Persia Revisited Part 1

Persia Revisited.

by Thomas Edward Gordon.

PREFACE

On revisiting Tehran last autumn, I was struck with the evidence of progress and improvement in Persia, and on returning home I formed the idea of publis.h.i.+ng a short account of my journey, with observations and opinions which are based on my previous experiences, and have reference also to what has been recorded by others. In carrying out this idea, I have made use of information given in the well-known books on Persia by Malcolm, Fraser, Watson and Curzon.

'Persia Revisited,' as first written, comprised up to Chapter VI. of the book; but just as I had finished it for publication, the sad news of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Shah, Nasr-ed-Din, was received. I then saw that my book, to be complete, should touch on the present situation in Persia, and accordingly I added two chapters which deal with the new Shah and his brothers, and the Sadr Azem and the succession.

The ill.u.s.trations are from photographs by M. Sevragine of Tehran, with the exception of the likeness of H.I.M. the Shah Mozuffer-ed-Din, and that of H.H. Ali Asghar Khan, Sadr Azem, which latter, by Messrs. W. and D. Downey, of Ebury Street, London, is published by their kind permission.

T.E. GORDON.

_May, 1896._

CHAPTER I.

--London to Baku --Oil-wells and works --Persians abroad --Caspian steamers --Caspian salmon --Enzelli lagoon --The Jews in Persia --Resht trade --'My eye'

--Russian road --The tobacco 'strike,' 1891 --Collapse of Tobacco Regie --Moulla opposition.

The Persians, as a people still nomadic in their habits, and much given to long pilgrimages, have good knowledge of the ways and means of making a journey pleasant. Their saying, '_Avval rafik, baad tarik_' (First a companion, then the road), is one which most travellers can fully appreciate. Accordingly, when planning a trip in the autumn of 1895 to the Land of Iran, I cast about for a companion, and was fortunate enough to meet with two friends, both going that way, and who, moreover, like myself, had previously journeyed in Persia.

We decided to take the Odessa route to Batoum, and we went by Berlin, Oderberg, and Lemberg. At Odessa we found that a less expensive, and more comfortable, though perhaps half a day longer route, lies by Warsaw. On that line there are fewer changes, and only one Customs examination, whereas by, Oderberg there are two examinations, Austrian and Russian. Moreover, through tickets are issued _via_ Warsaw, a convenience not provided _via_ Oderberg--fresh tickets and re-booking of luggage being necessary there, and again both at Pod Voloczyska and Voloczyska, on the Austrian and Russian frontiers. We came in for a crowded train of first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers going from the Vienna direction to Jalta, a favourite seaside place in the Crimea, which has two fas.h.i.+onable seasons--spring and autumn. These people were making for the accelerated mail-steamer, which leaves Odessa for Batoum every Wednesday during the summer service, touching at Sebastopol, Jalta, and Novorossisk. We were making for the same steamer, and found crowded cabins. The ma.s.s of luggage to be examined at Voloczyska caused much confusion and delay, and it was only by discreetly managed appeals to the working staff that we were able to push our way and pa.s.s on, without anything being left behind. There appeared to be orders for very special examination of books and papers at Voloczyska, and these were carried out in a foolishly perfunctory manner. In my luggage, the man who searched pa.s.sed over a bulky tourist writing-case, but carried off to a superior a Continental Bradshaw, a blank notebook, and a packet of useful paper, notwithstanding my open show of their innocence. The man soon returned with another official, who smiled at the mistake, and good naturedly helped to close up my baggage.

We began our journey well by a rapid run to Odessa, arriving there on the day of departure of the fast boat, and landing at Batoum in six and a half days from London. The steamers on this service are about 2,500 tons, 2,400 horse-power, with large accommodation for pa.s.sengers. The cabins are comfortable, and the saloons excellent and well served, and all are lit with the electric light. These boats are, I believe, Tyne-built. They are broad of beam, and behave well in bad weather.

