Thurs March 23 [23 March 1911] We got off about 8, one of Mustafa
Pasha's men with us to introduce us to Kerim Khan who is now muhafiz
at Kasr i Shirin [Qasr-e-Shirin]. Lovely morning and beautiful country
with gleaming snows in the distance. I found one of Mustafa Pasha's
guests on the road and a Persian photographer who had travelled to
London and Paris. We got to the frontier in about 2 hours, a curious
looking pagoda like place. Beyond it is a strip of ground which
belongs to no man but on the next hill top we saw the Kurdish
horsemen of Persia and behind the hill the first Kurdish post. I
stopped to photograph and the c....... came galopping [sic] down - not
to despoil me but to be photographed. So we rode on through
charming rolling country, partly green, but little population or
cultivation. One scarlet tulip lifting up its wine cup. We presently
came to Kala Sabszi (where the Kurdish khans levy a toll of a kran on
all baggage animals, as they do at the frontier post at Kasr i Shirin)
After this I lunched but caught up the baggage and the Helwand
[Alwand] valley just below the Kurdish kal'ah. We left the road and
went straight up to the kal'ah where I conversed with some of the
khans on the chemin de ronde and with some outside, but I did not go
in thinking that Kerim Khan was not there (which he was) So we rode
on to the ruins where I found the tents pitched. Fattuh rather agitated
because a bullet had whizzed past his ear. We found afterwards that
the Kurds are constantly having rifle practice in all directions. I got in
about 2 and set to work at once on the first castle. Lots of people
came out and all of them warned us against thieves. Muhammad the
Kurd had gone into the village to buy grain with Mahmud when at 5.30
Fattuh sent to say that 2 bullets had whizzed past our tents. At that
moment arrived a Persian boy from the Belgian Customs official, M.
Villani, with a message which I understood to mean that the place was
not safe. So I told Fattuh to pack up at once and I rode up to the Kala'
and interviewed Kerim Khan in the dark. He promised to give me a
guard and I decided to camp near the kala. The Persian boy
meantime had ridden onto the gumrek in distress and anger. As I
rode back through the town to catch my caravan, some of the Custom
House men stopped me and siezed my mare. So I got off and
walked and was caught up by M. Villani, very angry thinking that I had
attempted to evade the customs. At last I got him pacified by which
time Muhammad the Kurd had come up and told me that my camp
was pitched in the khan. So I let things alone and remained there -
Kheir inshallah! Kerim Khan sent a guard all the same and a mild[?]
looking individual to ask whether I had any quarrel with the rais of the
gumrek as in that case he wd have them all shot! Also the gÈrant of
the petroleum mines came to see me and told me that an English
man of the Company was arriving in 2 days. Cold night.