ON THE PERSIAN FRONT

8 February.—A "platteforme" having been found for my car, I and M. Ignatieff of the Red Cross started for Baku to-day. We found our little party at the MÉtropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is Consul. They are quite charming people, and their little flat was open to us all the time we were at Baku.

The place itself is wind-blown and fly-blown and brown, but the harbour is very pretty, with its crowds of shipping, painted with red hulls, which make a nice bit of colour in the general drab of the hills and the town. There are no gardens and no trees, and all enterprise in the way of town-planning and the like is impossible owing to the Russian habit of cheating. They have tried for sixteen years to start electric trams, but everyone wants too much for his own pocket. The morals become dingier and dingier as one gets nearer Tartar influence, and no shame is thought of it. Most of the stories one hears would blister the pages of a diary. When a house of ill-fame is opened it is publicly blessed by the priest!

Kasvin. 18 February..—We spent a week at Baku and grumbled all the time, although really we were not at all unhappy. The MacDonells were always with us, and we had good games of bridge with Ignatieff in the evenings. We went to see the oil city at Baku, and one day we motored to the far larger one further out. One of the directors, an Armenian, went with us, and gave us at his house the very largest lunch I have ever seen. It began with many plates of zakouska (hors d'oeuvres), and went on to a cold entrÉe of cream and chickens' livers; then grilled salmon, with some excellent sauce, and a salad of beetroot and cranberries. This was followed by an entrÉe of kidneys, and then we came to soup, the best I have ever eaten; after soup, roast turkey, followed by chicken pilau, sweets and cheese. It was impossible even to taste all the things, but the Georgian cook must have been a "cordon bleu."

On February 16th one of the long-delayed cars arrived, and we were in ecstasies, and took our places on the steamer for Persia; but the radiator had been broken on the way down, and Mrs. Wynne was delayed again. I started, as my car was arranged for, and had to go on board. Also, I found I could be of use to Mr. Scott of the Tehran Legation, who was going there. We travelled on the boat together, and had an excellent crossing to Enzeli, a lovely little port, and then we took my car and drove to Resht, where Mr. and Mrs. McLaren, the Consul and his wife, kindly put us up. Their garden is quiet and damp; the house is damp too, and very ugly. There are only two other English people (at the bank) to form the society of the place, and it must be a bit lonely for a young woman. I found the situation a little tragic.

We drove on next day to this place (Kasvin), and Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin were good enough to ask us to stay with them. The big fires in the house were very cheering after our cold drive in the snow. The moonlight was marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the snow. All of them wore bells which jingled softly. Around us were the weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the snow, and the chiming camels I shall never forget.

Captain Rhys Williams was also at the Goodwins; and as he was in very great anxiety to get to Hamadan, I offered to take him in my car, and let Mr. Scott do the last stage of the journey in the Legation car to Tehran. We were delayed one day at Kasvin, which was passed very pleasantly in the sheltered sunny compound of the house. My little white bedroom was part of the "women's quarters" of old days, and with its bright fire at night and the sun by day it was a very comfortable place in which to perch.

Hamadan. 24 February.—Captain Williams and I left Kasvin at 8 a.m. on February 19th.

I had always had an idea that Persia was in the tropics. Where I got this notion I can't say. As soon as we left sheltered Kasvin and got out on to the plains the cold was as sharp as anything I have known. Snow lay deep on every side, and the icy wind nearly cut one in two. We stopped at a little "tschinaya" (tea-house), and ate some sandwiches which we carried with us. I also had a flask of Sandeman's port, given me last Christmas by Sir Ivor Maxwell. I think a glass of this just prevented me from being frozen solid. We drove on to the top of the pass, and arrived there about 3 o'clock. We found some Russian officers having an excellent lunch, and we shared ours and had some of theirs. We saw a lot of game in the snow—great coveys of fat partridges, hares by the score, a jackal, two wolves, and many birds. The hares were very odd, for after twilight fell, and we lit our lamps, they seemed quite paralysed by the glare, and used to sit down in front of the car.

