LETTER XII
Julfa, April 17.
Mr. George Curzon wrote of Julfa: "The younger Julfa is a place wholly destitute of superficial attractions, consisting as it does of a labyrinth of narrow alleys closed by doors and plentifully perforated with open sewers. Life there is 'cabined, cribbed, confined' to an intolerable degree, and it is a relief to escape from its squalid precincts."
I dare not write thus if I would! It is now the early spring. The "sewers" are clear rapid streams, margined by grass and dandelions, and shaded by ash trees and pollard willows in their first flush of green. The "narrow alleys" are scrupulously clean, and there is neither mud nor dust. If I go up on the roof I see a cultivated oasis, gardens prolonged indefinitely concealing the desert which lies between them and the bold mountain ranges which surround this lofty and breezy plain. Every breeze is laden with the delicious odour of the bean blossom. A rapid river spanned by noble bridges hurries through the oasis it has helped to create, and on its other side the domes and minarets of Isfahan rise out of masses of fine trees, and bridges and mosques, minarets and mountains, are all seen through a most exquisite pink mist, for hundreds of standard peach trees are in full bloom, and look where one may everything is couleur de rose.
I quite admit that Julfa consists of a "labyrinth of alleys." I can never find my way about it. One alley with its shady central stream (or "sewer"), its roughly paved paths on either side, its mud walls pierced by low doors, is very much like another, and however lucky one may be in "happening on" the right road, it is always a weary time before one escapes from between mud walls into the gardens and wheatfields, to the blossoming beans, and the exquisite wild-flowers among the wheat.
As to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" life, I can give no testimony from personal knowledge. All life in European settlements in the East appears to me "cabined, cribbed, confined," and greatly devoid of external interests. Perhaps Julfa is deficient in the latter in an eminent degree, and in a very small foreign community people are interested chiefly in each other's affairs, sayings, and doings. Lawn tennis, picnics, and dinner parties are prevalent, the ordinary etiquette of European society prevails, and in all cases of need the residents are kind to each other both in life and death.
The European society is divided into three circles – the missionaries, the mercantile community, and the telegraph staff. The British agent, Mr. Aganoor, is an Armenian.33 No Christians, Armenian or European, live in Isfahan, and it is practically défendu to European women. This transpontine restriction undoubtedly narrows the life and interests of Julfa. It is aggravating and tantalising to be for ever looking at a city of 60,000 or 70,000 people, the fallen capital of the Sufari dynasty, and never be able to enter it.
This Christian town of Julfa has a certain accessible historic interest. Shah Abbas, justly surnamed the Great, conceived the sagacious project of introducing among his Persian subjects at Isfahan – then, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, a magnificent capital – the Christian habits of trading, sagacity, and thrift, for then as now the Armenians had commercial dealings with China, India, and Europe, and had imported several arts into Persia.
This project he carried out in truly despotic fashion by moving almost the whole population of Julfa on the Araxes, on the modern Russo-Persian frontier, to the banks of the Zainderud, making over to it the best lands in the neighbourhood of Isfahan. Many years later the new Julfa was a place with twenty-four churches, great prosperity, and an estimated population of 40,000. Its agriculturists were prosperous market-gardeners for the huge city of Isfahan, and it had likewise a great trading community, and was renowned for the making of jewellery and watches.
It has now a dwindling population of about 3000, chiefly elderly men, women, and girls, the young men, after receiving a good education in the Church Mission and other schools, flying from its stagnation to India, Java, and even Europe. The twenty-four churches are reduced to twelve, and these with the vast cemetery in the desert at the base of Kuh Sufi are its chief objects of interest, apart from those which are human and living.
April 22.– The peach blossoms have long since fallen, but perhaps I still see Julfa couleur de rose, even after three weeks, so very great is the kindness under this roof, and so fully is my time occupied with various interests, and the preparations for a difficult journey.
