224 Consul Sykes at Meshhed [1908 



attempt to assassinate the Lieutenant-Governor, with hootings in the 

 streets, and vengeance taken on ' approvers ' of their own race, a 

 repetition of the old Fenian days in Ireland. They have burned the 

 body of the man who slew the informer, Gossain, in prison, and whom 

 our people have just hanged at Calcutta, according him all the honours 

 given to a saint, and have sent fragments of his bones as relics through 

 India. 



" 13th Nov. — Osborne Beauclerk arrived fresh from Persia, where 

 he has been shooting wild sheep east of the Caspian. He has been stay- 

 ing with Sykes, the British Consul at Meshhed, whose business there 

 is to watch the Russian Consul. All that part of Persia is in great 

 confusion, and Sykes has fortified his house on scientific principles, 

 intending to hold it against all comers with the thirty soldiers he has at 

 his orders. Beauclerk described this in detail, and how the defences 

 included a mine projected under the Vizier's residence, which is close 

 by, ' carrying things rather too far,' Beauclerk thinks. The whole of 

 Persia, he says, might be ridden over by a squadron of European cav- 

 alry without hindrance as it lies open and there is no force to oppose 

 it. Tabriz and the North he did not see. In the rest of Persia there 

 is nothing that can be called a nation, only a number of tribes and 

 races, mixed up without any bond of cohesion. Beauclerk's ideas, how- 

 ever, are rather vague, and I had difficulty in persuading him that the 

 Meshhed of Eastern Persia was not the same as Meshhed Ali. The 

 hill country where he was shooting he describes as the extreme limit 

 eastwards of the great Forest of elm and sycamore, which stretches 

 120 miles from the Caspian, ending in juniper scrub, where the wild 

 sheep are. I asked him whether these ever drank, and he said he 

 thought not, having seen no trace of them near water. This bears out 

 what Suliman Howeyti used to tell me about the kebsch moyych be- 

 tween the Nile and the Red Sea, which never drinks. I am immensely 

 taken with Beauclerk, who is quite the most sympathetic young man I 

 have met for many years. Without being quite intellectual he is 

 extremely intelligent, has seen much and thought much, has every 

 good impulse and desire, and is feeling his way how to live up to them. 

 He is hardly at all educated, but has a large experience of men and 

 cities, or rather of wild places which are not cities. He has been at 

 Eton and understands its snobbery ; he has been in the Army and under- 

 stands its futility ; he is a landlord and understands its duties ; he is 

 without pretention and has a kindly heart. 



" 22nd Nov. (Sunday). — There is a new interview with Kaiser Wil- 

 helm published, more astonishing than the last. We are promised it 

 in a few days, though £10,000 were paid by the German Ambassador 

 at Washington for its suppression, so says the ' Observer.' 



" 2nd Dec. — Father Tyrrell writes from Storrington : ' I am occu- 



