The Adventures of Hajjî Baba of Ispahan ... Edited by C. J. Wills, M.D. With an introduction by ... Sir F. Goldsmid ... Illustrated

Introduction

BY Major-Gen. Sir FREDERIC GOLDSMID, C.B., K.C.S.L ILLUSTRATED LONDON LAWRENCE & BULLEN, Ltd. l6 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN I897 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &= Co. At the Ballantyne Press A BARBER'S SHOP AT ISPAHAN EDITOR'S

Preface

It may seem an impertinence to print a single note to an edition of " Hajji Baba " other than the foot-notes of Morier himself; but the editor has not hesitated to add explanatory notes at the end of the book, where he considers that explanation of either text or illustrations will be of use or interest to the reader. His long and intimate acquaintance with Persia and the Persians must be his excuse for doing what, it is trusted, will be found acceptable to the curious, and to lovers of Oriental art. With regard to the illustrations, most of them are selected from objects in the editor's own possession, while he has to thank his friend, A. P. Hotz, Esq., for the use of a few pieces from his collection of Persian art. Several of the plates are from the national collection at South Kensington.

Certain illustrations were specially made by Persian artists for this edition, notably " The Barber's Shop," " Hajji bleeding the Banou," " Zeenab on the Roof of the Doctor's House," &c. ; several others were executed, but lost in transit to this country. One of these native illustrations, which are all delicately painted in colours, " Hajji Baba in the Bath," is especially curious. The editor objected to the peculiar perspective of the small rectangular mirror, but the artist declined to alter it, remarking that all European drawings were incorrect, and that his system of perspective (that of all Orientals) was the correct one. The next morning the Persian produced an elaborate diagram to prove his case. The facsimile reproductions of James Morier's drawings are given, by kind permission of Lady Morier, from his

PREFACE.

VIII original sketch-books. Some slight idea of our author's extraordinary industry and accuracy may be formed from the fact tbat very many out of his hundreds of drawings and coloured sketches of life in Persia were covered with notes as to the colours and materials of the costume, &c. Persia does not change ; as it was in Morier's time, so it is in the present day. On the editor's first starting for Teheran, a copy of the edition of 1835 was placed in his hands by a kind friend, with the remark, " When you have read this, you will know more about Persia and the Persians than you would if you had lived there with your eyes open for twenty years ; " and though the recipient of the book has had unusual opportunities of observing Persia and the Persians, he is compelled to confess that the prediction was fulfilled.

With regard to the spelling of Persian words, Morier simply spells them as they are pronounced in English ; and, with the exceptions of i, pronounced as ee, and it, pronounced as 00, he usually dispenses with the accents and translitera tions which are so puzzling to the ordinary reader ; the same simple system has been generally followed in the editor's notes. In several of the more modern reprints of Morier's magnum opus ("Hajji Baba"), the amusing "Introductory Epistle," signed Peregrine Persic, has been partly or en tirely suppressed, while in one case that portion of it which was used as the advertisement to the second edition is alone printed. It has been thought fitting to print the " Introduc tory Epistle " in extenso in the present edition. C. J. WILLS, M.D.

INTRODUCTION.

Not the least clever and characteristic of the chapters in the volume which is now presented to the public, not as a mere reprint, but after the fashion of a Shakespearian revival, "with new scenery, dresses, and decorations," are those relating to Mirza Firouz, the Persian Ambassador at the Porte, who entrusts the hero with the task of drawing up a sort of general history of the Franks. His Majesty the Shah, "having been informed that specimens of all the European nations were to be seen at Constantinople, had judged it expedient to despatch " the Mirza there to ascertain the truth "about the French and English, and if possible to find out whether all they say of themselves be true or false." At the shortest of notices, the ever-ready Hajji is directed to do the work required by the illustrious monarch from his representa tive, pending equipment for which his instructions are, "Go sit in a corner, and make one long and deep thought upon the plan of operations."

