A Curious Life for a Lady

by Pat Barr

  Carey’s writing, like that of several other western travellers, captures this sense of Tibet – its ghostly enchantment, its cruel unresponsiveness, its isolated majesty, its inert, spirit-ridden outlandishness. But Isabella somehow fails to capture the character of the country. She writes about the customs of the people, the work of the few devoted missionaries, the bustle of trade, but it is all a bit too cosy, clean, prosaic. Perhaps she could not bear to plunge so deep at that vulnerable point in her life; perhaps she did not travel far enough. She must have been dissatisfied with her own records of the journey, for the book she had tentatively planned and which, she tells Murray, would have been called A Lady’s Ride through the Western Himalayas was never written. In 1894 the Religious Tract Society brought out a short unrevised, mapless account of her journey under the title Among the Tibetans. It was the only one of her books not published by John Murray (apart from a volume of her Chinese photographs, Chinese Pictures, published by Cassell’s in 1900) and the one which received, and deserved, the least critical attention.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Persia and Kurdistan

  FROM Lahaul, Mrs Bishop trotted in leisurely fashion down through the Punjab and reached Simla in mid-October. The height of the summer season was over and the hill-town was cool, mellow, sedate as Cheltenham. It was not at all in Isabella’s line and she began to contemplate reluctantly a return to empty England. One day, however, during a lunch at the Residency, she met Major Herbert Sawyer of the International Branch of the Quartermaster’s Department of the Indian Army, and he changed all her plans.

  Major Sawyer, whom Isabella got to know quite well during the next few months, was an irascible, intelligent, energetic, obstinate, brave man of thirty-eight years. His tall, strikingly handsome, military figure had, Isabella remarks, ‘a look of distinction and command, so that people would always say, “Who is that?”’ Ordinarily his manner was pleasant, if chill – he seldom took the trouble to know anyone well, a friend of his told her; when roused, he was peppery and outspoken – ‘He has a crotchetiness which, of all mental peculiarities, bothers me most’, she told a friend, ‘and is restless and fitful besides being sarcastic’ She continues, ‘He was distracted for the loss of his wife who died in April, but I cannot spend much sympathy on him because the more distracted men are [in contrast to faithful womankind is the implication] the sooner they re-marry!’ Sawyer was about to leave India for a geographical-military reconnaissance to parts of western Persia, an area that much interested Isabella, but which she had been dissuaded from visiting by tales of its rigours and perils. It was partly the hope that she might help to ease his ‘distraction’ with her kindly but unprovocative companionship that persuaded Sawyer to offer her an escort – at least as far as Tehran. And he might also have decided that the company of a patently non-combatant middle-aged lady was an effective ‘blind’ for certain of his reconnoitring activities which he did not particularly want the Persian government to know about.

  Whatever the basic reason, everyone thought that Sawyer’s offer was ‘the acme of good fortune as a traveller’, Isabella wrote in wry amusement. And probably there were several bored pretty ladies of Simla who would have adored the chance to risk their all and go galloping away into the wild deserts with dashing, eligible Major Sawyer for company. ‘But I quite feel that it involves a certain abridgement of my liberty’, Isabella points out. ‘I should much prefer to travel alone.’ And she stipulated that time and tribulation should decide whether or not she accompanied him beyond Tehran into the ‘unknown hinterlands’. For she had her reservations about him: she liked his sense of fun, his straightforward briskness, his manliness; but she knew he would bully anyone if given the chance and ‘I am trying feebly to assert myself from the first as my age entitles me to do!’ she declared, conjuring a picture of frail and helpless widowhood that could scarcely deceive those who knew her well. It might, at first, have deceived Sawyer; if so, time would undeceive him.

  Sawyer’s mission to Persia was a minor strategic move in what might be called the Great Game. The Game had been going on for most of the century; its contestants were the Empires of Britain and Russia; its ultimate stakes were the military and economic domination of Central Asia; its biggest single prize, possessed by defensive Britain, threatened, it was thought, by aggressive Russia, was India. ‘Without India’, wrote George Nathaniel Curzon, ‘the British Empire could not exist. The possession of India is the inalienable badge of sovereignty in the eastern hemisphere.’ In Curzon’s view, almost that entire hemisphere was a sort of great chessboard, a tantalising, unpredictable, tense arena where the wrong move might be disastrous, the right strategy result in greater power, security and prosperity for the British. As early as 1889 Curzon was convinced that the Russian policy was one of hostility and almost limitless expansionism, and that the British, to maintain their supremacy, must meet aggression with aggression.

