A Journey Through Iran

A Journey Through Iran

Gentlemen of the nation!

Your servant Azad bids welcome to you gentlemen who have honoured this gathering, and wishes long life to the newspapers that congratulated him on his return from his journey. You have taken my short travels for the zeal of love of country and have praised and exalted them so much that I stand ashamed of how little service I have done.

The plain truth is only this: old age, with a sign of its staff, has shown the field to young and spirited men; that is, I cannot run. You run, for the stages of success are there at every step.

My whole stock of service is this much: I mounted the fire-breathing dragon at Lahore and rolled up the carpet of the earth. In two days and nights I alighted at Karachi. From there I sat on the steam crocodile and crossed the face of the water, and on the tenth day reached Bushehr. On the ship I had great fear of giddiness and an upset temper, for my constitution is bilious. But thank God, I did not even notice it. The chief reason is that my heart was so full of eagerness for the journey and of delight in riding on a ship that only when the ship had gone some miles out did I remember to ask whether those troubles had any effect on me. When I thought about it then, there was nothing at all.

Bushehr is a foreign country only in name. The Iranian officials treat us with far more consideration than their own people. The first new thing I noticed here was that little children at play spoke Persian like nightingales, and expressed themselves with such charm that I could only stare at their faces. Bushehr is a hot place. There was an abundance of dates. It was the season of pomegranates, but they were not so plentiful, and their delicacy and juiciness were less too. After waiting eight days I set out with a caravan, riding an Iranian pacer. For nine days, rolling up now mountain and now plain, I travelled until I alighted at Shiraz.

I had longed to see Shiraz. After a lifetime God fulfilled it. Good God! The beloved homeland of Khwaja Hafiz and Shaikh Sa'di, on which they offered the flowers of praise and blessing. Why should one not long to see it? I saw it, and saw it with wonder; for the splendour and prosperity of the Shiraz on which those radiant elders had showered light departed along with them. Now great, spacious, lofty old mosques and ancient colleges stand half fallen, bearing witness to the ambition of those who built them. In them young boys sit with books of morphology, syntax, rhetoric, jurisprudence and its principles before them, debating the questions of the book without the help of the book. The learned sprinkle the water of life on old bones by teaching the books of learning. It is worth knowing that there, unlike in India, students do not read sentence by sentence. The teacher sits with the book before him; the students sit silent with their books open. The teacher looks at the book and goes on explaining its meaning with great clarity and in full detail. The students go on listening. Each fills his lap with fruit and flowers as far as its width allows.

In short, this is now the state of the city of Shiraz: if you took away the grand, straight bazaar and the lofty and spacious mosque that Karim Khan Zand built a hundred years ago, the real Shiraz would remain an ordinary small town. A few years ago the Mushir-ul-Mulk too renewed the old city with a splendid mosque and caravanserai.

Nawab Mirza Ali Khan Sadr, the life of a nobleman of old family, is a source of prosperity for Shiraz, and his hospitality is an ancient title deed of that pure soil. He kept me as his guest for two days too. In spite of the means of a nobleman and his old age, whenever you look, books are piled around him. One or two mullas sit beside him. In the middle he is busy reading. He corrects texts. He writes marginal notes. A calligrapher scribe is completing defective books. A painter is painting. When it was time to eat, the cloth was spread right there beside him. He rose and first made a prostration of thanks. He picked up a loaf of bread and touched it to his eyes. Then he ate with everyone. This too was, as it were, a duty that he performed. Then he went and sat again in the circle of books.

Among the works of his late father are very large, bulky books. Some of them I bought in the bazaar. Of these it is right to present the treatise he wrote proving the motion of the earth. The honoured Nawab himself gave me a copy of it. That such ideas should have arisen in Asian learning forty years ago is proof of the purity of the soil of Fars.

In the same connection it is right to mention the skilled physician Haji Mirza Hasan. He has written a detailed history of Shiraz and named it *Farsnama*, and the nobility of his family I found fully proved from books. He is descended in the seventh generation from Khwaja Shah Mansur and in the fourth from Sayyid Ali Khan, master of eloquence. The works of Sayyid Ali Khan are famous throughout the world. Their details I keep in trust for my travel book.

