The Road to Oxiana (22 page)

In general form this chamber resembles those in the Palace of Ardeshir, being square and supporting a dome on squinches. The stucco is dotted with bullet-holes, but is otherwise extremely well preserved, though it has
no ornament. Each wall is pierced by a broad round-topped arch, which, in the case of the south, east, and west walls, is open to the air. That in the north wall has been blocked up, and the masonry stucco'd over. But its outline is plain enough.

This wall is on that side of the chamber which faces away from the gorge and is enclosed by the curved rampart at the back. And now arose a mystery. Between the chamber and the rampart lies a large area to which there seems to have been no entrance other than the arch now blocked or some hidden passage cut through the rock below. I could see no trace of such a passage from the back. There may be one from the basement. But I think not. For I saw then that others had noticed this mystery too, and had burrowed deep into the wall on either side of the arch in their attempts to penetrate the sealed area. They would hardly have wasted so much effort for no reason. The longer of the tunnels stretched twenty feet into solid masonry and came to a dead end.

The opposite arch on the south side gives on to a grass platform between high walls, which extend to the brink of the gorge sixty feet away. These walls, as can be seen from the semicircular top of the wall at the inner end, supported a barrel-vault some forty feet in diameter. The other end was always open. Thus the Kala-i-Dukhtar at Firuzabad provides another Sasanian prototype for Persia's next most important contribution to Mohammadan architecture after the dome on squinches: the ivan or open-fronted hall. This form, more than any other, changed the character of the early mosques. At first it was employed on one side only, to announce the sanctuary and the direction of Mecca. Later it was used to break the monotony of the other sides as well. It grew taller and taller. Its flat screen-like front became a field for all kinds of ornament and writing. It sprouted minarets at the side, arcades and cupolas at
the top. Its vagaries have changed the face of every town in Islam, and it was pleasing, I thought, to find myself hanging on to an old nut-tree and eating an orange in the place where the idea began.

Suddenly the Kashgai guide said: “Do you want to see the hammam?”

I did want to know what he meant; Turkish baths aren't generally situated on the tops of desolate mountains. My guards picked up their rifles, and we followed the man down a devious little path along the cliff's edge. After a few moments the guards ran away, shouting “Nargiz! Nargiz!” Presuming they had seen some animal I continued with the guide, from whom, if from anyone, they were supposed to be guarding me, and who at length lowered himself over the cliff, beckoning me to follow. We found ourselves at the mouth of a tunnel festooned with ferns and emitting a rank smell, as though it were the lair of a beast: a notion which was supported by some heaps of bones and feathers.

Forty feet up this tunnel brought us to the threshold of a cavern. It was now almost pitch dark. A hot vapour and a sound of bubbling assailed us. Suddenly our feet exchanged the solid rock for a crust of quaking mud.

“You had better go first”, I said.

“I think”, said the Kashgai, “that you had better go first.”

We decided to light a bonfire.

Even this did not reveal the end of the cavern or the whereabouts of the bubbling. Taking a brand, I was just stepping out on to the mud, when the smoke disturbed a cloud of bats. There was only one exit for them, and I was blocking it. With the breath of their wings on my neck, I fled down the tunnel into daylight, where I stood watching the verminous little creatures suspend themselves among the ferns. They were of the short-eared kind, in size between a sparrow and a thrush, and
their small pink faces gazed malevolently down into mine.

A sound of laughing and two pairs of legs showed the guards had found us. Dropping down on to the ledge, they were carrying, instead of the expected pelt, armfuls of those same big jonquils, twice the size of ours, which I had seen at the Governor's. This was the meaning of
nargiz
¹
—narcissus!

Looking over the edge to see if there had once been a way up from below, I found traces of an artificial path built out of the side of the cliff. Mortar and stonework were both Sasanian. In those days, therefore, the cavern may have been used as a Turkish bath; it is difficult to see what other reason there could have been for making a path to it. The records of Sasanian royalty are particularly impersonal. But I now begin to imagine it in slippers, so to speak, during week-ends at the Kala-i-Dukhtar, when the rheumatic members of the party took the waters of a morning and the dowagers had face-massage in that mud. After all, if Mile Tabouis can write a life of Nebuchadnezzar which is almost too heavy to lift, I might make two such volumes on Ardeshir out of today's material.

