This was the country into which we, too, now, in our turn adventured. Armed robbers roamed from hill to plain and back again, holding up and looting passing caravans, preying upon the miserable inhabitants in the remote villages, and relieving them of anything in the nature of food and live-stock that the greedy maw of Turk and Russian had inadvertently overlooked.
Little wonder that the terrified wayside inhabitants fled pell-mell at the approach of our column! It took some persuasion to assure them that they would not be "bled" afresh, nor put to the sword. Not unnaturally, they had reason to dread the exactions of a third invader, and both effort and time were needed to convince them that our intentions were not hostile, but friendly. When confidence was at last restored, the glad tidings of our exemplary behaviour sped ahead of us from village to village, carried by that mysterious agency which in the East lends wings to any news of import, and in speed rivals wireless telegraphy.
So it was that on our further progress ragged and cringing peasants, all semblance of manhood driven out of them by hunger and oppression, would crawl forth into the light of day from some dark hovel to beg, firstly for their lives, and secondly for a morsel of bread. We granted the one without question, but were not always able to comply with the second demand.
From Kirind our progress was slow. The first day, Sunday, April 14th, we barely covered ten miles, arriving at Khorosabad late in the afternoon, where we bivouacked under the lee of the hills. The road beyond was a kind of hog's back strewn with limestone boulders which proved too difficult for the laden Ford cars. To add to our troubles the weather broke in the evening, and it rained steadily throughout the night, so that our camping-ground became a swamp. The Hussars' horses suffered from exposure, while the men themselves were wet through and inclined to be grumpy. In the morning, as the weather showed signs of mending, the march was resumed; but the Ford convoy had to be left behind in charge of an escort to wait until the road became passable.
The infantry units marched through twelve miles of mud to Harunabad, the next stage on the journey. It tried the men's endurance to the utmost. The road was simply an unmetalled track across the plain; there was no foothold in the saturated soil, and at each step a pound or two of clay adhered to one's boots, necessitating frequent halts to scrape them clean. The Persian muleteers were more fortunate. They marched barefoot, and their movements were not handicapped by the encumbering dead weight of adhesive earth.
PERSIAN TRANSPORT.
Harunabad does not differ essentially from any other village in South-Western Persia. Dirt and decay have laid their twin grip upon its crooked streets, its tottering mud walls, and ruinous habitations. The inhabitants were as hungry as any other of their class in Persia, and they crowded round the bivouac cookhouses snatching eagerly at any morsel of food that was thrown to them. General Byron, Captain Eve, Lieutenant Akhbar, and I lighted on a couple of rooms in a disused caravanserai, and the local governor, who seemed to bother less about backsheesh than the average of his fellows, procured us some mutton and firewood. Two of his servitors who had brought the supplies were demanding an exorbitant price—the middleman's profit. The Governor, happening to arrive on the scene while the haggling was proceeding, beat the grasping pair soundly in our presence, and promised them a dose of the bastinado on the morrow. Thoroughly abashed by their drubbing, and terrified by the prospect of a fresh one next day, they fell upon their knees, begging for mercy and forgiveness. The General successfully pleaded on their behalf, and they showed their gratitude by kissing his hands, before taking themselves out of range of the still wrathful eye of the Governor.