Part 9

We left Isfahan at last, and proceeded on our way in the direction of the mountains lying to the south. Upon reaching an eminence I took another look at the endless mass of houses, gardens and ruins. Our caravan, which consisted of three divisions, two having joined us for our journey to Shiraz, now numbered above 150 animals and about sixty passengers, and even on this much-travelled road we were looked upon as a caravan of considerable size. The combining of the three caravans into one was caused by the fear of certain nomadic Persian tribes who were camped amongst the mountains to the right, and who were in the habit of attacking and plundering smaller caravans either from avarice or as a pastime. Only a few days had passed since a smaller caravan had been roughly treated by them. In the East, however, people are fond of inventing such stories. Many a time one is told, "At this place ten men were killed yesterday," "The day before, at another place, a merchant was set upon and robbed;" but the traveller need not take fright at these accounts, for he may be sure that the events related either happened ten years ago, or did not occur at all. Indeed our party of travellers had no need of the frightful stories with which they had been regaling each other on the eve of their departure to make their courage ooze out, for to a man they were remarkably deficient in that valuable article, the virtue of courage. Since the Persian in general is looked upon in all Asia as a most cowardly creature, who is scared to death by his own shadow, one may easily imagine the state of mind of a caravan consisting chiefly of pilgrims, merchants and mollahs. It was rather amusing to see them keeping close to, and crowding, each other in their fright, although we were only at a distance of two hours from the town. They were conversing in whispers as if a single loudly spoken word might have brought down upon them the most frightful calamities. One man who was conveying wine with which he had loaded four of his mules, was peremptorily made to leave our ranks at the instigation of a devout mollah, lest his sinful merchandise might bring bad luck to the entire company of the truly faithful. It was in vain the poor mule driver whiningly insisted that he had never tasted a drop of wine all his life, and that he was conveying this abhorred beverage to Bombay where the godless Frengis would drink it; in vain he swore by all the saints of the calendar he did not even know if the wine were red or white; he had to leave the caravan and keep a distance of a hundred feet between himself and it.

Next day we arrived at _Kumisheh_, which is near to the dangerous place about which we had heard so many frightful stories. About an hour before our departure my Arab friend, the sacred singer, thought that this was a fitting moment to collect about him the whole company and to chant one of his elegies, in order, as he said, to invoke the prophet's protection on our perilous journey, but in reality that a few coins might wander from the pockets of the deeply affected faithful into his own. The rawzekhan's proposition was immediately acquiesced in. The Persian is prepared at any moment to lament the death of his favourite prophet, particularly of the martyred Hussein; and it does not give him the slightest trouble, though the moment before he may have been in the merriest of moods, to shed copious tears in listening to the singer's elegy. The songster from Bagdad was soon surrounded by the whole company, and he hardly came to the end of the fourth canto of his morning song, when there arose such a wailing and weeping as if the nearest relation of every one of the listeners were lying stark dead before him. The performer usually seizes this moment to rise, tear away his dress from his breast, and to exclaim, clenching his fists: "O ye true believers, behold thus I shall strike my breast with penitence and pity for poor Hussein, yes, for Hussein!" His last words are repeated by all the men of the company; gigantic fists are soon pounding away at stalwart chests, frequently keeping in the pounding such excellent time as to resemble the regular tramp of an approaching troop of horsemen. A pious fellow happened to observe that, with Sunnite perverseness, I did not thump my chest with sufficient violence, and having attentively listened to the sound produced by my fist and not finding it hollow enough, he furiously exclaimed: "Look at this Sunnite dog; he does not consider our Hussein worthy of more powerful strokes on his breast. Just wait; I shall show him how to strike his breast." With this he approached me with his uplifted fist of iron. If he had struck me I should, probably, have had reason to remember it all my life; but thanks to the kind offices of my friends, particularly the Seid, the matter proceeded no further. A friend of mine held his arm back in the nick of time, quieting him by saying: "Let that Sunnite be! though he do not strike his breast in this life, Azrail (the Angel of Death) will beat it all the more for him in the next world."

