Passing through Pul-i-Wargun, a large and much wooded village on the Zainderud, there a very powerful stream, affording abundant water power, scarcely used, we crossed a bridge 450 feet long by twelve feet broad, of eighteen brick arches resting on stone piers, and found the camps pitched on some ploughed land by a stream, and afternoon tea ready for the friends who had come to give us what Persians call "a throw on the road." I examined my equipments, found that nothing essential was lacking, initiated my servants into their evening duties, especially that of tightening tent ropes and driving tent pegs well in, and enjoyed a social evening in the adjacent camp.
The next day's journey, made under an unclouded sky, was mainly along the Zainderud, from which all the channels and rills which nourish the vegetation far and near are taken. A fine, strong, full river it is there and at Isfahan in spring, so prolific in good works that one regrets that it should be lost sixty miles east of Isfahan in the Gas-Khana, an unwholesome marsh, the whole of its waters disappearing in the Kavir. Many large villages with imposing pigeon-towers lie along this part of its course, surrounded with apricot and walnut orchards, wheat and poppy fields, every village an oasis, and every oasis a paradise, as seen in the first flush of spring. On a slope of gravel is the Bagh-i-Washi, with the remains of an immense enclosure, where the renowned Shah Abbas is said to have had a menagerie. Were it not for the beautiful fringe of fertility on both margins of the Zainderud the country would be a complete waste. The opium poppy is in bloom now. The use of opium in Persia and its exportation are always increasing, and as it is a very profitable crop, both to the cultivators and to the Government, it is to some extent superseding wheat.
Leaving the greenery we turned into a desert of gravel, crossed some low hills, and in the late afternoon came down upon the irrigated lands which surround the large and prosperous village of Riz, the handsome and lofty pigeon-towers of which give it quite a fine appearance from a distance.
These pigeon-towers are numerous, both near Isfahan and in the villages along the Zainderud, and are everywhere far more imposing than the houses of the people. Since the great famine, which made a complete end of pigeon-keeping for the time, the industry has never assumed its former proportions, and near Julfa many of the towers are falling into ruin.
The Riz towers, however, are in good repair. They are all built in the same way, varying only in size and height, from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, and from twenty-five to eighty feet from base to summit. They are "round towers," narrowing towards the top. They are built of sun-dried bricks of local origin, costing about two krans or 16d. a thousand, and are decorated with rings of yellowish plaster, with coarse arabesques in red ochre upon them. For a door there is an opening half-way up, plastered over like the rest of the wall.
Two walls, cutting each other across at right angles, divide the interior. I am describing from a ruined tower which was easy of ingress. The sides of these walls, and the whole of the inner surface of the tower, are occupied by pigeon cells, the open ends of which are about twelve inches square. According to its size a pigeon-tower may contain from 2000 to 7000, or even 8000, pairs of pigeons. These birds are gray-blue in colour.
A pigeon-tower is a nuisance to the neighbourhood, for its occupants, being totally unprovided for by their proprietor, live upon their neighbours' fields. In former days it must have been a grand sight when they returned to their tower after the day's depredations. "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" probably referred to a similar arrangement in Palestine.
The object of the towers is the preservation and collection of "pigeon guano," which is highly prized for the raising of early melons. The door is opened once a year for the collection of this valuable manure. A large pigeon-tower used to bring its owner from £60 to £75 per annum, but a cessation of the great demand for early melons in the neighbourhood of Isfahan has prevented the re-stocking of the towers since the famine.
Our experiences of Riz were not pleasant. One of the party during a short absence from his tent was robbed of a very valuable scientific instrument. After that there was the shuffling sound of a multitude outside the tent in which Miss Bruce and I were resting, and women concealed from head to foot in blue and white checked sheets, revealing but one eye, kept lifting the tent curtain, and when that was laced, applying the one eye to the spaces between the lace-holes, whispering and tittering all the time. Hot though it was, their persevering curiosity prevented any ventilation, and the steady gaze of single eyes here, there, and everywhere was most exasperating. It was impossible to use the dressing tent, for crowds of boys assembled, and rows of open mouths and staring eyes appeared between the fly and the ground. Vainly Miss Bruce, who speaks Persian well and courteously, told the women that this intrusion on our privacy when we were very tired was both rude and unkind. "We're only women," they said, "we shouldn't mind it, we've never seen so many Europeans before." Sunset ended the nuisance, for then the whole crowd, having fasted since sunrise, hurried home for food.
The great fast of the month of Ramazan began before we left Julfa. Moslems are not at their best while it lasts. They are apt to be crabbed and irritable; and everything that can be postponed is put off "till after Ramazan."