Gertrude Lowthian Bell

“ Before the Green Mosque is a fountain, one of those exquisite fountains of Olympus, shaded by huge plane-trees, and protected by a pointed roof rising on delicate columns, and arches with the Moorish curve in them; and on the mosque itself, the colour of leaves with the sun shining through them is rivalled by the brilliant green of the tiles which encase the dome, and the tracery of laden branches against the sky by the carving round the doorway, until you cannot tell which is the most successful decorator, man or nature. ”

“ A hospitable friend and a cheerful host is he, the ready quip, the apt [49] story, the appreciative laugh, for ever on his lips; a man on whom the world has smiled, and who smiles back at that Persian world of his which he has made so pleasant for himself, strewing it with soft cushions and glowing carpets, and planting it round with flowers. Every evening the hot summer through, he is to be found in his airy garden at the foot of the mountains; every evening strings of guests knock at his hospitable gates, nor do they knock in vain. ”

“ From the high towers of Yedi Kuli on the topmost hill down to the glittering waters of the Golden Horn are scattered countless graves—on the one hand, the triple line of Constantine’s city wall, rent and torn, with cracking bastions [224] and dismantled towers, in its hopeless decrepitude still presenting a noble front to all comers, save where the great breach tells of the inrush of the Turkish conquerors Judas-trees drop their purple flowers over the spot where Constantine Palæologus fell, red rose-bushes spring from the crevices, a timid army of lizards garrisons the useless forts. ”

“ We rode out of sleeping Tehran, and took our way along the deserted track that skirts its walls; to our left lay the wilderness, wrapped in transparent shadow, and sloping gradually upwards to the barren foot-hills over which winds the road to Meshed. Before we had gone far, with a flash and a sudden glitter, the sun leapt up above the snow-peaks, and day rushed across the plain—day, crude and garish, revealing not the bounteous plenty of the cornfields and pastures which encircled Rages, but dust and stones and desert scrub, and the naked, forbidding mountains, wrinkled by many winters. ”

“ You may watch the medley of folk hurrying into Stamboul across the Galata Bridge—that causeway between East and West—and the Dervishes washing their feet under the arches of a mosque, and the eager bartering in the bazaars, without one feeling of fellowship with these men and women who look at you askance as you go by; you may pass between long rows of crumbling, closely-latticed houses without venturing to hazard the widest solution of the life within—without even knowing whether there be life at all, so inhospitable they seem, so undomestic. ”

“ Does he fly to his peaceful, [166] mud-walled village from time to time when the service of the palace has become hateful to him? Does he sit at sunset on the balcony overlooking his laden fruit-trees, smoking a kalyan, and watching the village folk as they drive home the flocks of goats under his archway—as they stagger through it loaded with wood bundles? And when the sun has set behind the sweeping curve of mountains, what peaceful thoughts of the future, of restful age, of projects accomplished, come to him with the sweet smell of wood fires and of savoury evening meals? ”

“ The streams of Olympus, many-fountained like its neighbour Ida, water the town and the surrounding country with such profusion that every inch of ground yields fruit and flowers in tenfold abundance; the hot steam of the sulphur springs diffuses a drowsy warmth through the atmosphere; the city is full of the sound of tinkling fountains and murmuring [238] plane-leaves, and of the voices of black-eyed Turkish children—no wonder if the eagerness of men for its possession drove peace for so many hundred years from its vineyards and olive-groves. ”

“ The plane-trees grew straight and tall on each side of the road; overhead their branches touched one another, arching together and roofing it with leaves fresh and green, as only plane-leaves can be all through the hot summer. Between the broad leaves [127] fell tiny circles of sunshine, which flickered on his white turban and on the linen vest about his throat as he came. He looked like a very part of his surroundings, for his woollen cloak was of a faded gray, the colour of Persian dust, and his under-robe was as green as the plane-leaves, and his turban gleamed like the sunshine ”

“ Yengi Imam looked very desolate and uncared-for as we rode through the mud-heaps before its hospitable doors. Half the blue tiles had fallen from the dome, unnoticed and unreplaced, meagre poplars shivered in the sun, stunted pomegranate bushes carpeted the ground with yellow autumn leaves, their heavy dark-red fruit a poor exchange for the spring glory of crimson flower. Persians love pomegranates, and on a journey prize them above all other fruits, and even to the foreigner their pink fleshy pips, thick set like jewels, are not without charm. ”

“ At last far away, where the road dipped and turned, stood the longed-for clump of trees, clustered round the great caravanserai and the glittering blue-tiled dome of the little mosque. This was not an ordinary post-house, but a stately pile, four-square, built by some pious person in the reign of Shah Abbas, and the mosque was the shrine and tomb of a saint, a descendant of the Prophet. Behind it lay a huge mound of earth, a solid watch-tower heaped up in turbulent times. ”

