The Ilyat women from the camp crowded round me with a familiarity which, even in savages, is distressing, a contrast to the good manners and unobtrusiveness of the women of Geokahaz.
On the way to Sanjud, a Kurdish village in a ravine so steep that it was barely possible to find a level space big enough for my tent, there is some very fine scenery, and from the slope of Kuh Surisart, on the east side of the Gardan-i-Mianmalek, the loftiest land between Hamadan and Urmi, the view is truly magnificent. The nearer ranges stood out boldly in yellow and red ochre, in the valleys indigo shadows lay, range beyond range of buff-brown hills were atmospherically glorified by brilliant cobalt colouring, and the hills which barred the horizon dissolved away in a blue which blended with the sky. In that vast solitude the fine ruins of the fortress palace of Karaftu, where the fountain still leaps in the deserted courtyard, are a very conspicuous object.
From the Mianmalek Pass there is a descent of 5000 feet to the Sea of Urmi, and the keen edge of the air became much blunted ere we reached Sanjud. Nearly the whole of the road from Hamadan has been extremely solitary. We have not met or passed a single caravan, and on this march of seven hours we did not see a human being. Yet there are buff-brown villages lying in the valleys among the buff-brown hills, and an enormous extent of country is under tillage. In fact, this region is one of the granaries of Persia.
Sanjud is a yellow-ochre village of eighty houses built into a yellow-ochre hillside, above which rises a high hill of red mud. It is not possible to give an idea of the aspect of the country at this season. Sheep and goats certainly find pickings among the rocks, but the visible herbage has all been eaten down. The thistles and other fodder plants have been cut and stacked in the villages. Most of the streams are dry, and the supplies of drinking water are only pools, much fouled by cattle. The snows which supply the sources of the irrigation channels have all melted, and these channels are either dry or stopped. There has scarcely been a shower since early April, and for nearly six months the untempered rays of the Persian sun have been blazing upon the soil. The arable land, ploughed in deep furrows, has every furrow hardened into sun-dried brick. Villages of yellow or whitish baked mud, supporting on their dusty roofs buff stacks of baked fodder, are hardly distinguishable from the baked hillsides. The roads are a few inches deep in glaring white dust. Over the plains a brown dust haze hangs.
This rainless and sun-scorched land lives by the winter snows, and the snowfall of the Zagros ranges is the most interesting of all subjects to the cultivator of Western Persia. If the country were more populous, and the profits of labour were secure, storage for the snow-water would be an easy task, and barren wastes might sustain a prosperous people; for the soil, when irrigated, is prolific, and the sun can always be relied upon to do his part. The waste of water is great, as considerably more than half the drainage of the empire passes into kavirs and other depressions. The average rainfall on the central plateau is estimated by Sir Oliver St. John at five inches only in the year.
My arrival at Sanjud was not welcome. The ketchuda sent word that he was not prepared to obey the orders of the Sartip of Achaz. I could buy, he said, what I could get, but he would furnish neither supplies nor guards for the camp. I did not wonder at this, for a traveller carrying an official letter is apt to be palmed off on the villagers as a guest, and is not supposed to pay for anything.
I went to see the ketchuda, and assured him that I should pay him myself for all supplies, and a night's wages to each watchman, and the difficulty vanished. Many of the handsome village women came to see me. The ketchuda made me a feast in his house, and when I bade him farewell in the morning he said solemnly, "We are very glad you have been our guest, we have suffered no loss or inconvenience by having you, we should like to be protected by the great English nation." This polite phrase is frequently used.
The Persian Kurds impress me favourably as a manly, frank, hospitable people. The men are courteous without being cringing, and the women are kind and jolly, and come freely and unveiled to my tent without any obtrusiveness.
The ketchuda sent eight guards to my camp at night, saying it was in a very dangerous place, and he did not wish his village disgraced by a stranger being robbed so near it. He added, however, that six of these men were sent for his own satisfaction, and that I was only to pay for the two I had ordered.
My journey, which is through a wild and little frequented part of Persia, continues to be prosperous. The climate is now delightful, though at these lower altitudes the middle of the day is rather hot.