This, as you know, is the Church Mission House. Dr. Bruce has been here for twenty years, and until lately, when the Archbishop of Canterbury's mission to the Assyrian Christians began its work at Urmi, near the Turkish frontier in the north-west, this was the only English mission in the Empire. It was contemplated as a mission to the Mohammedans, but in this respect has been an apparent failure. It is true that much prejudice has been disarmed, and, as I have heard from some leading Mohammedans, Dr. Bruce's zeal and good works have won their respect. A large part of the Bible has been translated into Persian and very widely circulated through the adjacent country by means of colporteurs of the British and Foreign Bible Society. His preaching of Christianity is listened to respectfully, and even with interest, wherever he itinerates, and Moslems daily call on him, and show much friendliness, but the results, as results are usually estimated, are nil– that is, no Mohammedans openly profess Christianity.
There is actual though not legal toleration, but Moslem children may not attend a mission school, and a Moslem who becomes a Christian loses his means of living, and probably his life is sacrificed to fanaticism.
In consequence of these difficulties, and certain encouragements in another direction, the ostensible work of the mission is among Armenians. Dr. Bruce has not been afraid of incurring the stigma of being a proselytiser, and has a large congregation of Armenians worshipping after the English form, ninety-four being communicants of the Church of England. On Easter Eve there was an evening Communion, and the great row of women kneeling at the rail in the pure white robes which cover them from head to foot, and then moving back to their places in the dim light, was very picturesque and beautiful.
Good works have been added one after another, till the mission is now a very large establishment. The C.M.S. has been liberal to this, its only Persian agency, and Dr. Bruce, having private means, has generously expended them largely on missionary work in Julfa.
The chief features of the compounds are the church, which is both simple and ecclesiastical in its exterior and interior, and the library adjoining it, where Dr. Bruce works at the translation of the Old Testament into Persian and the revision of the New, aided by a munshi, and where through much of the day he is receiving Moslems, some of whom come to inquire into Christianity, others for religious disputations, and a third and numerous class out of mere friendliness. The latter are generally invited into the Mission House, and are regaled with coffee and kalians, in orthodox Persian fashion. Among the latter visitors has been the Amir-i-Panj, who came to ask me to call on his wife, accompanied by a general of cavalry, whose name I cannot spell, and who speaks French remarkably well.
Among the other buildings are those of the Medical Mission, which include a roomy courtyard, where the animals which carry the patients are tethered, rooms for the doctor, a well-arranged dispensary and consulting-room, with waiting-rooms for both sexes, and rooms above in which serious surgical cases are received for treatment, and where at present there are eleven patients, although just now there is no European doctor, and they are being treated by the native assistants, most kindly helped by Dr. Scully of the telegraph staff. This hospital and dispensary are largely taken advantage of by Moslems, who highly appreciate this form of Christian benevolence.
The boys' school, with 205 pupils, has been a great benefit to Julfa. The head-master, Mr. Johannes, was educated in England and was formerly a master of the Nassik School in India. This school provides the education of one of our best middle-class schools, and the teaching is thorough. Smattering would be infinitely despised by teachers and pupils. In this thorough fashion Latin, French, the first four books of Euclid, and algebra are taught to the young men of the upper form. The boys have a large playground, with a great tank for bathing, and some of the equipments of a gymnasium, a vaulting pole, parallel bars, etc.
The girls' schools, containing 100 girls, have their own courtyard, and they need enlarging, though the process has been more than once repeated. Mrs. Aidin, an English teacher, is at their head, and exercises that strong influence which love and firmness give. The girls are a mass of red, a cool red, without yellow, and when they disperse they enliven the Julfa alleys with their carnation dresses and pure white chadars. The education is solid and suitable, and special attention is given to needlework.
Besides these there is an orphanage, begun for the benefit of those whose parents died in the famine, in which are twenty boys. Outside are many other works, a Bible House, from which colporteurs at intervals proceed on journeys, a Young Men's Christian Association, or something like it, etc. etc.
