RedWine
07-27-2007, 08:50 AM
EXCERPT from "Travels Through Northern Persia: 1770-1774" by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin, translated by Willem, M Floor (2007, Mage Publishers).
Publisher's Note: In 1770 the young German scientist and explorer Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin embarked on a journey on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the service of Catherine the Great. These heretofore little-read accounts of his travels and broad research in Northern Persia, first published in German in St. Petersburg in the 1770’s, have now been translated for the first time into English by renowned scholar Willem Floor.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/2428/88367462ys9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
In the two voyages recounted in this volume, Gmelin kept journals describing the customs, industry, political world, warfare, geography, and plant and animal life of Northern Persia, until his capture and imprisonment in the village of Parakay near the Caspian Sea in 1774 -- a misfortune that he also was able to record, and which is included here in the final volume of his travelogue.
Includes the third and fourth volumes of Gmelin’s four-part travelogue Travels through Russia to Investigate the Three Natural Realms, as well as the 1784 preface, and an appendix with further accounts by Gmelin’s student. Gmelin’s entries describe, among many things, the political situation and wars in Persia; the temperament and physical characteristics of the Persians; the people’s table manners and hygiene; Persian money, weights and measures; the court of the Khan of Gilan; the Gilani language; Persian monks; Persian medical science; Shi`a Islam; the Jews of Rasht; the Persian attitude toward Christians; treatment of women; the plant and animal life of Persia; the Turkmen tribes of the east Caspian; the mountain peoples of Daghestan; the potential for Russian trade with the peoples of Persia; the Persian Armenians and their mercantile activity; and Persian methods of fishing, farming and preparing various foods. With thirty-eight illustrations.
PAGES 161-164
The twenty-third and fourth. I busied myself at home due to the incessant rain, and on the twenty-fifth I accepted the Khan’s invitation to go with him once again to Pasikhan (Bassa Chan). Today and during the following days things were much better, because I stayed in Pasikhan until the twenty-ninth. At least I got a better idea of Persian merrymaking than before, irrespective of the fact that I cannot yet say that they roused the kind of feeling that it engendered among the Persians.
The first thing that I have to describe is the camp, which constituted the theater for these delights. The circumference amounted to about two Russian wersts and the tents were pitched on it, a free open place through which two streams ran. The tents were pitched without order. They were neither erected in rows nor placed in any other regular manner. What one clearly saw was that the immediate area where the Khan resided remained free of other tents [296] and those that were closest to the Khan’s were only occupied by the most important persons and his minions. Among them I was also allocated a rather spacious one for me and my company.
The tents of the Khan and of important people were oblong in general and were supported by two or three poles. The exterior sides were covered with a finer or coarser kattan and the interior ones with silken or woolen fabrics. Several carpets of greater or lesser value were spread out and on the sides lay felts interwoven with flowers, on which the Persians are wont to sit. Larger tents were subdivided into two or more rooms by means of curtains. Next to the Khan’s tent and those of important people there were holes dug in the ground screened with broadcloth and kattan where one could relieve oneself.
The Khan’s tent was distinguished from others only in that it was bigger and that the upper part as well as its sides had been covered with taffeta on which cutout flowers had been attached. Above the middle of the upper part, where he sat, hung a baldachin covered with damask. On either side of the tent there was a small corridor through which the servants could go around the tent. The front part of the tent was entirely open; nevertheless, because the weather was not the most pleasant, braziers (mangals) were placed in most tents. Mangals are iron, copper or metal braziers342 that are filled with glowing, smokeless coal [343] to thereby provide some heat. As far as I am concerned, those braziers give benefit to those who love an open fire without the draft of a chimney, or those who are not susceptible to the effect of the fumes.
