This widely-diffused belief in England as the redresser of wrongs is very touching, and very palatable to one's national pride. All these people have heard of the way in which the cultivators in India have been treated, of "land settlements" and English "settlement officers," and they say, "England could make everything right for us." So she could, "and she would"! As the governors pay large sums for offices from which they are removable at the Shah's pleasure, and as the lower officials all pay more or less heavily for their positions, we may reasonably infer that all, from the highest to the lowest, put on the screw, and squeeze all they can out of the people, over and above the tribute fixed at Tihran. Near views of Oriental despotisms are as disenchanting as near views of "the noble savage," for they contain within themselves the seeds of "all villainies," which rarely, if ever, fail of fructification.
Mirza Karim Khan, the Governor of Burujird, called a few days ago, a young harassed-looking man, with very fine features, but a look of serious bad health. He complained so much that the Agha asked his attendant, a very juvenile Hakīm, speaking a little scarcely intelligible French, if he would object to the Governor taking something from the famous "leather box," and the effect was so magical that the next day he looked a different man.
An arrangement was made for returning the visit, and he received us in a handsome tent in a garden, with the usual formalities, but only a scribe and the Hakīm were present. A sowar, sent from Burujird with a letter to the Sahib, was undoubtedly robbed of his horse, gun, and some of his clothing en route. Very quietly the Governor denied this, but as he did so I saw a wink pass between the scribe and Hakīm. It was a pitiable sight,—a high official sitting there, with luxuries about him, in a city with its walls, embankments, and gates ruinous, the brickwork in the palace gardens lying in heaps, his province partially disturbed, the people rising against what, at the least, are oppressive exactions, raising an enormous tribute, from which there is no outlay on province or city, government for the good of the governed never entering into his (as rarely into any other Oriental) mind.
This evening he has made a farewell visit on the terrace, attended by the Hakīm. Aziz Khan stood on the edge of the carpet, and occasionally interjected a remark into the conversation. I have before said that he has a certain gentlemanliness and even dignity, and his manner was neither cringing nor familiar. The Hakīm, however, warned him not to speak in presence of the Governor, a restraint which, though very different from the free intercourse of retainers with their chiefs among the Bakhtiari, was in strict accordance with the proprieties of Persian etiquette. Aziz stalked away, shaking his wide shulwars, with an air of contempt. "This governor," he afterwards said, "what is he? If it were Isfandyar Khan, and he were lying down, my head would be next to his, and twenty more men would be lying round him to guard his life with ours."
It seems as if Burujird were destitute of cavalry, at least of men who can be spared, though it has been stated that a whole cavalry regiment is in garrison.[13]
The Governor promised three escorts; my modest request was for one sowar, and a very unmilitary-looking horseman has arrived for me, but now, within an hour of marching, the others are without even one!
Attended by the Hakīm and an escort, we rode yesterday through Burujird. To write that a third of it is in ruins is simply to write that it is a Persian town. It has crumbling mud walls, said to be five miles in circumference, five gates in bad repair, and a ditch, now partially cultivated.
It is situated in Lat. 33° 55′ N, and its Long. is 48° 55′ E. Its elevation is 4375 feet [Bell]. Its population is estimated at from 12,000 to 18,000, and includes a great many Seyyids and mollahs. It has a Persian Telegraph Office and Post Office, neither of them to be depended upon, six large and very many small mosques, a number of mosque schools, thirty-three public baths, and six caravanserais. It manufactures woollen goods, carpets, and the best arak to be found in Persia. It also produces dried fruits and treacle made from grapes.
The bazars are large, light, and well supplied with European goods, Russian and English cottons in enormous quantities, Austrian kerosene lamps of all descriptions and prices, Russian mirrors, framed coloured engravings of the Russian Imperial family, Russian samovars, tea-glasses and tea-trays, Russian sewing and machine cotton, American sewing machines, Russian woollen cloth, fine and heavy, Russian china, and Russian sugar-loaves, to the sale of which several shops are exclusively devoted.
Persian manufactures are chiefly represented by heavy cottons, dyed and stamped at Isfahan, carpets, saddles, horse and mule furniture, copper cooking utensils, shoes of all makes, pipes, kalians, rope, ornamented travelling trunks, galon, gimps, tassels of silk and wool, and "small wares" of all kinds, with rude pottery, oil jars, each big enough to contain a man, great water-jars, small clay bowls glazed roughly with a green glaze, guns, swords, pistols, long knives, and the tools used by the different trades.