Now as to the Mission House itself, which has to accommodate Dr., Mrs., and Miss Bruce, Mr. Carless, a clerical missionary, and two English lady missionaries. So much has been written lately about the "style of living" of missionaries, their large houses, and somewhat unnecessary comfort in general, that I am everywhere specially interested in investigating the subject, having formed no definite opinion on the question whether living as natives or living as Europeans is the more likely mode of producing a salutary impression.
The Mission House here is a native building, its walls and ceilings simply decorated with pale brown arabesques on a white ground. There are a bedroom and parlour, with an ante-room between giving access to both from the courtyard, a storeroom, and a kitchen. Across the court are servants' quarters and a guest-room for natives. Above these, reached by an outside stair, are a good room, occupied by Mr. Carless as study and bedroom, and one small guest-room. Another stair leads to two rooms above some of the girls' school premises, having enclosed alcoves used as sleeping and dressing rooms. These are occupied by two ladies. One room serves as eating-room for the whole mission party, at present six in number, and as drawing-room and workroom. Books, a harmonium, Persian rugs on the floor, and just enough furniture for use constitute its "luxury."
There are two servants, both of course men, and all the ladies do some housework. At present the only horse is the dispensary horse, a beast of such rough and uneven paces that it is a penance to ride him. The food is abundant, well cooked, and very simple.
The life, all round, is a very busy one. Visitors are never refused at any hour. The long flat mud roofs from which one can see the gardens and the hills are used for exercise, otherwise some of the party would never have anything better than mud walls for their horizon, and life in courtyards is rather depressing for Europeans. I have told facts, and make no comments, and it must be remembered that both Dr. Bruce and Miss V – , a lady of rare devotion who has lately arrived,34 are to a certain extent "honorary" missionaries, and have the means, if they had the desire, of surrounding themselves with comforts.
This is about the twenty-third mission circle with which I have become acquainted during the last eight months, and I see in nearly all the same difficulties, many of them of a nature which we can hardly realise at home.
Women coming to the East as missionaries are by far the greatest sufferers, especially if they are young, for Eastern custom, which in their position cannot be defied with advantage, limits free action and abridges all the comforts of independence. Thus a woman cannot take a walk or a ride or go to a house without a trusty man-servant in attendance on her, and this is often inconvenient, so she does not go out at all, contenting herself with a walk on the roof or in the courtyard.
The wave of enthusiasm on which a lady leaves her own country soon spends its force. The interest which has centred round her for weeks or even months is left behind. The enthusiastic addresses and farewell meetings, the journey "up the country" with its excitement and novelties, and the cordial welcome from the mission circle to which she is introduced, soon become things of the past. The circle, however kind, has its own interests and work, and having provided her with a munshi, necessarily goes on its own way more or less, and she is left to face the fearful difficulties of languages with which ours has no affinity, in a loneliness which is all the more severely felt because she is usually, for a time at least, one nominally of a family circle.
Unless she is a doctor or nurse she can do nothing till she has learned the language, and the difficulty of learning is increased by the loss of the flexible mind and retentive memory which are the heritage of extreme youth. The temptation is to "go at it" violently. Then come the aching head, the loss of sleep, the general lassitude and nervousness, and the self-questionings as to whether she was right in leaving her fruitful work in England.
Then, instead of realising the truth of the phrases used at home – "multitudes flocking as the doves to their windows" – "fields white unto the harvest," etc. – she finds that the work instead of seeking her has to be made by her most laboriously, and oftentimes the glowing hope of telling of the Redeemer's love and death to throngs of eager and receptive listeners is fulfilled in the drudgery of teaching sewing and the rudiments of English during the first year.
