An Execution Took Place About Fifteen Years Ago, But There Have Been
None Since.
Proved guilty of infidelity, the wretched woman, dressed
in a long white gown, was placed on a donkey, her face to the tail,
with shaven head and bared face.
In front of the _cortege_ marched
the executioner, musicians, dancers, and abandoned women of the town.
Arrived at the summit of the mountain, the victim, half dead with
fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss
which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but
one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while
the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the
unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd
peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity.
Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, the
Well has no terrors for the gay, intrigue-loving ladies of Shiraz.
They make a jest of it, and their husbands jokingly threaten them with
it. Times are changed indeed in Persia!
I left Shiraz with sincere regret. Apart from the interest attached to
the place, I have never received a kinder or more hospitable welcome
than from the little band of Englishmen who watch over the safety, and
work the wires, of the Indo-European telegraph. They are under a dozen
in number. With cheap horseflesh, capital shooting, the latest books
and papers from India, a good billiard-room and lawn-tennis ground,
time never hangs very heavily. Living is absurdly cheap. A bachelor
can do well on L6 a month, including servants. He has, of course, no
house-rent to pay.
A number of square stone towers about thirty feet high, loopholed and
crenelated, are visible from the caravan-track between Shiraz and
Khaneh Zinian, where we rested the first night. The towers are
apparently of great antiquity, and must formerly have served for
purposes of defence. We lunched at the foot of one on a breezy upland,
with pink and white heather growing freely around, and a brawling,
tumbling mountain stream at our feet. It was like a bit of Scotland
or North Wales. The tower was in a state of decay and roofless, but a
wandering tribe of ragged Eeliauts had taken up their quarters
inside, and watched us suspiciously through the grey smoke of a damp,
spluttering peat fire. They are a queer race, these Eeliauts, [B] and
have little or nothing in common with the other natives. The sight of
a well-filled lunch-basket and flasks of wine (which our kind hosts
had insisted on our taking) would have brought ordinary gipsies out
like flies round a honey-pot, if recollections of Epsom or Henley go
for anything. Not so the Eeliauts, who, stranger still, never even
begged for a sheis - a self-control I rewarded by presenting the
chief, a swarthy handsome fellow, in picturesque rags of bright
colour, with a couple of kerans. But he never even thanked me!
It seemed, next morning, as if we had jumped, in a night, from early
spring into midsummer. Although at daybreak the ice was thick on a
pool outside the caravanserai, the sun by midday was so strong, and
the heat so excessive, that we could scarcely get the mules along.
The road lies through splendid scenery. Passing Dashti Arjin, or "The
Plain of Wild Almonds," a kind of plateau to which the ascent is
steep and difficult, one might have been in Switzerland or the Tyrol.
Undulating, densely wooded hills, with a background of steep limestone
cliffs, their sharp peaks, just tipped with snow, standing out crisp
and clear against the cloudless sky, formed a fitting frame to the
lovely picture before us; the pretty village, trees blossoming on all
sides, fresh green pastures overgrown in places by masses of fern and
wild flowers, and the white foaming waterfall dashing down the side of
the mountain, to lose itself in the blue waters of a huge lake just
visible in the plains below. The neighbourhood of the latter teems
with game of all kinds - leopard, gazelle, and wild boar, partridge,
duck, snipe, and quail, the latter in thousands.
A stiff climb of four hours over the Kotal Perizun brought us to the
caravanserai of Meyun Kotal. Over this pass, ten miles in length,
there is no path; one must find one's way as best one can through the
huge rocks and boulders. Some of the latter were two to three feet
in height. How the mules managed will ever be a mystery to me. We
dismounted, leaving, by the chalvadar's request, our animals to look
after themselves. The summit of the mountain is under two thousand
feet. We reached it at four o'clock, and saw, to our relief, our
resting-place for the night only three or four hundred feet below us.
But it took nearly an hour to do even this short distance. The passage
of the Kotal Perizun with a large caravan must be terrible work.
[Illustration: THE CARAVANSERAI, MEYUN KOTAL]
The caravanserai was crowded. Two large caravans had arrived that
morning, and a third was hourly expected from Bushire. There was
barely standing-room in the courtyard, which was crowded with
wild-looking men, armed to the teeth, gaily caparisoned mules, and
bales of merchandise.
The caravanserai at Meyun Kotal is one of the finest in Persia. It was
built by Shah Abbas, and is entirely of stone and marble. Surrounded
by walls of enormous thickness, the building is in the shape of a
square. Around the latter are seventy or eighty deep arches for the
use of travellers. At the back of each is a little doorway, about
three feet by three, leading into a dark, windowless stone chamber,
unfurnished, smoke-blackened, and dirty, but dry and weather-proof.
Any one may occupy these. Should the beggar arrive first, the prince
is left out in the cold, and _vice versa_. Everybody, however, is
satisfied as a rule, for there is nearly as much accommodation for
guests as in a large London or Paris hotel.
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