We passed a regiment of Cossacks, extended in a long line, and coming over the snow on their strong horses. We began to get near war once more, and to see transport and guns. General Baratoff wants us up here to remove wounded men when the advance begins towards Bagdad.

The cold was really as bad as they make after the sun had sunk, and an icy mist enveloped the hills. We got within sight of the clay-built, flat Persian town of Hamadan about 10 p.m., but the car couldn't make any way on the awful roads, so I left Captain Williams at the barracks, and came on to the Red Cross hospital with two Russian officers, one a little the worse for drink.

With the genius for muddling which the Russians possess in a remarkable degree no preparations had been made for me. Rather an unpleasant Jew doctor came to the gateway with two nurses, and the officers began to flirt with the girls, and to pay them compliments. Some young Englishmen, one of whom was the British Consul, then appeared on the scene, so we began to get forward a little (although it seemed to me that we stood about in the snow for a terrible long time and I got quite frozen!). As it was then past midnight I felt I had had enough, so I made for the American missionary's house, which was pointed out to me, and he and his wife hopped out of bed, and, clad in curious grey dressing-gowns, they came downstairs and got me a cup of hot tea, which I had wanted badly for many hours. There was no fireplace in my room, and the other fires of the house were all out, but the old couple were kindness and goodness itself, and in the end I rolled myself up in my faithful plaid and slept at their house.

The next day—Sunday, the 20th—Mr. Cowan, the young Consul, and a Mr. Lightfoot, came round and bore me off to the Consulate. On Monday I began to settle in, but even now I find it difficult to take my bearings, as we have been in a heavy mountain fog ever since I got here. There is a little English colony, the bank manager, Mr. MacMurray, and his wife—a capable, energetic woman, and an excellent working partner—Mr. McLean, a Scottish clerk, a Mr. McDowal, also a Scot, and a few other good folk; whom in Scotland one would reckon the farmer class, but none the worse for that, and never vulgar however humbly born.

On Monday, the 21st, I called on the Russian element—Mme. Kirsanoff, General Baratoff, etc. They were all cordial, but nothing will convince me that Russians take this war seriously. They do the thing as comfortably as possible. "My country" is a word one never hears from their lips, and they indulge in masterly retreats too often for my liking. The fire of the French, the dogged pluck of the British, seem quite unknown to them. Literally, no one seems much interested. There is a good deal of fuss about a "forward movement" on this front; but I fancy that at Kermanshah and at —— there will be very little resistance, and the troops there are only Persian gendarmerie. No doubt the most will be made of the Russian "victory," but compared with the western front, this is simply not war. I often think of the guns firing day and night, and the Taubes overhead, and the burning towns of Flanders, and then I find myself living a peaceful life, with an occasional glimpse of a regiment passing by.

To Mrs. Charles Percival.

British Vice-Consulate,

Hamadan.

23 February, 1916.

My dearest Tabby,

We are buried in snow, and every road is a dug-out, with parapets of snow on either side. All journeys have to be made by road, and generally over mountain passes, where you may or may not get through the snow. One sees "breakdowns" all along the routes, and everywhere we go we have to take food and blankets in case of a camp out. I have had to buy a motor-car, and I got a very good one in Tiflis, but they are so scarce one has to pay a ransom for them. I am hoping it won't be quite smashed up, and that I shall be able to sell it for something when I leave.

Transport is the difficulty everywhere in these vast countries, with their persistent want of railways; so that the most necessary way of helping the wounded is to remove them as painlessly and expeditiously as possible, and this can only be done by motor-cars. Only one of Mrs. Wynne's ambulances has yet arrived, and in the end I came on here without her and Mr. Bevan. I was wanted to give a member of the Legation at Tehran a lift; and, still more important, I had to bring a soldier of consequence here. So long as one can offer a motor-car one is everybody's friend.