The Hakim Sahib heard the news and came to Nawab Sadr's house. Though only one night remained before my departure, evening had fallen and drops were falling, he insisted on taking leave and took me to his home. All night he went on reading his book to me and consulting me on its contents. My notebook too drew capital from most of its contents.

It is a common custom among the people of Iran that the house of a respectable gentleman has a men's house attached. It is more richly furnished than the women's quarters, and everything needed is at hand. It often happens that a congenial friend comes in the morning to visit, says the noon prayer and takes his leave; or stays the night, has breakfast in the morning and takes his leave.

The people of Shiraz are still the picture of their forefathers in dress and manners. The learned and men of standing tie turbans and wear the *aba* (cloak). The men of old Turkish families wear caps of lambskin. The new fashions of Tehran have not yet found favour there.

In Shiraz I saw small cakes being sold, with which people washed their heads and beards. It is a kind of clay whose mine is near the city. It has a natural power of taking up scent. They clean it by keeping it among flowers, make it into cakes and sell it. People take it as a present to other cities. Its name is *gil-e-gul* (scented clay). I remembered my lesson from the *Gulistan*. A half-line:

"One day in the bath a fragrant clay..."

In the days when we read it, God knows what we understood. Later we kept thinking it a poet's fancy. Now I learned that it is the real gift of Shiraz. [TN: Sa'di, Gulistan, preface: "One day in the bath a fragrant clay came to my hand from a beloved's hand."]

The winter season was coming on, carrying a mountain of snow on its head. Old age, huddling in the quilt of fear, said, "You have seen Shiraz. Now see Isfahan and go on, for the stage of your search is still far off." My friends in Shiraz kept trying hard to stop me and frightening me with the cold on the road; but when the caravan set out, eagerness lifted me up and seated me in the camel litter. Every four or five *kos* there were caravanserais of Shah Abbas, still in use, whose solidity and size rivalled fortresses. In these caravanserais a traveller who has money finds every comfort he could wish: a chicken for four or five annas and two eggs for a pice, and every kind of fresh and dried fruit, of the finest quality and very cheap.

The road was full of running water and green villages. Wherever I halted, I went into the village and asked, and met whoever was a man of learning. Even in the smallest settlement there were one or two scholars, and some of them *mujtahids* (scholars qualified to give independent rulings in law). Their state filled me with wonder. For instance, one comes from the field carrying grass on his shoulder for his cow, or is washing clothes at the stream, or his boy is building the wall of the house. When he is free, he begins to teach him a lesson from the *Sharh-e-Lum'a* or the *Qawanin-ul-Usul*. When I asked them why they did not go to some city and spread learning, so that their work might also find a market, they said, "There one loses the pleasure of solitude, and peace of heart is disturbed. The world is for a few days. We will pass it, and pass on." This light of learning is common throughout the realm of Iran, spread by its former kings.

I used to say to them, "For you and me, life has passed as it has passed. Send the boys to Tehran and have them study at the Dar-ul-Funun, for the wind of the age has changed." Most of them would laugh and agree with me and say, "Tell them; it is their affair." Some began to argue and in the end agreed.

I had no cooking things with me. I would sit down right there and buy bread from some house, eggs from one place, ghee from another. I cooked *ashkana*, that is, an egg stew, dipped bread in it, ate, and gave thanks to God. This gave chances for much talk and many inquiries, and those people thought it part of hospitality to help me in this work, which is in truth a religious duty. In short, after twelve days I alighted at Isfahan. Before the city, the plain of Takht-e-Fulad came into view. Here the bodies without souls of thousands of elders of the faith and great men of the world have peopled a city of the silent. Mir Baqir Damad, God's mercy on him, master of the Yamani philosophy, sleeping in the dust, has kept his name alive. It was Thursday; hundreds of men and women had come to read the *Fatiha* at the graves. Gradually the city gate appeared, and a wide avenue opened before me, divided into five parallel avenues by high rows of white walls, plane trees that touched the sky, and two canals. Without meaning to I exclaimed, "Bravo, Safavid kings! If there is to be kingship, let it be like this."

