A few days more of journeying, and he fell in with the Shah’s camp, but failed to have an interview with that exalted potentate. Still his case was brought before Nadir Shah, and, the bill Hanway had received from Mohammed Hassan being produced as evidence, a decree was issued ‘that I should give the particulars of the loss to Behbud Khan, the Shah’s general at Astrabad, who had orders to deliver to me whatever part of the goods might possibly be found, and to restore them in kind, and the deficiency to be paid out of the sequestered estates of the rebels to the last denier. This was not quite the thing which I wished for, because it laid me under a necessity of returning to that wretched place, Astrabad; however, I could not but acknowledge the highest obligation for so signal a mark of justice and clemency.’
This act of justice was somewhat unusual with Nadir Shah, of whose cruelty Hanway gives several examples. As, however, one perhaps outstrips its companions in brutality, I venture to give it in his words. ‘I will give another example of Nadir’s avarice and barbarity, which happened a little before I was in camp. The Shah, having appointed a certain general as governor of a province, imposed an exorbitant tax on it, to be levied in six months: at the expiration of the time the governor was sent for to the camp, and ordered to produce the account. He did so, but it amounted to only half the sum demanded. The Shah called him a rascal; and, telling him he had stolen the other half of the money, ordered the executioner to bastonade him to death: his estates also being confiscated, all his effects fell very short of the demands. The servants of the deceased were then ordered to come into the Shah’s presence, and he inquired of them if there was anything left belonging to their master; to which they answered, Only a dog. He then commanded the dog to be brought before him; and observed that he appeared to be much honester than his master had been; however, that he should be led through the camp from tent to tent, and beaten with sticks, and wherever he expired, the master of such tent should pay the sum deficient. Accordingly the dog was carried to the tents of the ministers, successively, who, hearing the case, immediately gave sums of money, according to their abilities, to procure the removal of the dog: by which the whole sum the Shah demanded was raised in a few hours’ time.’
On the 27th of March they set out on their return journey, accompanied by a small escort; they were detained for some time at Langarood, where Hanway had hoped to find a vessel, as the way by land was insecure. But, although a ship was sighted, she never put in; and the land journey was therefore, perforce, undertaken, and Astrabad was reached on the 16th of May. He saw the Shah’s general, who said ‘the decree must be obeyed.’ Those who had insulted Hanway were most brutally punished—some of his cloth was recovered and given back to him, but there was a difficulty in raising the money for the missing portions, and he was pressed to take payment in women slaves. On his refusal, they begged of him to give them a receipt as if he had been paid, assuring him the money should be forthcoming in a very few days; but the British merchant was too wary to be caught in such a palpable trap. Eventually he got the greater part of it, and with it returned to Langarood, where he waited for some little while, and, at last, he recovered eighty-five per cent. of the value of his goods, according to his own valuation, so that, probably, he made a good sale.
At Langarood he fell ill of a low fever, but was cured by a French missionary, who administered Jesuit’s bark (quinine) to him, and he then set out on his return journey, having invested all his cash in raw silk. He met with no particular adventures, and arrived safely at St. Petersburg on the 1st of January, 1745, ‘having been absent a year and sixteen weeks, in which time I had travelled about four thousand English miles by land.’
In noticing this trip of Hanway’s to the Caspian, it would be a pity if attention were not called to his description of Baku, now coming so much to the front (thanks to the industry and intelligence of the Messrs. Nobel) in providing the world with petroleum. This was the chief shrine of the followers of Zoroaster, who considered light, which was typified by fire, (which is bright both by day and night) as emblematical of all good, and they therefore worshipped Ormuzd, or the good god, whilst they regarded Ahriman, or darkness, as the evil god. Here, near Baku, the soil is so soaked and saturated with petroleum that a fire, natural and never-ceasing, could easily be obtained, and consequently, being perfectly unartificial, was looked upon as the personification of Ormuzd. Hanway writes, ‘The earth round this place, for above two miles, has this surprizing property, that by taking up two or three inches of the surface and applying a live coal, the part which is so uncovered immediately takes fire, almost before the coal touches the earth.... If a cane, or tube even of paper, be set about two inches in the ground, confined and closed with earth below, and the top of it touched with a live coal, and blown upon, immediately a flame issues without hurting either the cane or the paper, provided the edges be covered with clay, and this method they use for light in their houses, which have only the earth for the floor; three or four of these lighted canes will boil water in a pot; and thus they dress their victuals.’
