Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/578

532 rying water, provided one has a guide who knows the whereabouts of the water-holes, which lie in the centre of natural depressions or kettles, and receive the rain-water that drains from the surrounding country during the wet months of winter. These ponds often cover considerable ground, and are three or four feet deep. The country round about them produces luxuriant grass three or four feet high, and covering a territory several miles in diameter. Hence it is not easy to find the water-holes without the aid of a guide.

A most picturesque though gruesome caravan is the funeral caravan. It comes chiefly from Persia, though Oudh in India also sends its quota. Its destination is one or other of the cities held sacred by the Protestant or Shiite Mussulmans. These cities are in the first instance Nejef (near Kufa), the burial-place of Ali, the prophet of the Shiahs or Imamiyahs; in the next instance Kerbela, which holds the tomb of Hassan and Hussein, the sons of Ali and Fatima (daughter of Mohammed); and in the third instance Kadhmeen, which contains the tombs of the ten Imams or Califs who succeeded Ali. Kadhmeen is a town of ten thousand inhabitants, situated on the west bank of the Tigris above Baghdad, with which, oddly enough, it is connected by a tramway-line. Burial in the soil of either of these three cities insures the salvation of the Shiah soul. Persians, the chief Shiahs, are fanatically ambitious to have their bones find their final resting-place in the soil of one or other of these cities. Kerbela seems to be preferred, because it witnessed the last tragedy in the life of Hussein, who had married the daughter of Yezdigerd, the last Sassanian king of Persia. The bodies of the dead are allowed to remain buried in Persia for a year or more. They are then disinterred; the bones are wrapped and securely tied up in costly rugs, and are thus transported to their grave in sacred soil. A horse or mule carries six such bodies, three on each side. The traveller marching from Babylon or Kerbela to Baghdad frequently meets such funeral caravans, carrying absolutely nothing but corpses. Upon reaching their destination the bones are buried, I suppose, but the rugs that enswathed them on their journey from Persia are dispossessed of their noisome burdens and shipped by camel-caravan to Europe and America, where they, too, find a hospitable resting-place in wealthy homes, whose inmates would be shocked indeed did they but know the true history of their much-prized Persian rugs. Corpses come by the wholesale from Persia to find hospitable graves in sacred soil. Indeed, within my recollection, Baghdad was regarded as the home of the Black Plague, which, it was thought, was caused by the host of corpses that stopped in the city while en route to their graves.

All such caravans, whether commercial or funeral caravans, stand as much in need of shelter as does the isolated wayfarer. For them there is no such thing as hospitality. Hence special provision had to be made to meet their needs. Three different stages of civilization are represented in the methods devised by the Orientals for the entertainment of travellers. The first stage is represented by hospitality, that virtue of all primitive peoples. But as civilization advances, the desire for privacy in one's home increases, the stranger is regarded as an intruder, and the eagerness to entertain him abates. At this stage tribes begin to make some sort of provision for the entertainment of the stranger within the gates of the village or the encampment. Hence arise the selamlik and the mussafir oda. The second step in the provision for the lodgment of strangers is taken when a village combines to build a separate but unpretentious and wholly unfurnished house for the shelter of the guests of the village.

A third kind of provision for travellers is observable in cities and desert places, where the municipality or munificent individuals (usually reigning sovereigns) build a pretentious house, which may be regarded as the immediate parent of the modern hotel. When located in cities this building is called a khan—a word said to be connected with khonak, the name applied to the government-house in cities. The Tatar word khan, originally the title of sovereigns (e. g., Genghis Khan), but now usurped by common people, seems to be of different origin, though on that point I speak with dif-