Yesterday I was in request to go up to a pass and fetch two doctors, who had broken down in the snow. The wind is often a hurricane, and I am told there will be no warm weather till May. I look at a light silk dressing-gown and gauze underclothing, and wonder why it is that no one seems able to tell one what a climate will be like. I have warm things too, I am glad to say, although our luggage is now of the lightest, and is only what we can take in a car. The great thing is to be quite independent. No one would dream of bringing on heavy luggage or anything of that sort, except, of course, Legation people, who have their own transport and servants.

On journeys one is kindly treated by the few Scottish people (they all seem to be Scots) scattered here and there. Everywhere I go I find the usual Scottish couple trying to "have things nice," and longing for mails from home. One woman was newly married, and had only one wish in life, and that was for acid drops. Poor soul, she wasn't well, and I mean to make her the best imitation I can and send them to her. They make their houses wonderfully comfortable; but the difficulty of getting things! Another woman had written home for her child's frock in August, and got it by post on February 15th. Cases of things coming by boat or train take far longer, or never arrive at all.

I shall be working with the Russian hospital here till our next move. There are 25 beds and 120 patients. Of course we are only waiting to push on further. The political situation is most interesting, but I must not write about it, of course. It is rather wonderful to have seen the war from so many quarters.

The long wait for the cars was quite maddening, but I believe it did me good. I was just about "through." Now I am in a bachelor's little house, full of terrier dogs and tobacco smoke; and when I am not at the hospital I darn socks and play bridge.

Now that really is all my news, I think. Empire is not made for nothing, and one sees some plucky lives in these out-of-the-way parts. I did not take a fancy to my host at one house where we stayed, and something made me think his wife was bullied and not very happy. A husband would have to be quite all right to compensate for exile, mud, and solitude. Always my feeling is that we want far more people—especially educated people, of course—to run the world; yet we continue to shoot down our best and noblest, and when shall we ever see their like again?

Always, my dear,

Your loving

S. Macnaughtan.

I hope to get over to Tehran on my "transport service," and there I may find a mail. Some people called ——, living near Glasgow, had nine sons, eight of whom have been killed in the war. The ninth is delicate, and is doing Red Cross work.

26 February.—On Tuesday a Jew doctor took my motor-car by fraud, so there had to be an enquiry, and I don't feel happy about it yet. With Russians anything may happen. I have begun to suffer from my chillsome time getting here, and also my mouth and chin are very bad; so I have had to lie doggo, and see an ancient Persian doctor, who prescribed and talked of the mission-field at the same time.

I am struck by one thing, which is so naÏvely expressed out here that it is very humorous, and that is the firm and formidable front which the best sort of men show towards religion. To all of them it means missionaries and pious talk, and to hear them speak one would imagine it was something between a dangerous disease and a disgrace. The best they can say of any clergyman (whom they loathe) or missionary, is, "He never tried the Gospel on with me." A religious young man means a sneak, and one who swears freely is generally rather a good fellow. When one lives in the wilds I am afraid that one often finds that this view is the right one, although it isn't very orthodox; but the pi-jaw which passes for religion seems deliberately calculated to disgust the natural man, who shows his contempt for the thing wholesomely as becomes him. He means to smoke, he means to have a whisky-peg when he can get it, and a game of cards when that is possible. His smoke is harmless, he seldom drinks too much, and he plays fair at all games, but when he finds that these harmless amusements preclude him from a place in the Kingdom of Heaven he naturally—if he has the spirit of a mouse—says, "All right. Leave me out. I am not on in this show."

27 February.—On Sunday one always thinks of home. I am rather inclined to wonder what my family imagine I am actually doing on the Persian front. No doubt some of my dear contemporaries saddle me with noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross, saying, "Don't let Miss Macnaughtan work yet." A typhus scare, I fancy. Such rot. But I am used now to hearing all the British out here murmur, "What can be the good of this long delay?"

