The first aspect of affairs at Erzeroom was not very satisfactory in any way. The cold and dismal weather was enough to prevent all enjoyment out of doors, and in-doors we had little cause of rejoicing. On first taking possession of our house, my companions had the narrowest possible escape of death from suffocation. The grooms in the stable below the drawing-room had lit an immense fire of charcoal, not for any particular object beyond that common to all servants of all countries, that of wasting their master’s goods, which they had not to pay for themselves. The fumes from the charcoal penetrated the ceiling, when, most fortunately, the Russian commissioner came in, and, finding his two English friends in a half-stupefied state, helped them out of the room on to the terrace, where they both fell down fainting on the snow, and were only recovered after some time and difficulty. If the Russian commissioner had not arrived so opportunely, they would soon have perished. I did not participate in this risk, because I was laid up at the Consulate with an attack of fever, which effectually prevented my moving to my own house.

Another misfortune occurred almost at the same period. Noori Effendi, the Turkish plenipotentiary, died suddenly of apoplexy in his bath; he had been embassador in London and at Vienna. All prospect of getting on with our affairs was put off by this unfortunate circumstance. Subsequently, Enveri Effendi, formerly secretary to Noori, was appointed in his place, but he did not arrive for some time after the death of his former chief.

Mirza Jaffer, an old acquaintance of mine when he was embassador from Persia to the Porte, was too unwell to leave Tabriz, and Mirza Tekee was appointed Persian plenipotentiary instead. On his arrival within sight of Erzeroom from Persia, all the great people, except the Pasha and the commissioners, went out on horseback to meet him, and accompany him on his entry into the town. There was a great concourse and a prodigious firing of guns at full gallop, which, as the guns are generally loaded with ball cartridge, bought ready made in the bazaar, though intended as an honor, is a somewhat dangerous display. Unable to resist so picturesque a sight, I had ridden out on the Persian road, though I did not join the escort, and, having returned, I was walking up and down on the roof of the house, watching the crowds passing in the valley below, and looking at the great guns of the citadel, which the soldiers were firing as a salute. They fired very well, in very good time, but I observed several petty officers and a number of men busily employed at one gun, the last to the left hand near the corner of the battery. At length this gun was loaded. A prodigious deal of peeping and pointing took place out of the embrasure, and, just as I was turning in my walk, bang went the cannon, and I was covered with dust from something which struck the ground in the yard in a line below my feet. On looking down to see what this could be, I saw a ball stuck in the earth: the soldiers had all disappeared from the ramparts of the citadel, and I found they had been taking a shot at the British commissioner. A very good shot it was too, exactly in the line, but the ball, not being heavy enough, had fallen a little short, so I was missed. They had manufactured a ball with a large stone, wound round with rope to make it fit the gun, to shoot at the Frank, and that was the occasion of all the peeping and crowding of the men round the gun which I had observed.

As Mirza Tekee is now no more, and he was beyond all comparison the most interesting of those assembled at the congress of Erzeroom, I will give a short account of his history. Mirza Tekee was the son of the cook of Bahman Meerza, brother of Mohammed Shah, and governor of the province of Tabriz. The cook’s little boy was brought up with the children of his master and educated with them; being a clever boy, as soon as he was old enough he was put into the office of accounts, under the commander-in-chief, the famous Emir Nizam, who was employed in drilling the Persian army in the European style. Tekee became Vizir ul Nizam, or adjutant general, in course of time, under the old Emir Nizam, and also amassed great wealth; and as the Shah did not like the idea of paying the expenses of his plenipotentiary—“base is the slave that pays”—he sent Mirza Tekee to Erzeroom with many flattering speeches and promises, none of which he intended to fulfill. The cunning old prime minister, Hadji Meerza Agassi, who was sedulously employed in feathering his own nest, was jealous of Mirza Tekee, and very glad to get him safe out of the way. The Turks and Persians, as every body knows, hate each other religiously, which seems always to be the worst sort of hatred. The Soonis and the Shiahs are, as it were, Protestants and Papists in the Mohammedan faith; and if these two countries are ever reconciled for a time, the smouldering flame is sure to break out again at the first convenient opportunity, and it will do so to the end of time. In 1845, the Turks, who disliked Mirza Tekee with more than common aversion, from his dignified bearing and stately manners, gave out various accusations against him and some members of his household. A fanatical mob of many thousand indignant Soonis surrounded all that quarter of the town, attacked the Persian plenipotentiary’s house, which was besieged for some hours, and volleys after volleys of rifle-shots were fired at the windows, while from within Mirza Tekee only permitted his party to fire blank cartridges. Izzet Pasha, a drunken old gentleman of eighty, who had succeeded Kiamili Pasha as governor of Erzeroom through the intrigues of Enveri Effendi, sat on horseback and looked on, and took no part in the disturbance, though he had all his troops, amounting to several thousand men, under arms. For this conduct he was turned out of his government, and was succeeded by Bahri Pasha, who in 1847 was shot dead by one of his own servants, of the name of Delhi Ibrahim—accidentally or not, does not appear.

