A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Around the World on a Bicycle V1

T >> Thomas Stevens >> Around the World on a Bicycle V1




As though to belie their general reputation of sanctimoniousness, a tall,
stately seyud voluntarily poses as my guide and protector en route through
the awakening bazaar toward the Tabreez gate next morning, cuffing
obtrusive youngsters right and left, and chiding grown-up people whenever
their inordinate curiosity appeals to him as being aggressive and impolite;
one can only account for this strange condescension on the part of this
holy man by attributing it to the marvellous civilizing and levelling
influence of the bicycle. Arriving outside the gate, the crowd of followers
are well repaid for their trouble by watching my progress for a couple
of miles down a broad straight roadway admirably kept and shaded with
thrifty chenars or plane-trees. Wheeling down this pleasant avenue I
encounter mule-trains, the animals festooned with strings of merrily
jingling bells, and camels gayly caparisoned, with huge, nodding tassels
on their heads and pack-saddles, and deep-toned bells of sheet iron
swinging at their throats and sides; likewise the omnipresent donkey
heavily laden with all manner of village produce for the Khoi market.
My road after leaving the avenue winds around the end of projecting
hills, and for a dozen miles traverses a gravelly plain that ascends
with a scarcely perceptible gradient to the summit of a ridge; it then
descends by a precipitous trail into the valley of Lake Ooroomiah.
Following along the northern shore of the lake I find fairly level roads,
but nothing approaching continuous wheeling, owing to wash-outs and small
streams leading from a range of mountains near by to the left, between
which and the briny waters of the lake my route leads. Lake Ooroomiah
is somewhere near the size of Salt Lake, Utah, and its waters are so
heavily impregnated with saline matter that one can lie down on the
surface and indulge in a quiet, comfortable snooze; at least, this is
what I am told by a missionary at Tabreez who says he has tried it
himself; and even allowing for the fact that missionaries are but human
after all and this gentleman hails originally from somewhere out West,
there is no reason for supposing the statement at all exaggerated. Had
I heard of this beforehand I should certainly have gone far enough out
of my course to try the experiment of being literally rocked on the
cradle of the deep. Near midday I make a short circuit to the north, to
investigate the edible possibilities of a village nestling in a cul-de-sac
of the mountain foot-hills. The resident Khan turns out to be a regular
jovial blade, sadly partial to the flowing bowl. When I arrive he is
perseveringly working himself up to the proper pitch of booziness for
enjoying his noontide repast by means of copious potations of arrack;
he introduces himself as Hassan Khan, offers me arrack, and cordially
invites me to dine with him. After dinner, when examining my revolver,
map, etc., the Khan greatly admires a photograph of myself as a peculiar
proof of Ferenghi skill in producing a person's physiognomy, and blandly
asks me to "make him one of himself," doubtless thinking that a person
capable of riding on a wheel is likewise possessed of miraculous all
'round abilities.

The Khan consumes not less than a pint of raw arrack during the dinner
hour, and, not unnaturally, finds himself at the end a trifle funny and
venturesome. When preparing to take my departure he proposes that I give
him a ride on the bicycle; nothing loath to humor him a little in return
for his hospitality, I assist him to mount, and wheel him around for a
few minutes, to the unconcealed delight of the whole population, who
gather about to see the astonishing spectacle of their Khan riding on
the Ferenghi's wonderful asp-i-awhan. The Khan being short and pudgy is
unable to reach the pedals, and the confidence-inspiring fumes of arrack
lead him to announce to the assembled villagers that if his legs were
only a little longer he could certainly go it alone, a statement that
evidently fills the simple-minded ryots with admiration for the Khan's
alleged newly-discovered abilities.

The road continues level but somewhat loose and sandy; the scenery around
becomes strikingly beautiful, calling up thoughts of "Arabian Nights "
entertainments, and the genii and troubadours of Persian song. The bright,
blue waters of Lake Ooroomiah stretch away southward to where the dim
outlines of mountains, a hundred miles away, mark the southern shore;
rocky islets at a lesser distance, and consequently more pronounced in
character and contour, rear their jagged and picturesque forms sheer
from the azure surface of the liquid mirror, the face of which is unruffled
by a single ripple and unspecked by a single animate or inanimate object;
the beach is thickly incrusted with salt, white and glistening in the
sunshine; the shore land is mingled sand and clay of a deep-red color,
thus presenting the striking and beautiful phenomena of a lake shore
painted red, white, and blue by the inimitable hand of nature. A range
of rugged gray mountains run parallel with the shore but a few miles
away; crystal streams come bubbling lake-ward over pebble-bedded channels
from sources high up the mountain slopes; villages, hidden amid groves
of spreading jujubes and graceful chenars, nestle here and there in the
rocky gateways of ravines; orchards and vineyards are scattered about
the plain. They are imprisoned within gloomy mud walls, but, like living
creatures struggling for their liberty, the fruit-laden branches extend
beyond their prison-walls, and the graceful tendrils of the vines find
their way through the sun-cracks and fissures of decay, and trail over
the top as though trying to cover with nature's charitable veil the
unsightly works of man; and all is arched over with the cloudless Persian
sky.