I am still staying at the British Consulate. The Consul, Mr. Cowan, is a good fellow, and Mr. Lightfoot, his chum, is a real backwoodsman, full of histories of adventures, fights, "natives," and wars in many lands. He seems to me one of those headstrong, straight, fine fellows whom one only meets in the wilds. England doesn't agree with them; they haven't always a suit of evening clothes; but in a tight place one knows how cool he would be, and for yarns there is no one better. He tells one a lot about this country, and he knows the Arabs like brothers. Their system of communicating with each other is as puzzling to him as it is to everyone else. News travels faster among them than any messenger or post can take it. At Bagdad they heard from these strange people of the fall of Basra, which is 230 miles away, within 25 hours of its having been taken. Mr. Lightfoot says that even if he travels by car Arab news is always ahead of him, and where he arrives with news it is known already. Telegraphy is unknown in the places he speaks of, except in Bagdad, of course, and Persia owns exactly one line of railway, eight miles long, which leads to a tomb!

More important than any man here are the dogs—Smudge, Jimmy, and the puppy. Most of the conversation is addressed to them. All of it is about them.

28 February. A day on the Persian front.—I wake early because it is always so cold at 4 a.m., and I generally boil up water for my hot-water bottle and go to sleep again. Then at 8 comes the usual Resident Sahib's servant, whom I have known in many countries and in many climes. He is always exactly alike, and the Empire depends upon him! He is thin, he is mysterious. He is faithful, and allows no one to rob his master but himself. He believes in the British. He worships British rule, and he speaks no language but his own, though he probably knows English perfectly, and listens to it at every meal without even the cock of an ear! He is never hurried, never surprised. What he thinks his private idol may know—no one else does. His master's boots—especially the brown sort—are part of his religion. He understands an Englishman, and is unmoved by his behaviour, whatever it may be. I have met him in India, in Kashmir, at Embassies, in Consulates, on steamers, and I have never known his conduct alter by a hair's breadth. He is piped in red, and let that explain him, as it explains much else that is British. Just a thin red line down the length of a trouser or round a coat, and the man thus adorned is part of the Empire.

The man piped in red lights my fire every morning in Persia, and arranges my tub, and we breakfast very late because there is nothing to do on three days of the week—i.e., Friday, the Persian Sabbath, Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Sunday, the Armenian Sunday. On these three days neither bazaars nor offices are open. Business is at a standstill. The Consulate smokes pipes, develops photographs, and reads old novels. On the four busy days we breakfast at 10 o'clock, and during the meal we learn what the dogs have done during the night—whether Jimmy has barked, or Smudge has lain on someone's bed, or the puppy "coolly put his head on my pillow."

About 11 o'clock I, who am acting as wardrobe-mender to some very untidy clothes and socks, get to work, and the young men go to the town and appear at lunch-time. We hear what the local news is, and what Mr. MacMurray has said and Mr. McLean thought, and sometimes one of the people from the Russian hospital comes in. About 3 we put on goloshes and take exercise single-file on the pathways cut in the snow. At 5 the samovar appears and tea and cake, and we talk to the dogs and to each other. We dress for dinner, because that is our creed; and we burn a good deal of wood, and go to bed early.

Travel really means movement. Otherwise, it is far better to stay at home. I am beginning to sympathise with the Americans who insist upon doing two cities a day. We got some papers to-day dated October 26th, and also a few letters of the same date.

Unfinished Article on Persia found among Miss Macnaughtan's papers.