Finally, I further remark that the tents of lower persons were not all triangular, but various forms and mostly were no better than the tents of our soldiers. In this camp in which the Khan and the core of the Gilani aristocracy stayed one would expect modest behavior of all present. But, as the arrangement of the tents was disorderly, so was everything else. The delight of the Persians consisted in this very disorder. Some rode so maniacally that if one was outside one’s tent, one was in danger every moment of becoming dangerously wounded on any part of one’s body. Some young people were really ridden down and killed on this occasion. Others, by their horrible uproar, made it so difficult for people to think in peace and quiet that they would have sought their pleasure anywhere but here. Again others practiced shooting, or shot with arrows at a target, while in the meantime goings-on in the tents were not so quiet either, for in there, under the clang of different musical instruments, some heavy drinking took place.
I will dwell somewhat on the Khan’s music. Just as with us, as the ear loves different sensations, likewise the Persians have a taste thereof. Their invention-pleasing spirit of our passions has conceived shawms, bassoons, violins, pandora, harps, fifes and the like. Depending on the revelry of the moment, one chooses this or that kind of musical instrument accordingly. A kamancheh (kamantschin) is that kind of a Persian violin that has three or four strings, which are fastened with screws at both ends to a long, narrow body that is almost conic in form. The sound board is round, three or four fingers wide, covered with a piece of skin. Below, it either ends without a point or it ends in a metal point. One plays this instrument with a bow of horsehair and when playing the sound board rests on the ground, like a viola di gamba.
The tschefesde [344] is a kind of pandora that consists of many brass wire strings, of which the two closest ones always have the same tone. It is plucked with the fingers when played. There is one kind of harp, which is called tschie. [345] It looks like a blunt triangle and consists of six strings, and one also plays it with the fingers. Another one has many strings, but has an unequal quadrangular shape, and is struck with sticks specially made to that end. It is almost the same instrument that is called tsimbali (zimbal) in Russian. The karnay (gurnai) or shawm is entirely the same as ours, both in tone and form. The sanj (sinschi), real Turkish metal cymbals that look like big dinner plates, are bashed together so that they produce a vibrating ring. These are the real Persian music instruments that musicians play in homes and which on this occasion I have found altogether at Hedayat Khan.
Publisher's Note: In 1770 the young German scientist and explorer Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin embarked on a journey on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the service of Catherine the Great. These heretofore little-read accounts of his travels and broad research in Northern Persia, first published in German in St. Petersburg in the 1770’s, have now been translated for the first time into English by renowned scholar Willem Floor.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/2428/88367462ys9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
In the two voyages recounted in this volume, Gmelin kept journals describing the customs, industry, political world, warfare, geography, and plant and animal life of Northern Persia, until his capture and imprisonment in the village of Parakay near the Caspian Sea in 1774 -- a misfortune that he also was able to record, and which is included here in the final volume of his travelogue.
Includes the third and fourth volumes of Gmelin’s four-part travelogue Travels through Russia to Investigate the Three Natural Realms, as well as the 1784 preface, and an appendix with further accounts by Gmelin’s student. Gmelin’s entries describe, among many things, the political situation and wars in Persia; the temperament and physical characteristics of the Persians; the people’s table manners and hygiene; Persian money, weights and measures; the court of the Khan of Gilan; the Gilani language; Persian monks; Persian medical science; Shi`a Islam; the Jews of Rasht; the Persian attitude toward Christians; treatment of women; the plant and animal life of Persia; the Turkmen tribes of the east Caspian; the mountain peoples of Daghestan; the potential for Russian trade with the peoples of Persia; the Persian Armenians and their mercantile activity; and Persian methods of fishing, farming and preparing various foods. With thirty-eight illustrations.
PAGES 161-164
The twenty-third and fourth. I busied myself at home due to the incessant rain, and on the twenty-fifth I accepted the Khan’s invitation to go with him once again to Pasikhan (Bassa Chan). Today and during the following days things were much better, because I stayed in Pasikhan until the twenty-ninth. At least I got a better idea of Persian merrymaking than before, irrespective of the fact that I cannot yet say that they roused the kind of feeling that it engendered among the Persians.
