'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎273] (314/714)

FROM MESHED TO TEHERAN 273
wooden pannier, with an arched framework for a hood, in which men
as often as women were curled up beneath mountains of quilts. The
donkey, however, was the favourite beast of burden. Tiny animals
would bear the most stupendous loads, with pots and pans, guns
and water-bottles hanging on either side, and with the entire
furniture of a household on their backs; the poultry of the owner
perched with ludicrous gravity upon the top of all. It is a
common thing for the poorer pilgrims to take shares in a donkey
and to vary riding with walking. In the early morning the
equestrians would often be seen fast asleep upon their asses,lying
forward upon their necks, and occasionally falling with a thump on
to the ground. Each lafilah would have a caravan -bashi, or leader,
who not infrequently bore a red pennon fluttering from a lance. It
was often difficult to discern the men's faces as they rode by
shrouded in huge woollen blanket-coats, pulled up over their heads,
while the stiff', empty arm-holes stood out on either side like mon
strous ears. But, if it was not easy to discern the males, still less
could be distinguished of the shapeless bundles of blue cotton that
were huddled upon the donkeys' backs, and which chivalry almost
forbade me to accept for the fairer sex. I confess to having once
or twice, with intentional malice, spurred my horse to a gallop, as
I was overtaking some party of wayfarers thus accompanied: for,
to see the sober asses kick up their heels and bolt from the track
as they heard the clatter of horse-hoofs behind, to observe the
amorphous bundles upon their backs shake and totter in their seats,
till shrieks were raised, veils fell, and there was imminent danger
of a total collapse, was to crack one's sides with sorely-needed
•and well-earned laughter. There would usually be an assortment
of beggars in every band, who would beg of me in one breath and
curse me for an infidel in the next, or of tattered dervishes, who
m Mussulman countries are beggars in their most offensive
guise.
Not that every company we met or passed were pilgrims on
pious mission bent. Far from it. Sometimes we would encounter
inured to the telescopic contractions common in the East. Adam Olearius, the
Secretary of the Embassy from the Duke of Holstein in 1637, graphically described
his woes as follows : ' The Physician and myself were set in ketxaweka upon the
same camel, whereby we were put to great inconveniences—one proceeding from
the violent motion caused by the going of that great Beast, which at every step
gave us a furious jolt; and the other from the insupportable stink of the camels,
the infectious smell of whom came full into our noses.'
VOL. T.