Travel in Persia, 1800's
Quoted from Lord Curzon,
Persia and the Persian Question, volume one (1892)
(Footnotes to the text have been enclosed in parentheses. Some
footnotes have been excluded.)
. . . Having spent eight days at Meshed, I started upon the long chapar ride to Teheran.
The distance is given by the Persians, and is therefore paid for by the traveller, as 154
farsakhs. At the full complement of four miles to a farsakh, this would amount to 616
miles; but, though the Khorasan farsakh is famed beyond all others for its odious and
seemingly inexhaustible length, a compliment in reality to the funereal monotony of the
road--the distance (comparing my own estimate with that of previous voyagers) is under
rather than over 560 English miles. <'What a long farsakh is that of Khorasan !' says a
traveller who has toiled from sunrise nearly to sunset, and who can no longer cling to his
jaded horse but by the prong in front of his saddle. 'By the beard of the Prophet,' said one
of the party as we neared our halting-ground, 'the road is longer than the entrails of Omar,
for my back and my knees have lost their feeling.' There is also a local proverb, worthy of
being quoted (Burnes' Travels into Bokhara, vol. iii. p. 89), which says that the Khorasani
farsakh is as endless as the chatter of women, and that he who measured them must have
done so with a broken chain.>
It is surprising how soon, if a man be riding alone and have nought to distract him but the
paces of his steed and the thought of his destination, he can arrive at an approximately
correct calculation of the distance be is covering from stage to stage. The route between
Meshed and Teheran is divided into twenty-four stages, the post-houses being established
at distances varying from fifteen to thirty miles, but averaging twenty-three miles apart.
This distance I accomplished in the comfortable time of nine days, doing an average of sixty
miles a day, but in reality combining days of seventy miles with shorter spans. This is slow
rather than speedy travelling for Persia; and I afterwards became easily habituated to
journeys of seventy-five to eighty miles in the day. <And yet I find a French officer (Notes
de Voyage d'un Hussard, par le Comte, de Sabran, p. 225) who, having accomplished the
journey in the same leisurely time in 1888, writes a book to say that General Maclean
expressed himself as stupefied with his astonishing performance, and told him that an
English officer, who had done the journey in ten days, had fallen seriously ill in
consequence ! Sir H. Rawlinson once rode it in six.> Telegraph officials and residents in the
country seldom do less, and frequently more. The post which goes through from Meshed to
Teheran without stopping, but with first claim upon the horses at each station, covers the
distance in from five to six days. Dr. Wills reports having ridden from Isfahan to Teheran,
about 280 miles, in thirty-nine and a half hours; <Persia as It Is, p. 296> whilst officers
travelling by day alone and resting at night have accomplished 120 miles between dawn
and leaving the saddle.
Quick riding is indeed an accomplishment for which the Persians have always been famous,
and notable records in which have been achieved even by their kings. Abbas the Great,
300 years ago, rode from Shiraz to Yezd in twenty-eight and a half hours, the Astronomer
Royal being commanded to take the time. Malcolm gives the distance as eighty-nine
farsakhs, or 303 miles; <History of Persia, vol. i. p. 345> but, though modern measurements
have reduced it to 220 miles, it was still no mean performance. Agha Mohammed Khan,
the founder of the reigning dynasty, fleeing to Mazanderan on the death of Kerim Khan
Zend, rode from Shiraz to Isfahan--a distance, by whatever route, of not much under 300
miles--in less than three days. Fath Ali Shah, his nephew, upon succeeding to the throne,
rode from Shiraz to Teheran, a distance of at least 550 miles, in six days. Fraser mentions
the case of a Persian, Agha Bahrain, who kept the best horses in the country, and who once
on the same Arab horse rode from Shiraz to Teheran in six days, rested three days, rode
back in five days, rested nine days, and performed the journey a third time in seven days.
<In A Winter's Journey, vol. ii. p. 319.> But the most remarkable, because the most
sustained performance of which I have ever read was that of the dragoman who, in 1804,
rode from Constantinople to Demavend (near Teheran), a total distance of 1,700 miles, in
seventeen days, with the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba. On the other hand, when
there is no purpose in haste, no rider can be so slow as a Persian. If he is not proceeding at
a headlong gallop, he affects a dignified crawl: and in the whole of my chapar rides I never
once met a native who was moving at more than a foot-pace on horseback.