Colonel Williams did every thing in his power to assist Mirza Tekee, and risked his life in the affray; but he received no assistance from the Pasha or any of the authorities, who made no attempt to quell the riot.

The Turks swore they would have blood, and that one of the Persians must be given up to them as a sacrifice. A poor man, who had called that morning to say that he was going to Tabriz, and would be happy to carry any letters or messages there, was thrown out of the window and torn to pieces by the mob. Another Persian, a gentleman, secretary to Mirza Tekee, was killed by a butcher the same day, in another part of the town, where he was walking in ignorance of the disturbance that was going on. The Mirza’s house was pillaged, the roof and doors broken in, and every thing destroyed that the mob could get hold of. He himself was only saved by barricading a strong room in a back part of the house, where he and his servants defended themselves for many hours, till the Turks dispersed of their own accord. The Sultan afterward sent him £8000 in repayment of his losses in this disgraceful outrage.

In June, 1847, after he had signed the treaty of peace and commerce between Turkey and Persia with Enveri Effendi and the British and Russian Commissioners, he returned to Tabriz. On the death of the Emir Nizam, he succeeded to his office of commander-in-chief. During the last illness of Mohammed Shah, Bahman Meerza had been intriguing in hopes of succeeding to the throne; but being unsuccessful, and being also found out, he escaped to Teflis, where he still resides, and is protected by the Czar, who keeps him in terrorem over the present Shah, who may be dethroned any day, in which case Bahman Meerza is all ready to reign in his stead.

When Mohammed Shah, who had done nothing all his life but shoot sparrows with a pistol, departed from this world, Mirza Tekee marched the Persian army to Teheran, and seated the young Prince Noor Eddin upon the throne. Noor Eddin Shah gave him his sister in marriage: she is said to have been much attached to her husband, who also succeeded to the immense territorial possessions of Hadji Meerza Agassi, the late prime minister of Persia. The Hadji had been tutor to Mohammed Shah, and became one of the most famous of the Grand Vizirs of that most blundering of dynasties. As a matter of course, when he became rich enough he was robbed by his master, having been himself the greatest extortioner on record for many years. The Shah had allowed him to keep an enormous treasure in gold, silver, and jewels, with which he retired to Kerbela, where he died in the odor of sanctity in 1850.

Mirza Tekee was now seated on the highest pinnacle of the temple of prosperity. The extent of the possessions which the Shah had handed over to him from the plunder of the Hadji was so great as to be hardly credible, and, by a judicious squeezing, the towns, villages, and domains would have yielded the revenue of a petty king. However, all prime ministers are detested—that is, in human nature; first, there is the opposite party in politics, some of whom think differently as to the form and manner in which the taxes should be levied in Europe, the villages racked in Persia. All—whatever they may think on political subjects—feel sure they ought to be in place, rather than the party then in power; if to these are added all thieves, rogues, revolutionists, and those sorts of people, who have a natural antipathy to all government, law, or possession of wealth in the hands of any man except the one individual himself, he being more jealous of his friend than of any other person, a great mass of the population are not only opposed to the minister for the time being, but are in constant readiness to pull down whatever is above them, good, indifferent, or bad.