  It was a current nightmare of Curzon’s (whose nightmares were undoubtedly political) that on one dreadful day those tough patrols that prowled about the bleak and lonely frontiers of the Indian north-west would suddenly spot a row of Cossack fur hats popping up over the nearby mountains – the vanguard of a Russian military avalanche that could roll across Central Asia and penetrate the British defences at one of their weakest points. In 1888 Curzon toured the area and declared that Russian Central Asia was ‘a vast armed camp’. His dry, sonorous tones crackled out to the Foreign Office, the India Office, and the readers of The Times an abrasive, verbose beadroll of dire omens: Russian railways reached to the shores of the Caspian and Russian ships dominated its waters; Russia had already annexed Transcaspia, Bokhara, Samarkand, to mention but an exotic few, and, most alarmingly of all, the next place on the Czar’s list was Persia. The military position of Russia along the entire northern frontier of Persia was already one of unassailable military superiority. ‘Whenever Russia desires to enforce with peculiar emphasis some diplomatic demand at Tehran, a mere enumeration of the Russian garrisons within a few hundred miles of the Persian capital is enough to set the Council of Ministers quaking and to make the Sovereign think twice’, Curzon wrote in his ponderous, brilliant book, Persia and the Persian Question.

  He was collecting material for this opus in 1890, which was why, early that January, he was chugging up the Tigris towards Baghdad in the steamer Mejidieh and met, on board, a certain Dr Bruce of the Church Missionary Society Mission in Julfa, Major Herbert Sawyer of the Indian Army and his rather unlikely travelling companion, Mrs Isabella Bishop. ‘I do not think that any of my fellow-travellers can be guaranteed as non-explosive’, Isabella told her friends in the first of her ‘Persian letters’. And indeed as the group of foreigners glided past that timeless Middle-Eastern landscape – sandy plains with drab-brown sheep and drab-brown camels, the flat oblong mud hovels, the shrouded faceless women, the wiry armed men, the occasional date-palm and sprig of wormwood – they found much to disagree about. Curzon undoubtedly monopolised the conversation. He had just spent Christmas prowling around the River Karun which had been opened to all foreign commerce for just over a year. As a trade route for British goods it was unsatisfactory at present, he told his companions, for it lacked wharves and warehouses, was impeded by rapids and passed through insecure territory. In passing, Curzon tipped a vial of vitriolic scorn (of which he possessed a limitless supply) on all those who had prematurely heralded its opening ‘on so loud and foolish a trumpet’ as a great diplomatic victory. Two years later there appeared in Curzon’s book a sixty-page chapter on the River Karun which said everything one could possibly want to know about that particular waterway – its history from the time of Alexander, the naming of its parts by Arab geographers, the geological and botanical features of its neighbouring region, the character of nearby towns and their inhabitants, a summary of his own experiences and those of other Europeans who had travelled thereon, bloody tales of rebellions that had occurred in the vicinity within the last hundred years or so, the hy
draulic ingenuity of the canals leading from the river to the town of Shuster, the opportunities for hunting lynx or lion, sticking pigs, shooting teal and francolin, and detailed references to all those who, in a multitude of tongues, had ever written, thought, talked about the River Karun, from the Arab historian Abulfeda to the lady traveller Mrs Bishop. That was Curzon’s method; it was bombastic, prolix, exhausting, sublime; how could one hope to get in a word edgeways in such a man’s company?

  One of Curzon’s talents however was to pick the brains of lesser mortals when it suited his purpose, and so he probably did give Isabella a chance to say a few words, for she had just left Tibet, a country which Curzon saw as another vital piece (a castle perhaps) on his chessboard. In retrospect, it is more with Tibet than with Persia that his name is linked. For, within a decade, Curzon’s meteoric rise to power would culminate in the office of Viceroy of India, and his cold bland face, set with disdainful confidence above the gold foliage of his viceregal costume, would turn in meditation towards that mysterious land beyond the Himalayas. As a result of his meditations, the British bayonets would go pricking off to Lhasa in 1904 in that same obsessive cause – the defence of India.

