Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 307
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 307]
151
graciously allowed to depart before another procession arrived.
My longest trip in the Ford vanette was one over an unmapped road towards the big town of Resht two hundred miles to the north; close to the Caspian Sea and not far from the mountain stronghold of the ancient Assassins. We set out early one morning, Joseph Ismael, the English driver and myself, with four cases (thirty two gallons) of petrol and a full tank. Our only guidance was a road report by a German Major who had made the journey in 1884, long before the days of motor transport. The first day we made good progress passing over treeless undulating country with a few scattered villages, on and off the route, as the only signs of habitation. A steep pass in a range of low hills that angled across our route twice necessitated our having to unload the van and push it over the worst bits. That night we slept in the back of the vanette alongside a quiet village. It had the usual serai (native hotel) and during the evening I went there to make inquiries about the route farther north, but found only four Persians smoking opium, lying on high benches around the walls, and already half stupefied. Opium smoking was very common in Persia, particularly among the peasants, and I had seen many crops of opium poppies in my travels. I believe that most of the product was exported across the common frontier with China.
Anyhow the next afternoon, after precariously crossing a couple of very narrow rickety bridges, we arrived at a small river running between high, steep, sandy banks. I felt that we could certainly drive, but doubted the ability of the vanette to climb the bank on the other side, even if unloaded, or our side if we tried to turn back. So I played safe and decided to abandon the remainder of the journey, though we were only half-way to Resht. A couple of miles back we had passed the small town if Zinjan lying a couple of miles off the main track, and as the sun was setting, we turned around and drove to it across the bare dusty plain. As we approached, villagers came rushing towards us and ran alongside the vanette, and women and children were crowded on the flat roofs of the houses to see this unusual sight. We learnt