Tabriz

“ The militia of Tabríz, malicious, corrupt, oppressive, and obstinate, and ever skilful in stirring up rebellion, have always been disposed to throw off the authority of their governors. The vezír Ja’fer Páshá, who was this year governor of Tabríz and Azerbáíján, contrived and executed a stratagem against them however, which ought to have taught them ever afterwards to conduct themselves with propriety and good order. ”

“ In spite of the cholera visitation of 1822 and other occasional ravages of sickness, and the severe cold of winter, the climate of Tabriz is proverbially healthy. Its orchards and fruit gardens have a high reputation, and its running streams make amends for ill-paved and narrow streets and sorely defective municipal arrangements. ”

“ The route for the most part lies over difficult and mountainous country, where supplies are scarce or hard to procure. The wild and scattered tribesmen are not noted for extreme friendliness. Zinjan itself is 115 miles from Hamadan in a northerly direction. The next important stage on the road to Tabriz is Mianeh, eighty-five miles north-west of Zinjan. From Mianeh, Tabriz itself is distant about one hundred miles.
Tabriz, the ancient Tauris, and capital of the province of Azarbeijan, is the largest city in the Persian Empire, and the most important commercial centre in all Iran. ”

“ S.W. of Tabriz (120 by road) , 11 to 12 m. from the western shore of the lake of the same name, in 37° 34' N. and 45° 4' E. It is surrounded by a wall and deep dry ditch that can be flooded, and is encircled by orchards and gardens which extend all round for miles and even penetrate the heart of the town. The streets are broader than is usual in Persian cities, and most of them have a stream of water running down the middle. There are a busy bazaar and some old mosques. The population is about 35,000, and there are post and telegraph offices. ”

“ It is a thriving and rising place. A new bazar is being built, with much decorative work in wood. The junction of the roads to Tabriz from Kirmanshah and Hamadan, with one route to Urmi, is in the immediate neighbourhood, and the place is busy with the needs of caravans. It looks much like a Chinese Malay settlement, having on either side of its long narrow roadway a row of shops, with rude verandahs in front. 198 Among the most prominent objects are horse, mule, and ass shoes; pack-saddles, khurjins, rope, and leather. Fruiterers abound, and melons are piled up to the roofs. ”

“ The fifth district is that of Rúdkát behind mount Sorkháb, and north of Tabríz, at a farsang’s distance from it; a hundred great kents with gardens, mosques, markets, &c. The sixth district, that of Khánumrúd; twenty elegant villages. The seventh, that of Bedostán behind Rúdkát; seventy villages. If I were to describe minutely all the hunting and pleasure parties on which I accompanied the Sháh for the space of twenty days, it would alone fill a book, because Tabríz is like Isfahán, one of the finest towns in the world. God grant its possession to the Ottomans, and keep it from ruin! ”

“ It ascends the mountain side in defiance of all obstacles, and is more convenient for rolling down than climbing up, as it is nearly as steep as a ladder in some places. When you get to the top you are safe, for there is no more road as far as Tabriz. A glorious view rewards the traveler for his loss of breath in accomplishing the ascent. ”

“ Very few European travellers visit Urmi and its magnificent plain, the "Paradise of Persia," though it is only 112 miles from Tabriz. Gardens come up to the city walls, and the plain, about fifty miles long by eighteen broad, is cultivated throughout, richly wooded, very populous, and bounded on the east not by a desert with its aridity, but by the blue waters of the Urmi Sea, and on the west by the magnificent mountains of Kurdistan. The city is some miles to the west of the lake. ”

“ Our travellers remained at Tabriz from the 18th of December to March, 1831, when restored health and the opening season permitted them to resume their journey. In Salmas, they first came in contact with the Chaldeans, as those Nestorians were called who had been won over by Roman Catholic missionaries since the year 1681. The name means no more than papal Syrians, or papal Armenians. Some of their bishops and priests had been educated in the college of the Propaganda at Rome, and spoke Italian fluently. The Chaldeans were reported, at that time, as a neglected and declining sect. ”

