Our visitors shewed no sign of going away, and I believe they would have sat on all through the night talking, had we not dismissed them. Hajji Abdallah’s last words were an entreaty to reconsider our decision, and abandon the foolish plan of going to Bebahan. He has once been that way he says, and would not for the world go again; there are not only dangerous wild tribes, but mountain passes and impassable rocks. We listened unmoved, and in fact we had no choice.
CHAPTER V.
“Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.”
Tacitus.
Illness and misery—A Persian escort—The Shah’s Arab subjects—Ram Hormuz and its nightingales—Night marching—Deserted villages—How they collect taxes in Persia—Bebahan.
Friday, April 11.—It would be easy to quote unlucky starts on Fridays, and I am afraid this is one. Wilfrid is ill again, a passing fatigue we hope, from loading the camels this morning in the hot sun, and riding all day long in it. He is lying down now in the tent and trying to rest, but the flies are intolerable.
Our plan in leaving Shustar was to go with our escort, seven soldiers on foot, armed six with matchlocks and one with a narghileh, to Ram Hormuz, a small town eighty miles on the road to Bebahan, and there get a reinforcement from the Ferraz-bashi or deputy governor of the place for the other eighty miles. This sounded well enough, but already our escort has deserted us, and we are alone.
After delays of all sorts, for till the moment of starting we were still without servants, we got our camels loaded, and about ten o’clock rode out of the palace gate and through the streets of Shustar, and over a stone bridge, which spans the second of the two branches of the river on which the town stands, and into the open country beyond. It was terribly hot, and the whole country is a plague of flies, which buzz about one all day long, and settle on one’s head at night.
Our camels have profited by the mallows in the court of the palace to such an extent that they are all fat and frisky, and we had some trouble in loading them. But, at the last moment, we had an unexpected offer of assistance. A young Arab, dressed in a green calico jibbeh, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and volunteered his services. He had a pleasant face, so that we were taken with him at once. He told us that he was a native of some village on the Tigris near Bagdad, and that he had been impressed by the Turks for their navy, in which he had served three years, that he had then managed to desert while in port at Bussorah, and had fled across the border to Mohamrah. He had since earned his bread by working as horse-keeper for one of the Bawiyeh sheykhs, and later, tiring of that, in service with different Persians at Shustar. His idea now, was to get down to the sea once more, and he begged us to take him with us to Bushire. By accident Hajji Mohammed knew something of some of his relations at Bagdad, and as such a person was exactly what we most wanted, we accepted him at once, on his own terms. This young fellow’s coming has been an advantage to us in more ways than one, for it had the immediate effect of inducing another of the crowd who were witnessing our departure to volunteer, and a little red-haired Persian in blue frock and trowsers, came forward to enlist in our service. Thus we are no longer wholly dependent on our old cavass and on ourselves.
As soon as we were outside the town, our sergeant and the six soldiers began to give themselves airs of military importance, advancing in front of us in skirmishing order, and enjoining us to keep close together, although the country had a quite peaceable appearance, the road much frequented by country people on donkeys, unarmed and peaceable folks. The track led through undulating ground chiefly barren, here and there a patch of cultivation, often between high banks. Our brave defenders here shewed their zeal by running up to the tops of the steepest and highest of these banks, firing off their guns at random, generally in the air, but one of the shots hit a lizard sitting in its hole. Their energy, however, cooled as the heat increased; and towards noon, they were satisfied to trudge along with only an occasional diversion to look out for enemies. By a quarter to one o’clock, they all seemed tired, and we too were glad to halt for three quarters of an hour, under a large shady canora tree, in the midst of a field of oats. Here we ate our luncheon, while the animals fed on the oats. Wilfrid complained a little of the sun, but it was not till we had gone on again for a couple of hours that he acknowledged he felt really ill. We were just turning off the track to the north, to go to the tents of a certain Hassan Khan, known to the soldiers, when he said he could have gone no further. The tents were not a mile from the road, but getting there was almost too much for him. We found them set in a circular enclosure, fenced in by a hedge of branches, like a new made Sussex fence, and evidently intended to last longer than a true Bedouin camp ever does. Here there are about a dozen small tents, half hair, half matting. Outside the enclosure, a few mares and foals grazing, among them one rather nice filly, Wadneh Hursan they say, and animals of all sorts, cows, sheep, and goats have been brought inside the hedge for the night.