LIFE IN THE DESERT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 18

LIFE IN THE DESERT

A vivid description of life in Persia is given by a lady who is living at the British Consulate to a. friend in Auckland (says the “Herald”). She writes:

“I find it a verj’ weird place—the whole country seems a mixture of Old Testament, Chu Chin Chow, and the Arabian Nights, all shot down in the middle of a desert. The heat is intense —124 degrees in the shade being quite normal at this time of the year. Fortunately I do not feel the heat and we have cool nights. The sandstorms are certainly a trifle tiring. The Consulate is an old Persian house right in the town, and joined to other houses like a terrace. There tire spaces of flat roof on which we sleep, and often I get up at daybreak and look down on to the courtyards of our Persian neighbours and watch them one by one "take up their beds” and turn to the east to pray as the sun rises. Nearly all the people, about half of whom are Arabs, dress in black, and they look most effective against the desert, the colour of which is, as Robert Louis Stevenson says, “tawny, like a lion.” Between the front of our house and the Karuu River is an open space, and at morning and evening one hears the sound of bells and sees caravans starting off across the desert —strings of camels and laden donkeys, with blackrobed figures muffled to the eyes as a protection against the dust and sand. I love Persia, and especially this place —the wildness, the barbaric simplicity of it all. no trees, no grass, just miles and miles of sand stretching away to the far horizon, with occasional low hills and tiny mud-built villages merging into the distant haze. “Although this is a Persian house,” she goes on to write, “we have electric light and fans, and my private suite of rooms would be the envy of many a flat-dweller in a civilised country. My bedroom is the size of a small church—and contains nothing but a bed in the centre under a fan and the floor covering of many gorgeous carpets. A rather amusing point about the bathroom is the hot water service. The water is stored in tanks on the roof, and the heat of the sun raises the temperature to almost boiling point, so that the water has to be drawn off several hours beforehand, to be allowed to cool. We have two cars which always fly the Union Jack, hut we use our horses quite a lot, riding being the chief joy of my existence.” The writer refers to the attempt of the Duchess of Bedford to fly to India and back in eight days, her 'plane, however, breaking down at Bushire. While waiting for it to be repaired she decided to visit the oil fields. “The Anglo-Persian Oil Company entertained her.” states the writer, “and gave a dinner party in her honour, to which we were invited, and I was the only other woman there. We spent an extremely pleasant evening in her company. We got about a good deal, and of course visit Rohammerah, on the Tigris, which is not. far from Basra, and also by the oil field. A description of the latter would take pages, as it is such a marvellous place. What I like about Persia is that one meets such interesting people there —such odd.

quaint, and amusing types. Of course, there is tragedy, pathos, and humour to be found everywhere in the world, but somehow it all seems to be intensified here, perhaps because of the savage, uncivilised country that it is.”