Conversation with a Bakbtiari
we rode along was almost over-arched by mulberries and
walnuts. Well might the old travellers speak of this as a
garden, when they came upon it from the bleak ranges on
either side.
About half an hour's ride beyond Zavarak we found a
meadow under trees, and had just spread the felt mule cloths,
with my cotton quilt as a pillow, when a woman came to
beg me to see her child and lured me back to Zavarak in
the sun with the promise that her house was round the
corner. By the time I had seen the invalid, uselessly as
usual, and then seen about a dozen more, and given all
the quinine and castor oil I could spare, and refused their
poor offers of payment and left among blessings that I felt
I had not earned, I made my way back to the resting-place,
hot and exhausted, and promptly discouraged ;Aziz who was
just ready to start off for his home.
Here we sat at lunch, and the folk of the house near-by
joined us, together with a wayfarer or two as the custom is,
for your food is free to all who come; and this in itself is
an argument for not carrying more than is absolutely
necessary, for if you share them with all the country-side
your tins of biscuits last a very few days.
As we were sitting there in a circle, a stranger came up, a
Bakhtiari with a peaked modern cap, the only one I saw
worn in the valley except by 'Aziz and the Arbab. This was
against the man to begin with, but he made matters worse by
beginning to talk of Europe and its politics and asked me
whether the British still consider Berlin as their capital, as
they have done, said he, since the war.
"We have given that up some time ago," said I, but
wished he would go and cease from troubling our less
intellectual peace.
Might he have a pencil, he asked, to remember me by?
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