[This unvarnished history is given neither to pique the imagination of the morbid nor to disgust the susceptibilities of the sensitive, but to enable the readers of "Maga" to realize something of the passions, lusts, selfishness, and immature morality of the Persian people. From Kermanshah in the West to the Afghan border in the East the whole country writhes under the terrors of unbridled Moslemism.]

man.

Tabriz, September 2, 1908.

THE NEMESIS OF NAIB MAHAMED. Naib Mahamed Khan was a virtuous His brother Naib Ali also laid claim to similar perfections. No one in the Akhrab quarter of the town ever dreamed of taking any step that affected the quarter without first consulting Naib Mahamed. There were two reasons why the people thus leaned upon the Naib. The first was that Naib Mahamed was a very short-tempered man; and the second, that he never gave advice gratuitously, and had ten armed retainers. So no one doubted the virtue of the Naib, and Ali basked in the light of his brother's good deeds.

Now the Naib was not as other men. He avoided the housetop, and he had beaten such as he suspected of sycophancy. The Naib, although he was fifty, had only married one wife. Even though she bore him no child he never favored another. And when he returned from the great pilgrimage, he broke through all the customs which the Mullahs maintained to be orthodox. That is, he abused the elders of the quarter who came out on the Mianeh Road to salute him, and he had all callers who came to ask of his health laid by the heels and beaten, bidding his servants to tell them that his health or ill-health was none of their business. He ruled the quarter with a rod of

iron, and Naib Ali was his ferash bashi.1 In the first place, the Naib controlled the water. Now everybody knows that Tabriz draws its water-supply from artificial bore-holes in the neighboring hills. The duct for the Akhrab quarter belonged to the Naib, so that really the people lay in the hollow of his hand. If they displeased him, there was no water. If the Mullahs but hinted at unrighteousness in his actions, there was still no water. If the Naib wanted money to pay a debt, there was no water until the money was found. Then it is said that the Naib agreed with no man. If one could be found courageous enough to argue with him, the Naib would maintain that the sky was red or that Mahamed was a Babii. In his protestations he feared nor God nor man.

Thus it was, when the Shah granted a Constitution to the people of Persia, that the Naib showed displeasure at the action of those reform enthusiasts who rushed headlong into politics and established seditious debating societies throughout the town. All the quarters of Tabriz, except Akhrab, established their local assemblies. The leading gray-beard of Akhrab approached Naib Mahamed Khan on the subject. The Naib was puffing at his silver-mounted hubble-bubble. He was seated, crosslegged, under one of the trees of the avenue down the main street of the quarter, and gave the graybeard curt

answer

"What does Akhrab want with an Anjuman? It has water; that is sufficient!"

The hint about the water was convincing enough, and throughout all the Tabriz troubles the quarter known as Akhrab alone abstained from politics. 1 Head factotum. 2 Local Assembly.

He

Sattar Khan and Baghir Khan led the people against the Government and the Mujtehid." The Naib would have nothing to do with the movement. refused support, either in men or in money, to both parties. Akhrab remained a peaceful faction, apart from the general movement. But when Rakhim Khan came to Tabriz to do the Shah's bidding, and when his brigands from the Karadagh hills began to pillage the town, the Naib put the quarter of Akhrab into a state of defence. sent for the quarter's architect, and selected designs for loopholed gates. The architect estimated that it would cost two hundred tomans to build the gates. The Naib immediately had him cast upon his belly and bastinadoed. "To think that the quarter of Akhrab, controlled by Naib Mahamed Khan, should be satisfied with such paltry gates."

He

But though there was no flaw in the Naib's hardness of heart, yet there was a weakness in his wisdom. This weakness lay in the confidence he placed in Naib Ali his brother. Naib Ali also had hardness, and he was devoid of wisdom. The quarter, during the civil war in the town, was happy enough in its armed neutrality. It was so happy that timid merchants from the other quarters took refuge in it. was glad to receive them at

price of 30 tomans per head.