Beaming the roads of this picturesque region in search of victims is a
most persistent and pugnacious species of fly; rollicking as the blue-
bottle, and the veritable double of the green-head horsefly of the Western
prairies, he combines the dash and impetuosity of the one with the
ferocity and persistency of the other; but he is happily possessed of
one redeeming feature not possessed by either of the above-mentioned and
well-known insects of the Western world. When either of these settles
himself affectionately on the end of a person's nose, and the person,
smarting under the indignity, hits himself viciously on that helpless
and unoffending portion of his person, as a general thing it doesn't
hurt the fly, simply because the fly doesn't wait long enough to be hurt;
but the Lake Ooroomiah fly is a comparatively guileless insect, and
quietly remains where he alights until it suits one's convenience to
forcibly remove him; for this redeeming quality I bespeak for him the
warmest encomiums of fly-harassed humans everywhere. Dusk is settling
down over the broad expanse of lake, plain, and mountain when I encounter
a number of villagers taking donkey-loads of fruit and almonds from an
orchard to their village. They cordially invite me to accompany them and
accept their hospitality for the night. They are travelling toward a
large area of walled orchards but a short distance to the north, and I
naturally expect to find their village located among them; so, not knowing
how far ahead the next village may be, I gladly accept their kindly
invitation, and follow along behind. It gets dusky, then duskier, then
dark; the stars come peeping out thicker and thicker, and still I am
trundling with these people slowly along up the dry and stone-strewn
channel of spring-time freshets, expecting every minute to reach their
village, only to be as often disappointed, for over an hour, during which
we travel out of my proper course perhaps four miles. Finally, after
crossing several little streams, or rather; one stream several times,
we arrive at our destination, and I am installed, as the guest of a
leading villager, beneath a sort of open porch attached to the house.
Here, as usual, I quickly become the centre of attraction for a wondering
and admiring audience of half-naked villagers. The villager whose guest
I become brings forth bread and cheese, some bring me grapes, others
newly gathered almonds, and then they squat around in the dim religious
light of primitive grease-lamps and watch me feed, with the same wondering
interest and the same unconcealed delight with which youthful Londoners
at the Zoological Gardens regard a pet monkey devouring their offerings
of nuts and ginger-snaps. I scarcely know what to make of these particular
villagers; they seem strangely childlike and unsophisticated, and moreover,
perfectly delighted at my unexpected presence in their midst. It is
doubtful whether their unimportant little village among the foothills
was ever before visited by a Ferenghi; consequently I am to them a rara
avis to be petted and admired. I am inclined to think them a village of
Yezeeds or devilworshippers; the Yezeeds believe that Allah, being by
nature kind and merciful, would not injure anybody under any circumstances,
consequently there is nothing to be gained by worshipping him. Sheitan
(Satan), on the contrary, has both the power and the inclination to do
people harm, therefore they think it politic to cultivate his good-will
and to pursue a policy of conciliation toward him by worshipping him and
revering his name. Thus they treat the name of Satan with even greater
reverence than Christians and Mohammedans treat the name of God. Independent
of their hospitable treatment of myself, these villagers seem but little
advanced in their personal habits above mere animals; the women are half-
naked, and seem possessed of little more sense of shame than our original
ancestors before the fall. There is great talk of kardash among them in
reference to myself. They are advocating hospitality of a nature altogether
too profound for the consideration of a modest and discriminating Ferenghi -
hospitable intentions that I deem it advisable to dissipate at once by
affecting deep, dense ignorance of what they are discussing.

In the morning they search the village over to find the wherewithal to
prepare me some tea before my departure. Eight miles from the village I
discover that four miles forward yesterday evening, instead of backward,
would have brought me to a village containing a caravanserai. I naturally
feel a trifle chagrined at the mistake of having journeyed eight unnecessary
miles, but am, perhaps, amply repaid by learning something of the utter
simplicity of the villagers before their character becomes influenced
by intercourse with more enlightened people.