Baku, the seat of this natural symbol of Ormuzd, was then a place of pilgrimage for the Parsees—and it is not so long since that fire-worship there has been discontinued. Mr. Charles Marvin (writing in 1884) commences his most interesting book, ‘The Region of the Eternal Fire,’ thus: ‘A few years ago a solitary figure might have been daily seen on the shore of the Caspian Sea, worshipping a fire springing naturally from the petroleum gases in the ground. The devotee was a Parsee from India, the last of a series of priests who for more than two thousand five hundred years had tended the sacred flame upon the spot. Round about his crumbling temple was rising greasy derricks, and dingy distilleries—symbols of a fresh cult, the worship of mammon—but, absorbed in his devotions, the Parsee took no heed of the intruders. And so time passed on, and the last of the Fire-Worshippers died, and with him perished the flame that was older than history.’
He stayed some time in Russia, but undertook no more arduous journeys. Even when he did leave St. Petersburg, on the 9th of July, 1750, he travelled very leisurely overland, reaching Harwich on the 28th of October, 1750, after an absence from England of nearly eight years. He lived in London in a modest fashion, for his fortune was but modest—yet it was sufficient for him to keep a solo carriage, i.e., only carrying one person, and on its panels was painted a device allusive to his dangers in Persia, especially of a somewhat perilous voyage on the Caspian. It consisted of ‘a man dressed in the Persian habit, just landed in a storm on a rude coast, and leaning on his sword, his countenance calm and resigned. In the background was depicted a boat tossed about by the billows; in front, a shield charged with his arms leaning against a tree, and underneath the motto, in English, Never Despair.’
As a result of his eastern experiences,[80] on his return to England he used an umbrella, which at that time for a man to carry was considered somewhat effeminate. He is often credited with having introduced that useful article into England; but it had been generally used by women for fifty years previously—nay, there is in the British Museum (Harl. 630 fol. 15b,) an Anglo-Saxon MS. of the eleventh century—unmistakeably English in its drawing—wherein is an illustration of an umbrella being held (by an attendant) over the head of a king, or nobleman. It is a veritable ‘Sangster,’ and, as far as form goes, it would pass muster now. From this time the use of the umbrella became familiar, and in general use among men—probably because he introduced them of pure silk, whereas hitherto they had been cumbrous and heavy, being made of oiled paper, muslin, or silk.
He had enough to live on, and, as in those days no one cared about making a colossal fortune, he lived contentedly on his competence, and wrote a long description of his travels, which was very well illustrated, and which cost him £700 to produce his first edition of one thousand two hundred copies, after which he disposed of the copyright, and second, third, and fourth editions were published. Still, the climate of Russia had not agreed with him, and he had to go to the then fashionable Spa, Tunbridge Wells, and afterwards to Paris, thence to Brussels, Antwerp, and Amsterdam.
He returned to Tunbridge Wells, where he wrote (in 1753) a treatise against the Naturalisation of the Jews,[81] which was a question then being agitated. One can scarcely imagine a man with large sympathies, as was Jonas Hanway, a travelled man, also, of great experience of men, taking the narrow view of such a question of social polity. After a severe fight the Bill was carried (26 Geo. 2) and his Majesty gave his consent on the 7th of June, 1753,[82] but the opposition to it was so great that when Parliament next met (15th of November, 1753) the very first business after the address (which only occupied half-an-hour or so—a valuable hint to present M.P.’s) was to bring in a bill repealing the privilege of Naturalization to the Jews. Popular clamour on its behalf was senseless, as it usually is, but it was too strong to resist, and in the debate thereon, on the 27th of November, 1753, William Pitt (all honour to him) said, ‘Thus, sir, though we repeal this law, out of complaisance to the people, yet we ought to let them know that we do not altogether approve of what they ask.’[83] The Bill was carried on the 28th of November, and received the Royal Assent on the 20th of December, the same year, and consequently an injustice was for some time done to some of the loyalest, quietest, and most law-abiding citizens we have. Hanway, however, thought so strongly on the subject that he wrote four tractates upon it, which, as the question is now happily settled, may be dismissed with this brief notice.