The village barber, with his arms bared, and the flowing, o'er-ample legs of his Aradan-Lasgird pantaloons tucked up at his waist, like a washerwoman's skirt, a bunch of raw cotton in lieu of lint under his left arm, and his keen-edged razor, looks like a man who thoroughly realizes and enjoys the importance of the office he is performing, as from the bared arm or open mouth of one after the other of his neighbors he starts the crimson stream. The candidates for the barber's claret-tapping attentions bare their right arms to the shoulder, and bind for each other a handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the left thumb. The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a "who-cares?—I-don't" sort of a grin. He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint, occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow. Half a pint is considered about the correct quantity for an adult to lose at one bleeding; the barber then binds on a small wad of cotton.
Now and then a customer gives the barber a trifling coin by way of backsheesh, but the great majority give nothing. In a mere village like Lasgird, these periodical blood-lettings by the barber are, no doubt, regarded as being all in the family, rather than of professional services for a money consideration. The communal spirit obtains to a great extent in village life throughout both Asia Minor and Persia; nevertheless backsheesh would be expected in Persia from those able to afford it. Some few prefer being bled in the roof the mouth, and they all squat on their hams in rows, some bleeding from the arm, others from the mouth, while the inevitable crowd of onlookers stand around, gazing and giving advice. While the barber is engaged in binding on the wad of cotton, or during any interval between patients, he inserts the handle of the razor between his close-fitting skull-cap and his forehead, letting the blade hang down over his face, edge outward; a peculiar disposition of his razor, that he would, no doubt, be entirely at a loss to account for, except that he is following the custom of his fathers. As regards the customs of his ancestors, whose trade or profession he invariably follows, the Asiatic is the most conservative of mortals. "What was good enough for my father and grandfather," he says, "is certainly good enough for me;" and earnestly believing in this, he never, of his own accord, thinks of changing his occupation or of making improvements.
Later in the afternoon I descend from the bala-khana and take a strolling look at the village, and with the shagird-chapar for guide, pay a visit to the old fortress, the conspicuous edifice seen from the trail-worn limestone pass. Forgetting about my subterfuge of the sprained ankle, I wander forth without the aforementioned limp; but the people seem to have forgotten it as completely as I had; at all events, nobody makes any comments. A ripple of excitement is caused by a two-storied house collapsing from the effects of the soaking rains, an occurrence by no means infrequent in the spring in a country of mud-built houses. A crowd soon appears upon the scene, watching, with unconcealed delight, the spectacle of tumbling roof and toppling wall, giving vent to their feelings in laughter and loud shouts of approval, like delighted children, whenever another bulky square of mud and thatch comes tumbling down. Fortunately, nobody happens to be hurt, beyond the half-burying in the debris of some donkeys, which are finally induced to extricate themselves by being vigorously bombarded with stones. No sympathy appears to be given on the part of the spectators, and evidently nothing of the kind is expected by the tenants of the tumbling house; the wailing women, and the look of consternation on the face of the men who barely escaped from the falling roof, seem to be regarded by the spectators as a tomasha (show), to be stared at and enjoyed, as they would stare at and enjoy anything not seen every day; on the other hand, the occupants of the house regard their misfortune as kismet.
Returning to the chapar-ktiana, I get the shayird to pilot me into and round about the fortress. It is rapidly falling to decay, but is still in a sufficiently good state of preservation to show thoroughly its former strength and conformation. The fortress is a decidedly massive building, constructed entirely of mud and adobe bricks, a hundred feet high, of circular form, and some two hundred yards in circumference. The disintegrated walls and debris of former towers form a sloping mound or foundation about fifty feet in height, and from this the perpendicular walls of the castle rise up, huge and ugly, for another hundred feet. Following a foot-trail up the mound-like base, we come to a low, gloomy passage-way leading into the interior of the fort. A door, composed of one massive stone slab, that nothing less than a cannon-shot would shatter, guards the entrance to this passage, which is the only accessible entrance to the place. Following it along for perhaps thirty yards, we emerge upon a scene of almost indescribable squalor—a scene that instantly suggests an overcrowded "rookery" in the tenement-house slums of New York. The place is simply swarming with people, who, like rabbits in an old warren, seem to be moving about among the tumble-down mud huts, anywhere and everywhere, as though the old ruined fortress were burrowed through and through, or that the people now moved through, over, under, and around the remnants of what was once a more orderly collection of dwellings, having long forsaken regular foot-ways.
The inhabitants are ragged and picturesque, and meandering about among them, on the most familiar terms, are hundreds of goats. Although everything is in a more or less dilapidated condition, huts or cells still rise above each other in tiers, and the people clamber about from tier to tier, as if in emulation of their venturesome four-footed associates, who are here, we may well imagine, in as perfect a paradise as vagrom goatish nature would care for or expect. At a low estimate, I should place the present population of the old fortress at a thousand people, and about the same number of goats. In the days when the bold Turkoman raiders were wont to make their dreaded damans almost up to the walls of Teheran, and such strongholds as this were the only safeguard of out-lying villagers, the interior of Lasgird fortress resembled a spacious amphitheatre, around which hundreds of huts rose, tier above tier, like the cells of a monster pigeon-house, affording shelter in times of peril to all the inhabitants of Lasgird, and to such refugees as might come in. At the first alarm of the dreaded man-stealers' approach, the outside villagers repaired to the fortress with their portable property; the donkeys and goats were driven inside and occupied the interior space, and the massive stone door was closed and barricaded. The villagers' granaries were inside the fortress, and provisions for obtaining water were not overlooked; so that once inside, the people were quite secure against any force of Turkomans, whose heaviest arms were muskets.