It is said that the great enemy of Mirza Tekee at court was the Shah’s mother, a lady who in Persia and Turkey enjoys an extraordinary degree of power, wealth, and dignity. In Turkey, the Sultana ValidÉ has the right to build a royal mosque, and to use a caique like that of her son; she is above the law, and can do any thing she likes. If she likes to do good, she can do much good; if she likes to do evil, she can do much evil. Between those who were jealous of the power and who hated the strong government of Mirza Tekee, a powerful party was created, who got hold of the weak mind of the young Shah, who owed every thing in this world to his minister; his destruction was agreed upon, and he was given leave to go to Koom, where he had an estate. So secretly were affairs managed that his suspicions do not seem to have been aroused; his young wife followed him, with all her train, looking forward to the pleasure of living with her husband for a while in the quiet and retirement of a beautiful country; but when she arrived within sight of the town of Koom, a messenger came out to meet her, and the news that he brought was that Mirza Tekee had been killed by the order of her brother the Shah, whose emissaries had seized him unexpectedly in the bath. He made a desperate resistance, but he was overpowered; they opened his veins and held him down till the Grand Vizir had bled to death. No crime whatever was alleged against him: he was murdered foully by the Shah, who thus destroyed one of his best and most honest subjects at the instigation of some of the most infamous and worst. This happened in the year 1851.

There is nothing, however, very unusual in this termination of the life and fortunes of the prime minister of Persia, only it is usually done under more extenuating circumstances. The singular ideas which they entertain of the principles of government are summed up in the notion that it is better to be in the hands of one furious ogre than at the mercy of a hundred tyrants. For this reason the tribes of the Kuzzulbash admire a truculent Shah, such as Aga Mohammed Shah, and they like a Grand Vizir who lets nobody rob and plunder except himself. When he is fat and fit for killing, the blood-drinker on the throne cuts off his head, or strangles him, as the case may be, and then takes possession of his property, throwing a sop to the mob occasionally by allowing them to sack the great man’s house. I do not use the above-mentioned epithet as a term of reprehension or abuse, for Hunkiar is one of the recognized titles of the Sultan of Turkey and of other Eastern sovereigns. The treaty of Hunkiar Skellessi, which made so great a sensation in its day, was so called from the name of a place on the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. The name means the “Blood-drinker’s Stairs”—an appellation at this time equally suited to either of the “high contracting powers.”

The plenipotentiaries and commissioners being assembled, every thing was in the greatest danger of falling to pieces on the outset, by the very first dispatches which we received, as these related to a frightful massacre which had just taken place at Kerbela, where 22,000 Persians were reported to have been killed by the Turks. Kerbela, in the pashalik of Bagdad, is a Turkish fortified place, containing the tomb of Hossein, the brother of Hassan, and son of Ali, the great saint of the Shiah, or Persian form of the Mohammedan religion. Not only do an immense number of Persians habitually reside there, but every one who has the power strives to retire there in his latter days, that he may lay his bones in the neighborhood of the golden dome which covers the ashes of Hossein. Those who die at a distance are so anxious at least to be buried at Kerbela, that the great article of commerce in that direction consists of the dead bodies of Persian men and women, which are brought by thousands every year, from all parts of the dominions of the Shah, by endless caravans of horses, mules, and camels, many hundreds of which unlucky animals pass their whole lives from year to year in carrying these horrid burdens, which infect the air in all the villages through which they pass.

So great is the sanctity of Kerbela, that, in the estimation of the sect of Ali, it even may be said to surpass that of Mecca, for they, among Mohammedans, are those who “by their traditions have made the law of none effect.” The history of the death of Hossein is so interesting an episode in the history of this country, that I am tempted to give a short account of it, for the benefit of those who may not be well acquainted with the history of the successors of Mohammed, and upon whose fortunes so much of the welfare and also the policy of the various nations of the East, from the seventh century to the present time, depends—premising that the principal cause of the rancorous hatred which always has existed, and still exists in full force, between the Sooni Turks and the Shiah Persians, is principally founded upon events connected with the death of the Imaum Hossein, and the feeling is kept up in full vigor in Persia by a sort of drama, representing the following history, which is enacted before the Shah, and in every town in Persia, every year, at the annual feast of Noo Rooz, which continues for ten days. In one of the acts of this most curious ceremony, a Frank embassador is brought before the audience, who intercedes for the life of Hossein and his followers with the general of the army of Yezid. Who he can have been there is no means of knowing, but he may possibly represent an embassador from the Greek Emperor of Constantinople, who may have been passing on his way to the court of the Caliph. However this may be, his presence produces a kindly feeling toward Europeans in the minds of the Persian populace.

