Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎307br] (616/879)

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A TRAVELLER IN PERSIA*
LORD CURZON remarks in his book on Persia that few
countries in the world have given rise to so many books of
travel, and that these include some of the best and some of
the worst works of this class ever written. The book now
before us belongs to neither of these extremes, for, though
on the one hand it describes the quite ordinary journey through
Persia by the main route from Bushire to Enzeli of a
traveller who apparently had but a slight acquaintance with
the Persian language, met with no remarkable adventures,
and, with the exception of one or two formal visits to pro
vincial governors, held converse with no Persians of note, it
yet displays a certain sympathy and appreciation which
make parts of it pleasant reading; so that, though the
expert in Persian matters will learn little from its perusal,
it will be read with pleasure and interest by those who,
*" Through Persia from the Gulf to the Caspian.” By F. B.
Bradley-Birt, F.R.G.S., I.C.S. Smith, Elder. 12s. 6d. net.
tions of Persians sitting “cross-legged” at a meal,
or wearing “the usual Persian fez,” as though they
were Turks, whereas they no doubt sat on their heels (du
zanu nishastan, " to sit on the two knees,” is the Persian
expression) and wore the Persian lambskin hat or kulah.
The transliteration of Oriental words also leaves a good
deal to be desired. It would, perhaps, be too much to hope
that the author should write Muhammad (or even
Mohammed) instead of the incorrect “ Mahomed ” (which is
little better than the old “ Mahound ”), but he does not
even adhere to this, and, having written “ Mahomed ” on
p. 122, tries the effect of “ Mohamed ” on p. 123. It is
also a pity that he speaks of the present Shah’s great-grand
father as " Nasr-ed-Din,” though here again he errs
in company with most English writers and journalists, be
cause these Arabic titles have meanings which are vitiated
by such slipshod transliterations, and there are three dis
tinct titles compounded with three different derivatives of
this root, the verbal noun (Nasr), the active particle (Nasir),
and the passive participle (Nasir or Naseer), so that to con
found together Nasr-ud-Din (“ the Help of the Faith ”), Ndsir-
ud-Din (" the Helper of the Faith ”), and Nasir-ud-D in
(“Helped by the Faith”) is to create the same kind of
confusion as would be caused in English history by reducing
to one conventional form the names Edward, Edwin, and
Edmund, and regarding as “ pedantic ” any attempt to
differentiate them. Other errors of transliteration occur,
however, for which less excuse exists—e.g., “ Kawerun ”
for Kazerun; “ Puseh ” for Puzeh (or better Puza, “the
Snout”); “ Bujah ’ for Buyah; “Shuster” for Shushter;
“ Kavi ” for Kawa, and the like. A scientific transliteration
must differentiate between the ordinary k, the gutteral q, and
the aspirated kh, and between the ordinary hard g and
the aspirated gh ; and though, perhaps, one can hardly expect
ordinary writers to use a form so strange to English eyes as
Qiwam, and must rest contented with Kiwam, it is un
necessarily distressing to find in one place “ Khawam ”
and in another “Kovam.”
There are a few more serious errors which should have
been avoided by anyone familiar with the Muhammadan
East. Thus we find the old delusion that one who
has made the pilgrimage to Mecca is entitled to wear the
green turban, whereas this privilege is, of course, peculiar
to Sayyids, or descendants of the Prophet; and a still more
serious slip occurs on p. 119, where the author, in de
scribing the festival of the " Umar-Kushdn,” which he
fairly enough compares with the English Guy Fawkes’ Day,
says that the guy “ represents Omar, who slew Ali, the
son-in-law of the Prophet,” though any historical manual
would have told him that the latter survived the former by
a good many years, and was, in fact, the last of those “ four
orthodox Caliphs” of whom Omar was the second. This is
as though a foreign traveller, describing the observance of
the Fifth of November in England, should state that Guy
Fawkes was held up to execration because he decapitated
Charles the First!
NATIO N. [October 9, 1909.
i In general the author writes in a pleasing style, but he
has one mannerism which tends to get on the reader’s
nerves, and that is the constant use of “one” in place of
the pronoun of the first person. A book of travels is almost
necessarily autobiographical; it is hard to be autobio
graphical and at the same time to avoid saying " I " and
“my,” without producing such clumsy sentences as
these: —
“ Later on, when Persia and Persian ways have grown
more familiar, one is forced reluctantly to acknowledge that
the inner mind of the people is a closed book that no foreigner
may read; but at the outset, with one's enthusiasm still fresh,
as one treads the silent, narrow streets of Bushire, one is still
restless with the desire to know and understand.”—(Page 36.)
