The Road to Oxiana (27 page)

Christopher
: But I don't understand why——

Shir Ahmad
(
mf
): I tell you. Let me speak. It is simple. (
cr
) You shall hear:

(
mf
) There was an old donkey, poor old ass, he carry too many stones, very tired. One day, the animal with much hair, much nose, much teeth, how is he called? he barks like dog.

Christopher
: A wolf?

Shir Ahmad
(
ff
): NOT a wolf.

Christopher
: A jackal?

Shir Ahmad
(
f
): A jackal!… One day jackal come to poor old donkey. (
pp
) Donkey he very tired, very sad. (
mf
) Jackal say, “Excuse me, sir, will you be king, will you be Shah-in-Shah, over our jungle?”

(
mp
) Donkey he answer, “It is never possible.”

(
mf
) Jackal he say, “Yes, yes, I want it. You must stand on this hillock.”

(
mp
) Donkey he say, “I do not want. I must not be king. Let me carry my stones.”

(
mf
) Jackal tell him, “Never mind. Stand always on this hillock and put on these coats.”

Jackal give him loin's coats. Donkey he put them on and stay on hillock.

(
pp
) In jungle jackal meet a (
ff
) LOIN. (
mf
)
He
say, “Your Majestee, there is another Shah on the hills, high Shah, higher than Your Majestee”.

(
pp
) Loin very angree. He answer (
roaring literally,
ff
) “Grrrr! How you dare! Where is he? I shall eat
all of you!!” (
Eyes blazing, teeth gnashing
.)

(
mf
) Loin go to hillock quick. He see donkey in
loin-coat. It is too big. Ass-loin too big, too high.
Loin fears, he go away. (
Laughing, cr
) Then all
animals fall in front of donkey. He is Shah-in-Shah
over jungle. (
Pause
.)

(
pp
) One day little (
cr
) pick come——

Christopher
: Little what?

Shir Ahmad
(
mf
): A pick… ha, a pig… come look at ass-loin. He make (
grunting f
) honk, pig-noise. Ass-loin very angree. He stamp feets like Shah-in-Shah and make (
indescribable sound
), donkey-noise, (
ff
) Then all animals, lipards, loins, tigers, great beasts, see Shah-in-Shah on hillock is only poor old donkey. Pouf! Finish! Poor old donkey he dead.

(
mf
) You hear, Mr. Sykes? I tell you, it is same in Orient. Afghanistan and Persia two old donkeys. But Persia donkey in loin's coat, ass-loin. It is good. Persia very proud, very high. But if you (
cr
) talk to him like pig did, if you (
ff
) TALK to him, (
mf
) he very angree, because all animals, all peoples, see he is donkey. So you must go away.

Shir Ahmad continued on the theme of Persian pride, and presently told of an interview with Marjoribanks arising out of the murder of some Persian police on the Afghan frontier.

(
mf
) Shah he very angree. I tell him, “How do you do, sir? Are you well? How are you feeling?”

Shah he say, (
ff
) “Grrrr!”

(
mf
) I tell him, “Sir, why are you starting? (
cr
) Stop starting.”

(
mf
) Shah he say, (
ff
) “Grrrr!”

(
mf
) I ask him, “Why are you angree?”

(
mf
) Shah he say, (
ff
) “Where are the murderer Afghans?”

(
mf
) I tell him, “We do not know. (
p
) We are very sorry.”

(
mf
) Shah he say, (
ff
) “Grrrr!”

(
mf
) I ask him, “What do you want to do?”

Shah he say bad things for Afghans, he say he will send soldiers to kill Afghans.

I tell him, “No, sir, this is wrong that you tell me.”

Shah he say (
roaring ff
) “How wrong? Your Excellency tell me I am wrong?”