As this is the first occasion upon which I have required to describe chapar riding from
personal experience, and as I subsequently rode considerably over a thousand miles by the
same means, I may as well here condense whatever of observation or suggestion I have to
make upon the subject. . . . The basis of calculation there laid down will show that for four
horses--self, qholam, postboy, and baggage (for I duly purchased my own experience by
taking on this occasion, but on this only, an extra baggage animal, which cost me many a
hard gallop in pursuit as well as a proportionate loss of time)--my journey from Meshed to
Teheran cost 600 krans or, at the then rate of exchange, about 17 l., exclusive of tips to the
postboys and payment for the use of quarters at night, amounting to about 21. more, and
the cost of food en route, which will depend in each case upon the amount of tinned meat
carried by the traveller. The journey will not in any case cost over 201. My sole
companion and attendant upon this journey was a Perso-Afghan gholam (mounted courier
or kavass) of the British Legation at Teheran, who bore the imposing name of Nadir Ali
Khan, and who was well posted in all the tricks of the road.
The postal system in Persia, about the inauguration of which I shall have something to say
later on, is under the superintendence Minister of a Minister of Posts; but as the present
tenant of that Posts office holds two other portfolios in addition, besides being President of
the Council, it may be inferred that it is not regarded .as one of commanding importance,
The Government allows him a certain annual sum for the repair and equipment of every
posthouse upon the Government roads, as well as an annual allowance of barley and straw
as fodder for the horses. <Quite recently there were 172 Government chapar-khanehs, and
the Treasury allowance was 20 tomans (51. 14s.) a year for each, as well as 10 kharvars
(nearly 3 tons) of barley, and the same amount of straw, for the horses.> The Minister does
not, however, work the system himself. That would be a shocking violation of all Persian
usage. Each road is farmed to a publican, probably some merchant or wealthy person, who
pays a certain sum per annum to the Minister for the privilege. He then provides the
servants and animals at each station, and makes as much money out of the business as he
can ; the only check upon his parsimony being the fear of losing his contract in favour of a
higher bidder at the end of the year. It is not surprising, therefore, that the posthouses are
mostly in a state of extreme and disgraceful dilapidation, or that the horses are among the
sorriest specimens of the equine race that were ever foaled. The system is a vicious one,
and it is hard to say whether the traveller or the poor brutes whom he is compelled to flog
along are the more to be pitied.
Let me, however, endeavour to balance the pains and the pleasures, if any there be, of
chapar riding, so as to arrive at a fair verdict. The system has been variously described by
travellers according to their tastes, endurance, and fortune, as an exhilaration, a tedium, or
a torture; and there is perhaps something to be said for each opinion. Much depends upon
the extent to which the road adopted is travelled upon, and, in consequence, supplied;
something upon the season of the year or the weather encountered; a good deal upon the
luck of the voyager. The route between Meshed and Teheran is but little traversed (except
by pilgrims, who move in kafilahs, or caravans), and there are accordingly not above five
or six horses, sometimes less, at each station. These I found to be for the most part underfed, broken-down, and emaciated brutes, with ill-regulated paces, and open sores on their
backs that sometimes made it almost unbearable to bestride them. The best that were
supplied to me would anywhere else be classified at a low level of equine mediocrity. To
ride the worst was a penalty to which any future Dante might appropriately condemn his
most inveterate foe in the lower circles of hell. Subsequently, however, upon the Teheran-Shiraz line, which is more travelled upon and better provided, I found a larger number and
a superior quality of animals. They were generally tolerable and sometimes positively
good; and when I succeeded in covering by their means an average of between eight and
nine miles in the hour throughout the day, when they invariably cantered and sometimes
galloped, it can be imagined that a day's ride of from seventy to eighty miles may become
quite endurable, and, under favourable conditions of climate, at times almost pleasant. In
the last resort, however, more depends upon the fortune of the traveller than upon any
other consideration. If he can avoid clashing or competing with the Government post,
which has universal priority of claim; if he is lightly equipped himself and does not require
many animals; above all, if he can get ahead and keep ahead of any other party of
travellers on the same road, he will fare passably well. If he is unlucky in any or all of these
respects, he will leave Persia muttering deep and unrepeatable curses against a land of
rascals and jades. That this is the more common experience may perhaps be inferred from
the fact that the main solace of a European's life in Persia appears to be the desire to cover
a specified distance in quicker time than it has ever been done before. A furious
competition prevails. Where there is a telegraphic line along the route the wire conveys to
anxious ears the news of the rider's progress ; and a man is seldom so happy, or leaves so
enduring a reputation, as when he succeeds in cutting the record.