Persia is a difficult country to write about, for unless one colours the picture too highly to be recognisable, it is apt to be uninteresting even under the haze of the summer sun, while in wintertime the country disappears under a blanket of white snow. Of course, most of us thought that Persia was somewhere in the tropics, and it gives us a little shock when we find ourselves living in a temperature of 8 degrees below zero. The rays of the sun are popularly supposed to minimise the effect of this cold, and a fortnight's fog on the Persian highlands has still left one a believer in this phenomenon, for when the sun does shine, it does it handsomely, and, according to the inhabitants, it is only when strangers are here that it turns sulky. Be that as it may, the most loyal lover of Persia will have to admit that Persian mud is the deepest and blackest in the world, and that snow and mud in equal proportions to a depth of 8 inches make anything but agreeable travelling. Snow is indiscriminately shovelled down off the roofs of houses on to the heads of passers-by, and great holes in the road are accepted as the inevitable accompaniment to winter traffic.

In the bazaars—narrow, and filled with small booths, where Manchester cotton is stacked upon shelves—the merchants sit huddled up on their counters, each with a cotton lahaf (quilt) over him, under which is a small brazier of ougol (charcoal). In this way he manages to remain in a thawed condition, while a pipe consoles him for his little trade and the horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears. The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather, and women with veiled faces and long black cloaks pick their way through the mire. Throngs of donkeys, melancholy and overladen, their small feet sinking in the slush, may be with the foot-passengers. Some pariah dogs make a dirty patch in the snow, and a troop of Cossacks, their long cloaks spotted with huge snow-flakes, trot heavily through the narrow lanes.

But it is not only, nor principally, of climate that one speaks in Persia at the present time.

Persia has been stirring, if not with great events, at least with important ones, and at the risk of telling stale news, one must take a glance at the recent history of the country and its people. It is proverbial to say that Persia has been misgoverned for years. It is a country and the Persians are people who seem fated by circumstances and by temperament to endure ill-government. A ruler is either a despot or a knave, and frequently both. Any system of policy is liable to change at any moment. Property is held in the uneasy tenure of those who have stolen it, and a long string of names of rulers and politicians reveals the fact that most of them have made what they could for themselves by any means, and that perhaps, on the whole, violence has been less detrimental to the country than weakness.

The worst of it is that no one seems particularly to want the Deliverer—the great and single-minded leader who might free and uplift the country. Persia does not crave the ideal ruler; he might make it very unpleasant for those who are content and rich in their own way. It is this thing, amongst many others, which helps to make the situation in Persia not only difficult but almost impossible to follow or describe, and it is, above all, the temperament of the Persians themselves which is the baffling thing in the way of Persian reform. Yet reform has been spoken of loudly, and again and again in the last few years, and the reformation is generally known as the Nationalist or Young Persian Movement. To follow this Movement through its various ramifications would require a clue as plain and as clear as a golden thread, and the best we can do in our present obscurity is to give a few of the leading features.

The important and critical situation evident in Persia to-day owes its beginning to the disturbances in 1909, when the Constitutional Party came into power, forcibly, and with guns ready to train on Tehran, and when, almost without an effort, they obtained their rights, and lost them again with even less effort....

29 February.—The last day of a long month. The snow falls without ceasing, blotting out everything that there may be to be seen. To-day, for the first time, I realised that there are hills near. Mr. Lightfoot and I walked to the old stone lion which marks the gateway of Ekmadan—i.e., ancient Hamadan. I think the snow was rather thicker than usual to-day. Mr. Lightfoot and I went to Hamadan, plodding our way through little tramped-down paths, with snow three feet deep on either side. By way of being cheerful we went to see two tombs. One was an old, old place, where slept "the first great physician" who ever lived. In it a dervish kept watch in the bitter cold, and some slabs of dung kept a smouldering fire not burning but smoking. These dervishes have been carrying messages for Germans. Mysterious, like all religious men, they travel through the country and distribute their whispers and messages. The other tomb is called Queen Esther's, though why they should bury her at Ekmadan when she lived down at Shushan I don't know.

We went to see Miss Montgomerie the other day. She is an American missionary, who has lived at Hamadan for thirty-three years. She has schools, etc., and she lives in the Armenian quarter, and devotes her life to her neighbours. Her language is entirely Biblical, and it sounds almost racy as she says it.