  But when Curzon was going up the River Tigris in 1890, the problems of the Middle East seemed much more crucial to British security, and so, after learning that Isabella had, after all, only pottered about the Tibetan fringe, he probably lost interest and launched on another of his favourite themes: the strengthening of Persia. The theme was a popular one among eastern experts in the Foreign Office, the India Office and the War Office. In their eyes, the Shah’s large, under-populated, under-developed kingdom had for long been a mushy mollusc, a decayed, squashed fruit; it needed some backbone injected into it, some manly gumption, guts, get-up-and-go. ‘Our policy should be, as far as we can, to make Persia something’, wrote one British diplomat that year; Lord Salisbury had several remedies under consideration ‘for the stiffening of Persia’; ‘Is it possible to make Persia strong and have her for an active ally?’ asked General Sir Garnet Wolseley, in near despair. But, declared a Times leader of the previous year, ‘The day of doing nothing and letting the over-ripe Persian pear fall in Russia’s mouth seems to have passed away’, and the stiffening process was just beginning. In order to engineer such a stiffening it was vital to improve and create lines of communication – roads, railways, navigable rivers – which, stretching like ramrods over its spineless southern and western parts, would both encourage the growth of trade and provide transport for the military if necessary.

  That was why Curzon, the political chess-player, and Sawyer, the military surveyor, were abroad the steamer Mejidieh, quarrelling with each other, Isabella says, because they were almost equally self-opinionated and, for light relief, both rounding upon the milder-mannered missionary Dr Bruce. The doctor told Isabella in confidence that Curzon was one of the most offensive people he’d ever met; Curzon returned the antipathy with interest and disseminated it in his inimitable, merciless, piquant style: ‘Dr Bruce,’ he wrote in his tome, ‘is as good a type as can anywhere be seen of the nineteenth century Crusader. In an earlier age, the red cross would have been upon his shoulder and he would have been hewing infidels in conflict for the Holy Sepulchre instead of translating the Bible and teaching schools in Julfa.’ The fractious little group separated as soon as they reached Baghdad. Bruce set off for Julfa to continue his ersatz Crusade; Curzon headed for the Persian south-west provinces to inspect the tribal loyalties of the Lurs, the beliefs of the Sabians, the prodigious mounds of Susa, the Tomb of Daniel, the water-mills of Dizful, the crops of the Ka’ab Arabs and so on; Mrs Bishop and Major Sawyer were left to make final preparations for the five-hundred-mile ride to Tehran. Before boarding the Mejidieh, Isabella had hired a man-of-all-work whom she simply calls ‘Hadji’. He was a large, tough Gulf Arab, with knives and rosaries in his belt, his head swathed in a red and yellow turban with tassels hanging down his back, his hide boots turned jauntily up at the toes. He proved to be a big mistake. At that point, indeed, Isabella wrote home, she feared that the whole adventure was a mistake. Sawyer’s behaviour so far had dismayed her. He went through the local bazaars ‘holding a handkerchief to his nose and looking utterly blasé and disgusted at everything’; he bullied his subordinates so much that she felt she would be safer without him, and he insisted that she carry a revolver, which she secretly filled with blank cartridges. Her riding dresses, for some unaccountable reason, were suddenly too short and she hurriedly ‘had to lengthen one with the other’; she was nervous about riding a mule on an untried saddle and her knees were so rheumaticky that she feared she would be unable to mount the beast anyway.

  But it was too late for retreat and she left Baghdad on a bright cold morning in mid-January safely perched on the mule, in full marching equipment ‘of two large holsters, with a revolver and tea-making apparatus in one, and a bottle of milk and dates in the other. An Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front of the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind. I wear a cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil, an American mountain dress with a warm jacket over it, and tan boots, scarcely the worse for a year of Himalayan travel. Hadji is dressed like an Ishmaelite.’ Gaily she trotted out through the northern gate, the clatter of the bazaars fell away and there was the desert – limitless, naked, lonely, silent, free. ‘I felt better at once in the pure exhilarating desert air and nervousness about the journey was left behind. I even indulged in a gallop, and, except for her impetuosity, which carried me into the middle of a caravan, and turning round a few times, the mule behaved so irreproachably that I forgot the potential possibilities of evil.’ And thus happily began the toughest single journey of her life.