When we reached the bottom, I jumped into the river. It was deep enough to swim, not too cold, and most grateful after a hot morning. But the escort thought it fatal, and uprooting several trees, lit a bonfire to bring me to life when I came out. Including the Kashgai, we were now six; but the splendour of Ali Asgar's travelling arrangements enabled me to lunch them all out of my saddle-bags, reserving a bottle of wine for myself. A pied kingfisher was flitting up and down the river, black and white and rather larger than ours, but unmistakably
its cousin, having the same large head, stumpy tail, and lightning flight. On the bank grew one or two mauve leafless irises, or lilies, three inches high.

There are two Sasanian rock-carvings in the gorge, of which Flandin and Coste give drawings, though no photographs have been published of them. The more interesting depicts a tilt between Ardeshir and his enemy Ardarun V, the last of the Arsacid dynasty, which he displaced. This is near the Firuzabad end; unfortunately I had missed it, and there was no time to go back so far. I did ride back to see the other, which the Kashgai had pointed out from the top of the cliff. This depicts the usual god, Hormuzd, and king, also Ardeshir in this case, grasping a ring; the king wears a balloon on his head, said by some authorities to be a bag for the hair, is followed by several attendants, and assumes an attitude of defence (meant by the artist to be deference) as practised in modern boxing. Small and alone among the huge cliffs, carved on a face of morose purplish rock where river, trees, and kingfisher were the only life, the row of ancient figures was reminder less of the Sasanids' triumph than of the dark age they triumphed over. Neither they nor the gorge have changed, save that passers-by are not so common and find less convenience; for there used to be a bridge near the relief, and the river is still parted by a fallen pier, built of cut stone, whose mortar has withstood the spate of thirteen centuries. Forcing my horse through the reeds, till its belly touched the water, I looked hurriedly and in vain for the inscription Herzfeld saw here, which records that the bridge was built by Aprsam, Ardeshir's minister.

The escort were beside themselves at the prospect of being benighted in the gorge again. A mad gallop, careless of rocks or trees, brought us in sight of the Water
Pass before the light failed and the frogs began to croak. From there a moon guided us over the fields to this peculiar village of Ibrahimabad, whose streets are contained, like the Underground, in a maze of tunnels with houses built above them.

Ali Asgar was waiting on a roof-top by an open door. Tea-things were set out on a tray; books and wine on a shelf. “What would Your Excellency like for dinner?”

Goat, horse-dung, paraffin, and Flit have been vanquished by the smell of the jonquils.

Shiraz
,
February 25th
.—Christopher is still here, but has now got permission to go on to Bushire, on condition he leaves Persia forthwith. This is the end of our Afghan hopes unless the decision is reversed; but as a diplomatic row is brewing, that may happen. Sir Reginald Hoare is not the type to suffer insults gladly when they take the form of a covert attack on his Legation, Christopher being a former attaché and his own cousin. The authorities have not had the sense, from their own point of view, to placate him by producing a reason; Ayrum, the Chief of Police in Teheran, simply repeats that the order of expulsion has come from the General Staff, in other words from Marjoribanks himself. Perhaps the lion disguised as a worm will turn at last.

I saw Krefter for a minute, who told me the Governor of Shiraz is wrong in asserting that Herzfeld has no right to refuse people permission to photograph the old remains at Persepolis; that right having been expressly confirmed by the Minister of Public Instruction. I must ask the Governor again, in case this is bluff. As a result of this conversation I dreamt that Persepolis had become a centre of art-weaving and the columns been
draped with tweed curtains of Jacobean pattern, to which the Professor now gave his whole attention and pointed that of visitors.

Kazerun
(
2900 ft
.),
February 27th
.—I see yesterday was my birthday.