Something analogous to this is the situation of the writer of the present Introduction, which his friend, Dr. Wills, has asked him to contribute. He has to write an introduction to a book which, from its old as well as present popularity, can stand in no need of such support, least of all at the hands of one whose opinion can be of little importance to the world of readers ; and he is left without instructions as to the par ticular line to which his observations should be confined ; or, indeed, if they should be confined to any line at all. But he has accepted the task, and must fulfil it in spite of short comings ; and since he does not possess, like the hero of the

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X present narrative, a friendly Katib, whose help will enable^him to return to his employer " full of the information " required, he can only fall back upon his own memory and experiences, to say a few incidental words on the Persian country and people, as they have appeared to him since the days of Morier and the Hajji. "It has become a common practice, in later days, to re gard contemporary Orientals as a race apart from the more highly-civilised world— men with whom only a certain number of Europeans are considered competent to deal, from their particular antecedents, experiences, and general reputation. Such an estimate, while containing a small proportion of truth, is frequently, from its too absolute adoption, the cause of much misapprehension ; and in this country is politically dangerous, because it allows superficial, second-hand know ledge to prevail on a subject in which all classes of English men — statesmen as well as scholars — should be fairly proficient.

As matters stand, we are apt to seek our experts among those who have lived long in the atmosphere of Asiatics, without asking in what capacity they have had to do with them, or with what order of persons their experience has been acquired. Now, many civilians and military men may have passed the better part of their lives in India, and yet be incapable of speaking authoritatively on the natives in other districts of the Empire than those in which their duties have actually been fulfilled. A sojourner in the Northern Provinces, for instance, has no personal experience of Tamils ; a Madrassi has little to say to Gurkhas and Nepalis ; an employe in British Burma knows nothinoof Guzerat ; so that the native whose image is stamped upon the memory of the one is by no means the same as that acknowledged by the other authority.

Among Persians and Arabs, moreover, the travelled native often differs from his home-staying brother. The soft-spoken Munshi of Iranian descent, and the Bagdhadi horse-dealer met with in Bombay, are not types that necessarily include the ordinary denizen of a Persian city or the dweller in the Syrian desert. But

INTRODUCTION.

XI in seeking the judgment and assessing the estimate of Europeans on non-Europeans (more especially Asiatics), we must make allowance for the personal tastes and idiosyncracies of our chosen oracle — factors which are quite apart from personal experiences. Burtons and Palgraves are not common types in England. It is not every one who, in comparatively early life, or with comparatively brief experience, can analyse the Persian mind like Professor Granville Browne, or put together a mass of invaluable information on the geography and politics of Persia like the Hon. George Curzon j1 nor do we habitually meet with travellers who, besides the possession of more than average acumen and ability, are gifted with that instinctive insight into character which enables them not only to describe the idiosyncracies of both foreigners and countrymen who come within their range of observation, but to graft them upon their own, so as to be, as Saint Paul expresses it, "all things to all men."

Perhaps there is no way in which acquaintance with a new country or people can be more pleasantly made than by the perusal of books which interest and amuse, while at the same time they impart instruction. In Morier's " Hajji Baba of Ispahan," we have a model on which might well be framed the popular story of regions now literally unknown to us — or practically unknown, because brought to our ken through the medium of dull description. The causes of its attractiveness are readily discerned. Instructive, entertaining^nd racy, its narrative is bright, if somewhat old-fashioned\its illustrations are real, living portraits, if aggravating to European moralists ; its satire is a never-failing, active under-current, of which the glow is imparted to the surface waters. To the hale and healthy student of mankind the library shelf has never supplied a greater incentive to the contemplation of out-of door everyday Orientalism than this book. 1 These two names have been selected, not simply as connected with recent editions of Morier's " Hajji Baba," but as representing "up to date" experiences of Persia.

INTRODUCTION.