Novorossisk is a growing great port, situated in a very pretty bay. It has lately been joined by railway to the main trunk line connecting with Moscow, and pa.s.sing through Rostov. This connection enables it to attract considerable trade from the Don and the Volga, and also to take much from Rostov and Taganrog, when the Azov approaches are closed with ice. A very fine sea-wall, to give effectual protection to the railway loading-piers, and the s.h.i.+pping generally, is now being completed at a total cost of 850,000. Novorossisk is said to have the biggest 'elevator' in the world. The scenery all along the coast, from the Crimea to Batoum, is very fine, and in autumn the voyage is most enjoyable.

We left Batoum on the night of the day of our arrival. The departure of the through train to Baku had been changed from morning to night, and this allowed of travelling by day over that part of the line which before used to be pa.s.sed at night. We had previously seen Tiflis, and therefore did not break our journey. The weather was warm, but not such as to cause discomfort. As we approached Tiflis the carriages and buffets became crowded to excess, with townspeople returning from Sat.u.r.day-to-Monday holiday, the fine weather having enticed them out to various places along the line. The railway-carriages on the Batoum-Baku line are very comfortable, and the refreshment-rooms are frequent and well provided, so travelling there is made easy and pleasant. The journey occupies thirty-two hours.

We reached Baku on September 16, the ninth day from London, and arranged to leave for Enzelli, on the Persian coast, the port for Tehran, at midnight the next day. Through the kindness of a member of the Greek house of Kousis, Theophylactos and Co., we were shown over the oil-wells and refineries belonging to M. Taghioff, a millionaire of Persian origin (the name probably was Taghi Khan). The story goes that, on becoming wealthy through the oil industry in its early days, he presented the young towns.h.i.+p with a church, school-house, and hospital, and, in recognition of his generous public spirit, the Government gave him a grant of the waste land on which his works now stand, and out of which millions of roubles have come to him from oil-springs. Our visit had the appearance of bringing him luck in the form of a new fountain rush. We had seen all the works and wells; none of the latter were flowing, and the usual steam-pumping was going on. We were about to leave, when a commotion at the wells attracted our attention, and we saw the dark fluid spouting up from two to three hundred feet through the open top of the high-peaked wooden roof erected over each of the wells. On hurrying back, we saw the great iron cap, which is swung vertically when the pump is working, lowered and fixed at some height over the mouth of the well, to drive the outward flow down into the hollow all round and out into the ditch leading to the reservoirs. The force of the gush was shown by the roar of the dash against the iron cap, and the upward rush had the appearance of a solid quivering column. The flow was calculated at fifty thousand gallons an hour. The business of refining is generally in the hands of others than the producers; but some of the larger firms--notably the Rothschilds, n.o.bel Brothers, and Taghioff--are both producers and refiners. This means of course, the employment of very, much larger capital.

There is a great dash of the gambling element in the oil-well business at Baku. Large sums are spent in boring operations, and success so often stands off that all available capital is sunk in the ground and swallowed up. Even with good signs, it is impossible to foresee the results or the extent of production, and there is also an extraordinary irregularity in the outcome of the separate naphtha-bearing plots. An instance was mentioned to me of a peasant proprietor who had made enough money on which to live sumptuously, but he hungered for more, and engaged in further boring operations. He was on the verge of losing everything, when oil was suddenly struck, and he made a fortune. He laboured hard himself, and literally went to sleep a poor working man, and awoke to find his dream of riches realized.

Baku has been immensely improved in every way of late, and now has good streets, hotels, and shops. Water, which was a great want before, is well supplied from condensers which belong to the town. The rise in the value of house property and building sites within the last ten years has been enormous, and great part of the money thus made has gone to native owners, Persians (or Tartars, as all Mohammedans are called here), and I was told of a plot of building ground with a small house on it, which had been originally bought for 600 roubles, being lately sold for 30,000. The town is growing in size, and new buildings are rising, which give an appearance of prosperity and increasing trade. The harbour is crowded with steamers and sailing vessels, and the wharfs present a busy sight. The loading and unloading is quickly done by steam-cranes and powerful porters, who come in numbers from the Persian districts of Khalkhal and Ardabil. I watched with much interest a gang of these men at work. They were wonderfully quick, quiet, and methodical in their ways, and showed great capacity for handling and carrying heavy weights.