“ The result of the bloody contest we have to record was fatal to the Tabrízians. The hateful heretics, like a multitude of ants, ran upon their antagonists and overcame them by dint of numbers. On that lamentable day, Mohammed Páshá, who had formerly been governor of Nakhcheván, and the beglerbeg of Akhiska, Khalíl Páshá, after having blotted out of the book of life many of the red heads, fell martyrs on the field. Alí Páshá, himself a Tabrízian, the válí of the province, performed, on the above day, the most incredible acts of bravery recorded in history. ”

“ There, donning a fez, I would stroll, my headgear saving me from the disagreeable attentions of the Greek shopkeepers, the most pertinacious of their calling in the city. For a long time among the natives of Persia in the bazaar I could find none but Tabrizi. Persian Turks often enough know little Persian; but at last I found a native of Shiraz, much to my delight, for a residence of two years among the Shirazi has always been a pleasant memory, and this particular Shirazi, too, seemed as glad as I was to meet a sincere admirer of the Jewel of Southern Persia, “The Pearl among the Emeralds.” ”

“ Eastwick in 1860 estimated the value of the exports to Turkey at about £600,000 and to Russia at about £400,000, exclusive of smuggling. The chief imports were British, and some Swiss—coloured cotton goods, grey calicoes, and broadcloth,—with miscellaneous goods from Germany. In 1881 there was a marked improvement in the trade of Tabrίz, mainly in increased imports from Constantinople. ”

“ A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.
We reached Tabor safely, and considerably in advance of that old iron-clad swindle of a guard. We never saw a human being on the whole route, much less lawless hordes of Bedouins. Tabor stands solitary and alone, a giant sentinel above the Plain of Esdraelon. It rises some fourteen hundred feet above the surrounding level, a green, wooden cone, symmetrical and full of grace—a prominent landmark, and one that is exceedingly pleasant to eyes surfeited with the repulsive monotony of desert Syria. ”

“ Tabor, the central position, a mountain whose summit is 1500 feet above the plain, is bare and shapeless on the south, but to the north it is steep, and wooded with oaks and thickets in which the fallow-deer finds a home. About three miles west are the springs from which the Kishon first rises, and from this point a chain of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the dry season, the course of the river. Along this line, at the base of the northern hills, the chariots and horsemen of Sisera fled. ”

“ From the top of Tabor you have a prospect which, if nothing else, well rewards the labour of ascending it. It is impossible for man's eyes to behold a higher gratification of this nature. On the north-west, you discern at a distance the Mediterranean; and all around you have the spacious and beautiful plains of Esdraelon and Galilee, which present you with the view of so many places memorable for the resort and miracles of the Son of God. At the bottom of Tabor westward stands Daberah, a small village, supposed by some to take its name from Deborah, that famous judge and deliverer of Israel. ”

“ To employ the soldiers, whom idleness always seduced into license, it was determined to make an attack upon Mount Tabor, where the Mussulmans had fortified themselves.
Mount Tabor, so celebrated in the Old and New Testament, arises like a superb dome amidst the vast plain of Galilee. The declivity of the mountain is covered with flowers and odoriferous plants; from the summit of Tabor, which forms a level of a league in extent, may be seen, travellers say, all the banks of the Jordan, the Lake of Tiberias, the Sea of Syria, and most of the places in which Christ performed his miracles. ”

“ In this mountain region stands Tabris, the delightful summer seat of the modern Persian shahs. The slopes of the Tagros furnish excellent pasture; and here were reared the famous horses which the ancients called Nisæan. The eastern districts are flat and pestilential, where they sink down to the shores of the Caspian Sea; rugged and sterile where they adjoin the desert of Iran.” The people who inhabited this country were hardy and bold, and were remarkable for their horsemanship. They were the greatest warriors [pg 089] of the ancient world, until the time of the Greeks. ”

