Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎356v] (717/879)

THI
had to be revoked at great cost because the clergy
chose to call English tobacco pedjis. In vain
the Shah smoked it in public, and com
manded his courtiers to do the same. Though
the Persians are great smokers, though the Shah
might have had any one of them bastinadoed or
slain, yet they unanimously refused, urging the
most ridiculous excuses, and bringing forward
doctors’ certificates to show why they must not
smoke.
The present Shah (with whom M. Lomnitsky
had an interesting interview at a summer-palace
in the Eiburz) is a devotee. He has himself to
blame for the way in which the power of the
clergy has increased during the few years of his
reign. These holy men oppose every sort of im
provement, and for long, at every effort at reform,
used to threaten to leave Teheran. But on the last
occasion the Shah summoned courage to tell them I
to go, which rather cut the ground from under their
feet. They are fond of getting themselves declared
co-heirs to large estates. It is proverbial in
Persia that if a priest is among the heirs, his
co-heirs are soon ruined. M. Lomnitsky says that
the priests even know bow to get a contribution of
one-tenth from many European enterprises, under
threat cf declaring the article in question pedjis.
" From time immemorial the subjects of the Shah
eat a bread which is detestable, mixed with sand
and with all sorts of ingredients; but up to the
present no European has found it prudent to build
a mill from fear that his flour, even if the whited
and most appetising in the world, should be
declared pedjis. The Belgian Sugar Refinery ir
the suburbs of Teheran pays a large yearly ranson
to the Persian clergy, in order to prevent it
sugar from being anathematised.” The priest
even speculate, and know how to make corners i
wheat. The mouchteid of Tauris, who was at th
head of a syndicate that had caused an artificia
famine there, was driven out by a popular uprising
Yet M Lomnitsky saw him received with princel
honours at the g tes of Teheran. As a Persia:
friend remarked: “ He is powerful. See how every
one kisses his hand ; yet no one is ignorant hov
heavily that hand has weighed upon the people
We have many amusing stories of the seids
poor creatures half-way between the priest
and the laity, claiming descent from Maho
med. Their glory, which is not now wha
it used to be, is based upon the convenient death
bed utterance attributed to the Prophet : " Re
Terence the Koran and my descendants.”
' Medicine is much further advanced in Persia tha
one might suppose. Many Persian doctors hav
studied in Russia, or at least under Europea
doctors, |and all can administer the entire rang
of European drugs. Yet they find it convenien
to give to their patients, at the same time, som
magical drug, to act upon the imagination. Th
health of the people is not prevailingly good, an
small-pox still works ravages, despite assiduor
vaccination. To be sure, Russian doctors hav
not yet been able to satisfy themselves 2
to the origin of Persian Zvaceine. Technic:
science in Persia is about on a par wit
medicine. There are telegraphists in Persia, 51
the telegraph poles consist of .broom hand/
(sic) which the least tempest would overthrow. Tl
wire, which is lax, is fastened directly to the cle
top of the broom handle; and the appearance <
the entire Asiatic apparatus explains why ue
patches fail to arrive. That there are as yet n
railways in Persia is due to the rivalry of Englan
and Russia ; particularly, we must say, to th
singularly obscurantist, even dog-in-the-mange
policy of Russia. M. Lomnitsky tells a strang
story of how, after a visit to Europe in the sevei
ties, the late Shah gave an English company
concession for a line from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. 1
Teheran, with a branch to Tauris. The compar
was to have possession, during 90 years, of a be
of land stretching for nearly eight kilometres c
either side of the line, or a breadth of fifteen kil
metres, say ten miles in all. The thought of su<
extra-territoriality, and of how Persian subjee
would be sure to emigrate into the English bel
filled Persian nationalists, and Russians, wi1
alarm. Nassar Eddin was persuaded into obstruc
ing the work he had sanctioned Not a Pe
sian workman could be obtained; the machine:
from the Caspian never arrived ; and tl
harassed company was glad to exchange i
concession for the right of navigating tl
Karun and the Shat-el-Arab. The Persia
want no railways, and think that these are on
prized in Europe because we have not got su
good horses as they have. " Already, commen
M. Lomnitsky s Swiss introducer, writing perha
before the very latest returns, “ English manuf
tures, despite the difficulties offered by transpo
meet the products of Russia in the Persian mark
and if the English succeed, as they will soon
or later, in building a railway line from Trebizo:
to Tauris and another from Bender-Boukher
Teheran, perhaps reaching to Ispahan, the decide
ly defective prdnets of Moscow will not be able
sustain competition with English manufacturt
or even with the products of Japan.