Going several miles along this avenue I came to the broad river called the Zinda Rud. The whole region of Isfahan lives by it. Here, having read its name in books, I used to relish it; now I saw it. Although, after seeing English bridges, no bridge now impresses the eye, still its bridge is worth seeing.

The extent of the city of Isfahan is truly very great. It gave a fitting occasion to Persian exaggeration, so that the poets said:

"If there had been no Isfahan in the world,
The Creator of the world would have had no world."

Another said:

"They called Isfahan half the world;
They told but half the praise of Isfahan."

This city is a museum of the ambitions of the Safavid kings. What can I say of its magnificent buildings? I wandered from morning to evening and at night came and fell on my bed. I went to the tomb of Mulla Baqir Majlisi, God's mercy on him. It is a separate building in a corner of the Jama Masjid. In it father and son sleep side by side. Mullas recite the Quran there. I copied the inscriptions of their graves with great difficulty. This was a place to stay for months, but the fear of the cold did not let me stay more than five days. I also thought, "Keep going. We will pitch our tents in Tehran."

Travelling eight stages from Isfahan I reached Kashan. The craft of its velvet weavers still makes its name shine. The shrine of the godly scholar Mulla Muhsin Kashani, God's mercy on him, is still a place of resort for high and low. I stayed here three days. On the fourth day I reached the city of Qum. Here is the holy shrine of the sister of the king of this world and the faith, the eighth Imam, Ali ibn Musa al-Riza, and a royal court is held there day and night. Several famous and honoured scholars are there. Shaikh Ibn Babawayh of Qum, God's mercy on him, is buried here. Several times a day I would go and sit at his grave and receive blessing. On the surface at the head of the grave is engraved in porcelain letters the rescript (decree) that came to him from the Lord of the Age. I copied it with great care. Three other holy men are buried here who were in the Imam's train on his journey to Tus, and often rode in the other pannier of his camel litter. I have brought copies of the inscriptions of their graves too. Muhammad Shah, the father of the present Shah, and Fath Ali Shah, his grandfather, are buried here. Their portraits are engraved on their graves with fine workmanship.

Having travelled fifteen stages from Isfahan I entered Tehran. People call it the capital of Iran; but in truth, by the blessing of the Shah's ambition, it is today the capital of learning and the arts, of civilisation, wealth and fortune. Leaving the details to my travel book, I will say briefly that formerly Isfahan and Qazvin were the royal capitals. Fath Ali Shah, considering the interests of the country, founded a city at the foot of Mount Damavand and made it the capital. Its life as a city is not more than a hundred years. The ancient city of Rayy lies in ruins beside it, three or four miles away. The bazaars of Tehran are roofed, and the mosques and splendid colleges too are built in the style of the ancient cities. Since the Shah, glorious as Jamshid, came back from his journey to Europe and spread light through his country and realm, he has built a splendid palace outside the city and named it the Shams-ul-Imara. Beside it he has built the college called the Dar-ul-Funun, which ought to be called a university. The style of the building too is English. In it French, English and Russian teachers teach languages, sciences and arts, and newly educated Iranians too have become teachers.

Beside this building are the house of authorship, the house of translation, the house of printing (the press), the house of justice and so on. Next to it is the parade ground (for military drill). From there wide roads run for miles in four directions. On both sides of the roads are open (unroofed) bazaars. On both sides are uniform shops and small houses of merchants and craftsmen. In them people of Iran and Europe live, and on the road Iranian nobles drive about horses and carriages of every colour.