It is just this first year under which many women succumb. Then how many of the failings and weaknesses of the larger world must be epitomised in a mission group exposed, as Mr. Heyde of Kyelang feelingly said, "to the lowering influence of daily contact with a courteous and non-repulsive Heathenism and Mohammedanism"! Missionaries are not likely to possess, as they certainly are the last to claim, superior sanctity, and the new-comer, dreaming of a circle in all respects consecrated, finds herself among frictions, strong differences as to methods of working, not always gently expressed, and possible jealousies and criticisms, and an exaggeration of the importance of trifles, natural where large events are rare. A venerable American missionary in Turkey said, "Believe me, the greatest trial of missionaries is missionaries."
The small group is frequently destitute of social resources outside itself, it is cut off from friendly visits, services, lectures, music, new books, news, and the many recreative influences which all men regard as innocent. The life-work seems at times thrown away, the heat, the flies, and the mosquitos are depressing and exhausting, and in the case of young women, especially till they can use the language colloquially, there is little if any outside movement. Is it wonderful that supposed slights, tiffs, criticisms which would be utterly brushed away if a good walk in the open or a good gallop were possible, should be brooded over till they attain a magnitude which embitters and depresses life?
A man constantly finds the first year or two very trying till he has his tools – the language – at command, and even men at times rub each other the wrong way, but a man can take a good walk or a solitary gallop, or better still, a week of itinerating among the villages. People speak of the dangers and privations of missionary life. I think that these are singularly over-estimated. But the trials which I have alluded to, and which, with the hot climates and insufficient exercise, undermine the health of very many female missionaries, cannot be exaggerated, and demand our deep sympathy.
I do not think that the ordinary pious woman, the successful and patient worker in district visiting, Bible classes, mothers' meetings, etc., is necessarily suited to be a foreign missionary, but that a heart which is a well-spring of human love, and a natural "enthusiasm of humanity" are required, as well as love to the Master, the last permeating and sanctifying the others, and giving them a perennial freshness. Fancy G. G – grumbling and discontented and magnifying unpropitious trifles, when her heart goes out to every Chinawoman she sees in a perfect passion of love!35
With the medical missionary, whether man or woman, the case is different. The work seeks the worker even before he is ready for it, claims him, pursues him, absorbs him, and he is powerful to heal even where he is impotent to convert.
I have been to the hospital to see a woman from the Kuhrūd mountains, who was brought here to undergo an operation. She had spent all her living on native physicians without result, and her husband has actually sold his house to get money to give his wife a last chance of recovery. Fifteen years ago this man nearly took Dr. Bruce's life. Now, he says, "The fruits of Christianity are good."
Daily the "labyrinth of alleys" becomes denser with leafage, and the sun is hot enough to make the shade very pleasant, while occasional showers keep the greenery fresh. Indeed it is warm enough in my room to make the cool draught from the bādgīr very pleasant. These wind-towers are a feature of all Persian cities, breaking the monotony of the flat roofs.
Letters can be sent once a week from Isfahan, and there is another opportunity very safe and much taken advantage of, the "Telegraph chapar," a British official messenger, who rides up and down between Bushire and Tihran at stated intervals. The Persian post is a wretched institution, partaking of the general corruption of Persian officialism, and nowhere, unless registered, are letters less safe than in Tihran.36 I shall send this, scrappy as it is, as I may not be here for another week's mail.
I. L. B.
LETTER XIII
Julfa, April 29.
Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote, and this is probably the last here. My dear old Cabul tent, a shuldari, also Indian, and a servants' tent made here on a plan of my own, are pitched in one of the compounds to exercise the servants in the art, and it really looks like going after many delays.
A few festivities have broken the pleasant monotony of life in this kindly and hospitable house – dinner parties, European and Armenian; a picnic on the Kuh Sufi, from which there is a very fine panoramic view of the vast plain and its surrounding mountains, and of the immense ruins of Isfahan and Julfa, with the shrunken remains of both; and a "church picnic."