It must never be forgotten that in the North
Persia, with which portion M Lomnitsky’s Lette
Chiefly deal. Russia is the great dominating and si
rounding Power. If a Persian in those parts h
imbibed the love of civilisation it is from t
example of Russia, according to the Russian patter
most likely after a visit to Russia. Russi:
citizenship is keenly prized and run after. We wi:
that we had space for some of the striking detai
on this subject. It seems like magic to the Nori
Persians the way in which Russia, within foi
decades, has pacified the immemorially turbulei
centre of Asia. Through all time, until just now
the border-governors of Persia have been sem
independent satraps. " But since Russia hi
almost enclosed Persia within her possession
by subjecting the different tribes who surroun
Persia, the Shah has no longer need of the Khar
to defend himself against the incursions of tt
nomads and the Khans on their side understan
very well that Russia will not allow them 1
rebel against the authority of the Shah.” This
no mean obligation to the bankrupt Shah. For on
thing, it has enabled him to reduce his army, wit
safety, to a mere nominal figure. He seems quite t
have made up his mind that it would be madner
for him ever to fight either England or Russia. W
wish we could quote the interesting details her
given as to the Shah s Cossack Brigade. Omitting
much piquant matter, as, for example, about the
Status and character of Persian women, we come
to some concluding remarks M. Lomnitsky is by
no means without hope for Persia “ To-day the
consciousness of their nationality is awakening
among the Persians, and the most intellectual of
them are asking if they would not do better to
return to the doctrines of Zoroaster." In any case
Persian fanaticism has always been nursed from
Constantinople ; and there seems to be now some
chance of a more liberal Mahomedanism.
A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER IN
PERSIA.
We should know little enough of the intellectual
life of other lands, save for the kindly mediation of
the translator. It would almost seem as if, even
in the Twentieth Century, the nations still develop
ed in water-tight compartments. Who in the
English-speaking world is aware that, for srme
time past, there has been in Russian a work of
almost classic excellence and importance upon
Persia, by M. Lomnitzky or Lomnitsky, called
Pisma is Persii or “Letters from Persia, 1898-
1899”? The Continent is inevitably somewhat
closer to Russia than is England ; and cultured
little Switzerland has always been the cos
mopolitan land. It is to four recent numbers of a
French-Swiss magazine that we owe, not indeed,
a complete translation of M. Lomnitsky's “ Per
sian Letters,” but a “ reasoned abridgment ’’ of
100 p ges, together with a running commentary
chiefly devoted to correcting the Russian writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. 's
unreasoning hatred of England There is here
so much good matter that most of it must, in
any case, be omitted. We will, therefore, with
. regret, pass over M. Lomnitsky’s personal ad-
] ventures, which were more human than those of
; many travellers ; pass over his Anglophobia for
1 the most part, and his minor social observations,
1 in order to be able to concentrate upon his
large conclusions as to the position and prospects
, of the antique, the always tottering, yet persistent,
Empire of the Lion and the Sun.
Persia seems to M. Lomnitsky, as we shall see
later, to be by no means with ut a possible power
of recuperation and rejuvenation Meanwhile,
the minds of the people are congealed, bewitched,
almost as completely as is the case with the
Chinese. Racially they are so much nobler than
the Chinese, at least so much better looking and
closer to ourselves ; yet they lack the unpleasant
but useful hardness, the real power of survival in
a competition, of the individual Chinese, who have
been compared to so many crustaceans in his
very admirable recent History of G-eec--, Pro
fessor Bury has some notable remarks upon the
singular weakness of character, the unintellectu-
ality of the ancient Persians even in their conquer
ing days, which compelled them t receive an
imprint from their subject peoples, which quickly
made them, despite their pure Aryan blood, the
representatives of the worst Semitic tracts. In
twenty-five centuries the Persians have not essen
tially altered, save by the infusion, from Arabia,
of the virus of religious fanaticism. This same re-
ligion of Mihomed, with its omnipresent, omnipo
tent ministers, the mouchteids, the mullahs, and
the seid«, who ride the nation as in a nightmare, is
what seemed to M. Lomnitsky the greatest obstacle
to the regeneration of Persia It is not so much
that the Koran is necessarily reactionary, as that
it is persistently construedin that sense. We hear
very much about the ceremonial w rd pedjis, " im-
pure, ” or “defiled,” which must get upon
the nerves of the European in Persia as much
as the foolish Marathi verb qlz" (batane), with
a similar meaning, sometimes does with Anglo-
Indians The word pedjis, with its connotations,
has been invented by the Persian priests within
quite recent generations, as a weapon wherewith to
strike at all foreign innovations. It is enough for
an article, an individual, a custom, to be called
pedjis to be withered as if by the Papal anathema
of the Middle Ages. M. Lomnitsky gives quite a
marvellous, yet probably accurate account, of how
the English tobacco monopoly of some years ago