My chief purpose on this journey was the search for books, and more than that, to gather material for a comprehensive dictionary of Persian. So as soon as I arrived I began to look for the places that would serve my purpose. Good fortune first brought me into the presence of the noble prince Mu'tamad-ud-Daula, Nawab Farhad Mirza. He is a man of learning, of excellence and of ambition, experienced in government, a prince of the age, the worthy son of the regent Abbas Mirza, grandson of Fath Ali Shah, who now dwells in paradise, and uncle of the Shah, glorious as Jamshid. Besides the qualities mentioned he is devout and most abstinent. Yet with all this he is cheerful, smiling, radiant of face, and keeps his courts of government and his gatherings of scholars blooming with good humour. I always attended his learned gatherings as he bade me. At my leave-taking he gave me a portrait too, and two copies each of the books that he had written himself or had had printed at his request and with his corrections. He said, "Keep them as a memento in the Azad Library." Although old age and mental labour have made him very weak, he is still always writing. Several scholars are in his employ. They too are busy with learned work. Any case at the Shah's court that concerns learning, or any tangled affair of state, is settled with his advice. His library is famed as unequalled in all Iran. His elder son had gone to Prussia for treatment of his eyes. The younger, that is, Ihtisham-ul-Mulk Abd-ul-Ali Mirza, was there; at about twenty-five or twenty-six he is an accomplished scholar, but he has a great love of theology. He has twice taught the *Sharh-e-Isharat*. He speaks French well and has acquired the new sciences of Europe through it. He is passionately fond of poetry. He writes in the old style and writes well. He treated me with heartfelt kindness and helped me to attain my aims. From him too I gained much benefit in the study of words.

Through the radiant prince I met most of the learned and waited upon the nobles; especially the nobleman of old family Nawab Mukhbir-ud-Daula (2), the Minister of Education. His late father, Riza Quli Khan Lala Bashi, was tutor to many princes. He wrote the *Anjuman-ara-e-Nasiri*, a comprehensive dictionary of Persian; the *Tazkira-e-Fusaha-e-Fars* on the art of poetry; and the *Rauzat-us-Safa-e-Nasiri* in history. Each of these bulky books is a monument of its field, and the details of his smaller books can be learned from the preface of the *Tazkira-tul-Fusaha*. Mukhbir-ud-Daula Bahadur has four sons, so dutiful that if God gives sons, may He give such sons. All four have enlightened their minds with the sciences of the West; one has come back with a degree from Paris, another from Berlin, and so on. The eldest son is Director of the Telegraph Department. His full brother is Principal of the Dar-ul-Funun college. All are courteous, affectionate and spirited. I stayed three months in Tehran and went to them every day and received the benefit of their study of words and of their books. These young noblemen, in spite of their wealth and their youth, would sit down with dictionaries and attend to my work with such affection, as if they were doing their own duty. How far can I read out the list of their kindness and favour? When I was about to leave, they wrote me a general letter of instruction, that wherever any need arose I should go to the telegraph office and show it there; if the matter could not be settled there, I should wire them; and I should send them news of my well-being from every place.

In Tehran there is Manekji Sahib, a Parsi, a man of learning, courteous and honest. He has taken upon himself the protection and support of his community. Wherever there are Parsis in the cities of Iran and in the lands of India and their affairs concern the court of Iran, he takes charge of them. And in their disputes among themselves his word is always accepted. He has a proper office and keeps two clerks. He goes on writing something too. The Shah's full favour is bestowed on him. I often met him and gained learned benefit. He valued my labour and my zeal for research beyond measure. He gave me an address of thanks, which I regard as a title deed of pride. He also often helped me in the needs of travel. For a gold coin for which the bazaar gave thirteen *qirans*, he would send it to his Parsi brothers and seventeen *qirans* would come back. On a hundred-rupee note the bazaar charged a discount of ten *qirans*; he had it sold at a discount of five.

I met Mirza Riza Khan Afshar Begeshlu. His title is Dabir-e-Dabiran (chief of secretaries), and he is chief interpreter for the Iranian government at Istanbul. He has a perfect command of Persian vocabulary. He knows French and Turkish well too. He is striving to make pure Persian current everywhere in Persia. We had several meetings. But in my poor opinion his effort differs on one point. He says that everyone should be ready from this very day to scrape Arabic words off their tongues and bring the old Persian into use. I said, "The class of the *ulama* is entirely opposed to us, and the public has not yet understood our purpose. If all writing and all ordinary business were suddenly carried on under this restriction, the public would be alarmed, and right would be on their side. For there are hundreds of Persian words that have quite vanished from the language, and Arabic words are doing their work in their place. For thousands there are Persian words, but they are not in use. That every person in the smallest task should seek the help of a dictionary for word after word is impossible; and if he does not look, the work stops. In such a state the *ulama*, who are our strong rivals, will win, and great harm will come to our work."