Baku swarms with Persians, resident and migratory. They are seen everywhere--as shopkeepers, mechanics, masons, carpenters, coachmen, carters, and labourers, all in a bustle of business, so different from Persians, at home. Climate or want of confidence produces indolence there, but here and elsewhere out of Persia they show themselves to be active, energetic, and very intelligent. They are in great numbers at all the censes of trade in the adjoining countries--at Constantinople, Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, Tiflis, Askhabad, and other towns. Most of the new buildings in Tiflis were built by Persians, and thousands were engaged in the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway. The permanent workmen now employed on it are largely Persians, and Askhabad has a resident population of over twelve thousand. There were said to be twenty thousand Persians, from the provinces of Azerbaijan and Hamadan, working last summer on the new railway from Tiflis to Alexandropol and Kars, now being built, and doubtless many of them will permanently settle on the line.

It is said that there are half a million thus located and working out of Persia, but I think that this is an exaggerated estimate. Most of them retain their nationality, for while they grumble loudly in their own country, yet when away they swear by it, and save money steadily to enable them to return home. Their nomadic character is the cause of this readiness to seek employment abroad. I was told that in 1894-95 twenty thousand Persian pa.s.sports were issued from the Emba.s.sy in Constantinople. This would include pilgrims as well as home visitors.

It is this love of country (not in the sense, however, of patriotism as understood in the West) which makes a Persian cling to his national representative abroad, and willingly pay for frequent registration as a subject who is ent.i.tled to protection and permission to return home whenever he may choose. As a rule, the Persian abroad always appears in the distinctive national dress--the tall black lambskin cap and the coat with ample skirt of many pleats.

I have mentioned the Persian porters who are seen at Baku; they are also to be found at Petrovsk and Astrachan, and are generally preferred to the local labourers, who, in common with their cla.s.s in Russia, take a long drink once a week, often unfitting them for their work the following day. The Persians are of sober habits, and can be relied upon for regular attendance at the wharfs and loading-stages. They have learnt, however, to take an occasional taste of the _rakivodka_ spirit, and when reminded that they are Mohammedans, say that the indulgence was prohibited when no one worked hard. These porters are men of powerful physique, and display very great strength in bearing separate burdens; but they cannot work together and make a joint effort to raise heavy loads, beyond the power of one man. Singly, they are able to lift and carry eighteen poods, Russian weight, equal to six hundred and forty-eight pounds English.

In the newspaper correspondence on the burning Armenian Question, I have seen allusion made to the poor physique of the Armenian people; but as far as my observation goes in Persia, Russian Armenia, and the Caucasus, there is no marked difference between them and the local races, and on the railway between Baku and Tiflis Armenian porters of powerful form are common, where contract labour rates attract men stronger than their fellows.

Though much of the wealth which has come out of the Baku oil-fields has been carried away by foreign capitalists, yet much remains with the inhabitants, and the investment of this has promoted trade in the Caspian provinces, and multiplied the s.h.i.+pping. There are now between one hundred and eighty and two hundred steamers on the Caspian, besides a large number of sailing craft of considerable size, in which German and Swedish, as well as Armenian and Tartar-Persian, capital is employed. The Volga Steam Navigation Company is divided into two companies--one for the river, and the other for the Caspian. The latter owns six large steamers, with cargo capacity of from sixty to eighty thousand poods, liquid measurement, for oil-tank purposes, equalling nine hundred to twelve hundred tons. They have German under-officers, and Russian captains. It is likely that the German officers come from the German colonies on the Volga, and probably some of the capital also comes from that quarter. This Volga Steam Navigation Company was established over fifty years ago by a Scotchman, named Anderson, and some of the vessels first built are still used on the river as cargo-boats.