3 Spiritual father-chief Mullah. 4 £40.

5 £200.

The Naib the small

But the

time came when the Central Revolutionary Committee in the town began to levy a poll-tax upon the rich merchants. A fight for freedom and the people's rights costs money. The names were proscribed, and a moiety fell upon certain refugees in the Naib's quarter. Sattar Khan sent his messengers to collect the due. The messengers were brought before the Naib's brother, who called them "sons of dogs" and had them thrust out beyond the new gates. Now the average Persian merchant is a miser before he is a patriot, and the news that Naib Mahamed Khan was protecting merchants from subscribing to the Revolutionary Committee's funds brought a horde of patriots into his quarter.

This brought a further remonstrance from Sattar Khan. Naib Ali, surrounded by a batch of newly-arrived merchant refugees, cocked his kula,* and had the revolutionary messengers laid by the heels and bastinadoed.

"So much for the sons of dogs, who do not respect Naib Mahamed Khan and Naib Ali, his ferash bashi!”

Not content with this, Naib Ali seized an unfortunate newsboy who was selling revolutionary pamphlets on the highway. The shrieking wretch was flogged until his weak, little life left his emaciated form.

"Son of a she-dog, thou, at least, shalt never be the father of dogs, as is thy master!" laughed the Naib's ferash bashi, as they flung the battered body into the roadway.

Naib Mahamed Khan, lying on the flat mud roof of his house, turned uneasily in his sleep. There was not a breath of air. The heavy atmosphere seemed to hang upon him like a weight. The sand-flies, bred of his own watercourses, worried him. He longed for dawn, and wondered vaguely why the dogs were barking, and why the voice

6 Persian cap.

of the muezzin' calling the people to prayer was so raucous. Then a shot rang out. Naib Mahamed did not move. At this period night-firing was a common occurrence in Tabriz. There was another shot. Then a whole volley, and, what was more surprising, they were quite close. The firing was so close that Naib Mahamed, sitting up on his mattress, saw the reflection of the flashes.

What did it mean?

"Fly, fly, Naib Saheb," shouted a voice from the skylight. "They have surrounded the house, and two of the gulams are killed."

The Naib was not slow-witted; neither was his house a blind alley. In less time than it takes to write this, he was over the parapet of his roof, and, by means of wooden projections in the wall, had reached the temporary haven of his walled orchard. But he had been unlucky, and he felt the burning sear of a bullet strike across his shoulder-blades. The hurt was not sufficient to incommode him yet. He dived into the bushes, sought the exit of the water-course, and gained the next garden. Still following the water-course, and creeping through the narrow arches that passed it through the walls, he reached the fifth garden from his own. Here he had time to think. The firing continued. It had aroused the whole quarter, and the general hubbub by alarmed householders drowned the quavering exhortations of the muezzin. The Naib had to decide as to which of his friends, in this emergency he could trust-a difficult problem at all times to Persians, but more especially so for the chief of a quarter. In power he could count upon the whole section: fallen, he was without friends. Ali Hassan Khan, in whose garden he stood, was at least a relative. His wound was rendering

7 The mullah calling the people to prayer before daylight.

* Servants.

him faint. He staggered on and claimed bast from the trembling women gathered at Ali Hassan's door.

When day broke, all that remained of the Naib's rich house was smoking débris and blackened walls. Naib Ali, the ferash bashi, they had found with a loose woman in an outhouse. Both had been despatched with the brassbound butts of Berdan rifles. Their bodies were thrown out to join those of the servants lying bruised and battered on the highway. The Caucasian avengers carried out the bodies. One was missing! Where, then, was Naib Mahamed Khan? He could not have escaped, as all the alleys were stopped. The raid, like all Sattar Khan's military measures, had been very carefully designed. Achmad Khan, Sattar Khan's lieutenant, scratched his shaven head. Then he sent for the public crier. In half an hour the streets resounded with the crier's penetrating voice.

it

"Anjuman Mukadas Millin-en Hükmi der [By order of the most honorable public assembly of representative citizens], dwellers in Akhrab give ear. If there should be one so foolish or so base as to have given refuge to Naib Mahamed Khan, son-of-a-dog and grandson-of-dogs, would be wise to declare the same: for it shall be done unto the giver of 'bast' to this son-of-a-dog as will be done to Naib Mahamed Khan himself. Take heed in the name of God and the Prophet, for there is no God but God, and Mahamed is the friend of God."