“ All one's bedding is tied on the back, and, even more
important, one's camera, and all one's films are there too, in
imminent danger of total immersion. . . . This is the worst
fate that has yet overtaken the baggage, but one takes it far
more philosophically than one would anywhere else than in
Persia. If one's camera and sixteen dozen films have been
utterly ruined it cannot be helped . . .”—(Page 175.)
" Fortunately a new conveyance is available, and the old
one may be discarded. The last one sees of it, it is standing
in the Meidan-i-Shah, a perfect wreck of all that a carriage
should be. One wonders when, if ever, patched up and repaired,
it will attempt the adventurous journey again. Yet it is with
something of regret one parts company with it. In spite of its
dilapidated appearance . . it had carried one for over three
hundred miles without a breakdown, and had one known what
lay ahead one would have still further appreciated its powers
of endurance.”
Another feature of the book which lends itself to
criticism is the lack of references. Translations of cunei
form inscriptions and Persian poems are quoted without
any indication or acknowledgment of their source, and well-
known stories, like that connected with the pathetic inscrip
tion, “ Cy git Rodolfe," in the cemetery at Ispahan,
are occasionally given in garbled forms, without any attempt
to check them by contemporary authorities. The Index,
too, is inadequate ; for example, it contains no reference to
the above-mentioned Rodolfe or Ralph Stadler, yet comprises
entries like “American Consul, 5”; “Austria, 269”;
“Charles the First, 14, 141”; “Charing Cross 316,” and
the like. The illustrations, on the other hand, are good,
and the map at the end of the volume is satisfactory. Some
of the author’s reflections show a certain lack of considera-
tion, as when . he discusses the inappropriateness of the
names “ Kaleh-i-Dokhter,” “ the Maiden Fortress,” and
“ Kotal-i-Dokhter,” “ the Pass of the Maiden,” ex
pressing wonder that “ so mild ” or " so picturesque and
gentle ” a name should be conferred on places so forbidding
and unapproachable. Does he think the Jungfrau in
Switzerland (which, however picturesque, can hardly even
now, when a railway threatens its ancient inviolability, be
described as “mild”) ill named, or would he anticipate
“ mildness ” if he set out to scale a “ virgin peak ” ?
It is also curious to find absolutely no dates in
a book which is essentially a diary. The author’s
journey was made in the spring, and, presumably, from his
references to the departure for the capital of the Shirazi
deputies to the “ Majlis ” or National Assembly, in the
year 1907, since it is not clear whether a passing reference
to the assassination of the Aminu’s-Sultan, which
happened on August 31st of that year, indicates that he was
still in Persia at the time of this event. Some of his
remarks about the “Majlis” (e.g., on p. 324) are unfair
and misleading, though elsewhere he seems disposed
to give it credit for potentialities of good, and it is to be
regretted that the Persian struggle for freedom suggests
nothing to him—not even an alternative expression—but
“comic opera,” which term he uses in at least four
different places. His view of the whole constitutional
movement in Persia, which really goes back for some
thirty years, and was by no means the sudden mush
room creation that he supposes, is superficial; while
his suggestion that it was largely inspired by “ the
Indian, and more particularly the Calcutta and Bombay
agitator,” is not merely misleading, but mischievous in the
highest degree. The weekly paper to which he no doubt
alludes in this passage (the “HabluT-Matin”), though printed
in Calcutta, was entirely edited and managed by Persians,
and, so soon as the freedom of the Press was established in
Persia, began to appear as a daily paper at Teheran on
April 29th, 1907, though it was suppressed after the coup
d’etat of June 23rd, 1908.
Yet, notwithstanding all these defects, this book con
tains much that is admirable, including many fine descrip
tions of the wonderful scenery and the majestic ruins which
give to Persia—especially Southern Persia-so unique a
charm, as well as many sympathetic and appreciative
remarks on the good points in the Persian character which
are too often ignored by European travellers. This mass:
us regret the more that the whole book is not equal in merit
18 certain considerable portions of it. On the whole, the
earlier chapters, especially chapters ill ix inch • >
much better than the later ones, perhaps because, the
writer’s mind was at the beginning of his journey more
receptive of fresh impressions. EWARD G. BROWNE.