(
mf
) I tell him, “Go to Afghanistan, Your Majestee. lull many Afghans, (
cr
) many. (
p
) They are wicked mens. (
mf
) But first kill your Chief of Police, General Ayrum. He also wicked man. In Naderi bath last week some mens do bad things to a woman. Then they cut her head (
appalling gesture, cr
) off! and leave body with much blood. (
dim
) General Ayrum cannot find murderers. We cannot find murderers. He is very sorry. We are very sorry. So kill General Ayrum, and (
ff
) then go to Afghanistan. (
mf
) But first I must see General Ayrum (
cr
) dead! killed! with much blood also!”

(
mf
) Shah he laugh. “Your Excellency must not be angree. It is all right.”

Teheran
,
April 11th
.—The new Legation photograph contains eighty-four people, including children, translators, and messengers. Not all sleep on the premises, but they can all be found there at midday. Such is the weight of Persia in our diplomacy.

Last night Young, the librarian of the American College, took us to a Zur Khana. He first became aware of this institution by hearing his pupils disparage Swedish drill in favour of it. It dates from pre-Mohammadan times, and may have developed out of a Zoroas-trian rite.

A tall room in the bazaar quarter greeted us with a smell of bodies and a white light. Its walls were covered with portraits, some drawings, some yellowed photographs, which gave it the same look as those cabinets of aristocracy, Dempster's at Eton and Madame Sacher's at Vienna. They showed the champions of the past,
pahlevan
they are called, an ancient title which is applied to such mythical warriors as Rustam, but signifies strength alone rather than any moral virtue. Above the pictures hung other souvenirs of “the fancy”, a row of embroidered trunk-hose worn in wrestling contests, and a number of iron bows to which, instead of strings, were attached loose chains festooned with iron discs. An adjoining room was stacked with wooden clubs and square wooden shields.

In the middle of the floor was a pit three or four feet deep and thirty square, filled with fine sand, trodden hard, on which lay a foot's depth of straw, tightly packed to make it springy. This was occupied by a dozen men of various ages, naked but for a towel round the waist, and extended at full length on their bellies: the
pahlevan
of the future. A tray of charcoal stood on a table in the corner, over which the orchestra was warming his drum to make it resonant. When the drum struck up, the performers raised and lowered themselves, up and down, faster and faster, till the orchestra began to sing, and suddenly, with a succession of clashes on bell and drum alternately, ping, ping, pom… pppom, pppom… PING, PING, brought the act to a close.

Twirling of clubs followed, one man at a time, one
club in each hand, and each club so heavy that it was as much as I could do to lift one off the floor with both hands. Then more body exercises. Then whirling, with the arms outstretched, brought to such a speed that I could distinctly see two profiles and a front-face on one performer at the same moment. The orchestra of drum, voice, and bell played throughout, slackening and quickening its rhythm, so that the performers were visibly responding to a musical impulse, faces and bodies were vivid with enjoyment, and the contrast with Swedish drill, as it transforms the hope of Europe into ranks of gesticulating automata, became even more painful to us than to Young's Persian pupils.

The last act was occupied with the iron bows, each held above the head, while chain and discs clanged to and fro from shoulder to ear. The champion of this exercise eventually did a dance, hopping in and out of the bow in the style of Tex McLeod and his lasso, except that owing to the weight of the instrument he was so exhausted at the end of it that he could hardly pick himself out of the pit. Meanwhile, new arrivals were undressing, to take their turn at the next session.

When the first was over, the performers put on their clothes and we saw what kind of people they were. Most were merchants or shopkeepers. One was an air force officer. And there was also a scholar who is at present translating the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
with the help of four assistants. The first volume of this labour would have been published immediately had he not realised, just in time, that the alphabetical order of the English differed from that of the Persian.

The proprietor, who presides over each act to see that no one overstrains himself, explained the organisation. Each Zur Khana is a club, and most of them are situated, like this one, at the junction of the bazaar and residential quarters, so that business men can call in for exercise on their way home. The subscription is
three tomans, that is 7s.6d., a month. Occasionally there are competitions between different Zur Khanas.

I met a young Swede at dinner, whose expensive jewelry and talk about his father's estates made me wonder why he was living in Teheran.

Swede
: I am in the business of cases.