Many of the best steamers on the Caspian are officered by Swedes and Finns, most of whom speak English, acquired whilst serving in English s.h.i.+ps sailing to all parts of the globe. The Mercury Company, which runs the superior steamers and carries the mails on the Caspian, has Swedish and Finn officers, but it is said that they are now to be replaced by Russian naval officers as vacancies occur. This company's vessels are well appointed, have good cabins, and are fitted with the electric light. But the best of Caspian mail-boats are most uncomfortable in rough weather for all but those whom no motion whatever can affect.

Owing to the shoal water on all the coast circ.u.mference of this sea, the big boats are necessarily keelless, and may be described as but great barges with engines, and when at anchor in a rolling sea their movement is terribly disturbing.

We embarked in the _Admiral Korneiloff_, one of the Mercury Company's best boats, on the night of September 17, and arrived at Enzelli on the morning of the 19th. I was amused on the voyage to hear the sailors'

version of the story how the Caspian became a Russian sea, on which no armed Persian vessel can sail. The sovereignty of this Persian sea was ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, and the sailors say that on the Shah being pressed over and over again to consent, and desiring to find some good excuse to do so, a courtier, seeing the royal inclination, remarked that Persia suffered sorely from salt soil and water, which made land barren, and that sea-water was of no use for irrigation, nor any other good purpose. The Shah on this asked if it were really true that the water of the Caspian was salt, and on being a.s.sured that it was, he said the Russians might have the whole of it.

We found an improvement at Enzelli in the form of a hotel kept by a Greek, with accommodation good enough to be very welcome. We had excellent fresh salmon at breakfast, which reminded me of the doubt that has often been expressed of the true salmon being found in an inland sea. The Caspian fish is a genuine salmon of the same habits as the marine species known in Europe, with the one sad exception that it will not look at nor touch fly or bait in any form or shape, and therefore gives no sport for the rod. The trout in the upper waters of the streams that the salmon run up, take the fly freely and give good sport, but all attempts by keen and clever fishermen to hook a salmon have failed. The fish are largely netted, and same are sent to Tehran packed in ice, while a good business is done in salting what cannot be sold fresh. The existence of salmon in this inland salt sea, which lies eighty-four feet below the level of the ocean, is supposed to be due to its connection with the open sea having been cut off by a great upheaval in the prehistoric time.

After breakfast we were confronted with a functionary new to us in Persia, one charged with the demand for pa.s.sports and their examination.

He is prepared to provide pa.s.sports for those arriving without them, and to _vise_ when this has not been previously done. Considering the practice in force with Persia's near neighbour, and the crowd of deck-pa.s.sengers always coming and going, it was not likely that this formality as a source of income would fail to be adopted. The linguistic educational qualification for the post is evidently confined to Russian, for on finding that I spoke Persian, the officer asked me for the information he pretended to seek from the English pa.s.sports. He acknowledged the farce he was called upon to play, and we proceeded without any farther inquiry. The day was warm, but not oppressively so; the sea-breeze helped the boat across the lagoon and up the Pir-i-Bazaar stream, and the weather being dry, we reached Resht in carriages By the Mobarakabad route, without the splas.h.i.+ng plunging through a sea of mud which is the general disagreeable experience of the main road.

The Enzelli Lagoon is a swarming haunt of numerous kinds of wild-fowl and fis.h.i.+ng birds. Conspicuous among the waders in the shallows and on the sh.o.r.e are the pelican and the stork. The place is a paradise to them, teeming with fish and frog food. One of my companions described what he had witnessed in a struggle with a wounded stork in the shallow water of this lagoon. He and a friend were out after wild-duck, and his friend, desiring to bag a giant stork, which looked splendid in his strongly contrasted pure white and deep black plumage, fired, and wounded the bird. His Persian servant, with thoughts intent on cooking it, ran, knife in hand, to cut its throat in the orthodox manner, so as to make it lawful for a Mohammedan to eat. The bird, on being seized, struggled hard with its captor, and, snapping its elongated bill widely in wild terror, by accident got the man's head jammed between its mandibles. The keen cutting edges of the long strong beak scarified the man's cheeks, and made him scream with pain and with frantic fear that it was _his_ throat which was being cut. His master went to his a.s.sistance and released him by wrenching open the stork's bill, but he was so occupied with supporting his swooning servant that time was given for the wounded stork to hurry away in safety, flapping its long wings and snapping its powerful beak, as is the habit of this voiceless bird, with all the appearance of triumph.

