Across Coveted Lands, Volume 2 (2024)

Pleasingly non-chauvinistic Victorian adventurer Landor continues his journey across 'coveted lands', through eastern Iran and on into British Beluchistan (with a quick detour into forbidden Afghanistan), crossing the inhospitable Salt Desert of Iran on camels with his trusty servant Sadek, a reluctant guide and, improbably, three persian kittens, two of whom, Kerman and Zeris, survived the entire journey.*

Along the way he continues to observe the culture and custom, topography and trade of the region in an attempt to enlighten his own countrymen. I much prefer Landor's turns with the former two topics, but there is no question that he is on a reconaissence mission for the British government - whether they commissioned it or wanted it or not - so regrettably there is much more time devoted to the latter two topics.

In truth, on this second leg of the journey there is little else for him to focus on. Eastern Iran was a sparsely populated wasteland consisting of hundreds of miles of monotonous deserts, hemmed in by distant mountain ranges, only occasionally enlivened with freestanding deposits of sand, trails of salt or gypsum, and clusters of short tamarisk trees.

The winds are so fierce that the trees are all short by necessity, the plains are so full of salt that the water is mostly brackish at best, the days are so hot that traveling is impossible and encasing yourself in wooly clothes actually brings your internal temperature down, whilst the nights are so cold, moving is the only way to avoid freezing.

In the wildernesses his Mannlicher rifle is invaluable when dealing with the natives, be it in using the butt to persuade truculent camel men or flourishing it as an awe-inspiring threat, like when he is cursed and stoned by the villagers of rocky Naiband.

In Sistan, near the Afghan border, for 'a few tomans one can have people assassinated'.

It's a hard trek over unforgiving territory, further inconvenienced when he suffers from fever, making for days and weeks of uncomfortable night traveling on smelly, reluctant camels, not to mention the constant thirst, not helped by more than one unfortunate accident with their precious water rations.

The best parts of this second volume were when Landor came across some of the ruins of the once vast kingdoms of eastern Iran. The most extraordinary of these, Zaidan, he terms a sort of 'ancient London of the East ... which in the days of its glory measured no less than eighty-six miles'.

Notable also are the elevated ruins of Kala-i-Kakaha, or the "city of roars of laughter", a quaint and picturesque city built on the steep slope of the south escarpment of the mountain. Various theories about the source of it's name are given, each picturesque, all unlikely.

As mentioned, he briefly crosses the Afghan border, where Englishmen were not allowed at that time. His portrait of the Afghan character is not a flattering one, though there must have been much mistrust at the time (as with now, in fact):

'The Afghan invariably has a slippery, treacherous look about his countenance which he cannot disguise, and which, personally, I do not much admire'.

The Beluch character fares rather better. He sees much to admire in them, especially their dignity and manors. I enjoyed his description of Beluch musicians at Sibi, who sang in falsetto and held notes until their heads nearly exploded, then 'when the musicians were carried away by the martial words of the song, the instrumental accompaniment became next to diabolical'.

Landor completes his journey and travels back to Britain via Calcutta, leaving a cultural and geographical 'how to' for Victorian businessmen and politicians that they may or may not have taken notice of.

Either way, he would no doubt be surprised and dismayed to see how relations have turned out between us and the peoples of this region a century on.

The British empire has long gone since the days of Arnold Henry Savage, but when it succeeded, as Landor notes, it was due to 'men with sound common sense, civil manners, and human sympathy ... and these men, as I have ever maintained, can do Great Britain more good in foreign countries in a day than all the official red-tape in a year'.