'Notes of a journey from Kasreen to Hamadan across the Karaghan country. By J. D. Rees' [‎20r] (44/54)

PROM KASVEEN TO HAMADAN.
31
precarious advancement to be obtained by taking part in public
affairs in Persia. Of several bouses he inhabits one, the others
being kept for guests of every rank and every nationality who
pass this way. Outside his door is daily a greater crowd of
petitioners than waits at that of official authority, and for every
one is relief, redress, advice, or at least a kind word. Nightly 20
or 30 persons—some friends, some travellers, some poor of the
town—dine on his carpets, besides his household, which includes
a large number of devoted servants. Such influence and such a
position as Haji Ahsan holds, I have not seen in the East,
dissociated, as it is in bis case, from official rank. His father was
British Agent, and he hopes his son will be, and if, as he says, his
secure position is due to the shadow of the Britith Government,
that Government is no less fortunate in having so admirable a
representative in so remote a spot.
A journey of some 60 miles of mostly stony hills, wherein
the heat of a July sun was well nigh unbearable, brought me to
the frontier where no traveller or caravan is allowed to proceed
without an escort of two troopers. This would be pleasant
enough for company’s sake could they, as they rarely can, talk
anything but Turki.
Kasr-i-Sheereen, the frontier station, is soon reached, and here
a famous robber chief, Jawan Meer Khan, takes over the duty
of escorting the traveller to a lonely watch-tower on the road
to Khanakin, whence two Turkish troopers see him on to that
town.
Just now Jawan Meer Khan robs nobody whose complaints
might embarrass the Persian Government, which indeed pays him,
I am told, 3,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , about £1,000, a year, for guarding the
frontier. When my companion, a man of Kermanshah, and I got
to his stronghold—he has a fort in good condition—he was lying
on a stone seat covered with cushions, on the banks of the river,
smoking his water-pipe in the moonlight and talking to his little
son.
My companion slipped off and kissed his hand as he rose to
receive us, a fine specimen of humanity, of unusual height and
strength, aged perhaps 45, and covered, I am told, with the scars
of wounds, though I did not notice them in the moonlight. On
the way I had asked the Kermanshahi if Jawan Meer Khan was
one of the grandees (buzurgan) of the country. “ Certainly.”
“ But ” perversely, “ is he not a robber ?” “ Certainly, but a
great robber.”
For many years this Kurdish chief has played Turks against
Persians and Persians against Turks, robbing on both sides pretty