Enzelli is becoming the port of entry, for the North of Persia, of tea from India and China. Till within a very short time most of the tea for Persia, Trans-Caspia, and Russian Turkistan so far as Samarkand, pa.s.sed up from Bombay by the Persian Gulf ports. The late reduction in Russian railway charges, and the low sea-freights from the East in the oil-steamers returning to Batoum, have brought about this change.

Arrangements have been made for transit to Baku of Russian-owned tea consigned to Persia on special terms of Customs drawback, and it is now sold cheaper in Resht than in Baku, where it has a heavy duty added to the price. The thin muslin-like manufactures of India, in demand in Central Asia for wear in the hot dry summer, and which found their way there from the Persian Gulf, are now following the same route as the tea. Thus, steam and waterway are competing still more with the camel, to make the longest way round the shortest one in point of time, and the cheapest to the customers' homes.

As with tea, so Russian beet-sugar is cheaper at Enzelli-Resht than at Baku, owing to the State bounty on export. The consumption of tea and sugar, already large in Persia, is certain to increase in the North through this development of Russian trade. French beet-sugar continues to compete by way of Trebizond to Tabriz, but if the experiment now being tried of manufacturing sugar in the vicinity of Tehran from beet succeeds, the Persians will benefit further by compet.i.tion.

The Russian trade in Persia is mostly in the hands of Armenians, some of whom have ama.s.sed considerable wealth. It is only in the West that the Jew is regarded as the sample of superior sharpness in the walks of life that call for the exercise of the qualities most necessary in the operation of getting the better of one's neighbour. In the East both the Greek and the Armenian are ahead of him in this respect, and the popular saying is, 'One Greek equals two Jews, and one Armenian equals two Greeks.' But, to the credit of the Armenian traders, it should be said that they are bold and enterprising in a newly-opened country, as well as clever in an old one. It may be here mentioned that there is no opening in Persia for the native Jew; he is there refused the facilities which lead to wealth, and is strictly confined to the poorest occupations. It is not unlikely that the severe treatment of the Jews in Persia has its origin in the hatred inspired by the conduct of Saad-u-Dowleh, a Jewish physician, who rose to the position of Supreme Vazir under the King Arghoun Khan, in 1284. This Minister owed his advancement to his pleasing manners and agreeable conversation, and he gained such an ascendancy over his weak royal master as to be allowed to remove all Mohammedans from places of trust and profit, and even to carry his persecution to the length of commanding that no one professing that faith should appear at Court. The Eastern Christians were then much more prominent and numerous than they afterwards became, and Saad-u-Dowleh sank his people's dislike of the Nazarene in his greater hate of the Mohammedan, so that he employed the former to replace the followers of the Arabian Prophet whom he dismissed from office and banished from Court. The penalty of death was exacted for this persecution, for Saad-u-Dowleh was murdered almost at the same instant that his sovereign master expired.

The silk trade of Resht, which has suffered so much for many years from the disease that attacked the silkworms in the Caspian provinces, and spread to all the Persian silk districts, is now recovering. The introduction of cellular seed has been attended with much success, and there is a rapidly-increasing export of coc.o.o.ns. The fresh start in this old industry has given an impetus to mulberry-tree cultivation, and waste land is in considerable demand for planting purposes.

An attempt is now being made to grow tea on the low hills near Batoum.

It is not yet known what may be the ultimate chances of success, but already what is being done there is having the effect of suggesting a similar experiment near Resht. The conditions of the soil on many of the wooded hill-slopes in the Persian Caspian provinces, where every gradation of climate and atmosphere can be met with, appear to be well adapted for the tea-plant. The cart-road to Kasvin, now being constructed by a Russian company, will pa.s.s through some of these well-favoured parts, and this will help to draw attention to natural resources which have hitherto been unnoticed.

