Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 285
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[Page 285]
140
Still following Alexander's historic route through the barren mountains for another ninety miles we arrived, on the 18th of June at the big town of Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana where it is believed that he hid part of his great treasury. We had marched for five days along rough camel tracks gradually ascending to an elevation of about six thousand feet at Hamadan, pleasantly situated between an undulating plain and, to the north-west, the Elveland mountain range, whose eternally snow-capped peaks rose to nearly another six thousand feet. Heavily wooded foothills of small snow-fed streams danced down from the mountains and hillsides, and into irrigation ditches to water orchards, vineyards and vegetable gardens on the level ground near the town. Tall hedges of closely-grown Poplar trees surrounded these cultivations for protection against inclement winds. With the advent of Spring the famine ended, and there was an abundance of grapes, pome and stone fruits, pomegranates, potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers. Out on the plain the Winter wheat was sprouting vigorously, and shepherds were grazing their tiny flocks of flat-tailed sheep on the new grass.
On arrival at Hamadan many of our Party, including myself, were prostrated by an exceptionally severe type of dysentery. Before we could finish a normal meal we had to rush to stool; our food was going straight through us and we were losing weight rapidly. Three of our number fell away to almost skeletons and died within a few weeks; they were buried in Hamadan. An eminent bacteriologist, Colonel Wilcox, came from Baghdad in a hurry. He said he was quite unable to identify the type of dysentery and for want of a better name he would call it "Persiaitis": incidentally, in civil life as a forensic expert he had been the Crown witness whose evidence hanged Doctor Crippen, in the famous wife-murder trial. He advised us to eat "mast" the local yoghurt, in which he said that no germs could live: I took this advice and recovered in a week ; it certainly saved my life. We became easily exhausted in the rarefied air of the high altitude and it took a fortnight to get used to it.