April 18.—We had a great deal of trouble to start at all yesterday afternoon, and after a difficult march we have got no farther than the village of Jazûn, about fifteen miles, which was reached at five A.M. this morning. At this rate we shall be a month getting to Bebahan, especially if the pass over the range of rocky hills we must cross, is as rugged as report says.
It turned out that the Kaïd himself did not intend to start with us, but to send his nephew with four people on foot, and follow himself with the four horsemen. He stood by as we loaded, and then wished us good evening. When all was ready he asked us the favour to take with us a bundle of brown wool for Bebahan, and as it was not heavy we agreed. While Wilfrid turned to look at this package, a villager took the rifle off his delúl, but hastily put it back on Wilfrid’s shouting “Stop thief,” and ran off accompanied by the little crowd which had gathered round us, no doubt equally guilty at heart, and expecting blows. Then we started—it was about half-past five, a fine evening with a breeze, which, alas, died away at sunset, after which for two hours the air was extremely sultry. The Sultanabad field crops had to be crossed, but they were on dry land, with only a few easy ditches. Then we came to ground like a park, formerly cultivated, but now abandoned to nature; canora trees dotted about like handsome hawthorn trees, as if planted for ornament, the grass all crops run wild, splendid oats and barley now in the ear. Here and there an abandoned village, the walls gleaming red in the setting sun. Some of these were inhabited not very long since, and we were told various tales regarding them; from one place the inhabitants had gone away of their own accord quite lately to escape the tax-gatherer’s next visit, leaving their corn standing; from another they had been driven by fire and sword, the soldiers burning the village after sacking it.
After about two hours we crossed the river Abn’l Faris; it is not many yards wide nor is it deep, but the banks are steep and overgrown with trees and thick bushes. A narrow and nearly perpendicular path leads down to the ford. The camels have become skilful, and managed the scramble admirably; Shakran now carries our personal baggage, he has completely recovered, and is the cleverest of them all. Hajji Mohammed sat imperturbable on Wilfrid’s delúl, and nearly got his head caught in the tangle of branches. After this we had another water or two to cross in the dark, the approaches to which were always announced by the croaking of frogs; then the chirping of grasshoppers replaced the croaking, and we were again on hard ground, the country a good deal up and down and broken up into ravines and fissures caused by rains. At ten o’clock, as far as we could make out by starlight, we were on good flat pasture land, real pasture not crops, and trees growing in groups as in a park, with a low ridge on the left. Here we halted for an hour to eat, and thought to have a nap; but Mohammed Jafar, who after all joined us some time before, would not hear of this. It would be dangerous; the Shirazi would swoop down from those hills to the north. He altogether declined remaining longer than necessary, and there was an earnestness in his manner that brought conviction with it; he really believed in the danger he talked of. The night was fine, and it would have been a pity not to make use of it; we pushed on over good ground for an hour, and after that through mud, ditches, and frogs; about one o’clock a wide ditch completely barred further progress. We had for a good while been again among crops, so rank that wading through them was hard work, and on reaching this ditch, we all groped about, trying to find a passage for the camels. There was no sort of track; the horsemen had, in fact, got off the road and could not find it again, but there was no difficulty as to general direction, the Scorpion being our guide. Here, however, we were stuck fast by irrigation works, for at this particular spot the ditch was impracticable for camels, and all efforts in the dark to hit upon a ford were vain. The horsemen had already got across, and were shouting to us to follow; indeed, they had for the last hour guided us in a haphazard way by shouts and singing. One of them sang remarkably well, and kept up a sort of refrain:
But now they screamed, shouted, and sang to no purpose. We refused to waste any more time in a useless search, and sat down to wait for daylight. One of the khayal then returned and sat with us till four A.M. talking all the while to Hajji Mohammed about the Shirazi. We lay down and went to sleep. By half-past four we had found a passage through the mud and water of the canal, and beyond it got on to desert ground, on which we passed several small detached oasis-like palm gardens. Half an hour’s march further took us to Jazûn.
Jazûn is the only village left of many which once existed between Sultanabad and Bebahan, and whose ruins we have passed. They were deserted only a few years ago; the governors of the province, who found it impossible to collect taxes from them, having solved the difficulty by destroying them. This village is now a collection of little mud houses on the left bank of a natural stream of running water. It is surrounded by fields and groups of palm trees. Our horses are tethered out by long ropes fastened to palm trees, to feed on green barley; the camels are further off with Shafi. Shafi is an excellent worker, but he does not speak a word of Arabic, or I should tell him how well satisfied we are with him. We ourselves have encamped on the high bank backed by the stream, so that the villagers, who are a tiresome set of people, can only approach us on one side.