XII The author of " Hajji Baba" was fortunately blest with that faculty which enabled him to comprehend, while con templating, both the humorous and practical side of native character, as exhibited by the people among whom he was thrown in the course of his diplomatic career. Endowed, moreover, with an appreciation of Eastern imagery and a happy readiness of expressing his thoughts in words, he was JAMES MORIER. From a pencil-sketch by his niece, the late Miss C. Morier. enabled to put into print the results of his long and continuous observation of Persia and the Persians, after the manner of an autobiography — a fashion much affected by romance writers ofhis day. His position as an accredited diplomatist, while it favoured his literary tendencies, did not necessarily constitute him a true critic. Notwithstanding the many opportunities afforded them for study of new personalities, it is not always given to the representatives of a nation to

INTRODUCTION.

XIII make an official career instrumental in achieving literary success ; indeed, it is a question whether constant attention to the requirements of diplomacy does not occasionally tend to obscure the vision and narrow the judgment in arriving at a true estimate of those for whose special edification we are moulding our speech and actions. In the case of non- European nations, the difficulties of this kind of study are still more accentuated than with a people more nearly approaching our own standard of civilisation, because we almost invariably (if often unconsciously) commence pro ceedings by stepping upon a pedestal of quasi-superiority, which prevents the exercise of impartial judgment in any intercourse that may ensue. It has been the privilege of the present writer to take part more than once in diplomatic negotiations conducted by Her Majesty's Minister at the Court of Teheran, and the Persian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

It has also fallen to his lot to have the conduct of two missions whose main object was to find a groundwork of international peace and prosperity in the demarcations of the eastern frontier of the Shah's dominions. The nature of his personal work on each occasion is barely traceable in the pages of history, although he ventures to hope that its results have been made avail able, and continue to be made available, for the solution of international problems and adjustment of international disputes, by those who have succeeded him in similar fields of duty. But in fulfilment of the particular duties with which he was entrusted, he gained an experience for which he is bound to feel grateful. It provided him, moreover, with abundant opportunity of observing native ways and practices which must seem marvellous, if not impossible, to an untravelled Englishman.

Nothing is perhaps more striking to the Western stranger than the great importance attached by Orientals to trifles. On the other hand, the difficulty of impressing upon the Eastern mind the serious nature and urgency of certain public matters which are heedlessly thrust aside to suit personal convenience,

INTRODUCTION.

XIV exhibits almost as remarkable a trait of native character. With Persians there is a meaning in our next-to-nothing minutia:, the comprehension of which is of vital import to our envoys and the cause they advocate. A chair pushed an inch or two forward or backward, so as to transgress the border of a particular carpet marked for its limit, may provoke offence ; a cup of tea or coffee, or a tobacco pipe, less than the conventional number offered to a guest, may awake hostility ; there may be lurking mischief in a mis applied word of welcome or farewell, in a clumsy gesture, even in a too hastily donned article of wearing apparel. According to our own notions, trifles could hardly go further in puerility ; but it becomes a part of common - sense diplomacy to acknowledge with gravity things which are, to all seeming, diametrically opposed to common-sense.

That civilised outsiders might succeed in enlarging and instructing the minds of the younger and more advanced of Persian statesmen, so far as to gain their co-operation in reforming the ceremonial code which they have inherited, is quite possible ; but, to be effective, the task must be com mitted to joint European action ; and this hypothesis involves removal of the stumbling - block of international jealousy. Unfortunately, the old state of things is that upon which the study of Oriental diplomacy is based by the Palmerstons and Talleyrands of our day, as heretofore ; and to encourage anything like a serious endeavour to assimilate Persian ideas to our own, or those of other Western nations, would be to put an end to the "occupation" of many an accomplished public servant, whether he represented, at the Shah's Court, this our England, or a country across the British Channel.

Apart from these considerations, however, it would be no simple matter to exorcise deeply -rooted habits, like those to which we refer, from a people who observe them with religious punctilio. The intelligence of even the travelled Asiatic will not readily admit a thoroughness of moral transformation in these things ; his acceptance of foreio-n thought, as of outer garb, is but partial and for occasions ;

INTRODUCTION.