The suggestion of an amphitheatre, as above described, is quite patent at the present day, in something like two or three hundred tiered dwellings; in the days of its usefulness there must have been a thousand. Thanks to the Russian occupation of Turkestan, there is no longer any need of the fortress, and the present population seem to be occupying it at the peril of having it some day tumble down about their ears; for, massive though its walls most certainly are, they are but mud, and the people are indifferent about repairs. Failing to surprise the watchful villagers in their fields or outside dwellings, the baffled marauders would find confronting them fifty feet of solid mud wall without so much as an air-hole in it, rising sheer above the mound-like foundation, and above this, tiers of rooms or cells, from inside which archers or musketeers could make it decidedly interesting for any hostile party attempting to approach. This old fortress of Lasgird is very interesting, as showing the peaceful and unwarlike Persian ryot's method of defending his life and liberty against the savage human hawks that were ever hovering near, ready to swoop down and carry him and his off to the slave markets of Khiva and Bokhara. These were times when seed was sown and harvest garnered in fear and trembling, for the Turkoman raiders were adepts at swooping down when least expected, and they rode horses capable of making their hundred miles a day over the roughest country. (Incredible as this latter fact may seem, it is, nevertheless, a well-known thing in Central Asia that the Turkoman's horse is capable of covering this remarkable distance, and of keeping it up for days.)
A thunder-storm is raging violently and drenching everything as I retire for the night, dampening, among other things, my hopes of getting away from Lasgird for some days; for between the village and the gravelly, and consequently always traversable, desert, are some miles of slimy clay of the kind that in wet weather makes an experienced cycler wince to think of crossing. The floor of the bala-khana forms once again my nocturnal couch; but the temperature lowers perceptibly as the night advances and the rain continues, and toward morning it changes into snow. The doors and windows of my room are to be called doors and windows only out of courtesy to a rude, unfinished effort to imitate these things, and the floor, at daybreak, is nicely carpeted with an inch or so of "the beautiful snow," and a four-inch covering of the same greets my vision upon looking outside.
Determined to make the best of the situation, I remove my quarters from the cold and draughty bala-khana to the stable, and send the shagird-chapar out in quest of camel-thorn, bread, eggs, and pomegranates, thinking thus to obtain the luxury of a bit of fire and something to eat in comparative seclusion. This vain hope proves that I have not even yet become thoroughly acquainted with the Persians. No sooner does my camel-thorn blaze begin to crackle and the smoke to betray the whereabouts of a fire, than shivering, blue-nosed villagers begin to put in their appearance, their backs humped up and their bare ankles and slip-shod feet adding not a little to the general aspect of wretchedness that seems inseparable from Persians in cold weather.
And these are the people who, during a gleam of illusory sunshine yesterday, were so nonchalantly parting with their blood—of which, by the by, your bread and cucumber eating, and cold water drinking Persian has little enough, and that little thin enough at any time. These rag-bedecked, shivering wretches hop up on the raised platform where the fire is burning and squat themselves around it in the most sociable manner; and under the thawing process of passing their hands through the flames, poking the coals together, and close attention to the details of keeping it burning, they quickly thaw out in more respects than one. Fifteen minutes after my fire is lighted, the spot where I anticipated a samovar of tea and a pomegranate or two in peace, is occupied by as many Persians as can find squatting room, talking, shouting, singing, and kalian-smoking, meanwhile eagerly and expectantly watching the preparations for making tea. Preferring to leave them in full possession rather than be in their uncongenial midst, I pass the time in promenading back and forth behind the horses. After walking to and fro a few times, the, to them, singular performance of walking back and forth excites their easily-aroused curiosity, and the wondering attention of all present becomes once again my unhappy portion. An Asiatic's idea of enjoying himself in cold weather is squatting about a few coals of fire, making no physical exertion whatever beyond smoking and conversing; and the spectacle of a Ferenghi promenading back and forth, when he might be following their example of squatting by the fire, is to them a subject of no little wonder and speculation.
The redeeming feature of my enforced sojourn at Lasgird is the excellence of the pomegranates, for which the place is famous, and of which there seems an abundance left over through the winter. A small quantity of seedless pomegranates, a highly valued variety, are grown here at Lasgird, but they are all sent to Teheran for the use of the Shah and his household, and are not to be obtained by anyone. It has been a raw, disagreeable day, and at night I decide to sleep in the stable, where it is at least warmer, though the remove is but a compromise by which one's olfactory sensibilities are sacrificed in the interest of securing a few hours' sleep.