We safely left the place alleged to be dangerous without having come to harm, and the caravan, now considerably relieved, proceeded on their journey towards _Yezdekhast_. The country around us became more and more flat; the desert, in the centre of which the celebrated city of Yezd is situated, extending to the east. The sun had already risen high when we passed through the arid grass-covered plain, its level stretch being interrupted only here and there by gently undulating ground. I had been informed by my companions that the country abounded in game and especially in gazelles. And, indeed, in looking steadily at a dark dot in the distance, I soon discovered it to be a whole herd of these timid creatures of the desert, who scent the approach of a caravan from afar and fly from them with the swiftness of a bird. I had some difficulty at first in recognizing the gazelles at a distance, the colour of their fur resembling that of the sun-dried grass of the plain; and when my companions called out "The ahuan, the ahuan!" (The gazelles, the gazelles!), I could see nothing, until my eyes became accustomed to distinguish their white hind parts from the dry grass. Just as with us the hare is supposed to be the embodiment of timidity, even so the gazelle is looked upon in the East as the hare's counterpart in this particular. A herd of above a hundred gazelles is seized with a panic at the sudden rising of a bird, or the mere stirring of a leaf. If the hound but approaches the gazelle, it throws itself upon its back with its legs up and looks at one with such a pitiful expression out of its lustrous melancholy eyes, that one cannot help feeling for the poor dumb animal. As my eyes were following the flight of the gazelles, I suddenly caught sight of a mirage rising in the south-east. These deceptive illusions of the air are by no means of infrequent occurrence in the Persian plain. Although they do not equal in grandeur similar atmospheric phenomena in the great desert of Turkestan, yet, even in that fainter form, they never fail to strike the imagination of the traveller. As I was gazing upon the floating forms and buildings, it seemed to me as if they were the same which had delighted my eyes years ago on the great plain of the beautiful Hungarian Alföld (Lowland). Then, too, leaning against the tall pole of a well, I was gazing at the far-stretching plain which, panting and thirsting, was "dreaming of the sea." The mirage recalled my own beautiful country, so far off, and when suddenly a rising cloud of dust concealed the fairy spectacle from my view, it seemed to scatter my day-dreams to the winds.

The province of Fars begins beyond Yezdekhast, and its inhabitants differ from the Persians as much, I should say, as the Neapolitans do from the inhabitants of Northern Italy; their complexion is darker, they are more vivacious, their feelings are more excitable, and they are more quickwitted. The greater portion of the inhabitants make a living by the caravans that are passing through their country. _Shulghistan_, our first station in Fars, is noted for the tomb of a saint, supposed to be the son of Imam _Zein ul Abedin_. Of this tomb it is told that, some time ago, it had been attacked by enemies, who were all struck blind upon entering the sanctuary. A blind beggar at the gate of the tomb was shown as one of the sacrilegious band, who desired to end his days repenting. I was sufficiently interested to wish to hear the account from the lips of the blind beggar himself, and questioned him about this occurrence; but he admitted to me that his blindness proceeded from other causes, and that he had never been connected with a band of robbers. Yet he willingly passed himself off for an evil-doer punished by God in order to get his share of the alms distributed by the devout.

In leaving Shulghistan we were joined on our way by a horseman of distinguished appearance, followed by a number of servants, whose place of destination was the same as ours. He seemed to be mustering closely the members of the caravan, as if trying to make up his mind whom he should choose for his associate during the journey. After a while he approached me with the friendliest salutation. I soon found out that he was going to visit the governor of Fars, by orders of the Shah, in order to collect last year's arrears, amounting to 50,000 ducats. The Shah had been repeatedly urging the remittance of the sum, but it was never sent. The Khan was now ordered by the Shah to send the unremitting governor to prison for a few days; and should this punishment fail to produce the desired effect to withdraw for a couple of days his _kallian_ (water-pipe) from him. This peculiar method of collecting debts is by no means rare in Persia. The Khan was a person of refinement and culture; he was very tolerant, and to him Sunnite or Shi-ite was the same thing. He saw in me the most travelled and experienced man in the caravan, and had therefore joined me, of which I was all the more glad, as it had procured for me a very agreeable fellow-traveller. When we arrived at our next station, Abade, we took a lodging together, and also took our meals together.

From _Abade_ we went towards _Surma_, and we met on our night's march with several smaller caravans, consisting mostly of pilgrims, who were either bound for Kerbela, in the west, or Meshed, in the east. In Persia the number of pilgrims, especially during the seasons of spring and autumn, amounts to hundreds of thousands. The poorest Persian will spend all his savings, nay, even starve, in order to take part in such a pilgrimage. The caravan we met with had come from the neighbourhood of _Bender Bushir_, and was going to Kerbela. The journey there takes sixty days, and the journey back as much again. The lively intercourse on the highways of Persia is chiefly dependent upon these pious travellers. It is no rare thing to see amongst them children ten years of age, and aged women eighty years old. If two such caravans meet on the road, those returning generally tell the pilgrims on their way to the holy places, "Pray for me;" and receive for an answer, "May thy pilgrimage be blessed." Both parties are deeply moved, and generally embrace each other upon these occasions; indeed the most indifferent will feel somewhat affected upon hearing, far off, in the stillness of the night, the _Illahie_ (hymns) of the pilgrims. I had heard much to excite my curiosity with regard to our next station. Many notable ruins of ancient times may be seen in _Maderi Suleiman_, and the Persians think that the tomb of King Solomon's mother is amongst them; but I had no difficulty in identifying the village of Maderi Suleiman, lying in the plain of _Passargada_, as the one where the tomb of _Cyrus_ is supposed to be. In descending the gentle slope of the low range of mountains and entering the open valley before us, I was delighted to discover on the right of our road several statues gilded by the first rays of the rising sun. The slow pace of the caravan rendered me impatient, and I finally left them, hastening by myself through thin and thick towards the mausoleum, which rose higher and higher as I approached, and when the caravan with their deliberate gait at last reached the station, I was found there seated already on a huge marble step.