XV he does not mean all he professes to acknowledge, either to the detriment of his national prejudices or in approval of Western argument ; his social brilliancy is intended to chicane as well as to please. Allowing our convert, could such be obtained, to be at heart a Sufi, or otherwise a free thinker, this condition will not annul his innate allegiance to Iran. His patriotism is his prejudice, if we please to call it so. That it is practically second nature there is not a shadow of doubt, therefore its eradication must be a per plexing problem. Instances without number might be given of the manner in which both Persian statesmen are occupied in making mountains of molehills, and English diplomatists are compelled to descend to the lower level of those to whom they are accredited. There are, doubtless, some of us who, from personal experience, could make more than one contribution to the rdpertoire of comedy-dramas of Oriental politics ; 1 but who, amid the number, can claim the privilege to describe such things, or commit them, when described, to the category 1 One imbroglio to which extraordinary importance was attached, and in the development of which many sheets of foolscap were expended, the services of volunteer copyists called into requisition, and much international diplomatic discussion was engendered, arose from the question whether certain seats pro vided for the representatives of foreign powers, in the Grand Stand of the Teheran race-course, were befitting the dignity of those who were invited to occupy them ; or whether they ought not to be changed from the ground to the upper floor.

After the lapse of more than one yearly meeting, during which the complainants declined, as a body, to attend the course, a seemingly honourable and amicable settlement was effected, and the corps diplomatique was informed by its doyen that all would be well on the next race-day. Accordingly, when the time came round, heads and members of legations sallied forth ; but, on arriving near the stand, an avant courier, who had been despatched to report on the situation, returned with doleful countenance to inform their excellencies and suites that, instead of any elevation in position having been effected, they had been merely transferred from one room to another, on the same floor I Hence ensued protest. confusion, and, with one remarkable exception, the indignant return of the intended spectators to their respective homes.

The exception was in the person of a prominent Charge d 'Affaires, who happened to arrive in the midst of the storm, and was instantly pounced upon and invited to the best and choicest seat, not only on the upper floor, but in the immediate vicinity of the Shah himself. Here he remained and contemplated the day's proceedings with, possibly, a pleasing consciousness of easy diplomatic triumph. Eventually, the required amende was made, peace restored, and the matter dropped.

INTRODUCTION.

XVI of realities ? They belong strictly to the province of truth in-fiction, so skilfully resorted to in the narrative of the amusing adventurer who reappears before the public in the following pages, with new and appropriate surround ings. Should the happy hour arrive when European states manship is recognised in its humanitarianism rather than in its diplomacy, when the rivalry of great nations finds illustration in the endeavour to solve the problem of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and when the code of honour between man and man is extended to the practice of peoples as well as persons, then may we hope that such a consensus of enlightened reprobation will be brought to bear upon the more manifest vices and shortcomings of Oriental states, that something worthy the name of policy or polity may be substituted for the wretched phantom of government which has long* been suffered to stalk abroad in the courts and bureaux of Constantinople and other Eastern capitals.

Until that time arrive, the fairest chance for betterment appears to be in the schemes of companies or syndicates, having their origin, it may be, in the hope of lucrative results, but otherwise neither immoral nor irra tional. Among these, railways, irrigation, banks, and mines may be mentioned as terms more or less indicative of the line of action taken by outside speculators in the land of the Lion and Sun. At present, then, we need not say more of our duties as a foreign government to help in the moral regeneration of one of the most ancient of empires ; for without the support and sympathy of brother diplomatists, an English envoy who attempted to preach morality to the Shah's ministers, instead of discussing secular things, or in any way to introduce ethics in lieu of politics or generalities into official discourse — especially as a practice — would both provoke the loss of personal reputation abroad, and removal from office by his superiors at home.

