Below the castle is the great encampment of the chiefs, brown tents and white bell tents, among which the tall white pavilion of the Ilkhani towers conspicuously. The Ilkhani and Ilbegi called on me, and as they sat outside my tent it was odd to look back two years to the time when they were fighting each other, and barely two weeks to the discovery of the plot of the dark-browed Ilkhani to murder his nephew. The Ilkhani's face had a very uncomfortable expression. Intrigues against him at Tihran and nearer home, the rumoured enmity of the Prime Minister, the turbulence of some of the tribes, the growing power of the adherents of Isfandyar Khan, and his own baffled plot to destroy him must make things unpleasant. Several of the small Khans who have been to see me expect fighting here before the end of the summer. The Ilkhani had previously availed himself of the resources of my medicine chest, and with so much benefit that I was obliged to grant a request which deprived me of a whole bottle of "tabloids."
In the evening I visited the ladies who are in the castle leading the usual dull life of the haram, high above the bustle which centres round the Ilkhani's pavilion, with its crowds of tribesmen, mares and foals feeding, tethered saddle horses neighing, cows being milked, horsemen galloping here and there, firing at a mark, asses bearing wood and flour from Ardal being unloaded—a bustle masculine solely.
Isfandyar Khan, with whose look of capacity I am more and more impressed, and Lutf received us and led us to the great pavilion, which is decorated very handsomely throughout with red and blue appliqué arabesques, and much resembles an Indian durbar tent. A brown felt carpet occupied the centre. The Ilkhani, who rose and shook hands, sat on one side and the Ilbegi on the other, and sons, Khans, and attendants to the number of 200, I daresay, stood around. We made some fine speeches, rendered finer, doubtless, by Mirza; repeated an offer to send a doctor to itinerate in the country for some months in 1891, took the inevitable tea, and while the escorts were being arranged for I went to the fort.
It is the fortress of the Haft Lang, one great division of the Bakhtiari Lurs, which supplies the ruling dynasty. The building is a parallelogram, flanked by four round towers, with large casemates and a keep on its southern side. It has two courtyards, surrounded by stables and barracks, but there is no water within the gates, and earthquakes and neglect have reduced much of it to a semi-ruinous condition. Over the gateway and along the front is a handsome suite of well-arranged balconied rooms, richly decorated in Persian style, the front and doors of the large reception-room being of fretwork filled in with amber and pale blue glass, and the roof and walls are covered with small mirrors set so as to resemble facets, with medallion pictures of beauties and of the chase let in at intervals. The effect of the mirrors is striking, and even beautiful. There were very handsome rugs on the floor, and divans covered with Kashan velvet; but rugs, divans, and squabs were heaped to the depth of some inches with rose petals which were being prepared for rose-water, and the principal wife rose out of a perfect bed of them.
These ladies have no conversation, and relapse into apathy after asking a few personal questions. Again they said they wished to see the Agha, of whose height and prowess many rumours had reached them, but when I suggested that they might see him from the roof or balcony they said they were afraid. Again they said they had such dull lives, and regretted my departure, as they thought they might come and see my tent. I felt sorry for them, sorrier than I can say, as I realised more fully the unspeakable degradation and dulness of their lives. A perfect rabble of dirty women and children filled the passages and staircase.
On one of my last evenings I rode, attended only by Mirza, to the village of Dastgird to see two women whose husband desired medicines for them. This village is piled upon the hillside at the north end of the valley and a traveller can be seen afar off. I had never visited any of the camps so slenderly escorted, and when I saw the roofs covered with men and numbers more running to the stream with long guns slung behind their backs and big knives in their girdles, I was much afraid that they might be rude in the absence of a European man, and that I should get into trouble. At the stream the ketchuda, whose wives were ill, and several of the principal inhabitants met me. They salaamed, touched their hearts and brows, two held my stirrups, others walked alongside, and an ever-increasing escort took me up the steep rude alley of the village to the low arch by which the headman's courtyard—all rocks, holes, and heaps—is entered.
Dismounting was a difficulty. Several men got hold of Screw, one made a step of his back, another of his knee, one grasped my foot, two got hold of my arms, all shouting and disputing as to how to proceed, but somehow I was hauled off, and lifted by strong arms up into the atrium, the floor of which was covered with their woven rugs, across which they led me to an improvised place of honour, a karsi covered with a red blanket. A brass samovar was steaming hospitably on the floor, surrounded by tea-glasses, trays, and sugar. The chief paid me the usual Persian compliment, "Your presence purifies the house;" men crowded in, shrouded women peeped through doorways; they served me on bended knees with tea à la Russe, and though they shouted very loud, and often all together, they made me very cordially welcome. They send their flocks with some of their people to warmer regions for the winter, but the chief and many families remain, though the snow is from seven to nine feet deep, according to their marks on a post.
I rode to the camp where the wives were, with the Khan and a number of men on foot and on horseback, a messenger having been sent in advance. In the village the great sheep-dogs, as usual, showed extreme hostility, and one, madder than the rest, a powerful savage, attacked me, fixing his teeth in my stirrup guard, and hanging on. The Khan drew a revolver and shot him through the back, killing him at once, and threatened to beat the owner. Screw was quite undisturbed by the incident.
The power of the ketchuda or headman of a group of families is not absolute even in this small area. His duties are to arrange the annual migrations, punish small crimes summarily, to report larger crimes to the Khan, to collect the tribute, conjointly with the Khan, and to carry out his orders among the families of his group. Private oppression appears to be much practised among the ketchudas, and under the feeble rule of Imam Kuli Khan to be seldom exposed. The ketchuda's office, originally elective, has a great tendency to become hereditary, but at any moment the Ilkhani may declare it elective in a special case.
Though the offices of Ilkhani and Ilbegi are held only annually at the pleasure of the Shah, and the ketchudas are properly elective, the office of Khan or chief is strictly hereditary, though it does not necessarily fall to the eldest son. This element of permanence gives the Khan almost supreme authority in his tribe, and when the Ilkhani is a weak man and a Khan is a strong one, he is practically independent, except in the matter of the tribute to the Shah.