We were to have started at eight, as there was no possible way of dividing the nine hours' march, but when the time came the katirgis said it was too cold to rope the loads, a little later that we could only get half-way, and later that there was no accommodation for mules half-way and that we must go the whole way! At nine the mercury was at 4° below zero, and the slipperiness was fearful. The poor animals could scarcely keep on their feet. We have crossed two high passes, Nal Shikan (the Horse-Shoe breaking pass) and the Charzabar Pass, in tremendous snow, riding nine hours, only dismounting to walk down one hill. At the half-way hamlet I decided to go on, having still a lingering prejudice against sharing a den with a quantity of human beings, mules, asses, poultry, and dogs.
On one long ascent we encountered a "blizzard," when the mercury was only 3° above zero. It was awful. The men covered their heads with their abbas and turned their backs to the wind. I got my heavy mackintosh over everything, but in taking off three pairs of gloves for one minute to button it the pain of my hand was literally excruciating. At the summit the snow was four feet deep, and a number of mules were down, but after getting over the crest of the Nal Shikan Pass and into the Zobeideh valley it became better. But after every descent there was another ascent to face till we reached the pass above the Cheshmeh-i-Charzabar torrent, in a picturesque glen, with a village and some primitive flour mills.
Below this height lies the vast and fertile plain of Mahidasht, one expanse of snow, broken by mud villages looking like brown islands, and the truncated cone of Goree, a seat of the ancient fire-worship. In the centre of the plain is an immense caravanserai with some houses about it. When this came into sight it was only five miles off, but we were nearly three hours in reaching it! The view was wonderful. Every speck on the vast plain was seen distinctly; then came a heavy snow blink, above which hovered ghosts of snow mountains rising into a pale green sky, a dead and lonely wilderness, looking as if all things which lived and moved had long ago vanished from it. Those hours after first sighting the village were very severe. It seemed to grow no nearer. I was half-dead with the journey of twenty-two miles at a slow foot's pace, and was aching and cramped from the intense cold, for as twilight fell the mercury sank to 3° below zero. The Indian servants, I believe, suffered more than I did, and some of the katirgis even more than they.
At last by a pointed brick bridge we crossed the little river of Mahidasht, and rode into the house of the headman, who is a sort of steward of Abdul Rahim, our future host, the owner of many villages on this plain. The house is of the better class of Kurdish houses, with a broad passage, and a room on each side, at the end a great, low, dark room, half living-room, half stable, which accommodates to-night some of the mules, the muleteers, the servants, and the men of the family. Beyond this again is a large stable, and below-ground, reached by a sloping tunnel, is the sheep-fold. One room has neither door nor window, mine has an outer and inner door, and a fire of live embers in a hole in the floor.
The family in vacating the room have left their goods behind,—two plank beds at one end heaped with carpets and felts, a sacking cradle hanging from the roof, two clay jars five feet high for storing grain, and in the takchahs, or recesses of the walls, samovars or tea-urns, pots, metal vases, cartridge belts, and odds and ends. Two old guns, an old sword, and a coarse coloured print of the Russian Imperial family are on the wall.
I was lifted from the mule to my bed, covered with all available wraps, a pot of hot embers put by the bed, my hands and feet rubbed, hot syrup coloured with tea produced in Russian glasses, and in two hours I was able to move. The caravan, which we thought could not get through the snow, came in three hours later, men and mules thoroughly knocked up, and not till nine could we get a scanty dinner. It has been a hard day all round. The farāshes in the kitchen are cursing the English sahibs, who will travel in the winter, wishing our fathers may be burned, etc., two of the muleteers have been howling with pain for the last two hours, and I went into the kitchen to see the poor fellows.
In a corner of the big room, among the rough trunks of trees which support the sooty roof, the muleteers were lying in a heap in their big-sleeved felt coats round a big fire, about another the servants were cooking their food, the farāshes were lying round another, and some of the house people about a fourth, and through smoke and flame a background of mules and wolf-like dogs was dimly seen, a gleam now and then falling into the dark stable beyond, where the jaded baggage animals were lying in heaps.
Mahidasht is said to be one of the finest and most fertile plains in Persia, seventy-two miles long by fifteen broad, and is irrigated throughout by a small stream swarming with turtles. Its population, scattered over it in small villages, is estimated—over-estimated probably—at 4000. At a height of 5050 feet the winters are severe. The snow is nearly three feet deep already, and more is impending.
The mercury in my room fell to 5° below zero before midnight, but rose for a gray cloudy day. The men and animals were so done up that we could not start till nearly eleven. The march, though not more than sixteen miles, was severe, owing to the deep snow and cold wind. Five miles over the snowy billows of the Mahidasht plain, a long ascent, on which the strong north wind was scarcely bearable, a succession of steep and tiresome ridges, many "difficulties" in passing caravans, and then a gradual descent down a long wide valley, opened upon the high plateau, on which Kirmanshah, one of the most important cities in Persia, is situated.
Trees, bare and gaunt, chiefly poplars, rising out of unsullied snow, for two hours before we reached it, denoted the whereabouts of the city, which after many disappointments bursts upon one suddenly. The view from the hill above the town was the most glorious snow view I ever saw. All around, rolled to a great height, smooth as the icing of a cake, hills, billowy like the swell of the Pacific after a storm—an ocean of snow; below them a plateau equally unsullied, on the east side of which rises the magnificently precipitous Besitun range, sublime in its wintry grandeur, while on the distant side of the plateau pink peaks raised by an atmospheric illusion to a colossal height hovered above the snow blink, and walled in the picture. Snow was in the air, snow clouds were darkening over the Besitun range; except for those pink peaks there were no atmospheric effects; the white was very pallid, and the gray was very black; no illusions were possible, the aspect was grim, desolate, and ominous, and even before we reached the foot of the descent the huge peaks and rock masses of Besitun were blotted out by swirls of snow.