My poor opinion is this: as far as possible, put Persian words in place of Arabic, and put those that are still familiar to the ears of high and low. Where the original Persian word for an Arabic word is not found, let the Arabic remain for the present, or express the meaning from some other side in familiar Persian words. When the people of the country learn the wisdom of our purpose and the warmth of patriotism runs through their hearts, all will of their own accord agree with our aim. We should take the help of the newspapers too in spreading this idea, and should bring this petition before the Shah's exalted presence, since the royal house of authorship is attending to the reform of prose style. In reply Mirza Sahib said, "We should go steadfastly about our work, whether anyone accepts it or not." He presented two of his treatises, *Alif-ba-e-Behruzi* and *Parvaz* (*Root*), to the Azad Library.

In Tehran, indeed in all Iran, there is no poet devoted wholly to poetry who has planted the banner of the art and settled down; and this is proof that as civilisation advances, poetry declines. The son of Lisan-ul-Mulk (author of the *Nasikh-ut-Tawarikh*) writes *qasidas* well. He knows the principles and the branches, is acquainted with all the requirements of Arabic and Persian; his temper is balanced and fitting and his verse very powerful. But only once in years, when the fancy takes him, does he write a *qasida*. He writes prose well too, but in the same old style. He plays with words and makes a show of Arabic vocabulary; probably that is why he is not taken into the house of translation and the house of authorship. He receives his father's pension, is completing the *Nasikh-ut-Tawarikh*, and writes whatever his own temper advises. Mirza Furughi, chief translator of the house of translation, is expert in French. He writes both *qasida* and *ghazal* well, but has not sat down to this work in earnest. What is the reason? The same point: the Shah, the Shah's court and all men of understanding, influenced by civilisation, have come to desire sciences and arts. Then on whose hope should one marry poetry and settle down? Mirza Mushtari of Mashhad is in Tehran. He is an eloquent poet. He has no full mastery of Arabic, nor that rank in the sciences. He writes few *qasidas* and *ghazals*. His temper inclines more to satire and ribaldry. He is good-humoured, good company and cheerful. All these joys are kept up by the patronage of certain nobles; otherwise God alone is his keeper.

I had two great needs for staying in Tehran: first, books; second, the study of words; and for these tasks however long I stayed would have been too short. The thirst of my eagerness would not be quenched by any means. The winter season and illness were great helpers in this delay. For three months I was busy at the work with great effort. When both the greater and the lesser *chilla* (the forty days of deepest winter and the twenty that follow) had passed, I grew anxious that little of my leave was left; and even if there were leave, two and a half rupees a day were being cut.

At last, when the very last snow had fallen, I packed the provisions of eagerness and the caravan of devotion and set out for holy Mashhad. Travelling six stages I reached the city of Semnan. I had read in books that the poetry of Semnan and the pomegranates of Semnan are the gifts of this place, and I had heard from learned and trustworthy friends in India that Mirza Yaghma, whose study of the language and power of temper had no equal a few years ago, had a house in Semnan too. I went into the city and inquired. I learned that his middle and youngest sons were alive. I looked, and both were sitting in a shop making brass hookahs and turning hookah bowls on the lathe. I was very sorry. A half-line:

"If you want your father's inheritance, learn your father's learning."

I had heard that the late Mirza had begun a book on lexicography too. I asked; what would the poor boys know? They said, "That was the work of our eldest brother." I was sorrier still and said, "Well, if the son has taken possession of the father's property, that is the father's good fortune, provided it is done with ability."

On the fifth day I found Damghan in a worse state than that, and Shahrud the worst of all. A league and a half to the right of Shahrud is the town of Bistam, which was once the home of Hazrat Bayazid Bistami, God's mercy on him. Love of the name drew me there. Only a village is left. Sabzavar: only the shrines of the holy men are left. I had thought much of Nishapur. I wept bitterly over it. All was ruin and lay in heaps.

From here, at the fourth stage, I was honoured with the pilgrimage to holy Mashhad. I stayed twelve days. If I told its story a bulky book would be made. I will say briefly that the villages and properties granted as endowments by former kings still continue. No king has been able to reduce them; each has thought it his good fortune to increase them. Their income is not less than twelve lakh rupees a year. Salaries of scholars and students, stipends for the poor, and daily meals for the pensioners are paid from it. Every pilgrim is the guest of his holiness for fifteen days, and for an Indian there is no limit: as long as he stays, he may eat from his holiness's kitchen. About three hundred people eat every day: a plate of *pulao*, a loaf of bread, and a stew with it.