From Kuh Sufi is seen how completely, and with a sharp line of definition, the arid desert bounds the green oasis of cultivated and irrigated gardens which surround the city, and which are famous for the size and lusciousness of their fruit. From a confusion of ruinous or ragged walls of mud, of ruined and modern houses standing complacently among heaps of rubbish, and from amidst a greenery which redeems the scene, the blue tiled dome of the Masjid-i-Shah, a few minarets, and the great dome of the Medresseh, denuded of half its tiles, rise conspicuously. Long lines of mud streets and caravanserais, gaunt in their ruin, stretch into the desert, and the city once boasting of 650,000 inhabitants and a splendid court survives with a population of less than 80,000 at the highest estimate.
The "church picnic" was held in a scene of decay, but 260 people, with all the women but three in red, enlivened it. It was in the grounds of the old palace of Haft Dast, in which Fatteh Ali Shah died, close to one of the three remarkable bridges of Isfahan, the Pul-i-Kajū. These bridges are magnificent. Their construction is most peculiar, and their roadways being flat they are almost unique in Persia.
The Pul-i-Kajū, though of brick, has stone piers of immense size, which are arched over so as to form a level causeway. On this massive structure the upper bridge is built, comprising a double series of rooms at each pier with doorways overlooking the river, and there are staircases and rooms also in the upper piers.
The Chahar Bagh bridge is also quaint and magnificent, with its thirty-three arches, some of them very large, its corridors for foot passengers, and chambers above each pier, each chamber having three openings to the river. These bridges have a many-storied look, from their innumerable windows at irregular altitudes, and form a grand approach to the city.
As at first, so now at last the most impressive thing to me about the Zainderud next to its bridges is the extent to which rinsing, one of the processes of dyeing, is carried on upon its shingle flats. Isfahan dyed fabrics are famous and beautiful, heavy cottons of village make and unbleached cottons of Manchester make being brought here to be dyed and printed.
There is quite a population of dyers, and now that the river is fairly low, many of them have camped for the season in little shelters of brushwood erected on the gravel banks. For fully half-a-mile these banks are covered with the rinsers of dyed and printed calicoes, and with mighty heaps of their cottons. Hundreds of pieces after the rinsing are laid closely together to dry, indigo and turquoise blue, brown and purple madder, Turkey red and saffron predominating, a vile aniline colour showing itself here and there. Some of the smaller dyers have their colour vats by the river, but most of the cotton is brought from Isfahan, ready dyed, on donkeys' backs, with the rinsers in attendance.
Along the channels among the shingle banks are rows of old millstones, and during much of the day a rinser stands in front of each up to his knees in water. His methods are rough, and the cotton must be good which stands his treatment. Taking in his hands a piece of soaked half-wrung cotton, from fifteen to twenty yards long, he folds it into five feet and bangs it on the millstone with all his might, roaring a tuneless song all the time, till he fails from fatigue. The noise is tremendous, and there will be more yet, for the river is not nearly at its lowest point. When the piece has had the water beaten out of it a boy spreads it out on the gravel, and keeps it wet by dashing water over it, and then the process of beating is repeated. The coloured spray rising from each millstone in the bright sunshine is very pretty. Each rinser has his watchdog to guard the cottons on the bank, and between the banging, splashing, and singing, the barking of the dogs and the shouts of the boys, it is a noisy and cheery scene.
I have heard that certain unscrupulous English makers were in the habit of sending "loaded" cottons here, but that the calico printers have been a match for them, for the calico printer weighs his cloth before he buys it, washes and dries it, and then weighs it again. A man must "get up very early" if he means to cheat a Persian.
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 classes can enjoy the delights of shopping in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a necessary institution.
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 class 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 pass 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 dashing animals, and wore white Astrakan high caps, and the cortège quite filled up the narrow alley where it waited, and as it passed 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 Bushire 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, God will be with him."
The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of flowers. The Amir seemed to love them passionately. He said that they gave rest and joy, and are "the fringes of the garment of God." 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 passed 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 furnishing.