XIV.

PERSEPOLIS.

The first thing that strikes the eyes of the traveller on the flat land of ancient Passargada is that mausoleum, of which Persians say that it contains the remains of King Solomon's mother, but which some antiquarians allege to be the tomb of Cyrus, whilst others, denying this, maintain that it commemorates some unknown hero of antiquity. It is built of huge marble blocks, and stands upon a marble base formed by six marble slabs of enormous thickness placed one upon the other; each slab terrace-like diminishing the higher it is placed, and the whole forming six steps. The structure above it is a room, the floor and ceiling of which consists each of one enormous block of marble. The narrow low entrance is always open. The Mohammedans use the interior of the room for their devotions, and several Korans are always lying about for that purpose. After I had with great difficulty clambered up the huge steps and gained admission to the interior of the mausoleum, I was struck with awe at the sight before me. I gazed for some time with astonishment at the huge blocks, to move which from their places seemed an utter impossibility. The names of numerous celebrated European travellers could be seen carved into the marble steps, whilst the walls were covered with a great many Arabic and Persian inscriptions. I was just engaged in deciphering the latter when a Persian, apparently belonging to the nomadic tribes living in tents in this part of the country, came up to me, evidently in the hope of earning a few pennies by doing a guide's business, and said, "Hadji, there are no such huge blocks to be seen in Bagdad, are there? But come with me, I shall show thee others like them. Come and look at the ruins of ancient Guzi." I immediately followed him to the ruins of the ancient palace, popularly called "Solomon's Throne." At some distance may be seen a large arch of a gate, built of black marble. If a Persian sees a stranger admiring the beauty of these ruins, or astonished at the size of the stones, he invariably volunteers the following remark: "Art thou not aware that Solomon could freely dispose of the _divs_ (devils) and all the spirits of the lower regions? It cost him but a nod of his head, and the spirits sailing through the air brought him the largest stones and the most costly objects from India, Tchin-u-Matchin (China) and from Kuhi Kaff."

We continued our journey toward _Sivend_, going for several hours through a mountain gap. We did not visit the village, but went up to an eminence near by, where its inhabitants lived during the summer. We found there about 120 huts standing in a line, close to each other. The whole settlement resembled a bazaar; and as the huts were closed on three sides and always remained wide open on the fourth, the huts and everything in them were open to every one alike, as much as if all the huts had formed but one house. One hundred and twenty families live here together in simple patriarchal fashion; and although there be rich and poor amongst them, a theft rarely occurs. Indeed people said that the population of the whole village were the descendants of one common ancestor, and lived together on terms of the most intimate relationship; and that, even to this day, they were governed by the head of the family, who was both judge and priest to them, and lived apart in a white tent.

