Altogether the bazars look very thriving, and they were crowded with buyers. Possibly the people have rarely if ever seen a Feringhi woman, and they crowded very much upon me, and the escort drove them off in the usual fashion, with sticks and stones. Though much of Burujird lies in ruins it has a fair aspect of prosperity and some very good houses and new buildings. The roads are cobbled with great stones, and are certainly not worse than those of the older parts of Tihran. Water is abundant.
Nature evidently intends Burujird to be a prosperous city. The pasturage of the plain is magnificent, and the rich soil produces two crops a year. All cereals flourish. Wheat and barley ripen in July. Seven sorts of grapes grow, and ripen in August and September, and some of the clusters are finer than any of our hothouse produce. Water and musk melons, tobacco, maize, gourds and cucumbers, beans, the bringal or egg plant, peas, flax and other oil seeds, rice and cotton, apricots, walnuts, pomegranates, and peaches testify to the excellence of the soil and climate.
Not only is Burujird in the midst of an exceptionally fine agricultural district, but it is connected by caravan routes with the best agricultural and commercial regions of Persia to the north, east, and west by easy roads, never snow-blocked, or at least they never need be if there were traffic enough to keep them open. It is only 130 miles from rich Kirmanshah, 90 from the fertile district which surrounds Hamadan, 60 from Sultanabad, the most important carpet-producing region of Western Persia, and rich besides in grain and cotton, 140 from Kûm, on the main road from Isfahan to Tihran, something about 230 from Tihran, and only 310 from Ahwaz.
These routes are all easy, though, so far as I know them, very badly supplied with caravanserais, except on the main road between the two capitals. The southern road, leading through Khuramabad to Dizful and Shuster, has no great natural difficulties, though part of it lies through a mountainous region. Some blasting and much boulder-lifting would, according to Colonel Bell, remedy the evils of the fifty miles of it which he regards as bad. But, apart from this, the Shuster-Burujird route, the most natural route for north and south-western Persian commerce to take to and from the sea, is at present useless to trade from its insecurity, as the Feili Lurs, through whose territory it passes, own no authority, live by robbery when they have any one to rob, and are always fighting each other.
There are no regular charvadars in Burujird, and many and tedious have been the difficulties in the way of getting off. Up to last night I had no mules, and Hadji said mournfully, "When you learn what other charvadars are like, you'll think of me." I have taken leave of Aziz Khan with regret. He echoes the oft-repeated question, "Why does not England come and give us peace? In a few years we should all be rich, and not have to fight each other." "Stay among us for some years," he said, "and you will get very rich. What have you to go back to in Feringhistan?" He asked me for a purse, and to put some krans in it for his children, but not to give him any money. He said that when he asked for money and other things he was only in fun. I do not know whether to believe him.
Mirza and my caravan started this morning, and now, 4 p.m., I am leaving with the sowar, with the mercury at 90°, for the first march of a journey of 800 miles.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXII
Hamadan, Aug. 28.