There is a drop of about 5000 feet from the top of the Pir-i-Zan pass to this place, mostly perpendicular, and tackled by a narrow shelf-road which is among the benefits conferred on Persia by the War. West of the pass a new colour begins, the steely grey of the Persian Gulf. At this time of year, when the emerald grass is sprouting, the grey villages, irregular fields, winding lanes, and broken-down stone walls of the Kazerun valley remind one of Ireland. Even the palms are not wholly out of place in such a comparison.

The neighbouring ruins of Shapur, although close to the main road, offer as virgin, if not so interesting, an archaeological field as those of Firuzabad. The place was named after its founder, Shapur I, whose relations with the gods, numerous victories, and capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian are depicted on the walls of a miniature gorge. As documents, these reliefs give a detailed picture of Sasanian fashions in harness, hats, trousers, shoes, and weapons. As monuments, they are an interesting survival of that uncouth impulse which prompted the early monarchies of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Iran to hew themselves immortality out of the living rock. As works of art, they have borrowed from Rome, possibly through Roman prisoners, and mask their barbarous ostentation under a veneer of Mediterranean stateliness and opulence. Those who admire force without art, and form without mind, find them lovely.

The statue of Shapur, in full round and three times life-size, improves on the reliefs only by its situation, which is at the mouth of a cave three miles up the valley behind the gorge. A climb of 600 feet leads up to it. The last fifteen were perpendicular, and I stuck, while the valley swam below me. But before I could resist, the villagers had bundled me up like a sack, as they did our lunch and wine. The statue must have been twenty feet high, and have stretched from floor to ceiling just inside the entrance. At present a crowned head with a Velasquez beard and the curls of a Spanish Infanta lies at the bottom of a cavity, above which inclines a torso sprigged with muslin tassels and broken off at the thighs. Mr. Hyde carved his name on it in 1821. We were just in time to stop Jamshyd Taroporevala, our Indian chauffeur, from adding his. Two feet in square-toed shoes still occupy the pedestal.

The back of the cave descends into a series of enormous pits, whence ramify cathedrals of impenetrable obscurity. We had a lantern, but its range was helpless against such distances, and it served only to warn us there was too much water to explore them.

After walking back to the gorge, Christopher and I had a swim in the river that runs through it. We remembered our last bathe together at Beyrut. This morning I said goodbye to him. He has gone to Bushire and we meet again for Afghanistan or lunch at the Ritz.

Persepolis
(
5500 ft
.),
the same evening
.—I stopped in Shiraz on the way here, to get a letter from the Governor to Dr. Mostafavi, who is watching the excavations for the Persian Government. On the way out of the town I met Krefter driving in to a dance at the Bank. He gave me another letter:

P
ERSEPOLIS
S
HIRAZ

Oriental Institute Persian Expedition

D
EAR
M
R
. B
YRON,

Excuse my late answer, I simply forgot. The situation is this: as there is no law protecting copyright, etc in Persia, the only way of preventing everybody to come, to take photos and to sell and publish them, is not to allow photographing. For, as soon as a foreigner is seen taking photos, there appear articles in the press (already 3 times) complaining, that everyone is allowed to photograph the National Monuments of Persia except the Persians. I have had the most unpleasant correspondence with the Government on this account.

Hence, we have made the arrangement, that people, interested in the publication of photos might get them from the Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago, and publish them acknowledging the provenance. I am sorry I cannot make an exception.—I do not count as photograph, if somebody takes a picture, with a small camera, with groups of people, of themselves on it, for a souvenir. But
not
to be published.

Yours very sincerely

E
RNST
H
ERZFELD

Krefter added: “You'll find the Professor alone. He'll be glad of company.”

Will he? For the moment I'm sleeping in a stable attached to a tea-house, beside a heap of fresh dung.

Persepolis
,
March 1st
.—The tea-house is a mile and a half up the road from Persepolis. Being in the direction of Naksh-i-Rustam, I decided to go there first, and was just starting, when the people said I could not walk as the streams were too full. At this moment a passing
horseman stopped for breakfast. “You”, I said, “need a car for the road; and I need a horse for the fields. Shall we exchange?” He agreed with pleasure.