On the death of Ali (A.D. 661), his eldest son, Hassan, was proclaimed Caliph and Imaum in IrÁk; the former title he was forced to resign to Moawiyah; the latter, or spiritual dignity, his followers regarded as inalienable. His rival granted him a pension, and permitted him to retire into private life. After nine years, passed for the most part in devotional exercise, he was poisoned by his wife Jaadah, who was bribed to perpetrate this execrable crime by Yezid, the son of Moawiyah.

On the death of Moawiyah (A.D. 679), his son Yezid, who succeeded, having provoked public indignation by his luxury, debauchery, and impiety, Hossein was persuaded by the discontented people of IrÁk to make an attempt for the recovery of his hereditary rights. The inhabitants of Cufa and Bassorah were foremost in their professions of zeal for the house of Ali, and sent Hossein a list of more than 124,000 persons, who, they said, were ready to take up arms in his cause.

Hossein did not take warning from the inconstancy and treachery which these very persons had shown in their conduct toward his father and brother. Assembling a small troop of his personal friends, and accompanied by a part of his family, he departed from Medina, the place of his residence, and was soon engaged in crossing the desert. But while he was on his journey, Yezid’s governor in IrÁk discovered the meditated revolt, capitally punished the leaders of the conspiracy, and so terrified the rest that they were afraid to move. When Hossein arrived near the banks of the Euphrates, instead of finding an army of his devoted adherents, he discovered that his further progress was checked by the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Determined, however, to persevere, he gave permission to all who pleased to retreat while there was yet time; to their disgrace, many of his followers left him to his fate, and he continued his route to Cufa, accompanied only by seventy-two persons. But every step increased his difficulties, and he attempted to return when it was too late. At length he was surrounded by the troops of the Caliph in the arid plains of Kerbela, his followers were cut off from their supply of water, and, when he offered to negotiate, he was told that no terms would be made, but that he should surrender at discretion. Twenty-four hours were granted him for deliberation.

Hossein’s choice was soon made: he deemed death preferable to submission, but he counseled his friends to provide for their safety either by surrender or escape. All replied that they preferred dying with their beloved leader. The only matter now to be considered was how they could sell their lives most dearly; they fortified their little encampment with a trench, and then tranquilly awaited the event.

That night Hossein slept soundly, using for a pillow the pommel of his sword. During his sleep he dreamed that Mohammed appeared to him, and predicted that they should meet the next day in Paradise. When morning dawned he related his dream to his sister Zeinab, who had accompanied him on his fatal expedition. She burst into a passion of tears, and exclaimed, “Alas! alas! my brother! What a destiny is ours! My father is dead! my mother is dead! my brother Hassan is dead! and the measure of our calamities is not yet full!”

Hossein tried to console her. “Why should you weep?” he said; “did we not come on earth to die? My father was more worthy than I; my mother was more worthy than I; my brother was more worthy than I. They are all dead; why should not we be ready to follow their example?” He then strictly enjoined his family to make no lamentation for his approaching martyrdom, telling them that a patient submission to the divine decrees was the conduct most pleasing to God and his Prophet.

When morning appeared, Hossein, having washed and perfumed himself, as if preparing for a banquet, mounted his steed, and addressed his followers in terms of endearing affection that drew tears from the eyes of the gallant warriors. Then, opening the Koran, he read the following verse: “O God, be thou my refuge in suffering, and my hope in affliction.” But the soldiers of Yezid were reluctant to assail the favorite grandson of the Prophet; they demanded of their generals to allow him to draw water from the Euphrates, a permission which would not have been refused to beasts and infidels. “Let us be cautious,” they exclaimed, “of raising our hands against him who was carried in the arms of God’s apostle. It would be, in fact, to fight against himself.” So strong were their feelings, that thirty cavaliers deserted to Hossein, resolved to share with him the glories of martyrdom.

