Mende Nazer

The movie I am Slave is as good as the book, from scenes of wild destruction as Arab horsemen seize 12-year-old Mende Nazer from her home in the Nuba Mountains, to the slave market in Khartoum, to her days of captivity in London. The story of a plucky young woman breaking away from years of Sudanese servitude to recreate herself as a free UK citizen is inspiring: we wish her well. It also provides a dramatic glimpse of one of the stranger fruits of British multiculturalism — a slave-trade that has brought hundreds of captive African youngsters into the land of William Wilberforce and Granville Sharp. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mende_Nazer)

This historic development is very odd. In fact it is so odd that it deserves the attention of someone who has thought long and hard about slavery, a person of broad culture and widely read, and ideally both of African background and a moral philosopher too. With such requirements it might seem hard to imagine anyone likely to qualify — hard even to know where to look. Yet there’s a man in the USA who exactly fills the bill: Kwame Anthony Akroma-Ampim Kusi Appiah. Born in London in 1954 before growing up in Ghana, Professor Appiah is a well-known Cambridge-educated figure who has in the past “published widely in African and African-American literary and cultural studies,” but is now, we are told, mainly concerned with “the philosophical foundations of liberalism” and “the connection between theory and practice in moral life.”

The Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Appiah is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Democracy Fund, is currently Chair of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies, and even a cursory look at his long list of achievements reveals a serious mover and shaker in the U.S. liberal establishment today.  (http://appiah.net/biography/)

Slavery in theory and practice

Originally from Ghana, now focused on “the connection between theory and practice in moral life”, could anyone be more suitable for bridging the gap between surreptitiously smuggled African slave-children and higher academic thought? If anyone can explain to the Mende Nazers of the world what it is that happened to them so violently and painfully in Africa, and why it is still happening to African children today, surely Kwame A. Appiah is the man. Though in the 2007 book Buying Freedom one soon discovers that the theory and practice of liberating slaves is no simple matter. Professor Appiah co-authored the Introduction, and his own essay toward the end — “What’s Wrong with Slavery?” — is one of a dozen contributions mainly concerned with the moral and economic perplexities of redeeming slaves by paying cash to slave-traders.

Those like Baroness Cox, in the UK, who forthrightly accept the practice, are opposed by others who claim that paying cash drives up the price of slaves, and increases slave-raiding. Paying cash should have that effect in theory, but whether it really does no-one is sure. Buying Freedom is a book with economic articles about the mathematics of “efficient competitive equilibrium,” on the one hand, and contributions from moral philosophers using words like “deontology” and “consequentialism” on the other. One might hope that despite the fancy vocabulary there’s something here to help Africa’s slaves. But that is uncertain. Deontologically speaking, it seems we are duty bound to buy a slave’s freedom if we can; though some argue that this “commodifies” the human subject, while others point to a whole cascade of undesirable unintended effects. A prudent man might just leave his hands in his pockets and keep walking.

As for Appiah’s own contribution, with its provocative title, we learn that as a boy in Ghana he was at first told very little about the importance of slave trading to the traditional Asante (Ashanti) economy. Only later did he learn that “the suppression of the slave trade began the period of Asante imperial decline, which was to end with final conquest by the British at the start of the twentieth century.” What he calls “the central moral questions” about liberating slaves are the author’s main concern, and he agrees that freedom comes first. But according to Appiah “freedom is not enough”. After the act of liberation we also have a duty to guarantee every freed slave respect, self-esteem, and dignity. While these are all good things, they seem to reflect the idealistic world of academic philosophy rather than the needs of actual slaves themselves. You don’t read much of Mende Nazer’s story without realizing that her own priority was liberty — it’s right there in the title of the successful 2010 stage play about her life: “Slave: A Question of Freedom.”

*    *    *

After this Appiah goes off on a long divagation about the relative status of different kinds of Asante slaves. It seems there were five degrees of enslavement in the Asante Empire, hierarchy being the leading feature of a social milieu where minute grades of status make the Russian nomenklatura seem half-hearted. It’s hard to know exactly what Appiah makes of this fact. Does he admire the overall complexity of the social system as if complexity were good in itself? Or regard an elaborate bureaucracy as something prestigious? Not all students of government feel this way. The world of the old-time Asante he describes is in fact a classical system of aristocratic rank and authority where everyone has a place and everyone is expected to keep it — a quasi-medieval system where what we might call “respect on demand” is vigorously enforced.

