fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity. Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, the Well has no terrors for the gay, intrigue-loving ladies of Shiráz. They make a jest of it, and their husbands jokingly threaten them with it. Times are changed indeed in Persia!
I left Shiráz with sincere regret. Apart from the interest attached to the place, I have never received a kinder or more hospitable welcome than from the little band of Englishmen who watch over the safety, and work the wires, of the Indo-European telegraph. They are under a dozen in number. With cheap horseflesh, capital shooting, the latest books and papers from India, a good billiard-room and lawn-tennis ground, time never hangs very heavily. Living is absurdly cheap. A bachelor can do well on £6 a month, including servants. He has, of course, no house-rent to pay.
A number of square stone towers about thirty feet high, loopholed and crenelated, are visible from the caravan-track between Shiráz and Khaneh Zinián, where we rested the first night. The towers are apparently of great antiquity, and must formerly have served for purposes of defence. We lunched at the foot of one on a breezy upland, with pink and white heather growing freely around, and a brawling, tumbling mountain stream at our feet. It was like a bit of Scotland or North Wales. The tower was in a state of decay and roofless, but a wandering tribe of ragged Eeliauts had taken up their quarters inside, and watched us suspiciously through the grey smoke of a damp, spluttering peat fire. They are a queer race, these Eeliauts, [B] and have little or nothing in common with the other natives. The sight of a well-filled lunch-basket and flasks of wine (which our kind hosts had insisted on our taking) would have brought ordinary gipsies out like flies round a honey-pot, if recollections of Epsom or Henley go for anything. Not so the Eeliauts, who, stranger still, never even begged for a sheis—a self-control I rewarded by presenting the chief, a swarthy handsome fellow, in picturesque rags of bright colour, with a couple of keráns. But he never even thanked me!
It seemed, next morning, as if we had jumped, in a night, from early spring into midsummer. Although at daybreak the ice was thick on a pool outside the caravanserai, the sun by midday was so strong, and the heat so excessive, that we could scarcely get the mules along. The road lies through splendid scenery. Passing Dashti Arjin, or "The Plain of Wild Almonds," a kind of plateau to which the ascent is steep and difficult, one might have been in Switzerland or the Tyrol. Undulating, densely wooded hills, with a background of steep limestone cliffs, their sharp peaks, just tipped with snow, standing out crisp and clear against the cloudless sky, formed a fitting frame to the lovely picture before us; the pretty village, trees blossoming on all sides, fresh green pastures overgrown in places by masses of fern and wild flowers, and the white foaming waterfall dashing down the side of the mountain, to lose itself in the blue waters of a huge lake just visible in the plains below. The neighbourhood of the latter teems with game of all kinds—leopard, gazelle, and wild boar, partridge, duck, snipe, and quail, the latter in thousands.
A stiff climb of four hours over the Kotal Perizun brought us to the caravanserai of Meyun Kotal. Over this pass, ten miles in length, there is no path; one must find one's way as best one can through the huge rocks and boulders. Some of the latter were two to three feet in height. How the mules managed will ever be a mystery to me. We dismounted, leaving, by the chalvadar's request, our animals to look after themselves. The summit of the mountain is under two thousand feet. We reached it at four o'clock, and saw, to our relief, our resting-place for the night only three or four hundred feet below us. But it took nearly an hour to do even this short distance. The passage of the Kotal Perizun with a large caravan must be terrible work.
[Illustration: THE CARAVANSERAI, MEYUN KOTAL]
The caravanserai was crowded. Two large caravans had arrived that morning, and a third was hourly expected from Bushire. There was barely standing-room in the courtyard, which was crowded with wild-looking men, armed to the teeth, gaily caparisoned mules, and bales of merchandise.
The caravanserai at Meyun Kotal is one of the finest in Persia. It was built by Shah Abbas, and is entirely of stone and marble. Surrounded by walls of enormous thickness, the building is in the shape of a square. Around the latter are seventy or eighty deep arches for the use of travellers. At the back of each is a little doorway, about three feet by three, leading into a dark, windowless stone chamber, unfurnished, smoke-blackened, and dirty, but dry and weather-proof. Any one may occupy these. Should the beggar arrive first, the prince is left out in the cold, and vice versâ. Everybody, however, is satisfied as a rule, for there is nearly as much accommodation for guests as in a large London or Paris hotel. Behind the sleeping-rooms is stabling for five or six hundred horses, and, in the centre of the courtyard, a huge marble tank of pure running water for drinking and washing purposes. This, and fodder for the horses, is all that there was to be got in the way of refreshment. But Gerôme, with considerable forethought, had purchased bread, a fowl, and some eggs on the road, and, our room swept out and candles lit, we were soon sitting down to a comfortable meal, with a hissing samovar, the property of the caravanserai-keeper, between us.
One need sleep soundly to sleep well in a caravanserai. At sunset the mules, with loud clashing of bells, are driven into the yard from pasture, and tethered till one or two in the morning, when a start is made, and sleep is out of the question. In the interim, singing, talking, story-telling, occasionally quarrelling and fighting, go on all round the yard till nearly midnight. Tired out with the stiff climb, I fell into a delicious slumber, notwithstanding the noise, about nine o'clock, to be awakened shortly after by a soft, cold substance falling heavily, with a splash, upon my face. Striking a match, I discovered a large bat which the smoke from our fire (there was no chimney) had evidently detached from the rafters.