R. B.
: Cases?

Swede
: Cases for sausages.

R. B.
: Tins do you mean?

Swede
: No, cases for the sausages themselves made from sheep's intestines. Some people think it is not a nice business. I do not always talk about it.

R.B.
: I thought those cases were made of rice-paper or some such material.

Swede
: Not at all. Every sausage has a gut case.

R. B.
: What happens, ha, ha, with a sausage six inches across?

Swede
(
seriously
): We use not only sheep's guts, but also ox guts. The big intestine of the ox will hold the biggest sausage manufactured.

R.B.
: But have Swedish cattle no intestines? Why come to Persia for them?

Swede
: Persian cases are of high grade. The first grade comes from the Kalmuckian steppe in Russia. The second from Australia and New Zealand. The next from Persia. It is an important business for Persia. Cases are one of the largest exports under the Swedish-Persian trading agreement.

R. B.
: What made you choose cases as a profession?

Swede
: It is my father's business.

Hence the estates, I supposed.

Sultaniya
(c. 5900 ft.),
April 12th
.—A last visit to Uljaitu's mausoleum. It was the first great monument I saw in
Persia, but I had no standard of comparison then, and I was afraid it might disappoint me now.

It does not.

There are two smaller monuments not far away, an octagonal tomb-tower of the XIIIth century known as that of Sultan Cheilabi, and an octagonal shrine, squatter and later, which shelters the grave of Mullah Hassan. The brickwork of the first, still pointed as though built yesterday, excels the best work of those masters of European brick, the Dutch. The second is remarkable for a domed stalactite ceiling painted red and white.

A narrow path led to the later shrine through a brown and thorny scrub. “What a pity you can't come back in summer”, said the peasant with me wistfully. “The rose-avenue is so beautiful then.”

Teheran
,
April 14th
.—Stopping at Kazvin on the way back, I discovered the local white wine and bought the whole stock of the hotel. How comfortable that hotel seems now! I remember after we had stopped there on the way from Hamadan, warning the Charcoal-Burners in Baghdad to avoid it at all costs.

Almost all visitors to Persia travel either by Resht or by Hamadan, and all who do must pass the outside of the Friday Mosque at Kazvin. Yet, except for Godard, the French Director of the Antiquities Service, I believe I am the first person to have noticed the Seljuk stucco in the sanctuary, a lovely scheme of panels, cornice, and arabesque frieze, which dates from 1113. The inscriptions are all interspersed with those graceful trailing flowers, roses, tulips, and irises, which are generally thought to have been invented by the Safavids four centuries later.

Teheran
,
April 20th
.—Still here.

We ought to have left this morning, but were prevented by a deluge of rain.

Thrush, a schoolmaster, is also on his way to Kabul, by the southern road. He told the Afghan Embassy he was looking for adventure, at which Shir Ahmad, always anxious to oblige, suggested he should pose as a Russian spy and then save himself from being shot by producing a letter which Shir Ahmad would give him for the purpose. Christopher and I met him this morning, as we were discussing the importance of comfort on our journey. He said he preferred discomfort, revelled in it. I know the type: they die on one out of sheer inefficiency.

This afternoon I called on Assadi, the Mutavali Bashi of the Shrine at Meshed. This is a court appointment, whose holder controls the Shrine's revenues amounting to £60,000 a year. He was anxious enough for me to see the hospital he is building with those revenues. But I could not pin him to a promise to insinuate me into the Shrine.

As a person, more is known of Gohar Shad than I thought.

Teheran
,
April 21st
.—Still here.

This time we stopped to see Upham Pope, who arrived yesterday. Some of my photographs and information may be useful to his forthcoming
Survey of Persian Art
.

He came in an aeroplane with Mrs. Moore, a matriarch in a shawl, more than seventy years old and worth as many millions. Her two sisters, three maids, and a
“manager” made up the party. We met them at tea at the American College. Christopher was appalled at the toadying that went on, but he has no sympathy with people whose work depends on private benefactions.