At this stage let me describe the chapar-khaneh, and its meagre, but peculiar properties.
Sometimes in the heart, sometimes on the outskirts of a town or village, sometimes planted
in absolute solitude upon the staring waste, but usually in the neighbourbood of water, is to
be seen a small rectangular structure, consisting of four blank mud walls surrounding an
interior enclosure, with a stunted square tower rising above the gateway, and a projecting
semicircular tower or bartizan at each corner. The whole presents the appearance of a
miniature mud fort. And such indeed it is intended to be; for in a land till lately desolated
by Turkoman forays, and where promiscuous thieving is indubitably popular, every
possession, from a palace down to an orchard, has to be safeguarded from attack, as
though the country were in a state of open war. Entrance to the chapar-khaneh is gained
by a big wooden door in the gateway; and when this is closed it is unassailable except by
ladders. Riding into the gateway, one observes a low seat or platform against the wall on
either side, and two doorways leading into dark and dirty rooms on the ground floor. The
gateway conducts into the interior court, which is an open space about twenty to twenty-five yards in length and twelve to fifteen yards in width. In the middle is a chabutra, or
mud platform, usually occupied by fowls and filth, but designed for al fresco slumbers of
the traveller in the summer season. The walls of the court, on two and sometimes on three
sides, are pierced with holes or mangers, into which the chopped barley, or kah, is placed
for the horses, and to which they are tethered in the warm weather. In the interior of the
two side walls, however, are long dark stables for winter use, unlighted save by the low
door, unventilated, and reeking with accumulated refuse. In one of these, along with the
horses, the postboys and attendants usually sleep, stretched around a low fire. The interior
walls of the court have at one time or another been faced with plaster; but this has
uniformly peeled off, and the entire fabric looks what it is--mud. As the weary traveller
rides in, the chaparchi, or post-bouse keeper, who sometimes wears the semblance of an
official dress, comes out to meet him. Eager inquiries are exchanged as to the supply of
fresh horses in the stables; and while these are being gratified or disappointed, the baggage
is pulled off the exhausted beasts and piled upon the chabutra, and the English rider
stretches himself at full length or boils a cup of broth or tea. His Persian attendant takes a
pull at the kalian, which is always ready, and the wearied animals, stripped except for their
tattered horsecloths, are slowly walked up and down for ten minutes by the postboy, and
finally marched off to water. In a quarter of an hour, if lucky, sometimes not for one hour
or even two, a fresh batch of horses having been brought out, and the traveller having
selected the best for himself, he will remount, and will once again pursue the uneven tenour
of his way. If, however, no fresh animals are forth, coming, or if he has been anticipated by
some other voyager, then ensues the most heartrending experience of all. For, after a
tedious wait of perhaps two hours, the same miserable brutes that have borne the burden
of his last twenty-five -miles' stage are brought out again to be urged and flagellated
through twenty-five more. I confess that my sympathies were always with the beast rather
than with his rider; and considering the pitiless daily, nay, almost hourly, task that is
imposed upon these wretched crocks, it was sometimes a surprise to me that persuasion,
however extreme, could extract from them anything more than a hobble.
But supposing the traveller to have reached the end of his day's journey and to have
arrived at the post-house where he proposes to pass the night, what then? The answer to
the question is contained in the projecting square tower above the entrance gateway.
Access thereto is gained by stairways of almost Alpine steepness, fashioned in the mud at
the angles of the court inside. Clambering up these with difficulty, we reach the flat roof
that runs right round the building, and find that the tower consists of a single chamber,
which invariably has two, sometimes three, doors (that are never known to shut), and
usually a couple of open window spaces in the walls, so that it may literally be said to stand
'Four-square to all the winds that blow'.
