The Road to Oxiana (26 page)

At present, though the Governor has ambitious plans, only one boulevard has been driven through the old labyrinths. Lovers of the picturesque deplore even this. But it is a boon to the inhabitants, who now have some-where to walk, breathe, meet each other, and survey the distant mountains.

Going to the garage in search of transport to Kirman, I fell into conversation with an ex-deputy, who told me that Kavam-al-Mulk has been in prison, but is now released, while the fate of Sardar Assad and the other Bakhtiari brothers is still unknown. He was bitter against Marjoribanks, and I wondered why, till he recounted how his uncle, an old man of seventy-four and blind in one eye, has been two years in prison for refusing to let Marjoribanks have his rice-growing estates in Mazandaran. That inimitable ruler has been seizing estates all over the country, and making a fortune out of them, since the other Naboths have not
been so obstinate. I was astonished at the man's indiscretion. But I suppose he thought I should not betray him. I shan't, I hope. This happened before I got to Yezd, and he wasn't an ex-deputy.

Bahramabad
(
5200 ft
.),
March 22nd
.—Breakfasting here on the Kirman road, after all night in a lorry.

Today is
No-Ruz
, “New Day”, in other words the first of the Persian New Year and a public holiday. Ali Asgar, with some reason, has just uttered a small complaint: “no bath, no shave, no clean clothes”. And then, driving home the point in English: “No-Ruz Persian Kissmas, Sahib”.

I produced the proper present.

Kirman
(
5700 ft
.),
March 24th
.—A furious dust-storm hid the town as we arrived. It gets up every afternoon between two and four. There was another yesterday.

“In view of its isolation, the improvements in Kirman are comparatively few”, says Ebtehaj's guide-book priggishly. They are more than Yezd's. There are several wide streets, and also a cab, which I had the good fortune to meet, and, learning it was the only one, to engage for the day. It took me out of the town to the Jabal-i-Sang, a domed octagonal shrine of the XIIth century, interesting because it is built of stone instead of brick.

Otherwise, although Kirman has never been archaeologically explored, I found only two objects of note. One was the mihrab-panel in the Friday Mosque, of XIVth-century mosaic, which appears to have been done by artists from Yezd. The other was the College of Ganj-i-Ali Khan, an ugly building, and not so old,
but retaining patches of mosaic. These depict dragons, cranes, and other creatures unusual in Persian iconography, forming a kind of chinoiserie, though how Chinese ideas ever penetrated to this remote city is a mystery.

The Kuba-i-Sabz, which Sykes mentions, has fallen down. It was a shrine with a tall blue dome, in the Timurid style. I found its ruin incorporated in a modern house.

The wine here is red and is made by the Zoroastrians. Ali Asgar bought a bottle, but it was too sweet, and I sold it to the hotelkeeper.

A Persian acquaintance has lent me the volume on Persia in the Modern World Series. Persians hate all books that mention them, but he says they hate this one because the flattery is
too
thick. This is a wonderful feat from a man so in love with his own integrity as Sir Arnold Wilson.

Mahun
(
6300 ft
.),
March 25th
.—Travellers from the Indian frontier, Christopher among them, have thought they were in paradise when they arrived at Mahun after crossing the Baluchistan sand-desert. Even on the way from Kirman, this desert impinges a sinister presence. There are sand-drifts on the road, and these must mean the end of Persia, since Persian deserts are stony.

The Shrine of Niamatullah brings a sudden reprieve, a blessing of water and rustle of leaves. The purple cushions on the judas trees and a confetti of early fruit-blossom are reflected in a long pool. In the next court is another pool, shaped like a cross and surrounded by formal beds newly planted with irises. It is cooler here. Straight black cypresses, overtopped by the waving
umbrellas of quicker-growing pines, throw a deep, woody shade. Between them shines a blue dome crossed with black and white spiders' webs, and a couple of blue minarets. A dervish totters out, wearing a conical hat and an embroidered yellow sheepskin. He leads the way past the tomb of the saint below the dome, through a spacious white-washed hall, to a third and larger court, which has a second and larger pair of minarets at the far end. A last formal pool, and a mighty plane tree gleaming with new sap, stand outside the last gate. The country round is covered with vineyards, fields of ninepins full of clay cones to support the vines, as mulberries support them on the Lombardy Plain. A high range of mountains in a dress of snow and violet mist bounds the horizon.