The library attached to the holy shrine is a treasury of the sciences and arts, full of rare and wonderful books. Former kings and nobles sent fine, rare books to it and so laid up a store for the next world. I have brought a catalogue of them.

This holy place is a market for the trade of Iran, Turkestan, Afghanistan and India, so its caravanserais are full and its bazaars thriving. The Upper Avenue and the Lower Avenue, two long bazaars, are most delightful in their breadth. A canal runs down the middle. On both sides are wealthy shopkeepers, and the shops are rich with goods. (What we call a road they call there a *khiyaban*.) The cheapness of grain here, indeed the abundance of every commodity, is astonishing. Such is the mildness of the air that Nauroz had already passed, yet bunches of last year's grapes were hanging in the bazaars. Some had shrivelled, some were sound and fresh.

I saw the tombs of many kings and princes. Harun al-Rashid, the head of the Abbasid caliphs, sleeps beneath the holy dome. Seeing the tomb of Nadir I took warning. God is great! That Nadir from whose sword there was no safety, at the rush of whose horse armies flew like straw, lies on a broken platform. There is a *qapankhana* there, where trade goods are weighed (*qapan*, a great balance).

Among the scholars, Shaikh Baha-ud-Din Amili, Shaikh Hurr Amili and Shaikh Tabarsi, God's mercy on them, are buried here. I went to the graves of these holy men, read the *Fatiha* and took copies of the inscriptions. At the grave of Shaikh Baha'i, God's mercy on him, I had the chance to read the *Fatiha* two or three times a day. Among poets it is necessary to name Firdausi, Asadi and Tusi, for they are buried there. I stayed twelve days in this blessed and holy place. From here there are two roads to India:

(1) By way of Nehbandan and Kerman it reaches Bandar Abbas. The whole road is flat, bare, uninhabited desert. At the port one boards a ship and lands at Karachi.

(2) By Herat and Kandahar one comes to Quetta, boards the railway and enters Lahore. I heard that from Mashhad it is eight days to Herat, and from Herat twelve or fourteen days to Kandahar.

From Kandahar they reach Quetta in five days. There is, however, danger on the road from the Afghans, so merchants come and go by the port road. I also heard that the Amir Sahib has now ordered his country so tightly and well as never before. On the Bandar Abbas road I saw the length of the distance, and there was no caravan at hand either; fifteen or twenty days of waiting lay ahead. Trusting in the Amir Sahib's justice and administration, and relying on God, I set out. On the Herat road our caravan was of camels. At the third stage sleep made a night raid of heedlessness on me. I fell from the camel and broke a rib. Divine power did the surgery: it knit by itself and healed. The knot is still there.

A few years ago this road was so dangerous because of the Turkmens that with every caravan a detachment of troops and some guns came from Mashhad, and the Amir's troops went out from Herat, took over the caravan halfway and brought it into Herat. Since the troops of the Indian government went directly to Baluchistan for the boundary settlement, the Russians have restrained the Turkmens. Now there is no worry day or night. Travellers come and go freely.

On the road between Mashhad and Herat came Jam, the home of Maulana Jami (1). Only a ruined small town remains. Here is the grave of Hazrat Shaikh-e-Jam; Shah Abbas built a splendid building over it. I went too, read the *Fatiha* and earned merit. From one of its inscriptions I learned that Mir Ma'sum Bhakkari rebuilt his shrine in the year 1011. [TN: AH, that is 1602–03.] Seeing the Mir's name my heart was as glad as if I had met a friend in a foreign land; for the Mir and I had met at the court of Akbar (he too was among Akbar's nobles). He was himself the author of a history of Kandahar, and shared in the *Tabaqat-e-Akbari* with Nizam-ud-Din Bakhshi. Akbar's mother was of the line of Shaikh Ahmad-e-Jam. It would be no wonder if he did this by Akbar's order, or built it himself to repay the debt of salt.

