Julfa, April 30.
You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully expected to have left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable delays have occurred. My caravan and servants started this morning, and I leave myself in a few hours.
Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive name of Screw. He is fairly well-bred, big-headed, big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay, fine-coated, slightly flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in several places from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an undoubted yabu, and has carried loads for many a day. He has a long stride, shies badly, walks very fast, canters easily, and at present shows no tendency to tumble down.[38]
I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the definite dividing line between the desert and the oasis of cultivation and irrigation, watching the daily development of the various crops and the brief life of the wild flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kajū, and returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the bright waters of the Zainderud crimsoning in the setting sun.
For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altogether free from clouds and showers, there have been some gorgeous sunsets, and magnificent colouring of the depth and richness which people call tropical, has blazed extravagantly; and from the violet desert to the indigo storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhrūd mountains, from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple crags in dark relief against a sky of flame, all things have been new.
Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the baptism of a young Moslem in a semi-private fashion, who shortly afterwards renounced Christianity, and the other that of a respectable Mohammedan merchant in Isfahan, who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved that if he were not permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one way he would in another. He was passed over, to my great regret, if he be sincere, but I suppose the Rubric leaves no choice.[39]
I have written little about my prospective journey because there has been a prolonged uncertainty about it, and even now I cannot give any definite account of the project, except that the route lies through an altogether mountainous region, in that part of the province of Luristan known in Persia colloquially as the "Bakhtiari country," from being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, chiefly nomads. The pros and cons as to my going have been innumerable, and the two people in Persia who know the earlier part of the route say that the character of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel among them. On the other hand, I have the consent and help of the highest authorities, Persian and English, and shall not go too far, but shall return to Isfahan in case things should turn out as is feared. The exploration of a previously unexplored region will be in itself interesting, but whether there will be sufficient of the human interests, which I chiefly care for, I doubt; in that case the journey will be dull.
At all events I shall probably have to return here in two months,[40] but such a journey for myself and two servants in such a region requires extensive preparations, and I have brought all my own travelling "dodges" into requisition, with a selection of those of other people.
It is considered desirable to carry stores from Isfahan for forty days, except flour and rice, which can be obtained a week's march from here. At the British Legation I was kindly supplied with many tins of preserved meat, and milk, and jam, and besides these I am only taking a quantity of Edwards' Desiccated Soup, portable and excellent, twelve pounds of tea, and ten pounds of candles. The great thing in planning is to think of what one can do without. Two small bottles of saccharin supply the place of forty pounds of sugar.
Two yekdans contain my stores, cooking and table utensils and personal luggage, a waterproof bag my bedding, and a divided packing-case, now empty, goes for the flour and rice. Everything in the yekdans is put up in bags made of the coarse cotton of the country. The tents and tent-poles, which have been socketed for easier transport on crooked mountain paths, and a camp-bed made from a Kashmiri pattern in Tihran, are all packed in covers made from the gunny bags in which sugar is imported, and so are double sets of large and small iron tent-pegs.