While the cadent sun throws lurid copper streaks across the sand-blown sky, all the birds in Persia have gathered for a last chorus. Slowly, the darkness brings silence, and they settle themselves to sleep with diminishing flutterings, as of a child arranging its bedclothes. And then another note begins, a hot metallic blue note, timidly at first, gaining courage, throbbing without cease, until, as if the second violins had crept into action, it becomes two notes, now this, now that, and is answered from the other side of the pool by a third. Mahun is famous for its nightingales. But for my part I celebrate the frogs. I am out in the court by now, in the blackness beneath the trees. Suddenly the sky clears, and the moon is reflected three times, once on the dome and twice on the minarets. In sympathy, a circle of amber light breaks from the balcony over the entrance, and a pilgrim begins to chant. The noise of water trickling into the new-dug flower-beds succeeds him. I am in bed at last. The room has ten doors and eleven windows, through which a hurricane of wind and cats in search of chicken-bones whistles and scutters. Still the frogs call each other; that vibrant iridescent note
makes its way into my sleep; I wake to find a cat opening my food-box with such fury that were I a safe-breaker I should engage it for an assistant. The draught shakes the bed. I hope Ali Asgar is warmer with the dervishes, but dare not grumble to him in the morning, as General Sykes told him Mahun
was
paradise fifteen years ago. Morning impends, lifts its grey veils, arrives—and as though at the beat of a martinet conductor, the birds strike up again, a deafening, shrieking hymn to the sun, while a flock of crows on the other side of my room, not to be forgotten, set up a rasping competition. Now, and as suddenly, silence has fallen again, while the first rays of sunlight steal on to the stage. Outside the door, Ali Asgar and the dervish are fanning a tray of charcoal and coaxing the samovar. Footsteps pass: “Ya Allah!” The dervish answers “Ya Allah!” The pilgrim chants his morning prayers from the balcony, using long-drawn nasal semitones that remind me of Mount Athos. An arc of gold lights the blue dome and the sky is fleeced with pink. Here comes Ali Asgar with a tray of tea.

Yezd
,
March 28th
.—Approaching Yezd in the early morning, after another all-night journey, we met a Zoroastrian funeral. The bearers were dressed in white turbans and long white coats; the body in a loose white pall. They were carrying it to a tower of silence on a hill some way off, a plain circular wall about fifteen feet high.

This afternoon I drove out to a village in the country, to see a garden. This village has 1000 houses, and is worth about
£
62,500 as a property, including its water-supply. The rent-roll is
£
2250: not a large interest on the capital. Violets and almond blossom were in flower in the garden, and a stocky white iris with a strong smell. The owner showed me a tree that had been
twice grafted, so that plum, peach, and apricot were all in flower on it together. His other treasures were a pipless pomegranate, for which Kew has been searching; and an orange-house in a sunk court twenty-five feet deep, where the main kanat broadens into a pool. He spoke with feeling of the pistachios he gets in summer from Ardekan, which is warmer than Yezd and has the brackish water they like.

Isfahan
,
March 31st
.—Christopher is here.

He has been allowed provisional liberty to collect his things in Teheran. So now, God willing, we shall go to Afghanistan together.

I stopped at Nayin on the way back, to see the mosque, which dates from the IXth century and is one of the oldest in Persia. Its stucco ornament is filled with bunches of grapes, and suggests a transition of Hellenistic ideas through Sasanian art into Mohammadan. Thence to Ardistan, where stucco is used in a new way, to form a kind of filigree over the brickwork. This mosque is Seljuk, dating from 1158, and has the same purity of form, though not in the same degree, as the small dome-chamber in the Friday Mosque at Isfahan.

Teheran
,
April 2nd
.—A mountain freshet had cut the road outside Isfahan. With the help of twenty peasants we pushed the car through water up to the waist. By the time we had changed our clothes, changed oil, petrol, and plugs, and dried the cylinders, the water had gone down, and the other cars, which had been passively waiting, went on ahead of us. British initiative looked rather foolish.

