Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia. M. E. Hume-Griffith
Chapter V
Holidays in Persia
How to ensure a prosperous journey—Natanz—Astonishment of natives at sight of hairpins—Pulivagoon—Mahoon—Aliabâd—Prince under canvas—Visit from a Persian princess—A Persian deer-hunt.
“If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.”
Shakespeare.
In a climate such as has been described in the foregoing chapter, it is necessary for the sake of health to get away during a part of the hot season. Fortunately there are suitable places near at hand to each of the large cities, so it is no very difficult matter to get away for a few weeks. The difficulties lie rather in reaching these places, and in transporting all one’s belongings—at least all those that are absolutely necessary—to the place chosen.
After having decided upon the desirability of having a holiday, the next thing is to fix a day of departure. This sounds easy to say. Yes, it is quite a simple matter for you to say, “We will start on such and such a day,” but you are perhaps reckoning without considering your muleteer. On the morning appointed you rise early, see that everything is in readiness, and then sit down to wait for the baggage animals to arrive. Time goes on, the sun begins to get hot, and no sign of the muleteer or mules, so by-and-by you send your servant to investigate matters, and he brings back with him the muleteer, who smiles sweetly and says, “Ensha’allah farda (to-morrow, God willing) we will start on our journey.” His mules have gone to a village, and will be back “ensha’allah farda.” We can console ourselves that very likely the same thing will occur again on the next day. It is always “farda” with these people, so we must try to possess our souls in patience, and hope for the best. Persians are never in a hurry, and cannot understand why it should make any difference whether we start “to-day” or “to-morrow.” Oh, those endless “fardas”! how tired we got of them before we had been very long in the land. But it is good to learn patience, and the sooner you have mastered this lesson well, the happier will you be living in the East.
Preparing for a holiday in Persia is rather a different matter to starting off at home for the seaside or elsewhere. Everything has to be taken—pots and pans, tables, chairs, beds and bedding—in fact, everything that is necessary for four or five weeks’ stay in a house where nothing is provided but the bare walls. It is wonderful what a number of things are necessary even for a short stay, in the so-called simple life.
The natives are very superstitious about many things when starting on a journey. For instance, it is very unlucky, in their eyes, to proceed if any of the party happens to sneeze on the point of starting. They would much rather postpone the start for a more propitious occasion, than disregard this bad omen. I heard of one man who insisted on continuing his journey in spite of the warning given in the form of a sneeze, and the consequence was he fell off his mule and broke his leg! The natives also are careful to have a good supply of copper coins ready when starting on a journey, to give to the beggars. Whenever we left home our servants always distributed freely to the poor who were living around, to ensure a blessing on our journey, but they never forgot to put the amount down in the daily account!
While in Persia we had some very enjoyable holidays, but as I could not endure the altitude we were never able to go to the mountains, which of course make the ideal summer resorts. However, we managed to find some very pretty and fairly cool places in the plains or on slightly elevated ground. Our first holiday in Persia was spent in a very pretty little village called Natanz. I had been taken ill on our way to Isphahan, and the lady doctor who came out to meet us suggested our going for a week or so to this little village before entering Isphahan. Spring was already well advanced, and it is difficult to recruit in the hot season.
Natanz is a picturesque little village, slightly off the general route, so that the natives had not then become very much used to Feringhis staying with them, and our coming caused no little excitement. We arrived there about twelve o’clock one night, and were conducted to our room by an admiring throng, and this throng continued to “admire” for the whole time we were there. The windows of our room were composed of lattice work only, so all interested could always have a good view of our movements. On waking in the morning there were our faithful followers to be seen with their faces flattened against the trellis work, waiting for us to wake, and see what we were going to do next! At times this interest shown on the part of the inhabitants was a trifle embarrassing, but as often as they were driven away by our servant just as often did they return again whenever his back was turned. For the first day or two I did not leave the room, but when I felt stronger I used to sit in a chair outside the window reading or writing. The moment my husband left me the women all swarmed round like bees, full of curious questions. Unfortunately at that time I was not able to talk to them, not knowing the language, but I could make out what they were saying to a great extent from their gestures. My fountain pen was a cause of great amusement and astonishment, as were also my hairpins. The delight of some of the women on being presented with a hairpin was very funny. They seemed to think I stuck them into my head, as into a pincushion. At first the women were rather shy, as they could not be quite sure whether I was a man or a woman, but one of them came and peeped under my hat and seeing I had long hair concluded I was a woman. My husband received a visit from the governor of the village, who was very delighted to see an English hakeem. We were quite sorry when our little holiday in Natanz was over, but being anxious to push on to Isphahan, did not care to prolong our stay longer than was necessary.
Our next holiday was in the summer of the same year 1900. This time we went only a few hours’ drive out of Isphahan to a place called Pulivagoon. It was a very pretty little village, and a nice house, belonging to the Zil es Sultan, had been lent to us for a month. The house was built practically on the river, as our windows hung right over the water, and the sound of its rushing torrent reminded us of the lapping of the waves on the seashore in dear Old England. There were some lovely woods near by, to which we often used to take our tea, and pass the time pleasantly paddling, bathing, and fishing in the river. The following year we were at Kerman, and went for our holidays to a lovely garden about nine hours’ ride from the city. Mahoon lies very high; it must be at least 6700 feet above sea-level. The climate is beautiful, but the altitude proved too high for me to enjoy it much. We had a very tiring ride from Kerman; starting one day soon after noon we rode for three or four hours, then had a refreshing cup of tea under the shadow of a large spreading tree. But we could not afford to linger, for we still had a good half of our journey before us, so once more we mounted our respective steeds, hoping to reach our destination about nine o’clock, but alas for our hopes! Nine o’clock came and went, and still we seemed no nearer; ten o’clock, and still no sign of our village. It was now pitch dark, and we were all very tired and hungry, and I was so dead beat that I could hardly sit upright on my animal. My husband rode close by my side, to be in readiness in case I should fall off in my sleep. To the oft-repeated question, “How much farther?” the answer always came, “Ensha’allah—only half-an-hour.” Oh, those half-hours, how wearisome they became! I did so wish that they would say two hours or three hours for a change, for the everlasting half-hour was so tantalising. Our servants told me afterwards that they said this to keep up my spirits, as they thought, if they told the truth about the distance, “the Khanum’s heart would melt within her.” At last, just after midnight, we heard a very energetic coo-ing ahead of us, and knew that at last we were within sound of rest and food. It was so dark that we could not find the path leading to the garden, and our animals went floundering about over great boulders of stones or stumbling into ditches, and of course all in the wrong direction, till some one met us and conducted our tired party into the house. Here we found that our baggage animals, with Bagi and the other servants, had not yet turned up, though they had started an hour or two before us. They did not arrive till morning,