Isabella L. Bird

“ But under all this lies the inherent rottenness of Persian administration, an abyss of official corruption and infamy without a bottom or a shore, a corruption of heredity and tradition, unchecked by public opinion or the teachings of even an elementary education in morals and the rudiments of justice. There are few men pure enough to judge their fellows or to lift clean hands to Heaven, and power and place are valued for their opportunities for plunder.
In no part of Persia did I hear any complaint of the tribute levied by the Shah. It is regarded as legitimate. ”

“ Smooth sward, green barley, many yoke of big oxen ploughing up rich black soil, dark flocks of thousands of sheep and goats, asses, mares, mules, cows, all feeding, large villages of black tents, one of them surrounding the white pavilion of a Khan, saddle-horses tethered, flocks being led to and fro, others being watered, laden asses arriving and departing, butter being churned, and carpets being woven, form a scene of quiet but busy industry which makes one feel quite "in the world." ”

“ The eye is not tempted to linger long upon that specimen of a Persian summer landscape, but turns with relief to the other side of the ridge, to a confused mass of mountains of great height, built up of precipices of solid rock, dark gray, weathered into black and denuded of soil, a mystery of chasms, rifts, and river-beds, sheltering and feeding predatory tribes, but unknown to the rest of the world. ”

“ This shingle where I am encamped is the Rotten Row of the town, and is very lively this evening, for numbers of Kurds have been galloping their horses here, and performing feats of horsemanship before the admiring eyes of hundreds of promenaders, male and female, most of the latter unveiled. As all have to cross the ford where the river is some inches above a man's knees, the effect is grotesque, and even the women have no objection to displaying their round white limbs in the clear water. ”

“ The next march was a very beautiful one, most of the way over the spurs and deeply-cleft ravines of the grand Kuh-i-Rang by sheep and goat tracks, and no tracks at all, a lonely and magnificent ride, shut in among mountains of great height, their spurs green with 34 tamarisk, salvias, and euphorbias, their ravines noisy with torrents, bright springs bursting from their sides with lawn-like grass below, and their slopes patched with acres of deep snow, on whose margin purple crocuses, yellow ranunculuses, and white tulips were springing. ”

“ Law, in the sense in which we understand it, as the avenger of wrong and the sublimely impartial protector of individual rights and liberties, has no existence at all in Persia.
The curse of the country is venal mal-administration. It meets one at every turn, and in protean shapes. There is no official conscience, and no public opinion to act as a check upon official unscrupulousness. Of Government as an institution for the good of the governed there is no conception. ”

“ We rode through cultivated valleys full of nomads, forded the 124 placid Bawali, and at dawn were at the foot of the grand pass of Handawan, 7500 feet in altitude, which is ascended by steep zigzags over worn rock ledges, and the dry boulder-strewn bed of a torrent. A descent of 2000 feet and a long ride among large formless hills took us to a narrow gorge or chasm with a fine mountain torrent, and thence to the magnificent Tang-i-Buzful, from which we emerged with some suddenness on the slopes of the low foot-hills on the north side of the plain of Burujird or Silakhor. ”

“ Some buffaloes are lying in moist places looking amiable and foolish. Boy is tied to my chair. The village women knit and stare. Two of the men, armed with matchlock guns, keep a look-out for the Kurds. A crystal stream tumbles through the village, over ledges 325 of white quartz. Below, the valley opens and discloses ranges bathed in ineffable blue. The mountain sides are aflame with autumn tints, and down their steep paths oxen are bringing the tawny gold of the late harvest on rude sledges. ”

“ Art aids nature, and there are grand old monasteries on promontories, and Kurdish castles on heights, and flashing streams and booming torrents are bridged by picturesque pointed arches. There are 150 monasteries in this region, and the towers of St. George at the mountain village of Narek, high on a rocky spur above one of the most beautiful of the many wooded valleys which descend upon the lake of Van, lend an air of medieval romance to a scene as fair as nature can make it. ”

“ In the morning the Kaimakam rose early to do me honour, but was so tipsy that he could scarcely sit upright on his chair on a stone dais amidst a rabble of soldiers and 329 scribes. We were all benumbed with cold, and glad that the crossing of an expanse of frozen streams rendered walking a necessity. A nine hours' march through mountains remarkable for rocky spires and needles marvellously coloured, and for the absence of inhabitants, took us to the Armenian village of Khanjarak, finely situated in a corrie upon a torrent bank ”