My course now leads over a stony plain. The wheeling is reasonably
good, and I gradually draw away from the shore of Lake Ooroomiah. Melon-
gardens and vineyards are frequently found here and there across the
plain; the only entrance to the garden is a hole about three feet by
four in the high mud wall, and this is closed by a wooden door; an arm-
hole is generally found in the wall to enable the owner to reach the
fastening from the outside. Investigating one of these fastenings at a
certain vineyard I discover a lock so primitive that it must have been
invented by prehistoric man. A flat, wooden bar or bolt is drawn into a
mortise-like receptacle of the wall, open at the top; the man then daubs
a handful of wet clay over it; in a few minutes the clay hardens and the
door is fast. This is not a burglar-proof lock, certainly, and is only
depended upon for a fastening during the temporary absence of the owner
in the day-time. During the summer the owner and family not infrequently
live in the garden altogether. During the forenoon the bicycle is the
innocent cause of two people being thrown from the backs of their
respective steeds. One is a man carelessly sitting sidewise on his donkey;
the meek-eyed jackass suddenly makes a pivot of his hind feet and wheels
round, and the rider's legs as suddenly shoot upward. He frantically
grips his fiery, untamed steed around the neck as he finds himself over-
balanced, and comes up with a broad grin and an irrepressible chuckle
of merriment over the unwonted spirit displayed by his meek and humble
charger, that probably had never scared at anything before in all its
life. The other case is unfortunately a lady whose horse literally springs
from beneath her, treating her to a clean tumble. The poor lady sings
out "Allah!" rather snappishly at finding herself on the ground, so
snappishly that it leaves little room for doubt of its being an imprecation;
but her rude, unsympathetic attendants laugh right merrily at seeing her
floundering about in the sand; fortunately, she is uninjured. Although
Turkish and Persian ladies ride a la Amazon, a position that is popularly
supposed to be several times more secure than side-saddles, it is a
noticeable fact that they seem perfectly helpless, and come to grief the
moment their steed shies at anything or commences capering about with
anything like violence.

On a portion of road that is unridable from sand I am captured by a
rowdyish company of donkey-drivers, returning with empty fruit-baskets
from Tabreez. They will not be convinced that the road is unsuitable,
and absolutely refuse to let me go without seeing the bicycle ridden.
After detaining me until patience on my part ceases to be a virtue, and
apparently as determined for their purpose as ever, I am finally compelled
to produce the convincing argument with five chambers and rifled barrel.
These crowds of donkey-men seem inclined to be rather lawless, and
scarcely a day passes lately but what this same eloquent argument has
to be advanced in the interest of individual liberty. Fortunately the
mere sight of a revolver in the hands of a Ferenghi has the magical
effect of transforming the roughest and most overbearing gang of ryots
into peaceful, retiring citizens. The plain I am now traversing is a
broad, gray-looking area surrounded by mountains, and stretching away
eastward from Lake Ooroomiah for seventy-five miles. It presents the
same peculiar aspect of Persian scenery nearly everywhere-a general
verdureless and unproductive country, with the barren surface here and
there relieved by small oases of cultivated fields and orchards. The
villages being built solely of mud, and consequently of the same color
as the general surface, are undistinguishable from a distance, unless
rendered conspicuous by trees. Laboring under a slightly mistaken
impression concerning the distance to Tabreez, I push ahead in the
expectation of reaching there to-night; the plain becomes more generally
cultivated; the caravan routes from different directions come to a focus
on broad trails leading into the largest city in Persia, and which is
the great centre of distribution for European goods arriving by caravan
to Trebizond. Coming to a large, scattering village, some time in the
afternoon, I trundle leisurely through the lanes inclosed between lofty
and unsightly mud walls thinking I have reached the suburbs of Tabreez;
finding my mistake upon emerging on the open plain again, I am yet again
deceived by another spreading village, and about six o'clock find myself
wheeling eastward across an uncultivated stretch of uncertain dimensions.
The broad caravan trail is worn by the traffic of centuries considerably
below the level of the general surface, and consists of a number of
narrow, parallel trails, along which swarms of donkeys laden with produce
from tributary villages daily plod, besides the mule and camel caravans
from a greater distance. These narrow beaten paths afford excellent
wheeling, and I bowl along quite briskly. As one approaches Tabreez, the
country is found traversed by an intricate network of irrigating ditches,
some of them works of considerable magnitude; the embankments on either
side of the road are frequently high enough to obscure a horseman. These
works are almost as old as the hills themselves, for the cultivation of
the Tabreez plain has remained practically an unchanged system for three
thousand years, as though, like the ancient laws of the Medes and Persians,
it also were made unchangeable.