“ Zoroaster’s religion has faded from that Media where once it reigned, and few and humble now are the worshippers who raise prayers to Ormuzd under the open heaven, and whose bodies are borne up the stony valley and cast into the Tower of Silence.
We dismounted from our horses and sat down on the hillside. The plain stretched below us like a monotonous ocean which had billowed up against the mountain flanks and had been fixed there for ever; we could see the feet of the mountains themselves planted firmly in the waves of dust, and their glistening peaks towering into the cloudless sky ”

“ Like a swarm of bees the people jostle one another through the archway. Peasants are driving in their donkeys laden with roped bundles of grass from the meadows of Shah Abdul Azim, strings of camels file through the gate, bringing in the produce of the great cities of the south and east, busy officials are hurrying Tehranwards in the early morning about their affairs, sellers of salted nuts have established themselves under the trees, beggars are lying by the roadside, pilgrims returning from Meshed hasten their step as the homeward goal comes into sight. ”

“ Flocks of gray birds flit aimlessly across the water—the restless souls of women, says Turkish legend—the waves lap round the tower of Leander, the light wind comes whispering down between the exquisite Bosphorus shores, bringing the breath of Russian steppes to shake the plane-leaves in Scutari streets. Constantinople the Magnificent gathers her rags round her, throws over her shoulders her imperial robe of sunshine, and sits in peaceful state with her kingdom of blue waters at her feet.... But all around you the dead speak and command your ears. ”

“ But for beauty give me pomegranate bushes in the spring, with dark, dark green leaves and glowing flowers, thick and pulpy like a fruit, and winged with delicate petals, red as flame.
Through the low door of the caravanserai we entered the cool vault of the stable which ran all round the garden court. A lordly stable it was, lighted by shafts of sunshine falling from the glass balls with which each tiny dome was studded—vault beyond vault, dusty light and shadowy darkness following each other in endless succession till the eye lost itself in the flickering sunshine of a corner dome. ”

“ In the big mosque in the centre of the town the builders seem to have recognised that the beauty of curving roofs and the splendour of coloured tiles could go no further—they have called in Heaven to their aid. The entrance, indeed, is vaulted over, the floor is strewn with carpets, and the walls glow with colour; but the central court is open to the sky, and a fountain plashes under the blaze of light and sunshine which falls through the opening. Round the edge of the basin beggars sit washing their feet, grave elders dip their hands and bathe their faces in the cool water ”

“ Ali Akbar led the way—Ali Akbar, the swiftest rider on the road to Resht, he with the surest judgment as to the merits of a post-horse, the richest store of curses for delinquent post-boys, the deftest hand in the confection of a pillau, the brightest twinkle of humour darting from under shaggy brows—friend, counsellor, protector, and incidentally our servant. He had wound a scarlet turban round his head, he made it a practice not to wash on a journey, and his usually shaven beard had begun to assume alarming proportions before we reached the Caspian. ”

“ The experience of those who have passed before him along the well-trodden road will not hold him back or turn him aside; to each newcomer the way is new and still to be enjoyed—new and exciting the dangers and the difficulties, new the pleasant sensation of rest by the fountain at mid-day, new and terrible the hunger and the foot-soreness, new, with a grim unexpectedness, the forbidding aspect of that last caravanserai where he lays himself down to sleep out the eternal night. ”

“ In the early hours of the morning the moon set, and darkness fell upon the world, for though the sky was alive with newly revealed stars, their rays were lost in the depths of heaven, and left night to reign on the earth. A little wind shivered through the poplars in the garden, warning us it was time to continue on our way if we would reach the top of the next pass before the heat of day fell upon us, and we drank an early cup of tea in the dark, and waited under the clump of trees that served for stables while the mules were loaded and the horses saddled. ”

“ Tehran, which from the west looked almost like a city of the dead, cut off from intercourse with the outer world, is alive after [18] all and in eager relationship with a world of its own. Here in the dust and the sunshine is an epitome of the living East, and standing unnoticed in such a doorway, you will admit that you have not travelled in vain. But as the wonderful procession of people files past you, too intent upon their own affairs to give you more than a contemptuous glance, you will realize what a gulf lies between you. The East looks to itself ”

“ Not that discreet English sunshine which varies its charm with clouds, with rainbows, with golden mist, as an attractive woman varies her dress and the fashion of her hair—‘ever afresh and ever anew,’ as the Persian poet has it—here the sun has long ceased trying to please so venerable a world. ”