Ghafil now went forward to announce our arrival to Sirdal Khan, the chieftain at whose tents we now are. But I must leave further details for to-morrow.
CHAPTER III.
“Henceforth in safe assurance may ye rest,
Having both found a new friend you to aid,
And lost an old foe that did you molest,
Better new friend than an old foe is said.”Faëry Queen.
A prince in exile—Tea money—Rafts on the Kerkha—Last words with the Beni Laam—Kerim Khan—Beautiful Persia—We arrive at Dizful.
Sirdal Khan is a Shahzade, or member of the Royal family of Persia, many of whom are to be found living in official, and even private capacities in different parts of the kingdom. He himself had fallen into disgrace with the Court many years ago, and had been exiled from Persia proper, a misfortune which led to his taking up his residence with a section of the semi-dependent Seguand tribe of Lurs, where he became Khan or Chieftain. Both in looks and in manner, he stands in striking contrast with the people round him, having the handsome, regular features, long nose and melancholy, almond-shaped eyes of the family of the Shah, which, I believe, is not of Persian origin, and a certain dignity of bearing very different from the rude want of manners of the Lurs. These would seem to be of Tartar origin, coarse-featured, short-faced men, honest in their way and brave, but quite ignorant of those graces of address which even the worst Arabs are not wholly without. Sirdal, when he arrived among the Lurs, was possessed of considerable wealth, which he invested in flocks and herds, and until a short time before our visit he was living in Bedouin magnificence. But his enemies it would seem still pursued him, and not satisfied with his disgrace, molested him even in his exile. By some means, the rights of which we did not learn, they managed to instigate against him a rival chief, one Kerim Khan, who, under Government sanction, made a successful raid upon his flocks, stripping the unfortunate prince of everything, and driving him and his tribe across the Kerkha river into the No Man’s Land, which lies between Persia and Turkey, and which we had just crossed. In this position he has been obliged to maintain himself as he could, making terms with Mizban and the Beni Laam, who are his nearest neighbours westwards. The river Kerkha is considered the boundary of Persia, and as it is a large and rapid river, nearly half a mile across, he is in comparative safety from the east. Ghafil, therefore, as a Beni Laam, was on friendly terms with him, though it was easy to see that he despised and had no kind of sympathy with him or the ruffians of his band. By Hajji Mohammed’s advice, and to secure ourselves against further risks at their hands, we accordingly placed ourselves at once under the Khan’s protection. Hajji Mohammed fortunately knows both Persian and Kurdish, and soon explained to Sirdal the circumstances of our position, and he, delighted to meet once more with respectable people, readily assented. He received us with great kindness, made us comfortable in his tent, which, in spite of his poverty, was still more luxurious than any found among the Arabs; having partitions of matting worked in worsted with birds and beasts, carpets, and a fire, and gave us what we were much in want of, an excellent breakfast of well served rice and lamb. Then, when we had pitched our own tent just outside, he provided us with an efficient guard of Lurs, who soon sent our robber acquaintance of the last few days about their business. There is no love lost between them and the Arabs. Presently I received a visit from the Khan’s wife, whom he has lately married, and his mother, a well-bred person with perfect manners, and a refined, pleasing face. She was in black, in mourning she explained for a son; she has five sons, including the Khan, whose brothers live with him. A crowd of Seguand ladies came in her company, and an Arab woman who had been nurse to one of the Khan’s children, and who served me as interpreter. Ghafil’s wife, too, one of the poor women who had travelled with us, came in and joined the conversation. She is loud in her complaints of Ghafil, who treats her ill. He is now very polite, and presented himself during the afternoon at our tent as if nothing had happened, with a little girl named Norah in his arms whom he told us was his niece, he having a sister here married to one of Sirdal’s men. I had a carpet spread for the ladies outside our tent, for it could not have held them all, and they sat round me for an hour or more, curious and enquiring, but exceedingly polite. They admired especially my boots and gloves, which I pulled off to show them. One of them, turning up my sleeve, exclaimed at the whiteness of my wrist. At the end of an hour the elder lady rose, and wishing me affectionately good morning, took her leave, the rest following.
We then had a pleasant day of peace and a sound night’s rest, hardly disturbed by the ferocious shouting and singing of our guard, which, under other circumstances, might have been frightening. Anything more wild and barbarous than their chaunting I never listened to, but to us it was sweet as music, for we knew that it was raised to scare our jackals, the Beni Laam.