In leaving this place, on the 2nd of October, we proceeded towards the most interesting parts of Persia. The caravan was not far from _Kenare_, in the vicinity of which the celebrated ruins of Persepolis are to be seen. With the prospect of soon seeing these ruins before me, I found the progress of the caravan rather slow, and determined to visit them by myself, after having inquired of some of my companions, who knew the country throughout, the shortest road leading to them. The caravan had left Sivend before midnight, and when we arrived at the promontory where the extensive plain of _Mardesht_ begins, I separated from them, and, keeping continually to the left, I followed the mountain track. For some time yet I heard through the calm night the monotonous jingling of the caravan bells. I marched on with watchful eyes, looking out all the time for the much-mentioned ruins, the remarkable architectural monuments of remote antiquity. After lapse of about a quarter of an hour there loomed up in the dubious light of the dawning morning tall forms, looking like so many spectres. The stillness around me seemed awful, and the clatter of my animal's small shoe sounded far away in the unpeopled solitude. I now came to the celebrated steps, so familiar to most people through engravings of them. At sight of them I paused, deeply moved, and stood motionless for a few minutes. I dismounted, and, drawing nearer, I went up the steps with feelings of piety and profound veneration, then passed through the gigantic gate to the row of columns. I sat down on a large block and, sunk in deep reverie, gazed upon the columns and the ruins around me; and sitting there for a long time without stirring, it seemed to me as if the spectacle of these ruins of four thousand years ago had turned me, too, into a statue. The sublimity of the ancient monuments of Persepolis cannot fail deeply to affect the traveller from whatever point of view he may have approached them for the first time, even if he has seen them in broad daylight. My feelings, then, may be easily imagined, who had been longing to see them with feverish impatience, and saw them suddenly burst upon my sight in the spectral twilight of the early dawn. As I sat gazing with wrapt attention at the tall columns, they appeared to me like gigantic forms which had risen from the remote past of forty centuries to tell me, the traveller who had strayed here from the far West, in language mute but eloquent, of the marvels of past ages in the East. I did not awake from my reverie until the sun had risen from behind the mountains and touched with golden tints the heads of the columns, showing their exquisite workmanship. And in a moment, as if a huge curtain had been suddenly drawn aside, a very different spectacle presented itself to my dazzled eyes--Persepolis bathing in a sea of brilliant light. The sombre blocks of marble, the darkling columns and walls all disappeared as if by enchantment, and in their places, glowing in a flood of golden sunshine, beckoned to me on every side exquisitely carved capitals of columns, reliefs of wonderful beauty, all so natural, so fresh as if the last sounds of the chisel had just died away. One sculptured relief shows a solemn procession, in which every man is walking with measured step; on another a troop of prisoners, chained to each other by their necks, are advancing slowly in front of the proud victor; another again represents a gigantic man struggling with a monster. Looking up you see, in several places, a king sitting, with earnest mien, on his throne, before him the sacred fire blazing, and at back of him standing two servants, one holding a long staff, and the other a sun umbrella. The finished accuracy shown in the dresses and the figures is truly admirable; but the wonderful art exhibited in the shaping of the features and in the various expressions of the human countenance is what lends such a peculiar charm to these reliefs, and makes one almost imagine that the cold marble will speak.

I passed three days among these remarkable ruins, which kindle not only the fervid imagination of the young traveller, but rouse the enthusiasm of grave thinkers and antiquarians rich in knowledge and experience. One is at a loss to know which more to admire, the extraordinary manual skill, or the exquisite taste visible everywhere, in every part of the preserved ruins. Here, as in Egypt, may be seen huge blocks of stone, from forty to fifty feet long, fitted together, in spite of their enormous weight, with such nicety that one can only with great difficulty discover the place where they are joined.

I met in the immediate neighbourhood of Persepolis with nomadic Turks, who were overjoyed at seeing me, a supposed countryman of theirs. The Turkish language is not spoken much in Fars, and these poor people seemed so delighted with the chance of having a talk in their own language, that in the kindness of their hearts they provided me, during my whole stay, with bread and milk, and even took care of my ass. Some of these men advised me strongly not to remain over night at the ruins on account of the innumerable evil spirits that haunted them, and told me that the devs and djins were making an infernal noise. They said that _Thakhti Djemshid_ (Djemshid's Throne)--the native name for Persepolis--was the work of the fabled king Djemshid.

This king is said to have had a cup, with which he had only to touch his lips, in order to realize all his heart's desires; at the mere touch of the cup, stones would come flying from the east, and artists from the west. The numerous verses and inscriptions on every part of the walls testify to the great respect entertained by the Persians for Persepolis. The legend has it that these buildings stood intact and strong for ever so long a time, and that during that time Persia was happy and flourishing, and no sort of harm or misfortune ever befell her. Later on the Arabs came, and they envied the Shi-ites for these wonderful buildings, and in their envy they mutilated the statues and figures, threw down the columns and left everywhere the traces of their destructive spirit. After them came the Frengis, over Bender Bushir (from India), to gratify their passion for treasures; they ransacked the place and took away with them immense quantities of gold and diamonds. The Frengis carried away besides large blocks of stone for talismans. Since that time adversity and misery had been the lot of Persia; Shiraz was visited by an earthquake, then came the cholera, the famine, and so forth.

This is the account the Persians give of the ruins, but the Turkish Nomads, the remains of the former Seldjuk armies, look at them in a very different light. To them the masterpieces of architecture and sculpture are objects of the utmost indifference, and they will often pull down the proudest and most admirable monument for the sake of obtaining a few ounces of the lead which holds together the several segments or portions of the gigantic columns. The children are delighted to see one of these columns come down by itself; they immediately make a rush at it, and scoop the lead out of the crevices of the stones. Sometimes they manage to obtain, after all this wanton destruction, lead enough for a couple of bullets; but the vandalism of the Turks cares very little about the damage done to works of art.