The first thing that I have to describe is the camp, which constituted the theater for these delights. The circumference amounted to about two Russian wersts and the tents were pitched on it, a free open place through which two streams ran. The tents were pitched without order. They were neither erected in rows nor placed in any other regular manner. What one clearly saw was that the immediate area where the Khan resided remained free of other tents [296] and those that were closest to the Khan’s were only occupied by the most important persons and his minions. Among them I was also allocated a rather spacious one for me and my company.
The tents of the Khan and of important people were oblong in general and were supported by two or three poles. The exterior sides were covered with a finer or coarser kattan and the interior ones with silken or woolen fabrics. Several carpets of greater or lesser value were spread out and on the sides lay felts interwoven with flowers, on which the Persians are wont to sit. Larger tents were subdivided into two or more rooms by means of curtains. Next to the Khan’s tent and those of important people there were holes dug in the ground screened with broadcloth and kattan where one could relieve oneself.
The Khan’s tent was distinguished from others only in that it was bigger and that the upper part as well as its sides had been covered with taffeta on which cutout flowers had been attached. Above the middle of the upper part, where he sat, hung a baldachin covered with damask. On either side of the tent there was a small corridor through which the servants could go around the tent. The front part of the tent was entirely open; nevertheless, because the weather was not the most pleasant, braziers (mangals) were placed in most tents. Mangals are iron, copper or metal braziers342 that are filled with glowing, smokeless coal [343] to thereby provide some heat. As far as I am concerned, those braziers give benefit to those who love an open fire without the draft of a chimney, or those who are not susceptible to the effect of the fumes.
Finally, I further remark that the tents of lower persons were not all triangular, but various forms and mostly were no better than the tents of our soldiers. In this camp in which the Khan and the core of the Gilani aristocracy stayed one would expect modest behavior of all present. But, as the arrangement of the tents was disorderly, so was everything else. The delight of the Persians consisted in this very disorder. Some rode so maniacally that if one was outside one’s tent, one was in danger every moment of becoming dangerously wounded on any part of one’s body. Some young people were really ridden down and killed on this occasion. Others, by their horrible uproar, made it so difficult for people to think in peace and quiet that they would have sought their pleasure anywhere but here. Again others practiced shooting, or shot with arrows at a target, while in the meantime goings-on in the tents were not so quiet either, for in there, under the clang of different musical instruments, some heavy drinking took place.
I will dwell somewhat on the Khan’s music. Just as with us, as the ear loves different sensations, likewise the Persians have a taste thereof. Their invention-pleasing spirit of our passions has conceived shawms, bassoons, violins, pandora, harps, fifes and the like. Depending on the revelry of the moment, one chooses this or that kind of musical instrument accordingly. A kamancheh (kamantschin) is that kind of a Persian violin that has three or four strings, which are fastened with screws at both ends to a long, narrow body that is almost conic in form. The sound board is round, three or four fingers wide, covered with a piece of skin. Below, it either ends without a point or it ends in a metal point. One plays this instrument with a bow of horsehair and when playing the sound board rests on the ground, like a viola di gamba.
The tschefesde [344] is a kind of pandora that consists of many brass wire strings, of which the two closest ones always have the same tone. It is plucked with the fingers when played. There is one kind of harp, which is called tschie. [345] It looks like a blunt triangle and consists of six strings, and one also plays it with the fingers. Another one has many strings, but has an unequal quadrangular shape, and is struck with sticks specially made to that end. It is almost the same instrument that is called tsimbali (zimbal) in Russian. The karnay (gurnai) or shawm is entirely the same as ours, both in tone and form. The sanj (sinschi), real Turkish metal cymbals that look like big dinner plates, are bashed together so that they produce a vibrating ring. These are the real Persian music instruments that musicians play in homes and which on this occasion I have found altogether at Hedayat Khan.