As old Persian travellers, we were at once reminded of our return to the land of complimentary address and extravagant phrase by the frequent reply '_Chashm_' (My eye!), the simple slang expression known in our country, and which 'Trilby' has made better known by its introduction on the stage. The word is an abbreviation of '_Ba sar o chashm'_ (By my head and eyes! May my eyes be put out, and my head taken off, if I obey not!). We also heard the similar but less formal reply _Chira_?

Why?--meaning, why not? why should I not do as you desire? i.e. you will be obeyed.

We travelled to Kasvin, halfway to Tehran, over the execrable road which leads from Resht. For the first forty miles the landscape was lovely from wooded slopes, green growth and clear running water. The post-houses are just as they were--ill-provided, and affording the very smallest degree of comfort that it is possible for a 'rest-house' to give. They had been in some way improved for the reception of General Prince Karaupatkin, and his suite, who visited Tehran to announce to the Shah the accession of H.I.M. Nicolas II.; but no effort to maintain the improvement had been made, except in one place--Menzil. The _on dit_ in Tehran was, that the successful launching of the Russian cart-road enterprise, now fairly well in hand, is entirely due to Prince Karaupatkin's strong representation on his return to St. Petersburg. He is said to have taken the opportunity of telling the Shah, in answer as to his journey up, that he was greatly surprised to find the road leading to the capital such a very bad one; whereupon his Majesty remarked that the blame lay with his own countrymen, who, after begging for a monopoly concession to construct a good road, had held on to it and done nothing, and they had the right, so long as the contract time allowed, to prevent others from making the road. The Russian press, which interested itself in the matter, pointed out that what was wanted to give an impetus to their trade in North Persia was good roads, not bounties, and it may be that the interest which is believed to be guaranteed by the Government on the road capital will take the place of trade bounties. The money subscribed is sufficient to provide a solidly-built road, and the idea is that it will be aligned so as to be fit for railway purposes in the future. The existing cart-road from Kasvin to Tehran is but a track, lined out fairly straight over a level bit of high-lying country, with a few bridges over small streams. The distance, ninety-five miles, is comfortably covered in fourteen to eighteen hours in carriages drawn by three horses. The nature of the ground makes this road a good fair-weather one, and as the Russian company has rented it from the Persian concessionnaire, we may expect to hear of considerable improvements, so as to encourage an increase of the Persian waggon traffic which already exists on it. The completion of a system of quick communication between the Russian Caspian Sea base and the capital of Persia must attract the practical attention of all who are interested in Persian affairs.

Many of the Moullas, in their character as meddlers, are always ready to step forward in opposition to all matters and measures in which they have not been consulted and conciliated. So the Russian road from Resht was p.r.o.nounced to be a subject for public agitation by the Tabriz Mujtahid, Mirza Javad Agha, who, since his successful contest over the Tobacco Regie, has claimed to be one of the most important personages in Persia. This priest is very rich, and is said to be personally interested in trade and 'wheat corners' at Tabriz, and as he saw that the new road was likely to draw away some of the Tabriz traffic, he set himself the task of stirring up the Moullas of Resht to resent, on religious grounds, the extended intrusion of Europeans into their town.

The pretence of zeal in the cause was poor, because the Resht Moullas are themselves interested in local prosperity, and the agitation failed.

A change is coming over the country in regard to popular feeling towards priestly interference in personal and secular affairs. The claim to have control of the concerns of all men may now be said to be but the first flush of the fiery zeal of divinity students, fresh from the red-hot teachings of bigoted Moulla masters, who regret the loss of their old supremacy, and view with alarm the spread of Liberalism, which seems now to be establis.h.i.+ng itself in Persia.