Jazûn as well as Sultanabad, belongs to the family of Mohammed Jafar. He has been sitting here talking to us through Hajji Mohammed. He tells us that his family, although they now no longer talk Arabic, are of the Safeyeh tribe, and came originally from Nejd, bringing their horses with them; and that a beautiful little white mare his nephew rides, and which we admired yesterday evening, is a Hamdanyeh Simri. This mare is very small, 13·2 at most, but almost perfect; the head very fine with black nose, black round the eyes as if painted, jebha prominent, and mitbakh extremely fine; tail properly set on and carried, a good style of going, bones rather small, but legs apparently wiry and strong. One of the men rides a chestnut mare said to be Kehîleh Sheykhah, about 14 hands, with four white feet, handsome head, and mitbakh. Mohammed Jafar mentioned that the particular breeds now possessed by his tribe are Hamdani Simri, Abeyan, Hadban, Wadnan, Meleyhan, Seglawi and Kehîlan. His own grey mare does not look thoroughbred, and he did not say anything about her. Mohammed Jafar now informed us that his nephew would proceed to Bebahan with us while he himself must go home, and he wished to have the whole sum of one hundred krans paid to him at once. After some talk he agreed to take seventy krans as his share, the rest to be given to his nephew at the end of the journey. He certainly gets the lion’s share, but beggars cannot be choosers, and we are dependent on his goodwill to pass us through this part of the country, so that on the whole we ought to be glad that he has not asked more. We are altogether in a false position, too weak to insist upon our own terms, and our best plan is to march as fast as we can to Bebahan. Unfortunately there are not only crags to cross, but the Kurdistan river has to be forded.
April 19.—A disagreeable twenty-four hours has passed, and we have scaled the crags, and escaped from the Jazûn people, who, it seems, had some evil design. But there is still the Kurdistan river between us and Bebahan.
We managed to set out from Jazûn soon after two o’clock in the afternoon, getting at once off the plain on to broken ground, which became more and more broken till at seven o’clock, when we halted, we were involved in a confused mass of hills apparently tossed together at random. We had crossed several small streams in deep ravines, and one narrow ledge of rock at the head of a ravine, which would have been unpleasant in the dark. Saw three or four gazelles, luckily not perceived by the greyhounds, for we cannot stop for sport. Sand-grouse, beebirds, plovers, and doves abounded. By seven o’clock we had done about ten miles and ascended over 600 feet, and Wilfrid proposed to halt for some hours. I was pleased, not liking passes and steeps in the dark, and we still had the pass itself before us, but Abdallah Khan, the Kaïd’s nephew, remonstrated and protested danger. Wilfrid, however, gave a peremptory order to unload the camels and we sat down to drink tea and make a frugal meal, and proposed afterwards to make aliek for the camels, as they have had a tiring march and cannot feed now in the night. Before we had done eating Hajji Mohammed came to announce that forty Jazûnis were following to attack and plunder us. Shafi, he said, had found this out, and told him, and he added that the welled Abdallah Khan had also been told of the plot and warned by the villagers not to stay with us. He called the youth, who confirmed the tale, as did all the others, the four men on foot who had come all the way with Abdallah. It seems probable that an attack really was contemplated, for Shafi could gain nothing by inventing such a story. But, as Wilfrid suggested, it may have been only a way of “expressing the polite feelings of the inhabitants of Jazûn.” He however agreed that we ought to be on the watch and start as soon as possible—at this moment it was really impossible. Guns and revolvers were placed ready and sentinels posted, and Abdallah earnestly assured us he would stand by us. I think he would, he had been a much better guide than his uncle and was besides always ready to help and to wait for the camels at difficult places. After all this agitation, nothing happened except one or two false alarms, and I don’t think I ever slept a sweeter sleep than between nine and two o’clock this night—no mosquitoes and no flies.
It took us more than an hour to load in the dark, and we were not off till past three o’clock; at first feeling our way in single file, led by Abdallah, along a very broken and steep road. For part of the way we had a little assistance from a red crescent moon. At a quarter to six, we had gained the highest point of the ridge, between 1600 and 1700 feet above the sea, making about 900 feet ascent from Jazûn. Here there was at last an open view, down towards the Kurdistan river, with the palm village of Kaïkus plainly visible, and other palm villages beyond the river, and still further something vague, said to be Bebahan.