We are staying at the Legation. I came down to find
the house full of children dressed as fairies. A children's play is in rehearsal.

Teheran
,
April 4th
.—Sardar Assad has “died of epilepsy” in the hospital at Kasr-i-Kajar.

Kasr-i-Kajar is a fortress which dominates Teheran from a height. It was from here that Russian guns demolished the constitutional movement before the War. Marjoribanks has converted it into a model prison, and lest this homage to Progress should escape notice, gave a treat there for foreigners, who were much impressed by the kitchen and sanitary fittings. But, as an American said to me yesterday, “the death-rate among the upper-class prisoners is curiously high”.

Yesterday was a day of alarums. It was enough to meet Marjoribanks in the street, and hear his subjects' nervous clapping. On my return to the Legation, an apocalyptic rumble heralded a runaway horse and cart, which came pelting down the drive, scattering the benches it had been unloading for the children's play. Not feeling heroic, I stepped out of the way. The porter shut the gate, and the horse, unable to break through it, was precipitated up the bars like a gorilla, while the cart disintegrated underneath it. Though shocked, the horse was unhurt.

Then the play took place, and was followed by tea.

R. B.
: Won't you have another cake?

Shir Ahmad
(
mf
): Thank you, no, I have eaten. (
f
) I am full, (
dim
) not to here, (
touching his throat
,
cr
) but to here (
touching his forehead)
. I have eaten (
f
) everything. I have eaten every dish on table, (
p
) You know, my name is Shir Ahmad. And Shir, you know, means loin. (
Roaring
,
ff
) When I ATTACK, (
whispering
,
pp
) it is terrible.

Behind the scenes, a proper incident has developed out of Christopher's detention. Repeated enquiries have now elicited a reason for it, which is—to use the actual words of the Minister for Foreign Affairs—that “Mr. Sykes talks with peasants”. We imagine this must be a covert allusion to his conversation with Marjori-banks's gardener at Darbend. It is not very convincing, but will probably be enough to restore the London Foreign Office to its usual state of slavish acquiescence in the maltreatment of British subjects. Their protest in this instance has been couched with such exquisite tact that the Persians have now decided to expel Father Rice from Shiraz. Perhaps the Vatican will defend him better. The Nuncio is in a rage.

Christopher called on Shir Ahmad this morning.

Shir Ahmad
(
mf
): You stay long time in Teheran?

Christopher
: I am leaving in a fortnight, and apart from the pleasure of seeing Your Excellency (
both bow
), I came to ask permission to leave by Afghanistan.
Shir Ahmad
(
pointing at Afghanistan
,
and roaring ff
): YOU SHALL GO.

Christopher
: It is kind of Your Excellency to say so. But I feel it my duty to tell you first that I have been under suspicion of spying in south Persia, and that the result———

Shir Ahmad
(
p
): I know.

Christopher
: What makes it more absurd is———

Shir Ahmad
(
pp
): I know. I know.

Christopher
: If they had told me earlier, I could have———

Shir Ahmad
(
pp
): I know. But it does not matter.

Christopher
: Excuse me, Your Excellency, it does matter. I am very angry.

Shir Ahmad
(
laughing
,
mf
): You are angree, ha, ha—it is wrong. Your Minister he angree—it is wrong. The Persians, ha, ha, they are right, (
cr
) they are right.

Christopher
: Surely Your Excellency has more sense than to believe———

Shir Ahmad
(
mf
): The Persians they are right. Why do they make you go away?

Christopher
: They say I talk with peasants.

Shir Ahmad
(
triumphantly
,
f
): Then they are right. I will tell you how they are right:

In Persia, in Afghanistan, in Irak, in Orient, (
pp
) there are no mysteries. (
f
) In England, in Russia, in Alleman, (
pp
) great mysteries. (
f
) In England, mystery of the ships, in Russia, many millions peoples, mystery of the armies, in Alleman, in France, mystery of the guns, (
p
) In Afghanistan, in Persia, (
violent gesture of dismissal
) no mysteries. No armies. No ships. (
mf
) This is the history of the kingdoms.