Appiah himself emphasizes that if you were lucky enough to be a Grade One Slave you couldn’t be sold, which is good. Then he describes another degree in which the slave was really a kind of pawn — “but then a pawn was not strictly a possession either”, going on to claim that the relationship between slave and slave owner, though unequal, was better seen as “reciprocal” and that the slave had clear rights against his master. Only at the end of what reads like the usual anthropological apologia do we descend to the inglorious level of the Grade Four and Grade Five Slaves, war captives and criminals whose fate was to be used for human sacrifice — though they might have to wait some weeks cooling their heels “until such time as it was deemed religiously auspicious to kill them.”

Human sacrifice

Latinate English is always useful for neutralising disagreeable facts, or veiling ugly realities, and the phrase “religiously auspicious” is a good example of this. In “What’s Wrong With Slavery?” Professor Appiah smoothly invites us to contemplate a world where sacrificial slaves uncomplainingly accept their fate as little more than a social convention. The scene portrayed is calm, formal, orderly, and safely ritualised. With a little imagination you might even be able to hear the victim imploring the executioner, “if His Majesty deems it religiously auspicious please take my head off now — delay is unnecessary.” Yet visitors to the region in days gone by (days as recent as the year 1900 in Appiah’s Ghana) suggest it wasn’t quite like that in the violent kingdoms of old West Africa, where capital punishment was a casual event and severed heads were part of the everyday scene.

In the nearby kingdom of Dahomey, in 1772, Robert Norris found the viceroy passing sentence on a woman who had accidentally started a fire in the market. “I requested that her life might be spared”, wrote Norris, and offered to purchase her as a slave. But the king had firmly made up his mind. Her head was to be “cut off and fixed upon a stake.” The victim’s small daughter ran up to her at this point, unaware of her mother’s situation, causing a brief diversion before the distressed woman was bludgeoned to death.

Also unmentioned by Professor Appiah are the disagreeable preliminaries Thomas Bowdich described. Bowdich was in the Asante kingdom for five months in 1817 and is usually regarded as a reliable, accurate, and racially unbiased observer. He was favourably impressed by much that he saw — the majestic deportment of the Asante king, the color and magnificence of ceremonial life, the elegance of the women, and a style of dancing where “the man encircles the woman with a piece of silk…supports her round the waist, receives her elbows in the palms of his hands,” the two then performing “a variety of figures approximating, with the time and movement, very close to the waltz.”

Less attractive were the sacrifices immediately following. “The drums announced the sacrifice of the victims… The executioners wrangled and struggled for the office: the nearest executioner snatched the sword from the others, the right hand of the victim was then lopped off, he was thrown down, and his head was sawed rather than cut off.” Bowdich writes of a typical victim en route to execution that “His hands were pinioned behind him, a knife was passed through his cheeks, to which his lips were noosed like the figure of 8; one ear was cut off and carried before him, the other hung to his head by a small bit of skin; there were several gashes in his back, and a knife thrust under each shoulder blade; he was led with a cord passed through his nose…the feeling this horrid barbarity excited must be imagined.”

Appiah’s quasi-ethnographic depiction of traditional Asante slavery, with sacrifices culturally authorised and occurring only when “religiously auspicious,” shows, some might say, a proper scholarly detachment. And perhaps it does. But it also shows an unreal legalism where forms are mistaken for facts. When he tells us that reciprocity prevailed and that the luckier slaves even had “rights” against their owners, you would never guess that he is talking about a preliterate society without books, or writing, or written laws, or constitutional guarantees; a world with no independent judiciary, and no rational adversarial procedures for obtaining and testing evidence (though plunging the accused’s hand into boiling oil was thought a useful test); a world — if truth be told — perpetually subject to the whims and passions of powerful chiefs who ruled as much by terror as by consent. In the benign environment of Princeton it may seem plausible that the formal rights of West African slaves against their owners might actually have been enforceable. But you wouldn’t want to push your luck. My guess is that an Asante slave who stood on his rights would not be standing long.

“Moral revolutions” and slavery

According to the title of a recent book by the amiable Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal we live in The Age of Empathy, something he attributes to our warmly social hominid instincts. Also just published is a book by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, arguing that the modern era has been one of moral progress accompanied by a steady decline in violence. It seems that what Norbert Elias called “the civilizing process” is nowadays on many minds, and Kwame A. Appiah’s 2010 book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, might be seen as broadly in the same vein. Taking an idiosyncratic view of moral and social progress, he sees national and social honor playing a key role in the outlawing of the duel, in the abandonment of Chinese foot-binding, in the abolition of slavery, and in the ongoing struggle by enlightened men and women in Islamic lands against the horror of “honor killings”. All these changes are what he calls “moral revolutions.”

