The
Passage Of Troops Is Sometimes So Dreaded That Commanders Of Regiments
Are Bribed With Heavy Sums By The Villagers To Encamp Outside
Their Walls.
Troops are not the only source of anxiety to the poor
fellaheen.
Princes and Government officials also travel with an
enormous following, mainly composed of hangers-on and riff-raff, who
plunder and devastate as ruthlessly as a band of Kurd or Turkoman
robbers. They are even worse than the soldiery, for the latter usually
leave the women alone. Occasionally a whole village migrates to the
mountains on the approach of the unwelcome guests, leaving houses and
fields at their mercy.
There is probably no peasantry in the world so ground down and
oppressed as the Persian. The agricultural labourer never tries to
ameliorate his condition, or save up money for his old age, for the
simple reason that, on becoming known to the rulers of the land, it is
at once taken away from him. Though poor, however (so far as cash
and valuables are concerned), the general condition of the labouring
classes is not so bad as might be supposed. In a country so vast
(550,000 square miles) and so thinly populated (5,000,000 in all), a
small and sufficient supply of food is easily raised, especially with
such prolific soil at the command of the poorest. At Shiraz, for
instance, there are two harvests in the year. The seifi, sown in
summer and reaped in autumn, consists of rice, cotton, Indian corn,
and garden produce; the tchatvi, sown in October and November, and
reaped from May till July, is exclusively wheat and barley.
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