This is the bala-khaneh, or upper chamber, specially reserved for the comfort of foreign
guests, and within this forlorn and wintry abode, which is not much less draughty than the
rigging of a ship, the wayfarer must spend the night. The interior has at one time been
plastered and whitewashed. Its only decorative features are a number of shallow niches in
the walls, in which Persian visitors have sometimes scrawled the most fearful illustrations,
and occasionally, but not always, a fireplace. Of furniture it is absolutely destitute. To
have the floor swept clean of vermin, to spread a felt or carpet in the corner and one's sack
of straw upon it, to buy firewood and light a fire, to stuff up the open windows and nail
curtains over the ramshackle doors-all these are necessary and preliminary operations,
without which the dingy tenement would be simply uninhabitable, but which it is
sometimes hard work to undertake in a state of extreme stiffness and exhaustion after a
long day's ride upon a freezing winter's night. Even so, this aerial roost is sometimes too
chill for endurance, and one is compelled to descend and seek refuge in the dank and cellar-like apartments below. In half an hour's time. however, when the work has been done, as
the genial warmth begins to relax stiff joints and weary limbs, and as the samovar puffs out
its cheery steam, a feeling of wonderful contentment ensues, and the outstretched traveller
would probably not exchange his quarters for a sheeted bed in Windsor Castle. But it is
upon the following morning, when, aroused at four or five A.M. in the pitchy darkness and
amid biting cold, he must get up to the light of a flickering candle, dress and pack up all his
effects, cook his breakfast, and finally see the whole of his baggage safely mounted in the
dark upon the steeds in the yard below, that he is sometimes tempted to think momentarily
of proverbs about game and candles, and to reflect that there are consolations in life at
home.
A word more about the Persian post-horse, for a man does not ride from sixty to seventy of
these beasts in the space of a few weeks without being driven to generalise somewhat upon
the species. The traveller of course selects the best out of a bad lot for himself, but an eye
must be kept on the chapar--shagird, or post-boy, who knows the 'form' of each animal to a
nicety, and who, if left alone, is apt to consult his own rather than his employer's comfort.
As vou emerge from the post-house, and, after a short walk, try the paces of your new
mount, there is a moment of acute suspense. Within 300 yards you know whether your
next three or four hours are to be a toleration or an anguish. The pace which, after a little
experience, a European usually adopts is a sharp canter alternating with a walk. The
Persians, when not cantering or galloping, seem to prefer a rough jog-trot shamble, which
on an English saddle is excruciating. In the whole of my chapar rides I only twice
encountered a horse that could trot in English fashion. The post-boy carries, and each
rider must carry, a long whip made of twisted leather with a leathern thong, and appalling
are the whacks that are administered by the former, often without exciting the faintest
response from his habituated steed. In this place it may be well to remark that, though
called a boy, the shagird is much more commonly a man. He does not ride upon a saddle,
but usually sits perched upon the top of a vast pile of baggage with his legs sticking out on
either side; nor does he use reins, but only a single rope or halter attached to one side of the
bit. He is supposed to lead the way and to set the pace, but I soon found that seventy miles
in the day could never be accomplished in that fashion, and that it was better even in a
strange country to lead the cavalcade oneself. As a rule it is difficult, if there is light, to
mistake the track; for though there is no road and the route is simply a mule track which .
crosses plains, climbs mountains, and descends gorges, sometimes, so to speak, a single rut,
and sometimes a wide belt of parallel paths, yet the passage of countless animals has left
such impressions upon the soil that the direction to be followed can often be traced in
advance for miles. At night a stranger would be lost at once but for the guidance of the
post-boy, whose sight and memory are unerring.
The best known characteristic of the Persian post-horse is his incurable predisposition to
tumble. Most of them have bare knees in consequence, and the first law in mounting is to
select an animal with some hair still adorning that portion. I could not make out that
either a tight rein or a slack rein had very much to do with the occurrence of this
phenomenon, and I ended by concluding that the Persian post-horse has a certain regulation number of falls in the year, which may be distributed either by accident or as he
pleases, but the full tale of which some hidden law of necessity compels him to complete.
