Far Behind Us The Tallest Minarets Of The
Capital Are Dipping Below The Horizon, While To The Left The White And
Glittering Cone Of Demavend Stands Boldly Out From A Background Of
Deep Cloudless Blue.
Though the sun is powerful - so much so, indeed,
that face and hands are already swollen and blistered - the cold in the
shade is intense.
A keen, cutting north-easter sweeps across the white
waste, and, riding for a time under the shadow of a low ridge of
snow, I find my cigar frozen to my lips - nor can I remove it without
painfully tearing the skin. Gerome is in his element, and, as a
natural consequence, my spirits fall as his rise. The slowness of
our progress, and constant stumbling of my pony, do not improve the
temper, and I am forced at last to beg my faithful follower to desist,
for a time at least, from a vocal rendering of "La Mascotte" which
has been going on unceasingly since we left Teheran. He obeys, but
(unabashed) proceeds to carry on a long conversation with himself in
the Tartar language, with which I am, perhaps happily, unacquainted.
Truly he is a man of unfailing resource!
But even his angelic temper is tried when, shortly afterwards, we ride
past the gipsy encampment As he dismounts to light a cigarette out
of the wind, one of the sirens in a tent catches sight of the little
Russian, and in less than half a minute he is surrounded by a mob of
dishevelled, half-naked females, who throw their arms about him, pull
his hair and ears, and try, but in vain, to secure his horse and drag
him into a tent. These gipsies are the terror of travellers in Persia,
the men, most of them, gaining a precarious living as tinkers and
leather-workers, with an occasional highway robbery to keep their
hand in, the women living entirely by thieving and prostitution. The
gentlemen of the tribe were, perhaps luckily for us, away from home on
this occasion. One of the women, a good-looking, black-eyed girl, was
the most persistent among this band of maenads, and, bolder than the
rest, utterly refused to let Gerome get on his pony, till, white with
passion, the Russian raised his whip. This was a signal for a general
howl of rage. "Strike me if you dare!" said the girl, her eyes ablaze.
"If you do you will never reach the next station." But in the confusion
Gerome had vaulted into his saddle, and, setting spurs to our horses,
we galloped or scrambled off as quick as the deep snow would allow us.
"Crapule va!" shouted the little man, whose cheek and hair still bore
traces of the struggle. "Il n'y a qu'en Perse qu'on fait des chameaus
comme cela!"
Ispahan is about seventy farsakhs distant from Teheran. The journey
has, under favourable conditions, been ridden in under two days, but
this is very unusual, and has seldom been done except for a wager by
Europeans.
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