There is nothing to record. Yesterday I cleaned out my room for something to do, and in the evening a smoky lamp laid it an inch thick in blacks. The pass here is quite blocked, and no one can come or go. The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared, with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it being sent to Enzeli; but the whole thing is a mystery, and is making me very anxious. There are no answers to any of my telegrams, and I am completely in the dark.

3 March.—I think that to be on a frozen hill-top, with fever, some boils, three dogs, and a blizzard, is about as near wearing down one's spirits as anything I know.

5 March, Sunday.—In bed all day, with the ancient Persian in attendance.

The Return of the Pilgrim.

This is not a story for Sunday afternoon. It is true for one thing, and Sunday afternoon stories are not, as a rule, true. They nearly all tell of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the Pilgrims, and that is why this parable is not for Sunday afternoon. I write it because I never knew a true thing yet that was not of use to someone. Most of us leave home when we are grown up. The people who never grow up stop at home. The journey and the outward-bound vision are the signs of an active mind stirring wholesomely or unwholesomely as the case may be. The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and comes back penitent, as we have heard a thousand million times. The Far Country is always barren, the husks of swine are the only food to be had, and bankruptcy is inevitable.

The story has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God wot; it gives many a man a wholesome fright, and keeps him at home, and its note of forgiveness for a wasted life has proved the salvation of many Prodigals.

But there is another journey, far more often undertaken by the young and by all those who needs must seek—the brave, the energetic, the good. It is towards a country distant yet ever near, and it lies much removed from the Far Country where swine feed. Its minarets stand up against a clear and cloudless sky, its radiancy shines from afar off. It is set on a hill, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carry torches! They have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with eager feet. Whatever anyone likes to say, it is a much more crowded path than the old trail towards the pigsty. At the first step of the journey stand Faith and Hope and Charity, and beyond are more wondrous things by far—Glory, Praise, Vision, Sacrifice, Heroism, sublime Trust, the Need-to-Give, and the Love that runs to help. And some of the Pilgrims—most of them—get there.

But there is a little stream of Pilgrims sometimes to be met with going the other way. They are returning, like the Prodigal, but there is no one to welcome them. Some are very tragic figures, and for them the sun is for ever obscured. But there are others—quite plain, sober men and women, some humorists, and some sages. They have honestly sought the Country, and they, too, have unfurled banners and marched on; but they have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords, and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered, do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and even Love has not been all that was expected. The Pilgrims return. Their poor tummies, too, are empty, but no calf is killed for them, there is no feasting and no joy. They stay at home, but neither Elder Son nor Prodigal has any use for them. In the end they turn out the light and go to sleep, regretting—if they have any humour—their many virtues, which for so long prevented them enjoying the pleasant things of life.

March.—I lie in bed all day up here amongst these horrible snows. The engineer comes in sometimes and makes me a cup of Benger's Food. For the rest, I lean up on my elbow when I can, and cook some little thing—Bovril or hot milk—on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this place! If only someone would send back my car, which has been taken away, or if I could hear where Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are! But no, the door of this odious place is locked, and the key is thrown away.

I have lost count of time. I just wait from day to day, hoping someone will come and take me away, though I am now getting so weak I don't suppose I can travel.

One wonders whether there can be a Providence in all this disappointment. I think not. I just made a great mistake coming out here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods, what a winter it has been—disillusioning, dull, hideously and achingly disappointing!

It is too odd to think that until the war came I was the happiest woman in the world. It is too funny to think of my house in London, which people say is the only "salon"—a small "salon," indeed! But I can hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations, and the press notices in their pink slips. Then the big lectures and the applause—the shouts when I come in. The joy, almost the intoxication of life, has been mine.

Of course, I ought to have turned back at Petrograd! But I thought all my work was before me, and in Russia one can't go about alone without knowing the way and the language of the people. Permits are difficult, nothing is possible unless one is attached to a body. And now I have reached the end—Persia! And there is no earthly use for us, and there are no roads.