Here we are only concerned with the slavery issue and Appiah’s treatment in Chapter Three, “Suppressing Atlantic Slavery” — a title that reveals a lot. Bear in mind that we’re dealing here with a persistent African problem, wondering how a prominent American liberal trying to bring theory and practice together might have something useful to tell a woman like Mende Nazer about how and why she was enslaved in the early 1990s. The judiciously inserted “Atlantic” however makes it clear that the endemic African slavery that led to her ordeal in Khartoum, and then saw her trafficked to England, is not on the author’s agenda. Regarding slavery his eyes are firmly on the past.

Nor does this moral philosopher feel obliged to comment on the inexplicably violent and cruel attitude to life and limb still found in many parts of the continent, something as grossly visible in the atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance Army as in the sickening events shown in the 2008 French docudrama Johnny Mad Dog. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/22/johnny-mad-dog-review) Then when he defines slavery as “the subordination of one race by another”, entailing “the systematic subjection of black people to dishonour”, a self-serving assumption is exposed. It appears that the centuries-old enslavement of black people by black people, among the very West African societies he grew up in and presumably knows best — the same West African societies that started the “Atlantic” slave trade on its hideous course back in the 15^th century — will not be discussed.

On not being dissed

The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen is a curious book, hard to make sense of unless one radically changes the title. Appiah says he found the work of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend “fascinating” and that’s where he got the word revolution from. Lots of people have been fascinated by the word revolution — many still are — but it is not always appropriate, and is in this case downright misleading. The end of dueling, the end of foot-binding in China, the abolition of slavery, came from the incremental development of moral sentiments and legal reforms, as indeed is perfectly obvious from what Appiah writes about them himself. In fact the word revolution adds nothing but a false glamor to his argument. As for what we now see in Islamic lands regarding “honor killings”, the agonizingly slow process by which large male populations between Damascus and Kabul are discouraged from raping and murdering young women is so far from being “revolutionary” that one wonders how any thoughtful man could use the term.

But it is the word “honor” that is most confusing here. Historically it often denoted noble sentiments rather than ignoble, acts and feelings toward the courageous end of the semantic spectrum. But right from the first it is clear that this is a book more about fear than about courage, more about chronic status anxiety than about positive and helpful beliefs, and that a better title might be Face-Saving: an Aspect of Moral Conduct — or more to the psychological point, The Importance of Not Being Dissed.

In a definitive statement on page 175 he writes, “Here, then, is the picture: Having honor means being entitled to respect. As a result, if you want to know whether a society has a concern with honor, look first to see whether people there think anyone has a right to be treated with respect.” Surely most cultures treat most of their law-abiding members most of the time with respect. But indiscriminate respect is withheld because the distinction between good and bad behavior is the foundation of any social order at all. Respect is accorded when deserved; esteem and dignity are won when socially acknowledged. That is how Mende Nazer’s Nuba in the Sudan order their lives, as do hundreds of tribal peoples. That is also how modern civil society allows free individuals to autonomously win distinction — autonomy, by the way, being a major theme in much of Appiah’s writing. But what he is on about here is something else, a kind of ethical overreach to be enforced by a benevolent state. In the utopia he envisages, respect, dignity, and esteem are to be incorporated into a set of legal entitlements defined as political rights.

The contrast between the academic view and the ex-slave’s view is illuminating. While Appiah and others with status grievances appear to require state intervention (for unless respect on demand is made mandatory how exactly is it to be achieved?) you can’t see this keeping Mende Nazer awake at night. A figure of great resource and unmistakable distinction, she needs nobody else to claim respect or dignity on her behalf. Appiah has been anxious to let us know his connections with the Kumasi upper crust of high chiefs and grandly titled kings. It seems to be this aristocracy he feels most comfortable with. I can’t help wondering if he might have obtained a more realistic view of the ordinary human lot by spending some time, like Mende Nazer, as a slave.

“Morality is not enough”

The author of The Honor Code has written novels, and one way of trying to make sense of his book is to regard it as a highly digressive intellectual roman à thèse. The thesis is that “honor” is just as important in moral conduct as firm convictions about right and wrong, and should be preferred to both Christian commandments and Kantian imperatives. Appiah notes on page 181 that Kant himself said that honor “is not worthy of the highest respect, even where it happens to coincide with the common interest and with duty.” Appiah disagrees, but Kant is surely right. The reason being that honor is fundamentally atavistic, a part of our competitive animal nature shared with rutting stags and bellowing elephant seals. For that unhappy reason we find that right across the range of zoological behavior it is inseparably associated with bloodshed and aggression. A psychological aspect of defensive pride, it is often found with unmanageable levels of amour propre, and that’s why it erupts in violence nearly everywhere. In human affairs honor belongs in the touchy, unstable, and tumultuous world of the “dissed”, as they resentfully look for signs of not receiving the respect that is their due.

