With the Persian Expedition

by Martin Henry Donohoe

The night was cold, with a tinge of frost in the air. We sat round the fire after supper drying our sodden garments and removing the encrustations of Persian mud which had settled thickly upon them. Sleep came to us easily after the fatigues of the day, and it was with a feeling of deep personal resentment that we heard the Hussars' trumpeter sound the reveille.

Most transport mules are longsuffering animals, but they rebel occasionally. The Persian variety was inclined to be peevish, when it came to early rising and taking afresh upon its sturdy back the burden of the day. Those of our supply convoy, when prodded into activity before sunrise, rarely failed to make their displeasure felt by a vigorous protest lodged at random in some part of a charvadar's anatomy. On the morning of our departure from Harunabad the mules showed themselves especially intractable. It could hardly have been because of any deep-rooted affection for the locality itself. However, at the cost of much profanity and shouting on the part of the muleteers, during which grave aspersions were cast upon the character of the mules' ancestors, the rebellious beasts were cowed into submissiveness and our column was soon floundering anew in the mud of the Persian wilderness.

A wind from the north blew across our path and sent the menacing rain-clouds scurrying to the right-about. The sun, too, unveiled its face, as if half-ashamed of its tardiness, and speedily dispelled the curtain of white mist which arose from the sodden earth. The air was keen and invigorating, but tempered by the warm breath of spring. Men and horses and transport mules responded to the gladsome call of Nature in her most beneficent mood. British soldier and Persian charvadar each sang the wild songs of his native land, telling invariably of some fair, beauteous maiden whom the sentimental songster had left behind somewhere in England or Iran. To the ears of one riding on in advance, as I happened to be that day, this flow of song blending with the deep note of the jingling mule-bells made sweetest music.

Four hours' march brought the head of the column to the top of the Chihar Zabar Pass. The road went sheer down the reverse slope, cutting across an immense plain carpeted with the deepest emerald green. Here wild flowers grew in abundance—crocuses, daffodils, daisies, violets, and a species of indigenous primrose, a woof of rich, glorious colouring in the warp of green. This "Promised Land," the work of Nature's own brush, stretched away from my very feet till it mingled with the grey-blue of the distant horizon. What a pleasing contrast to the dreary, desolate lowlands we had so lately traversed! It was a most welcome prospect to eyes tired of looking upon dull, monotonous landscapes. To me it was the fairest sight I had yet seen in the land of Iran.

While I was revelling in the beauty of the scene, there appeared on the summit of the Pass, coming from this valley of enchantment, three men whose dress and appearance excited my curiosity. They were sturdily built, and dressed in black, skirted coats, fastened at the waist by a girdle from which was suspended a sword and satchel. Their beards were no longer than that permitted by the precepts of the Koran. They were without head-covering of any kind, and their long hair fell free and untrammelled on their shoulders. The trio wore shoes of Moroccan leather with pointed, turned-up toes and silver buckles. Each carried a small silver-headed axe at the "slope," as a cavalry trooper does a sabre.

As they approached, my first feeling was one of alarm, and my hand instinctively sought my revolver holster. Seeing this, the foremost raised his hand in friendly salutation, and greeted me with, "Peace be upon thee, O stranger!" They proved to be wandering dervishes who begged their way from end to end of Persia, and to judge by their raiment and their general well-to-do appearance, it must be a profitable occupation.

These dervishes, amongst the Persians of all classes, have a great reputation for sanctity. The rich help them liberally, and even the very poor will not turn a deaf ear to their request for aid. One of them chattered away like a magpie, recounting adventures which were not always of the kind one is prone to associate with the austerity of a Religious Order. They had come on foot from Meshed in Eastern Persia to Teheran, Hamadan, and Kermanshah, and were now bound for Kerbela and the Shi'ite holy places in the vicinity of Bagdad. The burdens of life sat lightly on their shoulders, and the destroying hand of care had left no traces upon their merry, laughing faces. They were a cheery trio, forgetful of yesterday, unmindful of to-morrow, and living only for to-day.

They were full of a pleasant inquisitiveness, and withal as simple as children. "Were there dervishes across the big water in Faringistan (Europe), and had the man-birds (aviators) come to Bagdad?" they asked. I told them they would see plenty of "man-birds" and "wonder-houses" (cinemas) down yonder in Bagdad, but that an itinerant Persian dervish would be a rara avis amongst our benighted folk, not one, so far as I knew, having yet shed the light of his countenance upon our slow-going old Western world. With a small cash contribution oh my part towards the expenses of their journey, and on theirs the formal invocation of the blessing of Allah upon my head, the dervishes and I exchanged cordial adieux, and parted company on the summit of the Chihar Zabar.

Our next halting-place was at Mahidast, a walled town which stands in the midst of an immense plain seventy miles long by ten broad. It is one of the most fertile tracts in Persia, and grows great crops of wheat and barley for the market of Kermanshah. As for Mahidast itself, it consists of a few dirty streets, unpaved and evil-smelling, and a hundred houses, the greater number of which are in ruins. Its inhabitants are chiefly Kalhur-Kurds, semi-nomads, who migrate in winter with their flocks to the neighbourhood of Khaniquin and Mandali. Mahidast is a great resort of pilgrims on the way to and from Kerbela, and in the main street stands a vast caravanserai built by that industrious architect-ruler, Shah Abbas.