One of our political officers made the experiment in a small way some few years ago, when riding in company with a functionary attached to his escort. To wit : —

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XVII " Oppression of the poor is contrary to the teaching of your own moralists. Why do you practise it when you seek to supply myself and my servants with food, and my cattle with grain, without making due payment to the real providers ? " "Oh, that is the custom of our country: hospitality to strangers is an imperative duty." "Not surely in defiance of the law which enjoins protection of your own people." " I did not know that my mihmdn (guest) was to be a midi Id." No more questions were asked, and the incident abruptly closed. This was the purport of a dialogue long since lost to memory in its entirety. A mulla, it need scarcely be said, implies a teacher, whether priest or schoolmaster. It has been suggested that the religious drama of Persia might be made the means of effecting in that country a national and patriotic movement, culminating in wholesale social reform.

But such an outcome is hardly to be ex pected from the material indicated. If Christian doctrine is not to be taught, Christian principle must be maintained as a basis of regeneration ; and something more than sympathy for individuals — even though expressed on behalf of martyrs, in tears, and yells, and self-inflicted injuries — must be aimed at as the fruit of the proffered faith. The religious drama of Persia, as it is called, is mainly "a recital of the woes of Hasan and Husain,"1 the sons of Ali and Fatima (daughter of the Prophet) ; and, while earnestly inviting attention to the sufferings of these heroes of primitive Islam, has little or nothing to impart in the way of prac tical instruction concerning the spectator himself. As a lesson of true morality there is, throughout the whole narra tive, nothing to correspond, in directness and comprehen siveness, with the Sermon on the Mount ; nothing plain and charity-breathing as the brief parable ofthe Prodigal Son. 1 See Sir Lewis Felly's preface to the Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain (Allen, 1879). b

INTRODUCTION.

XVIII Some twenty years ago there was lithographed in Teheran a small thick volume containing six plays and a dramatic narrative, by Mirza Fath Ali, an employe1 of the Russian Government. These had been translated into Persian, from the Azeri-Turki dialect, by Mirza Jafar of Karajah Dagh. Smart, farcical, and broad, without any special literary merit, they supply excellent material for students of colloquial Per sian, but more than all are they to be commended for the unflinching exposure of pretension and hypocrisy, oppression and extortion on the part of native magnates and officials. As nothing is ever heard of them in the intelligence reaching us from time to time from Persia, it is presumed that, if the plays were at any time performed in that country, the per formance must have been tentative, or in obscure places only ; but it is more than probable that, however popular, they would not be suffered to retain their place on the boards of any local theatre, if indeed such an institution be shown to have a habitation at all.

The attack upon conventional mal administration would be too manifest, and the abuse of power by individuals would be too distinctly held up to reprobation to meet with encouragement from those who are practically the objects of the ridicule and satire of the socially aggressive dramatist. Then, again, there would be the risk of giving offence to the class which professes religion or learning, among whose members are many who are, literally, pro fessors only, and have no claim to sanctity or scholarship in fact. If these and the state officials could be persuaded to stand aside, and let the plays, as they are now published or in any modified form, be acted before the lower orders or less sophisticated of the people, there is no knowino what good seed might be sown. The question deserves the consideration of well-wishers to Persia, irrespective of governments.

At present the form in which humour is most appreciated by the Persian mind displays itself very much after the ordinary jest-book type, and consists mainly in commonplace anecdote, which should develop into witticism or plaisanterie

INTRODUCTION.

XIX but does not always attain a successful climax. It merits remark that while in Persia, as a rule, the jests are made to tell against Kazis, pandits, poets, and learned men of all sorts, there are many (even ecclesiastical) dignitaries in the lands of Western civilisation, who not only enjoy, but themselves retail pleasant facetiæ. Hence it is that in English books, as well as table-talk, our so-called "Joe Miller" has become practically superseded by something a degree more intel lectual, which has, moreover, received a warrant of respectability in the frequent ratification of its use by learned and benevolent divines. Many of the more popular Persian, as well as other Eastern stories, that could be cited in illustration of Oriental humour, are, in a great measure, familiar to English readers.

