Short history of Kerman—Its overthrow—City of beggars—Story of the fort—The jackal’s “tale of woe.”
“A little red worm—the gard’ner’s special dread.”
V. Fane.
The first view we had of Kerman was a very picturesque one. We had been travelling for about twenty days, and on Easter Eve reached a lovely garden some four or five hours’ ride from Kerman, and here we decided to stay for Easter Day. Early on Monday morning we started for the last stage of our journey. Just as the sun was rising we came to the top of a hill, and there away in the distance lay the city of Kerman, the city towards which our hopes and thoughts had been tending for so long, as it was the goal to which we had been pressing for the past twelve months, and which we fondly hoped was to have been our home for many years; but God ordered otherwise.
Kerman is a very interesting old city, having passed through many vicissitudes and seen many changes during its varied and chequered history. It is also a very pretty place, especially as seen from a short distance, surrounded on three sides by the eternal mountains, with their ever-changing shades and shadows, and forming a magnificent background to the city nestling at their feet. On the fourth side the desert stretches away to Yezd and Isphahan.
Kerman is said to have derived its name from a Persian word Kerm, meaning a worm, and the legend connected with it is as follows. The princess who founded the city was one day walking with her followers over the site of the future town, and plucked an apple from a tree: upon eating it she found to her disgust and annoyance a worm at its core. As she threw it away in anger, she declared that the new city should be called Kerm-an, a worm. Kerman is certainly a very ancient city: the inhabitants claim that it was a large town in the time of Solomon. Whether this is so I do not know. The first time it is mentioned in history is by Herodotus. Alexander is said to have marched his army through Kerman on his way to India, and Cyrus passed that way on his return from India. Perhaps few places have suffered more at the hands of invaders than Kerman. It has been sacked at least six times, and in 1794 the city was almost entirely destroyed by Agha Mohammed Khan. The city was bravely defended by the prince-governor, who was one of the last of the Zend dynasty; he sustained a long and severe siege, till two-thirds of his troops had perished from starvation, and then the city was betrayed treacherously into the hands of the enemy and its brave defenders obliged to flee, only to meet with a cruel death some two years later from the hands of the same oppressor. This incarnation of cruelty, Agha Mohammed Khan, gave the city over to the will of his soldiers, who resembled their leader in cruelty and barbarity. There was no compassion in his heart, and he would listen to none of the entreaties of the unfortunate inhabitants for mercy, nor would he withdraw his troops from the city till he had received a gift of twenty thousand pairs of human eyes. When these were brought to him, he insisted on counting them over himself to see if the number was correct, and is reported to have said to the trembling man who carried the baskets piled high with these awful trophies: “It is a good thing the number is correct; if it had not been, your eyes would have gone to make up the exact number.” The city never recovered from this terrible blow, and to-day Kerman is a byword among Persians for its poverty and extraordinary number of beggars. If you were to ride through the bazaars you would be struck by the tremendous number of beggars, all holding out their hands, beseeching you for the love of God to give them a copper.
There is a quaint saying among the beggars which one hears very often; it is as follows:—
“Khuda guft, ‘Beddeh,’
Shaitan guft, ‘Neddeh’”
(God says, “Give”; Satan says, “Don’t give”).