  It was mid-winter. Snow-thick winds screamed across the plains from the gaunt snow mountains, rain stiffened to hail, ragged webs of mist drifted about the hills, occasionally cold white sunlight trickled over the leagues of sodden ice and was swamped by purple sloughs of cloud that threatened worse weather for each morrow. Sunsets were beautiful and melancholy: ‘Mountain ranges were painted in amethyst on an orange sky. Horsemen in companies galloped towards tents which were not in sight, strings of camels cast their long shadows on the purple sand, and flocks of big brown sheep, led by armed shepherds, converged on the reedy pools in long brown lines.’ The very featurelessness of these wastes and the monotonous drudging lives of their inhabitants engrossed her interest at once. Weather-bound for several days at the Governor’s house in the cheerful-sounding town of Khannikin near the Persian frontier, Isabella recorded with scrupulous and loving attention the very cheerless world next door. ‘My neighbour’s premises consist of a very small and mean yard, now a foot deep in black mire, a cow-shed and a room without door or windows, with a black uneven floor, and black slimy rafters – neither worse nor better than many hovels in the Western Isles of Scotland. A man in middle life, a woman of dubious age, two girls from eight to ten years old, and a boy a little older are the occupants. The furniture consists of some wadded quilts, a copper pot, an iron girdle, a clay ewer or two, a long knife, a wooden spoon, a clay receptacle for grain, two or three earthenware basins, glazed green, and a wicker tray. The cow-shed contains – besides the cow, which is fed on dried thistle – a spade, an open basket and a baggage pad. A few fowls live in the house and are disconcerted to find that they cannot get out of it without swimming.

  ‘The weather is cold and raw, fuel is enormously dear, work is at a standstill, and cold and ennui keep my neighbours in bed till the day is well advanced. The woman gets up first, lights a fire of tamarisk twigs and thistles in a hole in the middle of the floor, makes porridge of some coarse brownish flour and water, and sets it on to warm – to boil it, with the means at her disposal, is impossible. She wades across the yard, gives the cow a bunch of thistles, milks it into a basin, adds a little leaven to the milk, which she shakes in a goat skin till it is thick, carries the skin and basket to the house, feeds the fowls from the basket and
then rouses her lord. He rises, stretches himself, yawns, and places himself cross-legged by the fire, after putting on his pagri. The room is dense with pungent wood smoke, which escapes through the doorway, and only a few embers remain. The wife hands him an earthen bowl, pours some porridge into it, adds some “thick milk” from the goat skin, and stands before him with her arms crossed while he eats, then receives the bowl from his hands and kisses it, as is usual with the slaves in a household.

  ‘Then she lights his pipe, and while he enjoys it she serves her boy with breakfast in the same fashion, omitting the concluding ceremony, after which she and the girls retire to a respectful distance with the big pot and finish its contents simultaneously. The pipe over, she pours water on her lord’s hands, letting it run on the already damp floor, and wipes them with her chadar. No other ablution is customary in the house.

  ‘The woman, the busy bee of the family, contrives to patter about nearly all day in wet clothing, carrying out rubbish in single handfuls, breaking twigs, cleaning the pot and feeding the cow. The roof, which in fine weather is the scene of most domestic occupations, is reached by a steep ladder and she climbs this seven times in succession, each time carrying up a fowl, to pick for imaginary worms in the slimy mud. Dyed yarn is also carried up to steep in the rain, and in an interval of dryness some wool was taken up and carded. An hour before sunset she lights the fire, puts on the porridge, and again performs seven journeys with seven fowls, feeds them in the house, attends respectfully to her lord, feeds her family, including the cow, paddles through the mire to draw water from the river, and unrolls and spreads the wadded quilts. By the time it is dark they are once more in bed, where I trust this harmless, industrious woman enjoys a well-earned sleep.’