Some, indeed, have been stripped of any little charm or interest originally attached to them by repeated translation into European languages and utilisation in grammar and school books ; some are too coarse for reproduction ; some claim acceptance as coming from superior writers like Sadi and Jami. None, perhaps, have a better right to consideration than the Turkish tales of Khoja Nasru'd Din Effendi, which are generally told in a strain of dry humour, irrespective of "points " in each particular case. Though, like the plays of Mirza Fath 'Ali, they are of foreign origin, they are precisely of a class that would commend itself to the Persian who has only reached the threshold of civilised Europe. It is Sadi who tells us of the lawyer who, after he had married his plain daughter to a blind man, declined to avail himself of the services of a sight-restoring foreign physician, for benefit of his son-in-law, lest the latter should, on recovery, divorce his wife.

It is Jami who relates the old story of the savant who, when writing to a friend, was so annoyed at the conduct of a visitor looking over his shoulder, that he expressed his feelings on the subject in the course of his letter, adding that, when the accusation involved in the writing drew forth an emphatic denial from the offender's lips, this last stood convicted on his own testimony.

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XX But it is rather with the pen of the satirist than humorist that Sadi speaks of the disappointment of the Arab who, wandering in the desert without food or water, came suddenly upon a sack left by some previously passing traveller, and, opening it, discovered its contents to be a collection of the costliest of pearls ! The moral is thus expressed : — " In a dry desert, amid shifting sand, The thirsty soul heeds not of pearl or shell ; How can the sapless one, bereft of strength, What gold adorns him, or its value tell? The humour of " Hajji Baba," though quite as thorough and pervading, is possibly less direct and more inferential than that which has contributed so much to the reader's enjoyment of Dickens, though the appreciation of it is due to the same sense of the ludicrous within us.

To the ordi nary English apprehension, the fun of the latter writer, displayed to its full extent in " Pickwick," and consistently maintained in the many volumes which followed those unique "posthumous papers," emanates from the idiosyncracies of the author's fellow-countrymen ; whilst Morier's is produced by the doings and utterances of a foreigner who acts and talks in a way which would be impossible to an Englishman, yet which is irresistibly ludicrous to the English reader by its sober assumption of truth. To the ordinarily-educated Persian the relish of such fictitious biography — supposing it to be translated or otherwise placed intelligibly before him — would consist in its incident and adventure, but the salt of its satire would be wanting. He would see himself reflected in an English mirror, and the likeness would be more striking and complete than that obtained from his own dina or lookino* glass, to which he has been in the habit of resorting ; but there is nothing in it with which he would be dissatisfied, or in which he would detect a moral lesson.

If satire could impart to him a panacea for the sickness under which his mind is suffering, it would not be that of Hajji Baba; for pungent as it is to the European palate, it is not sufficiently palpable to the western Asiatic to be appreciated at its true

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XXI value. He needs something of a more self-evident, perhaps coarser kind, to bring to his ken a little suspected under current of meaning, which, if realised, it would be unlikely that he would ignore. Indeed, that particular quality of imagination which may be said to permeate the pages of the book, and which we call "humour," is in a certain sense innate in the Persian, and its schooling tendency would in all probability be recognised by him if only raised to the surface. The popularity in this country of " Hajji Baba" cannot be gauged by comparing it with other works of fiction generally ; for with all its powers of attraction it is not likely to possess the same number of admirers as the novel or romance in which the characters are able to command recognition and sympathy no less than to afford amusement.

It must be judged in the light of a continuous narrative of Eastern life ; and thus regarded it may certainly claim to rank in the first class. That it has marvellously maintained its position among standard books of all sorts may be proved by the issue of two new and independent editions during the past year, to say nothing of the volume now presented to the British public. If on its debut, at the close of the first quarter of our century, its readers may not have equalled in number those of the contemporaneous Waverley series, it is due to Morier's memory to recall the fact that a few years after the Hajji's introduction to English literary circles, Scott explains his own hesitation in dealing with " Eastern themes " on the ground that these "had been so successfully handled by . . . acknowledged masters of their craft."