Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
The patterns and colours are beautiful. Quilts, ”table-cloths” (for use on the floor), and _chadars_ are often things of exquisite beauty.
Indeed I have yielded to temptation, and to gratify my own tastes have bought some beautiful ”table-cloths” for Bakhtiari women, printed chiefly in indigo and brown madder on a white ground.
The temptations are great. I really need many things both for my own outfit and for presents to the Bakhtiaris, and pedlars come every day and unpack their tempting bundles in the small verandah. No Europeans and no women of the upper cla.s.ses can enjoy the delights of shopping in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a necessary inst.i.tution.
Here they are of the humbler sort. They have learned that it is useless to display rich Turkestan and Feraghan carpets, gold and silver jewellery, inlaid arms, stuffs worked with gold thread, or any of the things which tempt the travelling Feringhi, so they bring all sorts of common fabrics, printed cambrics, worthless woollen stuffs, and the stout piece cottons and exquisitely-printed cotton squares of Isfahan.
At almost any hour of the day a salaaming creature squatting at the door is seen, caressing a big bundle, which on seeing you he pats in a deprecating manner, looks up appealingly, declares that he is your ”sacrifice,” and that with great trouble and loss he has got just the thing the _khanum_ wants. If you hesitate for one moment the bundle is opened, and on his first visit he invariably shows flaring Manchester cottons first; but if you look and profess disgust, he produces cottons printed here, strokes them lovingly, and asks double their value for them. You offer something about half. He recedes and you advance till a compromise is arrived at representing the fair price.
But occasionally, as about a table-cloth, if they see that you admire it very much but will not give the price asked, they swear by Allah that they will not abate a fraction, pack up their bundle, and move off in well-simulated indignation, probably to return the next day to offer the article on your own terms. Mrs. Bruce has done the bargaining, and I have been only an amused looker-on. I should prefer doing without things to the worry and tedium of the process of buying them.
The higher cla.s.s of pedlars, such as those who visit the _andaruns_ of the rich, go in couples, with a donkey or servant to carry their bundles.
I mentioned that the Amir-i-Panj had called and had asked me to visit his wife. I sent a message to say that my entrance into Isfahan had been so disagreeable that I should be afraid to pa.s.s through its gates again, to which he replied that he would take care that I met with no incivility. So an afternoon visit was arranged, and he sent a splendid charger for me, one of the finest horses I have seen in Persia, a horse for Mirza Yusuf, and an escort of six cavalry soldiers, which was increased to twelve at the city gate. The horse I rode answered the description--”a neck clothed with thunder,”--he was perfectly gentle, but his gait was that of a creature too proud to touch the earth. It was exhilarating to be upon such an animal.
The cavalry men rode das.h.i.+ng animals, and wore white Astrakan high caps, and the _cortege_ quite filled up the narrow alley where it waited, and as it pa.s.sed through the Chahar Bagh and the city gate, with much prancing and clatter, no ”tongue wagged” either of dervish or urchin.
At the entrance to the Amir's house I was received by an _aide-de-camp_ and a number of soldier-servants, and was ”conducted”
into a long room opening by many windows upon a beautiful garden full of peach blossom, violets, and irises; the table was covered with very pretty confectionery, including piles of _gaz_, a favourite sweetmeat, made of manna which is chiefly collected within eighty miles of Isfahan. Coffee was served in little cups in filigree gold receptacles, and then the Amir-i-Panj appeared in a white uniform, with a white lambskin cap, and asked ”permission to have the honour of accompanying me to the _andarun_.”
Persian politeness is great, and the Amir, though I think he is a Turk and not a Persian, is not deficient in it. Such phrases as ”My house is purified by your presence, I live a thousand years in this visit,”
etc., were freely used.
This man, who receives from all a very high character, and whom Moslems speak of as a ”saint,” is the most interesting Moslem I have met. In one sense a thoroughly religious man, he practises all the virtues which he knows, almsgiving to the extent of self-denial, without distinction of creed, charity in word and deed, truth, purity, and justice.
I had been much prepossessed in his favour not only from Dr. Bruce's high opinion of him but by the unbounded love and reverence which my interpreter has for him. Mirza Yusuf marched on foot from Bus.h.i.+re to Isfahan, without credentials, an alien, and penniless, and this good man hearing of him took him into his house, and treated him as a welcome guest till a friend of his, a Moslem, a general in the Persian army, also good and generous, took him to Tihran, where he remained as his guest for some months, and was introduced into the best Persian society. From him I learned how beautiful and pure a life may be even in a corrupt nation. When he bowed to kiss the Amir's hand, with grateful affection in his face, his ”benefactor,” as he always calls him, turned to me and said, ”He is to me as a dear son, G.o.d will be with him.”