About dusk I fall in with another riotous crowd of homeward-bound fruit
carriers, who, not satisfied at seeing me ride past, want to stop me;
one of them rushes up behind, grabs my package attached to the rear
baggage-carrier, and nearly causes an overthrow; frightening him off, I
spurt ahead, barely escaping two or three donkey cudgels hurled at me
in pure wantonness, born of the courage inspired by a majority of twenty
to one. There is no remedy for these unpleasant occurrences except
travelling under escort, and the avoiding serious trouble or accident
becomes a matter for every-day congratulation. At eighteen miles from
the last village it becomes too dark to remain in the saddle without
danger of headers, and a short trundle brings me, not to Tabreez even
now, but to another village eight miles nearer. Here there is a large
caravanserai. Near the entrance is a hole-in-the-wall sort of a shop
wherein I espy a man presiding over a tempting assortment of cantaloupes,
grapes, and pears. The whirligig of fortune has favored me today with
tea, blotting-paper ekmek, and grapes for breakfast; later on two small
watermelons, and at 2 P.M. blotting-paper
ekmek and an infinitesimal quantity of yaort (now called mast). It is
unnecessary to add that I arrive in this village with an appetite that
will countenance no unnecessary delay. Two splendid ripe cantaloupes,
several fine bunches of grapes, and some pears are devoured immediately,
with a reckless disregard of consequences, justifiable only on the grounds
of semi-starvation and a temporary barbarism born of surrounding
circumstances. After this savage attack on the maivah-jee's stock, I
learn that the village contains a small tchai-khan; repairing thither I
stretch myself on the divan for an hour's repose, and afterward partake
of tea, bread, and peaches. At bed-time the khan-jee makes me up a couch
on the divan, locks the door
inside, blows out the light, and then, afraid to occupy the same building
with such a dangerous-looking individual as myself, climbs to the roof
through a hole in the wall. Eager villagers carry both myself and wheel
across a bridge-less stream upon resuming my journey to Tabreez next
morning; the road is level and ridable, though a trifle deep with dust
and sand, and in an hour I am threading the suburban lanes of the city.
Along these eight miles I certainly pass not less than five hundred pack-
donkeys en route to the Tabreez market with everything, from baskets of
the choicest fruit in the world to huge bundles of prickly camel-thorn
and sacks of tezek for fuel. No animals in all the world, I should think,
stand in more urgent need of the kindly offices of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals than the thousands of miserable donkeys
engaged in supplying Tabreez with fuel; their brutal drivers seem utterly
callous and indifferent to the pitiful sufferings of these patient
toilers. Numbers of instances are observed this morning where the rough,
ill-fitting breech-straps and ropes have literally seesawed their way
through the skin and deep into the flesh, and are still rasping deeper
and deeper every day, no attempt whatever being made to remedy this evil;
on the contrary, their pitiless drivers urge them on by prodding the raw
sores with sharpened sticks, and by belaboring them unceasingly with an
instrument of torture in the shape of whips with six inches of ordinary
trace-chain for a lash. As if the noble army of Persian donkey drivers
were not satisfied with the refinement of physical cruelty to which they
have attained, they add insult to injury by talking constantly to their
donkeys while driving them along, and accusing them of all the crimes
in the calendar and of every kind of disreputable action. Fancy the
bitter sense of humiliation that must overcome the proud, haughty spirit
of a mouse-colored jackass at being prodded in an open wound with a sharp
stick and hearing himself at the same time thus insultingly addressed:
"Oh, thou son of a burnt father and murderer of thine own mother, would
that I myself had died rather than my father should have lived to see
me drive such a brute as thou art." yet this sort of talk is habitually
indulged in by the barbarous drivers. While young, the donkeys' nostrils
are slit open clear up to the bridge-bone; this is popularly supposed
among the Persians to be an improvement upon nature in that it gives
them greater freedom of respiration. Instead of the well known clucking
sound used among ourselves as a persuasive, the Persian makes a sound
not unlike the bleating of a sheep; a stranger, being within hearing and
out of sight of a gang of donkey drivers in a hurry to reach their
destination, would be more likely to imagine himself in the vicinity of
a flock of sheep than anything else. As is usually the case, a volunteer
guide bobs serenely up immediately I enter the city, and I follow
confidently along, thinking he is piloting me to the English consulate,
as I have requested; instead of this he steers me into the custom-house
and turns me over to the officials. These worthy gentlemen, after asking
me to ride around the custom-house yard, pretend to become altogether
mystified about what they ought to do with the bicycle, and in the absence
of any precedent to govern themselves by, finally conclude among themselves
that the proper thing would be to confiscate it. Obtaining a guide to
show me to the residence of Mr. Abbott, the English consul-general, that
energetic representative of Her Majesty's government smiles audibly at
the thoughts of their mystification, and then writes them a letter couched
in terms of humorous reproachfulness, asking them what in the name of
Allah and the Prophet they mean by confiscating a traveller's horse, his
carriage, his camel, his everything on legs and wheels consolidated into
the beautiful vehicle with which he is journeying to Teheran to see the
Shah, and all around the world to see everybody and everything? - ending
by telling them that he never in all his consular experiences heard of
a proceeding so utterly atrocious. He sends the letter by the consulate
dragoman, who accompanies me back to the custom-house. The officers at
once see and acknowledge their mistake; but meanwhile they have been
examining the bicycle, and some of them appear to have fallen violently
in love with it; they yield it up, but it is with apparent reluctance,
and one of the leading officials takes me into the stable, and showing
me several splendid horses begs me to take my choice from among them and
leave the bicycle behind.