“ My guide went astray in the valleys which surround the lower parts of Djebel Tor, and we were nearly three hours, from our departure from the Khan, in reaching the top of the Mount.
Mount Tabor is almost insulated, and overtops all the neighbouring summits. On its south and west sides extends a large
[p.334] plain, known by the name of Merdj Ibn Aamer (Arabic) , the Plain of Esdrelon of the Scriptures. To the S. of the plain are the mountains of Nablous, and to the N. of it, those of Nazareth, which reach to the foot of Mount Tabor, terminating at the village of Daboury. ”

“ Although she epitomized a roistering era and a swashbuckling way of life made possible by the mining frontier of Colorado, the granite gloom of those powerful mountains has forever lowered the curtain on her dramatic period and on the valiant, if mistaken, spirit of Baby Doe Tabor. In relegating both, and their final evaluation, to the pages of history, the lines inscribed on the stage drop of the Tabor Opera House recur, ever again, emphasizing their fatal prophecy:
So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again,
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream. ”

“ Forth from the city rode a stalwart Moorish horseman, clad in steel armor, and bearing a huge buckler and a ponderous lance. His device showed him to be the giant warrior Tarfe, the daring infidel who had flung his lance at the queen's tent. As he rode out he was followed by the shouts and laughter of a mob, and when he came within full view of the Spanish army the cavaliers saw, with indignant horror, tied to his horse's tail and dragging in the dust, the parchment with its inscription of "Ave Maria" which Hernan Perez del Pulgar had nailed to the door of the mosque. ”

“ Burton, Speke, and Grant years ago had visited it, and described it, came the Arab magnates from Tabora to congratulate me.
Tabora* is the principal Arab settlement in Central Africa. It contains over a thousand huts and tembes, and one may safely estimate the population, Arabs, Wangwana, and natives, at five thousand people. Between Tabora and the next settlement, Kwihara, rise two rugged hill ridges, separated from each other by a low saddle, over the top of which Tabora is always visible from Kwihara. ”

“ Still, the kingdom made no sign of organized opposition to him, except that the provident Ziska and his followers, seeing the wrath to come, diligently set to work to fortify Mount Tabor. Strong by nature, it soon was made virtually impregnable, and for a generation it remained the stronghold of the extremists who became renowned throughout the world as Taborites. Mostly peasant-folk, they showed to the chivalry of Europe what could be done by freemen, animated by religious zeal and race hatred; their rustic wagons made a rampart which the most valiant knights learned not to assail ”

“ In the afternoon of the third day, they crossed a stream called the May Yarrow, opposite the town of Tabra, by a long narrow wooden bridge of rough branches covered with earth, the first that they had seen in Africa; it will not, however, bear a man and horse, nor can two horses pass at once. Tabra, which is divided by the river into two quarters, was at this time the residence of the queen-mother of Nyffee, who was governor ad interim during the absence of her son. ”

“ Now a gold brick is indestructible; you can't think of anything that would last forever like a gold brick. Nothing would disturb it, water and sun are alike without effect on it....
“That was Tavor's notion, and he went right after it. Most of us would have slacked out after two years in the hell hole of Central Mongolia. But not Charlie Tavor. He got down to Arabia somehow; God knows, I never asked him,—and he went right on into the Great Sandy Desert of Roba El Khali. The oldest caravan route known runs straight across the desert from Muscat to Mecca. ”

“ September 16.—Our long expected packet by Shushee and Tabreez has just arrived. The messenger, on reaching Kourdistan, found it in such a state of danger and confusion, that he was afraid to proceed, but went back again, and came by a longer but more quiet way. Another cause of delay seems to have been their going to India, and back again to Tabreez. The information contained in this packet is most interesting. From Petersburgh we heard from several friends, all encouraging, comforting, and rejoicing us. The Lord seems to give them courage still to persevere ”

“ When he heard of Tabor’s plight, he wrote him a check for $15,000 to use in developing his Eclipse mine in Boulder County.
“There’s a true friend,” Tabor remarked with touching humility. It wrung me to the quick to see him act like this, pathetic and almost beaten. When he had had money, and even in the days before I knew him and before he became rich, his generosity and honesty had been proverbial. In return, the world gave him only deceit and niggardliness—and a cold shoulder. Many a night I wept with secret rage at the world as much as sorrow for Tabor. ”