The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of flowers. The Amir seemed to love them pa.s.sionately. He said that they gave rest and joy, and are ”the fringes of the garment of G.o.d.” He could not cut them, he said, ”Their beauty is in their completeness from root to petals, and cutting destroys it.”
A curtained doorway in the high garden wall, where the curtains were held aside by servants, leads into the court of the _andarun_, where flowers again were in the ascendant, and vines concealed the walls.
The son, a small boy, met us and kissed my hand. Mirza had told me that he had never pa.s.sed through this wall, and had never seen the ladies, but when I proposed to leave him outside, the Amir said he would be welcome, that he wished for much conversation, and for his wife to hear about the position and education of women in England.
The beautiful reception-room looked something like home. The pure white walls and honeycombed ceiling are touched and decorated with a pale shade of blue, and the ground of the patterns of the rich carpets on the floor is in the same delicate colour, which is repeated in the brocaded stuffs with which the divans are covered. A half-length portrait of the Amir in a sky-blue uniform, with his breast covered with orders, harmonises with the general ”scheme” of colour. The _takchahs_ in the walls are utilised for vases and other objects in alabaster, jade, and bronze. A tea-table covered with sweetmeats, a tea equipage on the floor, and some chairs completed the furnis.h.i.+ng.
The Amir stood till his wife came in, and then asked permission to sit down, placing Mirza, who discreetly lowered his eyes when the lady entered, and never raised them again, on the floor.
She is young, tall, and somewhat stout. She was much rouged, and her eyes, to which the arts of the toilet could add no additional beauty, were treated with _kohl_, and the eyebrows artificially extended. She wore fine gray socks, white skin-fitting tights, a black satin skirt, or rather flounce, embroidered in gold, so _bouffante_ with flounces of starched crinoline under it that when she sat down it stood out straight, not even touching the chair. A chemise of spangled gauze, and a pale blue gold-embroidered zouave jacket completed a costume which is dress, not clothing. The somewhat startling effect was toned down by a beautiful Constantinople silk gauze veil, sprigged in pale pink and gold, absolutely transparent, which draped her from head to foot.
I did not get away in less than two hours. The Amir and Mirza, used to each other's modes of expression, found no difficulties, and Mirza being a man of education as well as intelligence, thought was conveyed as easily as fact. The lady kept her fine eyes lowered except when her husband spoke to her.
The chief topics were the education and position of women in England, religion, politics, and the future of Persia, and on all the Amir expressed himself with a breadth and boldness which were astonis.h.i.+ng.
How far the Amir has gone in the knowledge of the Christian faith I cannot say, nor do I feel at liberty to repeat his most interesting thoughts. A Sunni, a liberal, desiring complete religious liberty, absolutely tolerant to the _B[=a]bis_, grateful for the kindness shown to some of them by the British Legation, and for the protection still given to them at the C.M.S. house, admiring Dr. Bruce's persevering work, and above all the Medical Mission, which he regards as ”the crown of beneficence” and ”the true imitation of the life of the Great Prophet, Jesus,” all he said showed a strongly religious nature, and a philosophical mind much given to religious thought. ”All true religions aim at one thing,” he said, ”to make the heart and life pure.”
He asked a good deal about my travels, and special objects of interest in travelling, and was surprised when I told him that I nearly always travel alone; but after a moment's pause he said, ”I do not understand that you were for a moment alone, for you had everywhere the love, companions.h.i.+p, and protection of G.o.d.”
He regards as the needs of Persia education, religious liberty (the law which punishes a Moslem with death for embracing Christianity is still on the statute-book), roads, and railroads, and asked me if I had formed any opinion on the subject. I said that it appeared to me that security for the earnings of labour, and equal laws for rich and poor, administered by incorruptible judges, should accompany education. I much fear that he thinks incorruptible judges a vision of a dim future!
The subject of the position of women in England and the height to which female education is now carried interested him extremely. He wished his wife to understand everything I told him. The success of women in examinations in art, literature, music, and other things, and the political wisdom and absolutely const.i.tutional rule of Queen Victoria, all interested him greatly. He asked if the women who took these positions were equally good as wives and mothers? I could only refer again to Queen Victoria. An Oriental cannot understand the position of unmarried women with us, or dissociate it from religious vows, and the Amir heard with surprise that a very large part of the philanthropic work which is done in England is done by women who either from accident or design have neither the happiness nor the duties of married life. He hopes to see women in Persia educated and emanc.i.p.ated from the trammels of certain customs, ”but,” he added, ”all reform in this direction must come slowly, and grow naturally out of a wider education, if it is to be good and not hurtful.”
He asked me what I should like to see in Isfahan, but when I mentioned the prison he said he should be ashamed to show it, and that except for political offences imprisonment is not much resorted to, that Persian justice is swift and severe--the bastinado, etc., not incarceration.