A gradual descent brought us on to a strip of plain, swarming with cuckoos, beebirds, doves, francolins, and sandgrouse, and dotted with canora trees, singly or in clumps, here and there fields of corn.
The sight of a mound commanding air, if air there should be, decided us to halt, and here we now are, waiting for the decline of day to set out again and ford the river. This plain by the river is hardly more than three hundred feet below the top of the pass we came over this morning.
Sunday, April 20.—Bebahan has been reached at last. Our final march, though not a long one, took us till towards midnight to accomplish, for we had the Kurdistan river to cross. This was the deepest of any we had forded, and there was a long delay in choosing a safe place; and then the water was up to our saddle bows, and running almost like a mill race. But the camels are now so used to water in every form from mud to torrents, that all marched bravely through, a portion only of the luggage getting wet. Unfitted though the country has been in many ways for camels, we may nevertheless congratulate ourselves with the thought that with no other beasts of burden could we have got our luggage across the rivers at all. Loaded mules must have been swept away.
The Kurdistan forms the boundary on this side of the cultivated plain of Bebahan. Beyond it, we found ourselves travelling entirely between cornfields, and along a broad highway towards the capital of Khusistan. When two hours from the town we sent on Hajji Mohammed to announce us to the governor, but the governor was already asleep, and it was with some difficulty that we were admitted by the guard within the gate; nor was it possible in the utter darkness of the night to choose our ground within for camping. In the first open place we stopped, and as we were, lay down and slept (we care little now, how or where it is we lie, the ground is always soft as a feather-bed). Then, with the first light, we went on through the town and stopped again in front of the Seraï. Here I have been writing my journal and sketching the picturesque old palace, with its tottering minarets covered with storks’ nests. “The Shahzade is still sleeping,” say the sentries, “and will not be awakened.”
CHAPTER VI.
“Last scene of all . . . . . .
A mere oblivion.”—Shakespeare.
A last rush through the sun—We arrive at Dilam on the Persian Gulf—Politics of the Gulf—A journey “in extremis”—Bushire—The End.
The rest of our journey was little better than a feverish dream of heat and flies. After a day spent at Bebahan, where we were hospitably entertained by the Shahzade, Ahtesham ed-Daulah, a Persian nobleman of real good breeding, we recommenced our weary march, thinking only now to get down to Bushire alive.
The kind invitations of our host could not detain us, nor the polite attentions of his wives, nor the amiable visits of merchants, calendars, and other idle persons, who thronged our lodgings from dawn to dusk. The truth is Bebahan was like a furnace, and we felt that it was more than our strength would stand, to prolong our sufferings over another week. The lowlands of Persia, bordering on the Persian Gulf, are one of the most oven-like regions of the world, and though Bebahan lies nearly 1400 feet above the sea, it shares the climate of the Gulf. We had now, besides, nothing further to fear in the way of robbers or marauders, and prepared ourselves for a last desperate rush through the sun to Bushire. The distance was hardly more than a hundred and twenty miles, but between Bebahan and Dilam there lay a region of hills, worse, according to report, than any we had yet passed, and absolutely impassable for camels. Still we had good reason to feel confident in the climbing powers of our beasts, and could not think of leaving them behind. Accordingly the next day we started, our courage well screwed to the sticking point of endurance, and under escort of three of the Shahzade’s horsemen.
We set off at six in the afternoon, making the best of what daylight yet remained to get well started on our road. The difficulties are almost always greater close to the town, and once fairly on the beaten track, our camels would have no temptation to wander. From Bebahan to Dilam there are two considerable lines of ridges or hills—steps, as it were, and extremely precipitous ones, down to the sea coast. At first it was easy going for the camels, but presently, about an hour after dark, we found ourselves in broken ground, where, after stumbling on till half-past nine, we were brought to a dead halt by finding ourselves at the brink of a deep gulf, in which the road seemed to disappear. This made it necessary we should wait till daylight, and we lay down with our camels on the road, and slept soundly till the first streak of dawn at half-past four. Then we discovered we had left the road, though only a few yards, and that the fissure before us was a sufficient reason for the halt we had made. The chief formation of these hills is not rock but clay, which being entirely without vegetation except in favoured spots, is furrowed into ravines and fissures by the action of the rain, making the district impassable except along the beaten track. We had risen some hundred feet from Bebahan, and so had nearly reached the summit of the first pass, where to our joy we saw something far away which we knew by instinct must be the sea. This raised our spirits, and we began our descent at once.