Every great personage retains among his favoured servants a few pehliwans or wrestlers; and among the artisans many are wrestlers by profession, and follow at the same time a trade. CHAPTER IX. KERMANSHAH. Leave for Kermanshah, marching—Detail of arrangements—Horse feeding—Peculiar way of bedding horses—Barley—Grape feeding—On grass—Nawalla—Colt, Anecdote of—Horses, Various breeds of—Turkomans—Karabagh—Ispahan cobs—Gulf Arabs—Arabs—Rise in price of horses—Road cooking—Kangawar temple—Double snipe—Tents—Kara-Su River—Susmanis—Sana—Besitūn—Sir H. Rawlinson—Agha Hassan—Istikhbal—Kermanshah—As we turn in another turns out—Armenians—Their reasons for apostatising—Presents of sweetmeats. On Pierson’s return to Hamadan, I gladly prepared to start with him for Kermanshah. My traps were not numerous—a folding-table, four chairs, a tressel bedstead, and two bullock-trunks, formed one load; and my bedding in a case, made of carpet, bound with leather, and surmounted by my head-man, another; my groom was perched on a third, sitting on the clothing of the two horses, and carrying their head and heel ropes and the stable spade, with which their bed of “pane” (dried horse-dung) is prepared at night, and the copper bucket for watering them. The cook, with all his _batterie de cuisine_, had the fourth, and Ramazan and the contents of the dispensary took two more. I think another was charged with bottled beer, and of course we each rode our horses. The stages were:— Farsakhs. Assadabad or Seydabad 7 Kangawar 5 Sana 6 Besitūn 4 Kermanshah 6 Or miles, 112; farsakhs, 28. An hour’s riding took us clear of the vineyards of Hamadan, and we passed over grassy downs with patches of desert till we got to the commencement of the Seydabad Pass. This, though it would be looked on as a tremendous matter in England, is nothing difficult to get over when there is no snow, and an hour’s smart climb brought us to the top. The descent on the other side was much longer, and we made the seven farsakhs, about twenty-eight miles, in nine hours’ continuous marching. The road was very bad, being full of loose stones the whole of the way from the commencement of the ascent. We put up at the “chupper-khana;” as this was my first experience of marching, I may as well detail our arrangements. As soon as we had cleared the top of the pass, the servants pushed on with those loads that it was needful to unpack, while we came on slowly with the mules; the grooms, too, went on as smartly as possible; my fellow had my other horse led in a halter. As it got to nearly sunset (we had started very late, as is always the case in a first stage), we cantered gently in to the post-house.