But Yezid’s generals shared not in these sentiments. They affected to regard Hossein as an enemy of IslÁm. They forced their soldiers forward with blows, and exclaimed, “War to those who abandon the true religion, and separate themselves from the council of the faithful!” Hossein replied, “It is you who have abandoned the true religion; it is you who have severed yourselves from the assembly of the faithful. Ah! when your souls shall be separated from your bodies, you will learn too late which party has incurred the penalty of eternal condemnation.” Notwithstanding their vast superiority, the Caliph’s forces hesitated to engage men determined on death; they poured in their arrows from a distance, and soon dismounted the little troop of Hossein’s cavalry.

When the hour of noon arrived, Hossein solicited a suspension of arms during the time appointed for the meridian prayers. This boon was conceded with difficulty, the generals of Yezid asking “how a wretch like him could venture to address the Deity;” and adding the vilest reproaches, to which Hossein made no reply. The Persian traditions relate a fabulous circumstance, designed to exalt the character of Hossein, though fiction itself can not increase the deep interest of his history. They tell us that while he was upon his knees, the King of the Genii appeared to him, and offered, for the sake of his father Ali, to disperse his enemies in a moment. “No,” replied the generous Hossein, “what use is there in fighting any longer? I am but a guest of one breath in this transitory world; my relatives and companions are all gone, and what will it profit me to remain behind? I long for nothing now save my martyrdom; therefore depart thou, and may the Lord recompense and bless thee!” The genius was so deeply affected by the reply that his soul exhibited human weakness, and he departed weeping and lamenting.

When the hour of prayer was past, the combat was renewed. One of Hossein’s sons, and several of his nephews, lay dead around him; the rest of his followers were either killed or grievously wounded. Hitherto he had escaped unhurt, for every one dreaded to raise a hand against the grandson of Mohammed; at length a soldier, more daring than the rest, gave him a severe wound in the head. Faint with the loss of blood, he staggered to the door of his tent, and with a burst of parental affection, which at such a moment must have been mingled with unspeakable bitterness, took up his infant son, and began to caress him. While the little child was lisping out an inquiry as to the cause of his father’s emotion, it was struck dead by an arrow in Hossein’s arms. When the blood of the innocent, bubbling over his bosom, disclosed this new calamity, Hossein held up the body toward heaven, exclaiming, “O Lord! if thou refusest us thy succor, at least spare those who have not yet sinned, and turn thy wrath upon the heads of the guilty.” Parched by a burning thirst, Hossein made a desperate effort to reach the banks of the Euphrates, but, when he stooped to drink, he was struck by an arrow in the mouth, and at the same moment one of his nephews, who came to embrace him for the last time, had his hand cut off by the blow of a sabre. Hossein, now the sole survivor of his party, threw himself into the midst of the enemy, and fell beneath a thousand weapons. The officers of Yezid barbarously mangled the corpse of the unfortunate prince; they cut off his head, and sent it to the Caliph.

The escort who guarded it on its way to the court of Yezid, halting for the night in the city of Mosul, placed the box which contained it in a mosque; one of the sentinels, in the middle of the night hearing a noise within, looked through a chink in the door, and saw a gigantic figure, with a venerable white beard, take the head of Hossein out of its box, kiss it with reverence, and weep over it, a crowd of venerable personages following his example, and weeping bitterly at the same time. Fearing that some of his partisans had gained admittance, and that they would carry away the head which he was guarding, he unlocked the door and entered the mosque, upon which one of the figures he had seen approached, and, giving him a blow upon the cheek, exclaimed, “The prophets have come to pay obeisance to the head of the martyr: whither dost thou venture with such disrespect?” In the morning he related what had happened to his commander, the impression of the hand and fingers of the ancient prophet being still visible on his cheek.

The head of Hossein, and that of his brother Hassan, repose under a mosque of the highest sanctity at Cairo: it is called the mosque of Hassanen. Another mosque in the same city covers with its dome the remains of SittÉ, or the lady Zeinab, their sister, who was famous for her beauty: her shrine is now visited with great devotion by the ladies and women of her faith. The headless body of Hossein was buried upon the spot where he fell, while above it afterward arose the present place of pilgrimage, so much resorted to by the Shiah sect.

