Even after India, the quantity of servants employed in such a household as this is very impressive. Besides a number who are with the Vakil in Tihran, there are the nazr or steward, who under the master is supreme, cooks and their assistants, table servants, farāshes, who are sweepers and message-runners, in any number, pipe-bearers, coffee and ice-makers, plate-cleaners, washermen, lamp-cleaners, who are also lantern-bearers, a head groom, with a groom for each horse under him, and a number more, over forty in all, receiving, if paid at the usual rate of wages in Kirmanshah, which is a cheap place, from sixty krans a month down to twenty, the kran being now about 8d. These wages do not represent the actual gains of a servant, for he is entitled to perquisites, which are chiefly in the form of commissions on things bought and sold by his master, and which are regarded as legitimate if they do not exceed 10 per cent. It is of no use to fight again this "modakel," or to vex one's soul in any way about it. Persians have to submit to it as well as Europeans. Hadji has endeavoured to extract from 50 to 80 per cent on purchases made by him for me, but this is thought an outrage.
This modakel applies to all bargains. If a charvadar (no longer a katirgi) is hired, he has to pay one's servant 10 per cent on the contract price. If I sell a horse, my servant holds out for a good price, and takes his 10 per cent, and the same thing applies to a pair of shoes, or a pound of tea, or a chicken, or a bottle of milk. The system comes down from the highest quarters. The price paid by the governor of a province to the Shah is but the Shah's modakel, and when a governor farms the taxes for 60,000 tumans and sells them for 80,000, the difference is his modakel, and so it goes on through all official transactions and appointments, and is a fruitful source of grinding oppression, and of inefficiency in the army and other departments. The servant, poor fellow, may stop at 10 per cent, but the Shah's servant may think himself generous if he hesitates at 50 per cent. I have heard it said that when the late Shah was dying he said to the present sovereign: "If you would sit long upon the throne, see that there is only one spoon among ten men," and that the system represented by this speech is faithfully carried out.
I. L. B.
LETTER VI
Kirmanshah, Feb. 2.
On January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and even before that the road to Hamadan, which was our possible route, had been blocked for some days. The temperature has now risen to 31°, with a bitter wind, and much snow in the sky. The journey does not promise well. Two of the servants have been ill. I am not at all well, and the reports of the difficulties farther on are rather serious. These things are certain,—that the marches are very long, and without any possibility of resting en route owing to mud or snow, and that the food and accommodation will be horrible.
Hadji is turning out very badly. He has fever now, poor fellow, and is even more useless than usual. Abdul Rahim does not like him to interpret, and calls him "the savage." He does no work, and is both dirty and dishonest. The constant use of pious phrases is not a good sign either of Moslem or Christian. I told him this morning that I could not eat from so dirty a plate. "God is great," he quietly answered. He broke my trestle bed by not attending to directions, and when I pointed out what he had done, he answered, "God knows all, God ordains all things." It is really exasperating.
It is necessary to procure an additional outfit for the journey—a slow process—masks lined with flannel, sheepskin bags for the feet, the thick felt coats of the country for all the servants, additional blankets, kajawehs for me, and saddle-horses. The marches will frequently be from twenty to thirty miles in length, and the fatigue of riding them at a foot's pace when one cannot exchange riding for walking will be so great that I have had a pair of kajawehs made in which to travel when I am tired of the mule. These panniers are oblong wooden boxes, eighteen inches high, with hoops over them for curtains. One hangs on each side of the mule on a level with his back, and they are mounted, i.e. they are scrambled into from the front by a ladder, which is carried between them. Most women and some men travel in them. They are filled up with quilts and cushions. The mule which is to carry them is a big and powerful animal, and double price is charged for him.
Horses are very good and cheap here. A pure Arab can be bought for £14, and a cross between an Arab and a Kurdish horse—a breed noted for endurance—for even less. But to our thinking they are small, never exceeding fifteen hands. The horses of the Kirmanshah province are esteemed everywhere, and there is a steady drain upon them for the Indian market. The stud of three horses requires a groom, and Abdul Rahim is sending a sowar, who looks a character, to attend us to Tihran. A muleteer, remarkable in appearance and beauty, and twelve fine mules have been engaged. The sowar and several other men have applied to me for medicine, having fearful coughs, etc., but I have not been fortunate enough to cure them, as their maladies chiefly require good feeding, warm bedding, and poultices, which are unattainable. It is pitiable to see the poor shivering in their thin cotton clothes in such weather. The men make shift with the seamless felt coats—more cloaks than coats, with long bag-like sleeves tapering to the size of a glove but with a slit midway, through which the hands can be protruded when need arises. The women have no outer garment but the thin cotton chadar.