The caravan had only just come in, and there was neither fuel nor drinking water within easy reach. I was so completely worn out that I was lifted off the horse and laid on the ground in blankets till the camp was in order late at night. Sharban, knowing that his deception was discovered, had disappeared with his yabus without helping as usual to pitch my tent. Mirza, always cheerful and hard-working, though always slow, and Johannes did their best, but it is very hard on servants who are up before five not to bring them in till sunset, when their work is scarcely over till near midnight, and has to be done in the dark. The next day there were a succession of dust storms and half a gale from noon to sunset, but my tent stood it well, and the following day this was repeated. These strong winds usually prevail in the afternoon at this season.
Urmi, October 8.—A march over low and much-ploughed hills, an easy descent and a ford brought us down upon the plain of Urmi, the "Paradise of Persia," and to the pleasant and friendly hamlet of Turkman, where I spent the night and made the half-march into Urmi yesterday morning. This plain is truly "Paradise" as seen from the hill above it, nor can I say that its charm disappears on more intimate acquaintance. Far from it!
I have travelled now for nine months in Persia and know pretty well what to expect—not to look for surprises of beauty and luxuriance, and to be satisfied with occasional oases of cultivation among brown, rocky, treeless hills, varied by brown villages with crops and spindly poplars and willows, contrasting with the harsh barrenness of the surrounding gravelly waste.
But beautiful Urmi, far as the eye can reach, is one oasis. From Turkman onwards the plain becomes more and more attractive, the wood-embosomed villages closer together, the variety of trees greater. Irrigation canals shaded by fruit trees, and irrigation ditches bordered by reeds, carry water in abundance all through the plain. Swampy streams abound. Fair stretches of smooth green sward rejoice the eye. Big buffaloes draw heavy carts laden with the teeming produce of the black, slimy, bountiful soil from the fields into the villages. Wheat, maize, beans, melons, gourds, potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, capsicum, chilis, bringals, lady's fingers, castor-oil (for burning), cotton, madder, salsify, scorzonera, celery, oil-seeds of various sorts, opium, and tobacco all flourish. The orchards are full of trees which almost merit the epithet noble. Noble indeed are the walnuts, and beautiful are the pomegranates, the apricots, the apples, the peach and plum trees, and glorious are the vineyards with their foliage, which, like that of the cherry and pear, is passing away in scarlet and gold. Nature has perfected her work and rests. It is autumn in its glories, but without its gloom.
Men, women, and children are all busy. Here the wine-press is at work, there girls are laying clusters of grapes on terraces prepared for the purpose, to dry for raisins; women[24] are gathering cotton and castor-oil seeds, little boys are taking buffaloes to bathe, men are driving and loading buffalo-carts, herding mares, ploughing and trenching, and in the innumerable villages the storehouses are being filled; the herbs and chilis are hanging from the roofs to dry, the women are making large cakes of animal fuel (of which they have sufficient for export), and are building it into great conical stacks, the crones are spinning in the sun, and the swaddled infants bound in their cradles are lying in the fields and vineyards, while the mothers are at work. This picture of beauty, fertility, and industry is framed by the Kurdistan mountains on the one side, and on the other by long lines of poplars, through which there are glimpses of the deep blue waters of the Urmi Sea. These Kurdistan mountains, a prolongation of the Taurus chain, stern in their character, and dwarfing all the minor ranges, contrast grandly with the luxuriant plains of Sulduz and Urmi.
As I passed northwards the villages grew thicker, the many tracks converged into a wide road which was thronged with foot passengers, horsemen, camel and horse caravans, and strings of asses loaded with melons and wood. Farther yet the road passes through beautiful orchards with green sward beneath the trees; mud walls are on both sides, and over them droop the graceful boughs and gray-green foliage of an elægnus, with its tresses of auburn fruit.
At the large village of Geog-tapa a young horseman overtook me, and said in my native tongue, "Can you speak English?" He proved to be a graduate of the American College at Urmi, and a teacher in Shamasha Khananeshoo's school (known better to his supporters in England as Deacon Abraham). He told me that I was expected, and shortly afterwards I was greeted by the son of the oldest missionary in Urmi, Dr. Labaree.
The remaining four miles were almost entirely under the shade of fine trees, past the city walls and gates, put into tolerable repair after the Kurdish invasion ten years ago, and out into pretty wooded country, with the grand mountains of the frontier seen through the trees, where a fine gateway admitted us into the park in which are the extra-mural buildings of the American Presbyterian Mission, now more than half a century old. These are on high ground, well timbered, and the glimpses through the trees of the mountains and the plain are enchanting.
Through the kindness of my friends at Hamadan, who had written in advance, I am made welcome in the house of Dr. Shedd, the Principal of the Urmi College.[25]
Within two hours of my arrival I had the pleasure of visits from Canon Maclean and Mr. Lang of the English Mission, and from Dr. Labaree and the ladies of the Fiske Seminary, the English, French, and American missionaries being the only European residents in Urmi.