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Feb. 9, 1857.] UAWLINSON ON SOUTHERN PERSIA. 295 



authorities always have four or live chiefs, whom they jjlay against the 

 otliers. When one man is in the ascendant, they set four or five others against 

 him. This is the way in which weak governments succeed in ruling over 

 powerful tribes. There is no tribe in Persia equal in courage to the Bakhtiyari. 

 When the Persians came to Susa they encamped. The tribes at first thought 

 of attacking them, but the project was given up. The Bakhtiyari chief 

 quitted his mountains, taking refuge amongst the Chab Arabs, and came 

 down to Fellahiyah. There a curious phenomenon took place. The Arabs 

 destroyed the banks of the river about thirty miles above Fellahiyah, and by 

 that means threw the water over the whole country, and made it an enormous 

 lake. I then came down in a boat from Shuster to Ahwaz, with a party of 

 what they call in Persia, Looties — dervishes and fellows who wander about, 

 tear the skins of beasts, and play upon fiddles. When I got to Ahwaz, I 

 found all my travelling companions were going to a holy place on the Euphrates, 

 called Kerbula. At Ahwaz they began to make up their accounts, to see what 

 money they had ; when, finding that they had not a penny between them, 

 they all began crying. I had a little money with me, about 5Z., which was all 

 I had possessed for two years. However, when I searched my purse, I found 

 all my money gone, and I was in the same condition as my friends ; I had not 

 a single half-penny ; I had only a saddle with me. A Persian, seeing my 

 difficulties, offered me five shillings for it, and I was obliged to accept it, and 

 with that five shillings I hired a man and a mule to carry me across tie 

 country. When we reached the Fellahiyah river, we found that the Arabs had 

 broken the banks and flooded the countr}'. We got to a village towards the 

 evening, and I found all the people preparing to go away. The mode they 

 adopted was this : — In that country they have cottages made of reeds, and 

 exceedingly pretty many of them are. They pull down these reeds, bind them 

 together, make rafts of them, and float down the river to a place of security. 

 In the night, my man, with his mule, ran away, and left me to my fate. In 

 the morning, I found the villagers binding up the reeds and making rafts, I 

 asked them to make room for me, but they refused ; and they all went away, 

 leaving me perfectly alone, surrounded by dogs and jackals, and other animals. 

 I sat there some time driving off these beasts. At last I thought it better to 

 do something for myself, bound some reeds, and made a raft, and in the 

 morning floated down the river. It was very curious, like a scene in the 

 * Arabian Nights.' I floated down all the day, passing many of the rafts, and 

 in the evening I came to a part where the river branched off into several canals. 

 I went down one of these canals by chance, and presently I floated into the 

 middle of a palace, in which there were a number of persons sitting round and 

 smoking their pipes. The chief of the Chab Arabs had built the house, and 

 had carried a canal through it. I floated into the palace, and remained for 

 some time with the chief, whose artillery I had the honour of commanding 

 during the siege wc sustained. At last, however, the Persian commander sent 

 his relation, a Christian, with a Bible, and a great chief of the Mohamedan 

 race with a Koran, and with this double shot promised the Bakhtiyari chief, if 

 he would take the oath of allegiance, to send him back in safety to the moun- 

 tains. The chief, not made wiser by the fate of his predecessors, went to the 

 Persian commander, reassured by the presence of the 13ible and the Koran, and 

 was taken prisoner. I went with him, and was also taken prisoner ; but I got 

 away, and after that we had a long series of tights ; and at last I lost all my 

 friends. After wintering in the country four or five months, I at length 

 quitted it. This sojourn there has given me rather a strategical knowledge of 

 the country. 



It is impossible to describe the beauty of the plains of Shuster, which 

 form a perfect paradise at certain times of the year. At the end of February 

 the rains cease, and, in a single day, the whole country is covered with a carpet 



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