On the very day I reached Herat, the deputy Kotwal came and said, "You will have to go to the commander-in-chief." I asked the reason. He was a well-meaning gentleman of the Qizilbash community. He said, "There is no cause for worry; every traveller has to go. After the noon prayer I will come and take you." Accordingly he came as he had promised, took me and presented me before Faramarz Khan, the commander-in-chief. He asked, "Have you a pass?" I had with me a sealed certificate from Mirza Abbas Khan, the government's resident agent at Mashhad. I produced it; he had it read out, listened, and said, "This seal is genuine." I said, "My hands tremble presenting even a genuine document before your honour; who could present a forged paper?" He said, "Very well. Take a pony and be on your way." A fakir and a half-mad man, also newly arrived travellers, were brought before him. One had a pass; he was ordered to go on his way. The other had none; he had come from Bukhara. The order was, "Go back the way you came." The city of Herat was the pleasure garden of past kings; but for fifty or sixty years such an ill-omened star has risen over it that the revolutions of kingdoms have made it a racecourse. I had read the account of its ancient buildings in various books, especially in the *History of Herat*. The places whose descriptions made one remember the power of God have now been wiped clean away. Great scholars and famous authors, among them Imam Fakhr-ud-Din Razi, author of the *Tafsir-e-Kabir*, and Mulla Husain Kashifi, author of the *Tafsir-e-Husaini*, in short, how many names shall I name, who gathered there through the patronage of fortunate kings, have all become one with its dust.

Within a magnificent dome, now lying in ruins, I saw six cenotaphs side by side. Their carving should be called inlay work. In them several sons and grandsons of Amir Timur lie asleep. Sultan Husain Baiqara is buried there. Among them is Gauhar Shad Begam, Timur's daughter-in-law, whose mosque is in holy Mashhad and is counted among the wonders of the buildings of the world. I have brought copies of all their inscriptions.

Four or five *kos* from the city is the shrine of Khwaja Abu'l-Walid. Many people go to visit it. They say he came in the early days of Islam. From history I learned that his name was Ahmad Abu Raja. He had adorned his outer and inner life with righteousness, learning and excellence, and had full mastery of *hadith*.

Gazurgah, three or four *kos* from the city, is a famous place, and the graves of many scholars and nobles are there. The shrine of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari is there too. *Fat* is the chronogram of his death. [TN: The letters of *fat* (فات) add up to 481, the year AH of his death.] Amir Dost Muhammad Khan is buried there, and Sultan Jan, the son of the Amir's elder brother Muhammad Azim Khan and the Amir's own son-in-law, who was governor of Herat for twenty-five years. His wife, that is, the Amir's daughter, has her grave there too. The Amir made war and took Herat; his grandson was killed in that very battle, and he too is buried there. Then: today Sultan Jan died; tomorrow Herat was taken. Today Herat was taken; tomorrow the Amir died. Both were men of full courage. The one did not leave Herat while breath remained in him; the other did not give up his life until he had taken Herat.

I went and saw the grave of Maulana Jami. The enclosure lies broken and ruined. The grave is very broad and long. Once many prayers and *ghazals* were engraved in fine script on the marble slabs of the cenotaph and around the grave; now it is all a heap of stones. Here and there a half-line of verse can be read; the rest is God's alone. The grave of his dear pupil Hamdam is there too. A true *hamdam* (companion) is one who is not parted even in death.

As soon as I came to Herat I had begun to look for a caravan. On the fourth day I settled terms with a caravan leader, and he said, "We will leave the day after tomorrow." But alas, between tomorrow and the day after, twenty-eight full days passed. Here each hour was a mountain to me; and what was hardest of all was that everyone, from child to old man and from brave soldier to old woman, questioned me, and questioned within questions. Then he would change his look and say, "Where have you come from? Why have you come? By what road did you come? What have you brought? Why have you brought books? Why have you brought so many books? What will you do with them? What books are these? Books of what sciences? Why did you come by this road? Why are you sitting here? By what road will you go? Why are you going by that road?" God, Your protection! I was at my wits' end, I burned and burned and could do nothing. A thousand blessings on the land of Iran, where I stayed many months, wandered from place to place and mixed with everyone. I asked every kind of question and wrote it down. They told me and were glad. They never let any suspicion into their hearts.