Mr. and Mrs. Abbott cordially invite me to become their guest while
staying at Tabreez. To-day is Thursday, and although my original purpose
was only to remain here a couple of days, the innovation from roughing
it on the road, to roast duck for dinner, and breakfast in one's own
room of a morning, coupled with warnings against travelling on the Sabbath
and invitations to dinner from the American missionaries, proves a
sufficient inducement for me to conclude to stay till Monday, satisfied
at the prospect of reaching Teheran in good season. It is now something
less than four hundred miles to Teheran, with the assurance of better
roads than I have yet had in Persia, for the greater portion of the
distance; besides this, the route is now a regular post route with chapar-
khanas (post-houses) at distances of four to five farsakhs apart. On
Friday night Tabreez experienced two slight shocks of an earthquake, and
in the morning Mr. Abbott points out several fissures in the masonry of
the consulate, caused by previous visitations of the same undesirable
nature; the earthquakes here seem to resemble the earthquakes of California
in that they come reasonably mild and often. The place likewise awakens
memories of the Golden State in another and more appreciative particular
nowhere, save perhaps in California, does one find such delicious
grapes, peaches, and pears as at ancient Taurus, a specialty for which
it has been justly celebrated from time immemorial. On Saturday I take
dinner with Mr. Oldfather, one of the missionaries, and in the evening
we all pay a visit to Mr. Whipple and family, the consulate link-boy
lighting the way before us with a huge cylindrical lantern of transparent
oiled muslin called a farnooze. These lanterns are always carried after
night before people of wealth or social consequence, varying in size
according to the person's idea of their own social importance. The size
of the farmooze is supposed to be an index of the social position of the
person or family, so that one can judge something of what sort of people
are coming down the street, even on the darkest night, whenever the
attendant link-boy heaves in sight with the farnooze. Some of these
social indicators are the size of a Portland cement barrel, even in
Persia; it is rather a smile-provoking thought to think what tremendous
farnoozes would be seen lighting up the streets on gloomy evenings, were
this same custom prevalent among ourselves; few of us but what could
call to memory people whose farnoozes would be little smaller than brewery
mash-tubs, and which would have to be carried between six-foot link-boys
on a pole. Ameer-i-Nazan, the Valiat or heir apparent to the throne, and
at present nominal governor of Tabreez, has seen a tricycle in Teheran,
one having been imported some time ago by an English gentleman in the
Shah's service; but the fame of the bicycle excites his curiosity and
he sends an officer around to the consulate to examine and report upon
the difference between bicycle and tricycle, and also to discover and
explain the modus operandi of maintaining one's balance on two wheels.
The officer returns with the report that my machine won't even stand up,
without somebody holding it, and that nobody but a Ferenghi who is in
league with Sheitan, could possibly hope to ride it. Perhaps it is this
alarming report, and the fear of exciting the prejudices of the mollahs
and fanatics about him, by having anything to do with a person reported
on trustworthy authority to be in league with His Satanic Majesty, that
prevents the Prince from requesting me to ride before him in Tabreez;
but I have the pleasure of meeting him at Hadji Agha on the evening of
the first day out. Mr. Whippie kindly makes out an itinerary of the
villages and chapar-khanas I shall pass on the journey to Teheran; the
superintendent of the Tabreez station of the Indo-European Telegraph
Company voluntarily telegraphs to the agents at Miana and Zendjan when
to expect rne, and also to Teheran; Mrs. Abbott fills my coat pockets
with roast chicken, and thus equipped and prepared, at nine o'clock on
Monday morning I am ready for the home-stretch of the season, before
going into winter quarters.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.