The fact that I rode through the country from the east to the centre and from the centre to
the south without a single fall, tended to confirm rather than to invalidate my theory, for
there was no conceivable reason why I should be so favoured, except that others would
have or had had to pay the price. It became quite a trite occurrence to hear the groan with
which my Persian servant riding behind me sank or was hurled on to mother earth ; while
the chapar--shagird would be seriously disappointed at an entire day without a fall. There
is this to be said for the instability of the Persian post-horse, that it appears very seldom to
be vindicated at the lasting expense of his rider. The number of accidents or injuries that
take place in proportion to the number of falls is ludicrously small. Two other tricks I
noticed which were widespread and popular. Some of the meanest of the animals would
very much resent being mounted, a curious proof that their memories had profited by
experience; and the only approach to an accident that I had was when a horse from which I
had dismounted ran away as I was putting my foot into the stirrup, and as nearly as
possible pitched both himself and me down the shaft of an open kanat. The lifting of the
right arm, whether with or without a whip, had, further, such a provocative effect upon the
memory of these beasts that they would frequently swerve and spin right round to the left.
The Persians, if peculiarly disgusted with a post-horse, sometimes revenge themselves by
docking his tail, which incapacitates him from further use in a country where a tail is
considered de rigueur; but this is a spiteful, if not a cruel act, from which strangers can
afford to abstain. Perhaps I shall not inaptly conclude this digression upon the Persian
post-horse and postal system if I quote the sententious observation with which Tavernier
prefaced his Persian travels more than three centuries ago: 'A man cannot travel in Asia as
they do in Europe; nor at the same hours, nor with the same ease.'
The road from Meshed to Teheran is one whose intrinsic attraction is so small that no one
would ever be found to traverse it but for the necessity of getting from one place to the
other. For the entire distance of 560 miles there is scarcely a single object of beauty, and
but few of interest. The scenery, at any rate in the late autumn, is colourless and desolate.
The road, or rather track, winds over long, stony plains, across unlovely mountains, and
through deserted villages and towns. There is frequent and abundant evidence that the
country traversed was once far more densely or less sparsely populated, and for that reason
more carefully tended, than it is at present. The traveller passes towns which have been
entirely abandoned, and display only a melancholy confusion of tottering walls and fallen
towers. He observes citadels and fortified posts which have crumbled into irretrievable
decay, and are now little more than shapeless heaps of mud. He sees long lines of choked
and disused kanats, the shafts of the underground wells by which water was once brought
to the lands from the mountains. The walls of the cities are in ruins and exhibit yawning
gaps; the few public buildings of any note are falling to pieces; rows of former dwellings
have been abandoned to dust-heaps and dogs. The dirty, desecrated cemeteries that
stretch for hundreds of yards outside every town of any size, in which the tombstones are
defaced and the graves falling in, are not more lugubrious in appearance than is the
interior, where the living seem to be in almost as forlorn a plight as the dead. The utmost
that the traveller can expect in the way of incident--an expectation in which I have already
said that I was disappointed--is that his chapar horse should tumble down, to break, if not
its own knees, at any rate the paralysing monotony of the journey.
But though the route be thus devoid of external attraction, it has a twofold interest,
historical and practical. The traveller is not merely pursuing the track that has been worn
by countless thousands of pilgrims for at least 500 years, but he is following the stormy
wake of armies, and treading in the footsteps of great conquerors and kings. And if, in the
desolation that gapes around him, he sees no hint or reminder of what these countries once
were, at least he is able to form some judgment of what the combined horrors of war,
pestilence, and chronic misgovernment --which is worse than either--have done for them,
and in this blighted zone of crumbling cities and forsaken homes to read the tale of Persia's
long decline.
. . . The mention of the pilgrims, or zawars, of whom I saw so much on each day's journey, and
who all but monopolise the Meshed road, tempts me to vary the dull recital of my progress
by a slight description of the human surroundings in which it was framed. The stream of
progress appeared in the main to be in the opposite direction to that which I was pursuing.