Achmad Khan knew his Persians. In half an hour Ali Hassan stood before. him and salaaming meekly, said that "Naib Mahamed Khan, son-of-a-dog, wounded and unrepentant, lies in my house. Give me time," he continued, "and I will have him thrust out from my gates!" Thus without a moment's hesitation Ali Hassan committed the crime which is anathema to all good 9 Refuge.

Moslems from Stamboul to Delhi. He delivered up the blood-fugitive to whom his women-folk had granted asylum.

They thrust the Naib out into the street. Weak from the loss of blood, he could not stand. As they dragged him out into the fairway, he pleaded for his life, and promised to fight for the Constitution. But the Caucasians

spat in his face, and beat the life out of him with the butts of their rifles and with stones.

And from this time forward Sattar Khan collected the "sinews of war" from Akhrab quarter, and drew 300 fresh riflemen to join the rebel camp.

THE STORY OF THE EXPERT ARTILLERIST

This is the story of a shameful thing. But there are many things that are called shameful in the West which are but ordinary custom in the East.

Now the young men of leisure in Tabriz, if they could write, immortalized the beauties of Rhubaba in verse. They wrote odes to every feature and limb of her small, plump body-from her straight raven hair that was brushed stiffly down her back to the little henna-pinked toe-nails upon her dainty feet. And it was the custom amongst them to spend their best efforts in describing the delights of her well-moulded figure. Those of the jeunesse dorée, however, who could not write couplets to be tucked away under Rhubaba's divan cushions extolled her beauties in the tea-shops, and were prepared to wager that she set the fashion in starched silk trouserettes by wearing fourteen pairs at one time.1o With us in the West such conversation would fill the hearer with disgust at the immodesty of the speakers. It is for reasons such as this that this story is shameful. But in Persia it is noth

10 Persian ladies of high degree are accounted fashionable by the number of pyjamas they can wear at one and the same time.

ing. It is but an incident in the day of work or pleasure.

There was no excuse for Rhubaba. No extenuating circumstances of birth and up-bringing. When she had come to the house of Sharif-sa-dé as a twelve-year-old bride, the fame of her beauty could not be concealed. For three months Sharif-sa-dé was a good husband. Then he died of cholera. By Mahamedan law Rhubaba was free to make her own choice in a further venture. Hadji Ibrahim, the third Mujtehid, having heard of her beauty, took it upon himself to expound the law to her, and in consequence of his lucid teachings she gave him the three months' marriage contract that is so popular with these priests. Hadji Ibrahim, like the rest of his kind, besides being a libertine, was a hard-headed business man. He argued that Rhubaba's beauty, if he brought her home and planted her beside his life-contracted wives, would disturb the peace of his house. Therefore he took a separate house for her alone. He selected the position with care. It is the same house in which Rhubaba still reigns-not a knuckle-bone throw from the main bazaar, yet to reach it you have to pass through a network of small dark alleys. And everything came to pass as Hadji Ibrahim had designed. The Mujtehid's mosque was in the Devachi quarter, a mile away. Was it likely that Rhubaba, whose beauty was so far-famed, would remain unassailed when her husband's hours at the mosque were so long, and he had perforce to spend four nights aweek in his own home in Khiban? But the Mujtehid showed no animus. He told Rhubaba that it was impossible for him to carry the shame of her peccadillos into his own home, and suggested that she should pay him a rent for the house. The rent was high, but the way was easy and comfortable and Rhubaba assented. Thus it was