The road to Kandahar, which we had thought twelve or fourteen stages, took twenty-six days to cover; for the whole country lies desolate. The peasants live in *ghizhdis* (black tents). Wherever they see water, they pitch their blankets and settle down. They sow what they need, reap it, and sit and eat it wherever they please, so as not to pay revenue. In our caravan there were a hundred and two ponies and donkeys, besides scattered travellers. Wherever we heard of a green plain and running water, we went that way, even if it meant a detour; and wherever we found green grass we halted, even if we had covered less than the usual distance.

Everyone had packed provisions, and when we met the tent-dwellers, if we could get them, they would take flour and ghee from them, and barley for the horses and donkeys. People like me had bought needles, thimbles, combs, collyrium, black pepper and dry ginger in the city. If bread, milk, curds, ghee, buttermilk and the like were to be had from them, we bought them; for they do not deal in money, they barter for the things mentioned. They will also trade for a rupee or so, for they cannot give more than three or four seers of flour or barley. I had no cooking things, so I had had a lot of bread baked and took it with me. On the fifth day it went bad. I dried it. At one place the donkey sat down in water and it got soaked. Wherever I had the chance I had more baked, and ate it dried, ten or fifteen days old, with gulps of water. The others cooked and ate together as they went; ghee, rice, flour and so on were packed with them. They would not let me touch their food or water, saying it would become impure. In several places people stood ready with stones to strike me, saying, "He is an unbeliever." Yet when I had milk, curds or something else to eat and offered it, they took it. From this and many other things I became convinced that their harshness had no real cause. They know that the people of India have money, and they want to take it by pressing them in any way they can; if they get a pretext, they would even kill. The courtesy and kindness of the officials and chiefs everywhere, however, deserve thanks, and this is proof that the Amir Sahib himself has a true alliance with the British government and heartfelt kindness for British subjects.

Arriving at Kandahar I had to stay five days. Here too the same nuisances were present. They would stop a man walking along and say, "Come, come, sit down, let us have a chat with you." I would say, "I am a traveller, I have business, excuse me." They would catch hold of one in the road and say, "Where have you come from, where are you going?" One day I lost my temper. Two men met me in the bazaar and asked the same. I said, "I have come from India and am going back to India." Then they asked, "Why did you come?" I got angry too and said, "You tell me why you are asking." One took me by the arm and said, "Don't you know we can seize you and take you before the Amir Sahib? You are a spy of the Firangis." I said, "Very good. I shall say: Amir Sahib, we are travellers; we came to your country, ate your salt, found rest; we pray for you and go our way. It is these men who now boast of wishing you well; when the Firangi army came they went over to it and took service, and sold an egg for four rupees and a hen for two; and again, when Ayub Khan comes, they will write a *fatwa* that you are an unbeliever." When I said this, one looked at the other and said, "Let him go," and to me he said, "Go, go." Another man was coming from the other way; putting me off, they began to talk to him. I laughed and said, "Now kindly tell me your honoured names." Angrily they said, "Go, go, father, go!" When I insisted they told me their names, God knows whether true or false. I said, "In which quarter do you live?" The third man asked the first, "What plague is this?" The first said, "What can I say? He is that bear: I let go of him, but he won't let go of me." [TN: The whole exchange is in Persian in the original.]

In short, after staying five days there I paid twelve rupees in fare instead of ten and set out for Quetta, for I knew that two and a half rupees a day were being cut. What shall I say of the road? The same plagues went with me. Somehow, praying all the way, I covered a five days' road in eleven days. Reaching Quetta I gave thanks to God. The next day I hired a cart, loaded the books in it, spread my bedding and sat on top. In two days and a night I reached Rindli. From there I took the railway and came to wait upon you.

The End.

(1) The birthplace of Maulvi Jami is the village of Kharjird in the district of Jam.

(2) The honoured Nawab has a brother, Mirza Muhammad Taqi Khan Sahib, a man of learning and of wide knowledge. His love of compiling deserves to be taken as a rule of conduct, and his courtesy and affection are worthy of worship. From seven o'clock to five, whenever you go and look, he is so busy at his work that he has no time to talk. He had a heartfelt affection for me.