"ملاحظات عن رحلة من قزوين إلى همدان عبر بلاد كرغن [؟]. بقلم ج. د. ريس" [ظ‎‎١‎٦] (٥٤/٣٧)

24
NOTES OF A JOURNEY
so when my youngest son was taken from home to be a soldier/'
I hoped her son might be restored to her, and felt the cold water
cure, my stock prescription for bad eyes, to be out of place with
this poor old lady. The other women of the family had a big
carpet on the primitive loom. My host had one wife. Very
rarely has any one hereabouts two or more. Indeed through
Persia one wife is the rule.
Near here is Darjazeen, which is marked in Walker’s map, but
called Durgazeen. An Imamzadah wdth a high tower marks its
site. I am told here that it was once a large place, but Nadir
Shah had destroyed it because its inhabitants were obstinate
Shias.
The khan’s uncle collected a large crowd of his friends who
as a favour allowed me by agreement ten minutes of my own
company for bathing in the irrigation channel which ran through
the garden. Before I could get on much clothing however, their
curiosity brought them all around me and the khan’s uncle notic
ing that my legs, feet, arms, hands, and face were alike covered
with bites and stings, I sorrowfully said that there was no
country in the world where a traveller was so tormented in this
respect as Persia. “ How else,” said he, “ ’tis the country of
Nasr-ud-din Shah.” Was this meant in compliment to the
king. “ How else (/^), could aught be said in any other spirit
of the centre of the world’s adoration.” No, no, but still I
did not understand. With one look around he fixed the audi
ence, and while I struggled behind my coat into my riding
breeches with my back to a tree he said, “ These insects are as
good as a daily bleeding. No man can be bled daily. Praise
be to God who has devised this substitute.”
Apropos of bleeding, it is very odd to see four or five men
squatting contentedly by a barber’s shop, each holding one fore
arm, from which the blood drips, over the gutter. I don’t think
the operation is so much resorted to in the villages. At any rate
it only came under my notice in big towns. Hence, perhaps, the
extraordinary speech quoted above. My friend was a man of much
acuteness. He discovered in me a doctor, curing people for
love of doing good (certainly I got no payment). He informed
me that there was not a Babee left in Persia; that the Mahdi
had driven the English out of Egypt; that he knew at once
that I was not what I pretended to be, because if I came
from Hindustan how could I speak Persian. Lest this frank
confession of disbelief on the part of a yeoman appear offensive,
let me quote a little episode from the best society in Persia. I
was talking to a young prince of 16, already a governor, and