“ It is indeed the ultimate refuge of the Patriarch and the villagers in case of a descent of the Kurds. I walked all round it, through the poplar grove, with its mirthful waters, among the tombs, and back by the edge of the ravine to the west side without finding a door. In truth the only entrance is up a rude and very steep ladder, about ten feet high, with a rude door at the top six inches thick, but only three feet high. How old and infirm people get up and down I cannot tell. ”

“ So far as I have yet seen, the wheat is all "bearded." It is a most smiling valley; so cultivated, indeed, and so trim and free from weeds are the crops, that one naturally looks for neat farm-houses and barns. But one looks in vain, for except the ruins of some Armenian villages there are no traces of inhabitants, till night comes, when the glimmer of camp fires here and there high up on the hillsides shows the whereabouts of some migratory families. ”

“ Over this source towers the mighty range of the Zard Kuh,—a colossal mountain barrier, a mass of yellow and gray limestone, with stupendous snow-filled chasms, huge precipices, and vast snow-fields, treeless and destitute of herbage except where the tulip-studded grass runs up to meet the moisture from the snow-fields. It is the birthplace of innumerable torrents, but one alone finds its way to the sea. ”

“ There is not one redeeming feature, and on the long marches there is rarely anything to please or interest the eye. On the march from Bijar there was not a green thing except some poplars and willows by a stream, not a blade of grass, not a green "weed,"—nothing but low mud hills, with their sides much ploughed and the furrows baked hard, and unploughed gravelly stretches covered sparsely with scorched thistles. ”

“ Nothing gives a grander idea of the magnitude and ramifications of commerce than the traffic on the road from Erzerum to 388 Trebizond. During eleven days there has scarcely been a time when there has not been a caravan in sight, and indeed they succeed each other in a nearly endless procession, the majority being composed of stately mountain camels, gaily caparisoned, carrying large musical bells, their head-stalls of crimson leather being profusely tasselled and elaborately decorated with cowries and blue beads. ”

“ Mount Elwend, however, has many of the characteristics of a mountain,—a huge base broken up into glens and spurs, among which innumerable villages with their surroundings of woods and crops are scattered, with streams dashing through rifts and lingering among pasture lands, vine-clothed slopes below and tawny grain above, high summits, snow-slashed even now, clouds caught and falling in vivifying showers, indigo colouring in the shadows, and rocky heights for which purple-madder would be the fittest expression. ”

“ The centre of each alley is a broken channel with a broken pavement on each side. These channels were obviously constructed for water, but now contain only a black and stagnant horror, hardly to be called a fluid, choked with every kind of refuse. The bazars are narrow, dark, and busy, full of Russian commodities, leather goods, ready-made clothing, melons, grapes, and pop-corn. The crowds of men mostly wore the Kurdish or Turkish costume, but black-robed and white-turbaned Seyyids and mollahs were not wanting. ”

“ We have women who take out bullets, but in all our nation there is no Hakīm who knows the wisdom of the Feringhis. Your medicines are good, and have healed many of our people, and though a Kafir we like you well and will do your bidding. The Agha speaks of sending a Hakīm among us next year, but you are here, and though you are old you can ride, and eat our food, and you love our people. You have your tent, Isfandyar Khan will give you a horse of pure pedigree, dwell among us till you are very old, and be our Hakīm, and teach us the wisdom of the Feringhis. ”

“ Gilding, arabesques in colour, fretwork doors and panelling, and ceilings and cornices composed of small mirrors arranged so as to represent facets, are all decorative in the extreme. These houses, with the deep shade of their courtyards, the cool plash of their fountains, and their spacious and exquisitely-decorated rooms, contrast everywhere with the low dark mud hovels, unplastered and windowless, in which the poor live, and which the women can only escape from by sitting in the heaped and filthy yards on which they open, and which the inhabitants share with their animals. ”

“ Superb-looking men in the very prime of life most of them are, cheerful and ruddy, wearing huge black sheepskin caps shaped like mushrooms, high tan-leather boots, gaily embroidered, into which their full trousers are tucked, and brown sheepskin coats covering not only themselves but the bodies of their handsome fiery horses. A few elderly unveiled women were among them. They ride mostly on pads with their bedding and clothing under them, and their kalians and cooking utensils hanging at the sides. All are armed with guns and swords. ”