It was as I thought. The sowar sent with me was only a harmless peasant taken from the plough, mounted on his own horse, and provided with a Government gun. The poor fellow showed the "white feather" on the first march, and I was obliged to assert the "ascendency of race" and ride in front of him. The villagers at once set him down as an impostor, and refused him supplies, and as his horse could not keep up with mine, and the road presented no apparent perils, I dismissed him at the end of three days with a largesse which gladdened his heart. He did not know the way, and the afternoon I left Burujird he led me through ploughed fields and along roadless hillsides, till at the end of an hour I found myself close to the garden from which I started.
The early part of the first march is over great bare gravelly slopes without water. Then come irrigation and villages. The hills have been eaten nearly bare. Nothing remains but a yellow salvia and the beautiful Eryngium cæruleum. There, as in the Bakhtiari country, the people stack the Centaurea alata for winter fodder. The road is good, and except in two places a four-wheeled carriage could be driven over it at a trot.
The camping-ground was outside Deswali, an unwalled village of 106 houses, with extensive cultivated lands and a "well-to-do" aspect. The people raise cereals, melons, cucumbers, grapes, and cotton, but in bad seasons have to import wheat. There, as at every village since, the ketchuda has called upon me, and some of these men have been intelligent and communicative, and have shown such courtesies as have been in their power. It is an unusual, if not an unheard-of, thing for a European lady, even if she knows Persian, to travel through this country without a European escort; but there has been no rudeness or impertinent curiosity, no crowding even; the headmen all seemed anxious for my comfort, and supplies at reasonable rates have always been forthcoming.
The heat at Deswali was overpowering, the mercury in my tent standing for hours on 17th August at 120°, the temperature in the shade being 104°.
It is vain to form any resolution against making a pet of a horse. My new acquisition, "Boy," insisted on being petted, and his winning and enticing ways are irresistible. He is always tethered in front of my tent with a rope so long as to give him a considerable amount of liberty, and he took advantage of this the very first day to come into the tent and make it very apparent that he wanted me to divide a melon with him. Grapes were his next penchant, then cucumber, bread, and biscuits. Then he actually drank milk out of a soup plate. He comes up to me and puts his head down to have his ears rubbed, and if I do not attend to him at once, or cease attending to him, he gives me a gentle but admonitory thump. I dine outside the tent, and he is tied to my chair, and waits with wonderful patience for the odds and ends, only occasionally rubbing his soft nose against my face to remind me that he is there. Up to this time a friendly snuffle is the only sound that he has made. He does not know how to fight, or that teeth and heels are of any other use than to eat and walk with. He is really the gentlest and most docile of his race. The point at which he "draws the line" is being led. He drags back, and a mulish look comes into his sweet eyes. But he follows like a dog, and as I walk as much as I can I always have him with me. He comes when I call him, stops when I stop, goes off the road with me when I go in search of flowers, and usually puts his head either on my shoulder or under my arm. To him I am an embodiment of melons, cucumbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits, and sugar, with a good deal of petting and ear-rubbing thrown in. Every day he becomes more of a companion. He walks very fast, gallops easily, never stumbles, can go anywhere, is never tired, and is always hungry. I paid £4:15s. for him, but he was bought from the Bakhtiaris for £3:14s. as a four-year-old. He is "up to" sixteen stone, jumps very well, and is an excellent travelling horse.
Redundant forelocks and wavy manes, uncut tails carried in fiery fashion, small noses, quivering nostrils, small restless ears, and sweet intelligent eyes add wonderfully to the attractiveness of the various points of excellence which attract a horse-fancier in Persia. A Persian horse in good condition may be backed against any horse in the world for weight-carrying powers, endurance, steadiness, and surefootedness, is seldom unsound, and is to his rider a friend as well as a servant. Generally speaking, a horse can carry his rider wherever a mule can carry a load, and will do from thirty to forty miles a day for almost any length of time.
The clothing of horses is an important matter. Even in this hot weather they wear a good deal—first a parhan or shirt of fine wool crossed over the chest; next the jul, a similar garment, but in coarser wool; and at night over all this is put the namad, a piece of felt half an inch thick, so long that it wraps the animal from head to tail, and so deep as to cover his body down to his knees. A broad surcingle of woollen webbing keeps the whole in place.
The food does not vary. It consists of from seven to ten pounds of barley daily, in two feeds, and as much as a horse can eat of kah, which is straw broken in pieces about an inch and a half long. While travelling, barley and kah are mixed in the nose-bag. No hay is given, and there are no oats. It is customary among the rich to give their horses an exclusive diet of barley grass for one month in the spring, on which they grow very fat and useless. Old horses are fed on dough-balls made of barley-flour and water. A grape diet is also given in the grape-producing regions in the autumn instead of kah. Boy eats ten pounds of grapes as a mere dessert.
I admire and like the Persian horse. His beauty is a constant enjoyment, and, ferocious as he is to his fellows, he is gentle and docile to man. I cannot now recall having seen a vicious horse in seven months. On the whole they are very well cared for, and are kindly treated. The sore backs of baggage horses are almost inevitable, quite so, indeed, so long as the present form of pack-saddle stuffed with kah is used. Mares are not ridden in Persia proper.
The march from Deswali to Sahmine is a pretty one, at first over long buff rolling hills and through large elevated villages, then turning off from the Kirmanshah road and descending into a broad plain, the whole of which for several miles is occupied by the trees and gardens of the eminently prosperous village of Sahmine, whose 500 families, though they pay a tribute of 2400 tumans a year, have "nothing to complain of."[14]