The Persian fanatics of Kerbela had long declined paying the accustomed taxes to the Turkish government. Their insolent behavior had been a constant source of anger and difficulty to successive Pashas of Bagdad. At last the present Pasha was determined to enforce the law: after sending various letters to the town requesting payment of taxes and arrears, which were treated with ridicule and contempt, he gave orders to a general called Aboullabout Pasha, who appears to have been a Sooni of the most orthodox kind, to march an army of several thousand men to compel the people of Kerbela to acknowledge the rule of the Sultan. Aboullabout Pasha arrived accordingly, and pitched his camp in a grove of palms not far from the walls of the city. He brought four guns with him, and a number of topgis, or gunners, to work these instruments of destruction, if the Persians in the town did not choose to obey his commands. These impertinent fanatics treated the Turkish Pasha and his army with derision; rode out in the cool of the evening to look at the encampment, called the Turks grandsons and great grandsons of dogs, whom they would soon pack off to their kennels at Bagdad and Constantinople.

It seems that, trusting in the sanctity of the golden dome, they did not imagine that the Turks would dare to advance to extremities, particularly as several royal princesses and members of the family of the Shah had taken up their abode in the vicinity of the tomb of the Imaum. However, the four guns and the topgis advanced to a position near the walls, and the Pasha sent a civil note to the insurgents within, to say that he would trouble them to pay his little bill; at the very notion of which the Persians were seized with fits of laughter, they were so much amused at the idea of paying away their money to the Turks. After several demands for their surrender, the town was blockaded, and the Persians made various sallies on the Turkish lines, in which they were always repulsed, and, all warnings being disregarded, the four guns at last proceeded to business. The walls tumbled down immediately, the Turks walked in, the Persians ran away, making very little effectual resistance, and fire and the sword, plunder and outrage of all kinds, took place in every quarter of the devoted city. When the Turkish troops entered the town, Aboullabout Pasha, who took it all in a religious point of view, had his carpet spread upon a bastion close above the breach, and having cursed Hassan and Hossein, Sitti Zeinab and Ali, offered ten shillings a piece for the heads of any of their followers; and then went quietly to prayers for the rest of the morning, without making any effort to stop the horrors and excesses which occur when a city has been taken by storm. The accounts of the shocking outrages and barbarities committed by the brutal soldiery are not fit to be repeated. When the town was pillaged, and every thing had been seized that they could lay their hands upon, those who had not been fortunate in lighting upon any treasure, or any thing worth taking away, bethought themselves of the manner in which profit and amusement might be combined, by cutting off every one’s head that they could meet with, and taking it up to the pious old Pasha, who continued praying on his carpet on the bastion. When Persian heads became difficult to find, not being particular, a great many Turks were shot and decapitated by their fellow-soldiers, for the sake of their heads, the fraternal feeling of nationality and Sooniism not being calculated to resist the offer of one ducat per head. If this had been suffered to continue, it is probable that the state of affairs would have resembled that of the celebrated battle between the two Kilkenny cats, who ate each other up entirely with the exception of a small piece of fluff. When the massacre was stopped, 22,000 persons were reported to have been slain. This was very much exaggerated, no doubt, and it does not appear that a very correct account could be made out. A most curious and interesting report was afterward drawn up on this subject by Colonel Farrant, who was deputed by the British government to proceed to Kerbela for the purpose of pacifying the contending parties, and inquiring into the truth and extent of this terrible disaster.

This was the first subject which the congress assembled to discuss measures of amity and mutual confidence between Turkey and Persia had brought before them—one not precisely calculated to insure that calmness of debate and general good-will which all wanted to establish.

In course of time matters calmed down; things were what is called explained. We were all wonderfully civil to each other, and the Turkish and Persian followers of their respective plenipotentiaries did not express their private opinions of each other’s merits till they got home and shut the door.

Gradually they became more used to one another’s ways, and the commissioners worked like special constables to keep the peace—and very hard work they had; and it is wholly and entirely owing to their exertions that the Koordish tribes upon the frontiers, and the wild spirits on both sides who were ready to back them up, were kept down for more than ten years, during which time commerce has been enlarged, the roads have been safe, and the Christian and agricultural population from Bussora to Mount Ararat have enjoyed a tranquillity and prosperity unknown in the memory of man.