We may agree that honor is a moving force that prompts men to act, and that can be harnessed to moral goals. But it is entirely relativistic, and what it honors is sometimes very ugly indeed. The honor of a camorra boss in Naples may lead him to massacre an innocent family; the honor of an Islamic father may lead him to kill his own daughter; the honor of the Crips may require them to slaughter a bunch of rival Bloods at the smallest sign they’ve been “dissed”. From which the sensible conclusion is surely that honor is largely indifferent to moral conduct per se — other perhaps than the deeply ambiguous virtue of “solidarity” shared by tribes, sects, cricket teams, medieval nobility, and American street gangs. Indeed, one is bound to point out to Professor Appiah, in Princeton, that the most conspicuous sociological example close at hand is in Los Angeles, where honor and a fierce determination not to be dissed leaves the streets in some areas daily stained with gore. If you want to see the living social universe of honor, where “morality is not enough” and where the passion for face-saving goes perpetually unassuaged, the territory of the Bloods and the Crips is where to look.

Not that Appiah is unaware of the conflict between a safe social morality and his theory. Far from it. Much of The Honor Code can be read as a perverse intellectual struggle between two schemes of moral guidance that he well knows are often opposed. Item: “Honor and morality are separate systems: they can be aligned… but they can easily pull in opposite directions”… Item: “Both recognition respect and esteem can be distributed by honor codes without any regard for morality…” Item: in Pakistan we are bound to “confront one of the dark sides of honor”. And so on. But although on one page he can be found freely admitting the paradoxes within his thesis he invariably manages to ignore them on the next. An entire chapter on Islamic “honor killings” is presented, with gratuitously long novelistic sections about rape, violence, murder, and “murderous families”, all in the name of honor, without it seeming to be seriously understood, amidst all the confusion, that the implication of the very usage itself — “honor killings” — represents not merely “the dark side” of the phenomenon, it tends to make an oxymoronic absurdity of the general argument.

How did Appiah’s moral revolutions really happen?

The phrasing of Appiah’s title — The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen — implies universality. Honor is presented as a psychological constant in human affairs, and it follows from this that its unvarying action must also produce, universally, “moral revolutions” everywhere. Why doesn’t he pursue the implications of this view? Surely it is demeaning to the Rest (some might even say racist) to suggest that a universal process so necessary to the moral improvement of mankind failed to occur outside the West? Shouldn’t we also look be looking for it in Teheran, in Tokyo, in Ouadougou? In Moscow or Beijing? In Khartoum as well as the author’s Ghanaian home-town of Kumasi?

Yet his vaunted moral revolutions never began in any such places. And the reason is blindingly obvious to even a casual reader of the book. Despite colorful examples culled from a wide range of historical and literary sources, far and away the most powerful impulse driving the moral and legal reforms he discusses has come from Western Europe, sometimes embodied in the historic teachings of the Catholic Church, sometimes prompted by the efforts of Christian missions in foreign lands, and invariably driven today by the challenging cultural example of the humanitarian tradition in Western Civilization as a whole. In this humane tradition honor killings are not acceptable. Although it seems he would rather die than admit that the West was ahead of the Rest, or give credit where credit is exclusively due, Appiah’s own pages present all the evidence we need.

The duel, he says, was preceded by something called “judicial combat”, a contest in which “gentlemen of the rank of squire and above could settle legal disputes by passage of arms.” The Church opposed this as early as the ninth century, in the person of Pope Nicholas I, and in 1563 the Council of Trent denounced “the detestable custom of duelling…” The author doesn’t push his argument about national or social honor being the real factor that brought the duel to an end (his last pages on the subject contain airy literary references to Disraeli, Yeats, and Evelyn Waugh). But surely an obvious question must be asked: isn’t it more likely that the sense of honor that so impresses this moral philosopher, and which is found so widely among the touchy and the dissed, has in fact served to perpetuate duelling — just as it perpetuates the grim world of homicidal affray among the Bloods and Crips today?