The unfortunate episode of the Tobacco Regie in 1891 gave the Moullas a chance to a.s.sert themselves, and they promptly seized the opportunity to champion a popular cause of discontent, and the pity of it was that the enterprise which raised the disturbance was English. This tobacco monopoly had been pictured as a business certain to produce great gains, and the people were thus prepared for the reports which were spread of high prices to be charged on what they regard as almost a necessary of life. The conditions of the country were not fully studied before the monopoly powers were put in force. A suggestion was made that the company's operations should be confined at first to the foreign export, which would have returned a good profit, and that afterwards a beginning should be made at Tehran, to prove to the people that the monopoly would really give them better tobacco, and not raise prices, which the company claimed would be the result of their system. But everything was planned on an extensive scale, and so were prospective profits. The picture of a rapid road to fortune had been exhibited, and it was therefore decided that the full right of monopoly should be established at once. An imprudent beginning was made in exercising the right of search in a manner which alarmed some people for the privacy of their homes, a dangerous suggestion in a Mohammedan community.

The suspicions and fears of all--buyers, sellers, and smokers--were easily worked upon by the priests, ever ready to a.s.sert the supremacy of the Church over the State. And then the biggest 'strike' I know of took place. Mirza Ha.s.san, the High-Priest of Kerbela, the most sacred shrine of the s.h.i.+ah Mohammedans, declared tobacco in Persia to be 'unlawful' to the true believer, and everyone--man, woman, and child--was forbidden to sell or smoke it. The 'strike' took place on a gigantic scale, a million or two certainly being engaged in it, and steps were taken to see the order from Kerbela carried out rigorously. 'Vigilance men,' under the Moullas' directions, made raids on suspected tea-shops, to find and smash the 'kalian' pipes which form part of the stock-in-trade of these places of refreshment. The Shah was faced with the sight of silent and forsaken tea-shops as he pa.s.sed through the streets of Tehran, and he saw the signs of the censuring strike in the rows of empty benches, on which his subjects used to sit at their simple enjoyment of pipes and tea. The interdiction reached the inner homes of all, and even in the _anderuns_ and boudoirs of the highest (all of which are smoking-rooms) it was rigidly obeyed. The priestly prohibition penetrated to the palaces, and royalty found authority set at defiance in this matter. A princely personage, a non-smoker, is said to have long urged and entreated a harem favourite, too deeply devoted to tobacco, to moderate her indulgence in it, but to no effect. On the strike being ordered, she at once joined it, and his Highness is reported to have said, 'My entreaties were in vain, my bribes of jewels were refused, yet the priest prevails.' And this was at a place where not long before Moullas had been at a discount.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIPE BEARER IN A PERSIAN ANDERUN]

There are now signs of the people resenting the arrogant a.s.sumption or power by the Moullas, and freeing themselves from their thraldom. There has always been great liberty of opinion and speech in Persia, and six hundred years ago the poets Khayyam and Hafiz took full advantage of this in expressing their contempt for the 'meddling Moullas.' Not very long ago the donkey-boys in one of the great towns would on occasion reflect the popular feeling by the shout '_Br-r-r-o akhoond!_' (Go on, priest!) when they saw a Moulla pattering along on his riding donkey.

_Biro_ is Persian for 'go on,' and, rolled and rattled out long and loud, is the cry when droves of load-carrying donkeys are driven. The donkey-boy in Persia is as quick with bold reply as he is in Egypt and elsewhere. There is a story that a high Persian official called out to a boy, whose gang of burden-bearing donkeys obstructed his carriage, 'Out of the way, a.s.s, you driver of a.s.ses!' and was promptly answered, 'You are an a.s.s yourself, though a driver of men!'

As a finish to this reference to the Tobacco Regie in Persia, I may mention it is believed that, had the company started as ordinary traders, they, having the command of ready money, would have succeeded well. The commencement made in the centres of tobacco cultivation impressed the peasant producers most favourably; they appreciated the advantages of cash payments, and regretted the cessation of the system, and the governors benefited by the readiness with which the taxes were paid. But the explanation of monopoly, a word which was then unknown in Persia, raised the fears of the people, and those who had the money to spare laid in a supply of tobacco before the concession came into force.

This was regarded by the poor as proof of the coming rise in price, and they therefore hailed the Moullas as their deliverers from the threatened calamity of dear tobacco.