Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume 1 (of 2). Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird

us the "choice of rooms," and he replied, "choice of pig-styes, – choice of dens!" but my experience at Wiyjahea has deprived me of the last remnants of fastidiousness!

      I walked through the ruinous, wretched town, and its poor bazar, where the very fine physique of the men was in marked contrast with their wretched surroundings, and gives one the impression that under honest officials they might be a fine people. They are not genial to strangers, however. There was some bad language used in the bazar, and on the roads they pass one in silence at the best, so unlike the Tibetans with their friendly Tzu. At Sheraban one of the muleteers forced his way into my room, and roughly turned over my saddle and baggage, accusing me of having taken his blanket! Hadji is useless under such circumstances. He blusters and fingers his revolver, but carries no weight. Indeed his defects are more apparent every day. I often have to speak to him two or three times before I can rouse him from his opium dream, and there is a growing inclination to shirk his very light work when he can shift it upon somebody else. I hope that he is well-meaning, as that would cover a multitude of faults, but he is very rough and ignorant, and is either unable or unwilling to learn anything, even how to put up my trestle bed!

      Open rooms have sundry disadvantages. In the night a cat fell from the roof upon my bed, and was soon joined by more, and they knocked over the lamp and milk bottle, and in the darkness had a noisy quarrel over the milk.

      The march of eighteen miles here was made in six hours, at a good caravan pace. The baggage animals were sent off in advance, and the zaptieh led a mule loaded with chairs, blankets, and occupations. I ride with the zaptieh in front of me till I get near the halting-place, when M – and his orderly overtake me, as it might be disagreeable for a European woman to enter a town alone.

      The route lies over treeless levels of the same brown alluvial soil, till it is lifted on a gentle gravelly slope to a series of low crumbling mounds of red and gray sandstone, mixed up with soft conglomerate rocks of jasper and porphyry pebbles. These ranges of mounds, known as the Hamrin Hills, run parallel to the great Kurdistan ranges, from a point considerably below Baghdad, nearly to Mosul and the river Zab. They mark the termination in this direction of the vast alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and are the first step to the uplifted Iranian plateau.

      Arid and intricate ravines, dignified by the name of passes, furrow these hills, and bear an evil reputation, as Arab robbers lie in wait, "making it very unsafe for small caravans." A wild, desolate, ill-omened-looking region it is. When we were fairly within the pass, the zaptieh stopped, and with much gesticulation and many repetitions of the word effendi, made me understand that it was unsafe to proceed without a larger party. We were unmolested, but it is a discredit to the administration of the province that an organised system of pillage should be allowed to exist year after year on one of the most frequented caravan routes in Turkey. There were several companies of armed horsemen among the ranges, and some camels browsing, but we met no caravans.

      From the top of the descent there was a striking view over a great brown alluvial plain, watered by the Beladruz and the Diyalah, with serrated hills of no great height, but snow-covered; on its east side a silent, strange, weird view, without interest or beauty as seen under a sullen sky. There are no villages on this march, but ancient canals run in all directions, and fragments of buildings, as well as of brick and pottery, scattered over the unploughed surface, are supposed by many to mark the situation of Dastagird, the residence of Khosroe Parviz in the seventh century. I have no books of reference with me, and can seldom write except of such things as I see and hear.

      Farther on a multitude of irrigation ditches have turned a plain of dry friable soil into a plain of mud, through which it was difficult to struggle. Then came a grove of palms, and then the town or village of Kizil Robat (Red Shrine), with its imamzada, whose reputation for sanctity is indicated by the immense number of graves which surround it. The walls of this decayed and wretched town are of thick layers of hardened but now crumbling earth, and on the east side there is an old gateway of burned brick. There are said to be 400 houses, which at the lowest computation would mean a population of 2000, but inhabited houses and ruins are so jumbled up together that one cannot form any estimate.

      So woe-begone and miserable a place I never saw, and the dirt is appalling even in this dry weather. In spring the alleys of the town are impassable, and people whose business calls them out cross from roof to roof on boards. Pools of filthy water, loathsome ditches with broad margins of trodden slime full of abominations, ruins of houses, yards foul with refuse, half-clothed and wholly unwashed children, men of low aspect standing in melancholy groups, a well-built brick bazar, in which Manchester cottons are prominent, more mud and dirt, some ruinous caravanserais, and near the extremity of the town or village is the horrible one in which I now am, said to be the best, with a yard a foot deep in manure and slush, in the midst of which is the well, and around which are stables and recesses for travellers.

      At first it seemed likely that I should fall so low as to occupy one of these, but careful investigation revealed a ruinous stair leading to the roof, up which were two rooms, or shall I say three? – an arched recess such as coals are kept in, a small room within it, and a low wood hole. The open arch, with a mangel or iron pan of charcoal, serves as the "parlour" this January night, M – occupies the wood hole, and I the one room, into which Hadji, with many groans and ejaculations of "Ya Allah!" has brought up the essential parts of my baggage. The evening is gray and threatening, and low, snow-covered hills look grimly over the bare brown plain which lies outside this mournful place.

      Khannikin, Jan. 15.– This has been a hard, rough march, but there will be many worse ahead. Rain fell heavily all night, converting the yard into a lake of trampled mud, and seemed so likely to continue that it was difficult to decide whether to march or halt. Miserable it was to see mules standing to be loaded, up to their knees in mud, bales of tents and bedding lying in the quagmire, and the shivering Indian servants up to their knees in the swamp. In rain steadily falling the twelve animals were loaded, and after the usual scrimmage at starting, in which the bakhsheesh is often thrown back at us, we rode out into a sea of deep mud, through which the mules, struggling and floundering, got on about a mile an hour.

      After a time we came to gravel, then relapsed into deep alluvial soil, which now means deep mire, then a low range of gravelly hills on which a few sheep and camels were browsing on artemisia and other aromatic herbs gave a temporary respite, then again we floundered through miles of mud, succeeded by miles of gravel and stones. The rain fell in torrents, and there was a cold strong wind to fight against. There was that amount of general unpropitiousness which is highly stimulating and inspiriting.

      When noon came, there was not a rock or bush for shelter, and turning our backs to the storm we ate our lunch in our saddles. There was nothing to look at but brown gravel, or brown mud, brooded over by a gray mist. So we tramped on, hour after hour, in single file, the zaptieh leading, everything but his gun muffled in his brown abba, splashing through mud and water, the water pouring from my hat and cloak, the six woollen thicknesses of my mask dripping, seeing neither villages nor caravans, for caravans of goods do not travel in such rain as this. Then over a slope we went down into a lake of mud, where the aide-de-camp of the Governor of Khannikin, in a fez and military frock-coat and trousers, with a number of Bashi Bazouks or irregulars, met M – with courtesies and an invitation.

      From the top of the next slope there was a view of Khannikin, a considerable-looking town among groves of palms and other trees. Then came a worse sea of mud, and a rudely cobbled causeway, so horrible that it diverted us back into the mud, which was so bottomless that it drove us back to the causeway, and the causeway back to the mud, the rain all the time coming down in sheets. This causeway, without improvement, is carried through Khannikin, a town with narrow blind alleys, upon which foul courtyards open, often so foul as to render the recent ravages of cholera (if science speaks truly) a matter of necessity. The mud and water in these alleys was up to the knees of the mules. Not a creature was in the streets. No amount of curiosity, even regarding the rare sight of a Frank woman, could make people face the storm in flimsy cotton clothes.

      Where the road turns to the bridge a line of irregular infantry was drawn up, poorly dressed, soaked creatures, standing in chilly mud up to their ankles, in soaked boots reaching to their knees. These joined and headed the cavalcade,