April 2.—Next day we crossed the Kerkha. When we saw the size of the river, swollen with melted snow and running eight miles an hour, and as wide as the Thames at Greenwich, we felt thankful indeed for having met Sirdal Khan. Here there would have been no fording possible, and we, or at least our goods, would have been at the mercy of our robber escort. The Khan, however, agreed for a sum of money, 100 krans (nothing in Persia is done for nothing, either by prince or peasant), to have us ferried over with our baggage to the Persian shore, and our camels and horses swum after us. Hospitality is not a virtue real or pretended with the Persians, and the Khan, prince as he was and a really charming man, explained to Hajji Mohammed without affectation, that sixty of the one hundred krans he would count as “tea money,” or as the Spaniards would say, “ruido de casa,” payment for board and lodging. To this, however, we were indifferent, and appreciate none the less his kindness and good manners. He rode with us himself to the river on a well-bred Arabian mare he told us was “asil,” as it well might be, and saw that all things in the matter of the rafts were done as they should be. At first we rode through the mounds of Eywan, which are disposed in a quadrangle fronting the river, and where we found plentiful remains of pottery; then past the kubbr of I forget what Mohammedan saint, facing a similar kubbr on the eastern bank; then across some fordable branches of the river and islands clothed with guttub and canora trees, to the main body of the Kerkha, where we found a raft preparing. The canora bushes had fruit on them, which the Khan politely picked, and gave me to eat, little yellow fruits, pleasantly acid, like medlars, and with stones inside.
The passage of the river was a tedious, not to say difficult, process, the single raft being composed of twenty skins only, and very crank. We found besides, to our disgust, and also waiting to take advantage of our passage, our late disagreeable companions, Ghafil, the one-eyed Kurd, and all the rest, who presently began a loud argument with the Lurs as to who should pilot our camels through the water, a ticklish duty, which required both knowledge of the animals and skill in swimming, to perform successfully. At first we were naturally in favour of the Lurs, and unwilling to trust any part of our property with the mongrel Arabs; but when it came to the point of testing their capabilities, the Lurs broke lamentably down, being hardly able to manage the camels even on dry land, so by the Khan’s advice we let the Bedouins manage the business, which I must say they performed with no little courage and skill. It takes two men to swim a camel safely. First of all the beast must be unloaded to the skin. Then a cord is tied to the tail for one man to hold by, and another mounts on his back. Thus he is driven into the water, and pushed on gradually till he loses his legs. The man on his back then floats off down stream of him, and holding with one hand by the hump, splashes water in the camel’s face to keep his head straight, while the other urges him from behind. The camel seems heavier than most animals in the water, showing nothing but the tip of his nose above the surface, and he is a slow swimmer. It was an anxious quarter of an hour for us while they were crossing, and great was the speculation among the bystanders as to the result. “Yetla,” “ma yetla,” “he does it,” “he doesn’t,” were the cries as they were carried down the river. The strongest pushed fairly straight across, but those in the worst condition seemed borne helplessly along till camel and men and all disappeared out of our sight,—and we had already given them up as lost, when we saw them emerging quite a mile down upon the bank. Then we ourselves and the luggage were put across, the mares swimming with us, though they got across much quicker than we did. The raft was hardly eight feet square, a rough framework of tamarisk poles lashed together on twenty goat skins. Our luggage went first, with Hajji Mohammed perched on the top of it, booted and cloaked, and loaded with gun and cartridge bag, sublimely indifferent, though an accident would have sent him like lead to the bottom. We ourselves were more prudent, and divested ourselves of every superfluous garment before taking our seats, which we did in the company of our dogs and bird, and of Ghafil’s wife, who nearly upset us at starting by jumping in from the shore upon us. Our feet were in the water all the way, and our hearts in our mouths, but by the mercy of Providence, we finally reached land amid a chorus of such “betting on the event” as had accompanied the camels. The last creature of our party was the little hamra mare, which Sirdal’s servant had been holding, and which, slipping her halter, came bravely across alone.
Just across the river lives Kerim Khan, Sirdal’s enemy, a Kurdish chief in government pay. To him we had letters, and nothing more remained but to go to his camp, and ask his help to forward us to Dizful.