Sometimes for miles in the distance could be seen the kafilah, or caravan, slowly crawling
at a foot-pace across the vast expanse. Then, as it came nearer, would be heard the
melancholy monotone of some devout or musical member of the band, droning out in
quavering tones a verse from the Koran ; sometimes, in less solemn companies, a more
jovial wayfarer trolling some distich from the Persian classics. As the long cavalcade
approached, it would be seen to consist of every kind of animal and of every species of man.
Horses would carry the more affluent, who would be smoking their kalians as they paced
along; some would affect camels; mules were very common, and would frequently support
kavjavehs, a sort of wooden pannier, with an arched framework for a hood, in which men
as often as women were curled up beneath mountains of quilts. The donkey, however, was
the favourite beast of burden. Tiny animals would bear the most stupendous loads, with
pots and pans, guns, and water-bottles hanging on either side, and with the entire furniture
of a household on their backs; the poultry of the owner perched with ludicrous gravity
upon the top of all. It is a common thing for the poorer pilgrims to take shares in a donkey
and to vary riding with walking. In the early morning the equestrians would often be seen
fast asleep upon their asses, lying forward upon their necks, and occasionally falling with a
thump on to the ground. Each kafilah would have a caravan-bashi, or leader, who not
infrequently bore a red pennon fluttering from a lance. It was often difficult to discern the
inen's faces as they rode by shrouded in huge woollen blanket-coats, pulled up over their
heads, while the stiff, empty arm-holes stood out on either side like monstrous ears. But, if
it was not easy to discern the males, still less could be distinguished of the shapeless bundles
of blue cotton that were huddled upon the donkeys' backs, and which chivalry almost
forbade me to accept for the fairer sex. I confess to having once or twice, with intentional
malice, spurred my horse to a gallop, as I was overtaking some party of wayfarers thus
accompanied: for, to see the sober asses kick up their heels and bolt from the track as they
heard the clatter of horse-hoofs behind, to observe the amorphous bundles upon their
backs shake and totter in their seats, till shrieks were raised, veils fell, and there was
imminent danger of a total collapse, was to crack one's sides with sorely-needed and well-earned laughter. There would usually be an assortment of beggars in every band, who
would beg of me in one breath and curse me for an infidel in the next, or of tattered
dervishes, who in Mussulman countries are beggars in their most offensive guise.
Not that every company we met or passed were pilgrims on pious mission bent. Far from
it. Sometimes we would encounter merchants, absorbed and sedate; sometimes mullahs on sleek asses or mules; sometimes
officials and soldiers; and sometimes whole families migrating. All classes and all ages were
on the road: horsemen and footmen; rich men and poor men ; seyids and scoundrels - a
microcosm of the stately, commonplace, repulsive, fascinating Oriental world.
At night these varied and polyglot elements (for there will be pilgrims from many lands)
seek shelter and sleep in the caravanserais erected at intervals of ten or fifteen miles along
serais the entire route. I have so often spoken of these structures that I may here, in
passing, describe what they are. The caravanserai is the Eastern inn. But with the name
the parallelism ends: for no proud signboard, no cheerful parlour or burnished bar, no
obsequious ostler or rubicund landlord welcomes your approach. The caravanserai,
perhaps, contains a single custodian, and that is all. The wayfarer must do everything for
himself. He stables his own beasts, piles together and watches his own baggage, lights his
own fire, and cooks his own repast. As a rule, the building is a vast square or rectangular
structure of brick or stone, built in the form of a parallelogram round an open court. The
two exterior sides and the back walls are plain, and give the building from a distance the
appearance of an immense fort-an idea which is frequently, and with full intention,
sustained in the shape of projecting towers at the angles and a parapet above. In the front
outer wall, or facade, is a series of large recessed arches, with a seat, or platform, about two
feet from the ground. These are frequently used as sleeping-places in the warm weather. A
huge gateway opens in the centre, with sometimes a tower and balakhaneh overhead, and
leads into the inner quadrangle, which is perhaps fifty yards square, and whose sides are
divided into recessed compartments, open to the air, similar to those on the outside wall. In
the superior caravanserais a doorway at the back of each of these arches leads into an inner
cell, which is occupied on cold nights. Behind these, and reaching to the exterior wall, are
long rows of hot, unlit stables, where the animals are lodged, and access to which is gained
from the four corners. Such is the ordinary Persian caravanserai.
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