PERSIAN CARAVAN SKETCHES 



467 



tainment by the uncle of the present 

 Shah of Persia, by a British general, and 

 other officials, for (shall I confess?) we 

 were thought to be secret agents for the 

 American Government traveling through 

 Persia in those unsettled times, and the 

 more we said to the contrary the more it 

 was believed. I cannot leave Shiraz and 

 Persia, however, without describing at 

 least one of the famous gardens. 



"the: Envy of heaven" 



Before breakfast we cantered out to 

 the garden of the British Resident. He 

 had asked us to come out for a swim in 

 the adjacent garden of a Persian grandee 

 of the neighborhood. 



It was the most attractive garden I 

 had seen in Persia. The main avenue 

 was well over a hundred yards long, with 

 superb cypresses on both sides, most of 

 them thirty or forty feet high. There 

 were also double side alleys with chinar, 

 pine, and fruit-trees. 



At the lower end of the central grass- 

 covered lane was a pillared garden- 

 house, open, as the Persian name for it 

 (Chahar Fasl) implies, to the four winds, 

 the four seasons. At the other end there 

 was a series of terraces with silent foun- 

 tains, stagnant pools of water, and for- 

 gotten beds of flowers. 



This terrace led up to a huge tank, 

 recently repaired and sparkling with 

 clear blue-green water, which acted as a 

 doorstep and mirror to a house of a par- 

 ticularly attractive style of Persian archi- 

 tecture. 



We were about to undress when our 

 friend the Resident advised us to take 

 to the bushes and don improvised bathing 

 suits, for the ladies of the harem were 

 wont to watch the proceedings from the 

 darkened recesses of the latticed win- 

 dows ! With visions of rows of unseen 

 flashing black eyes, we plunged into the 

 protecting shade of towering pine and 

 cypress. 



The name of this garden is, I think, 

 Resht-i-Behesht (Envy of Heaven). 

 Persian gardens, so praised by Persian 

 poets and glowingly described by travel- 

 ers, can hardly be expected to live up to 

 their names. "The Garden of the Thou- 

 sand Nightingales" is typical of Persian 



One garden is called "The Garden of 

 the Forty Colts" because, so the legend 

 runs, it was formerly so vast that a mare 

 which had been lost was not found until 

 she had reared a brood of forty colts. 



Again the charm lies in that deceiving 

 power of Persia — contrast. After the 

 desert and dust of weeks of slow cara- 

 van, the coolness and refreshing green- 

 ness of these little walled gardens, in- 

 tensified by the dolce far niente of days 

 of rest, makes one almost believe these 

 are veritable "Gardens of Eight Para- 

 dises." 



To reach the Persian Gulf we had still 

 a week of caravaning. The British, by 

 aeroplane attacks on their strongholds, 

 had disposed of most of the robber bands 

 in this neighborhood and had erected 

 small garrison forts along the more un- 

 settled lower section of the route. It 

 was formerly dangerous crossing the 

 precipitous passes by which one leaps 

 down 6,000 feet over jagged, serrated 

 ranges to the sea. 



The hoofs of beasts of burden from 

 ages past have worn steps in the steep 

 face of the rock; it is impossible to pass 

 a fellow-traveler except at special places, 

 and a slip means oblivion. The British 

 have, however, started building a road 

 and have blasted a remarkable path wind- 

 ing up the sheer cliffs. 



Our one misadventure was that half 

 way to the gulf I had to stop at a tiny 

 British fort for a week of malarial fever. 



The last three days of caravan I did 

 laboriously, with a "sick convoy" of In- 

 dian soldiers bound for the gulf port of 

 Bushire to await transport by hospital 

 ship to India. 



THE LAST NIGHT ON THE CARAVAN ROAD 



My last night on the Persian Caravan 

 Road will never be forgotten. It was at 

 the caravanserai, then used as a British 

 garrison fort, at the top of the pass at 

 Kamarij. My cot had been placed on the 

 roof. It was a hot night. I had fever 

 and did not sleep. 



From the courtyard below came the 

 sound of the tablas and dholkis (drums) 

 of the Indians. They sang, about thirty 

 of them, an endlessly repeated chorus to 

 an endless verse, taken up by various 

 leaders at various pitches. When they 