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What about foot-binding? In deference to Chinese ethnic susceptibilities the author tries to make the most of whatever evidence exists of a native revolt against the practice. Because he declines to state outright that Western influence was the primary source of resistance to foot-binding, Appiah feels bound to try and find an explanation that flatters the moral insight and revolutionary potential of the Chinese people themselves. He points to the social role of an aroused late-19^th-century urban literati, and it is suggested that a 1828 novel by Li Ruzhen, Flowers in the Mirror, amounts to an early critique of foot-binding by a member of this class. Yet on the next page Appiah all-too-typically reverses direction, admitting that “despite these early critics, the organized resistance begins only after the intrusions of the missionaries.”

Christian schools for girls began to be opened in the 1860s in many parts of the country. In Hangzhou, in the Yangtze River delta, the Church Mission opened a school for girls in 1867, which required “from the first,” as Mrs Archibald Little wrote, “that the feet of the girls should be unbound, and that they should not be compelled to marry against their own consent…” Similarly, when the Methodists opened a girl’s school in Beijing, they required all the girls to have their feet unbound.

Comment on the so-called moral revolution that abolished the slave trade is surely superfluous. The evangelical convictions of Wilberforce were fundamental, as were the activities of numerous other church groups, from the Quakers to Wesley’s Methodists to the Clapham Sect that devotedly fought to abolish the slave trade after 1750. But enough: from his own documentation it is amply clear that Appiah’s long-winded examination of honor as a source of his supposed “moral revolutions” is superfluous, distracting, and a largely academic exercise. The more pages one turns the more obvious it becomes that whatever interest it may have in the psychology of moral action, both as motive and consequence honor exists on a decidedly lower plane than whatever ethical principles it may occasionally serve. As Kant understood very well.

Fine words not nearly enough

Of course it took more than the activities of church groups to abolish the slave trade. And more than the eloquence of parliamentarians and preachers. It took concerted military action on land and sea — though you won’t find much about that in Appiah’s account. The author of The Honor Code may have no taste for war, and have never held a gun, but he must know that the only reason West African slavery and human sacrifice were stamped out is that European colonial armies went in, conquered kingdoms incurably given to these practices, and brought them forcefully to an end.

Appiah makes occasional disapproving references to Sir Garnet Wolseley, and given his African background this is understandable. Wolseley was a soldier who didn’t mess about, and his 1874 campaign against King Kofi Kakari was ruthless in crushing the Asante armies, displacing the king, and burning the “charnel house” of the city of Kumasi to the ground. Not for a moment would we claim that his main motive was idealistic and uplifting, or that he intended purely and simply to stamp out Asante slavery and human sacrifice. As elsewhere in the region, the invasion of this West African kingdom was meant to open it to trade with the coast, and to undercut such tribal peoples as the Itsekiri, “middlemen between the early European traders and the inhabitants of the hinterland”, a campaign that had gone on intermittently for many years. But you don’t need a degree in deontology to recognise that the result changed barbarism for the better.

Or does Appiah think the customs of Old Ashanti should have been kept as a living museum, pristine and untouched? Does he imagine that if the Christian missions had been kept out, if Sir Garnet had never existed, if a sufficiently determined Anthropological Preservation Society had opposed all change — then internal war, slave raiding, cannibalism, and human sacrifice, might each have been kept going all the way down to the Age of Empathy and the International Court of Justice in the Hague?

The “reluctant cannibal” and moral theory

Whether or not it’s true that “there are no jokes in Islam” (a line attributed apocryphally to the Ayatollah Khomeini), there is certainly little humor in Appiah’s world of respect on demand and instant dignity. So let’s try and lighten things up. It seems to me that as moral philosophers the British comedians Michael Flanders and Donald Swann look pretty good alongside the Ivy League professor, and when they sing their song about the “reluctant cannibal” who independently decides that “eating people is wrong” they raise serious issues for Appiah’s moral theory.

Recall first his dogma that “morality is not enough.” That individual convictions about right and wrong won’t cut it. And that both the collective reinforcement of shared beliefs and a sense of honor is needed before genuine moral progress can be made. Looking at our reluctant cannibal (let’s call him Jim) we see a man who has on his own moral initiative taken a view opposing his anthropophagous fellows. They think eating people is entirely normal. The steaks evidently taste good and they have even developed an appealing cuisine for human flesh. But when they invite Jim round, offering a dish with his favorite sauce, all he does is lecture them on their sins and pull back from the table in disgust. Jim thinks differently, feels differently, and most important of all has radically different moral convictions.

His tribal companions indignantly assure him that they have always eaten people and that there’s nothing wrong with the practice. Indeed, (and in accord with Appiah’s view of the social psychology of honor) they go further. They tell him that eating people is honorable, and that by not eating them he will bring his family into the worst kind of social disrepute. But Jim is not one of those who live in fear of being dissed. Not one of those fearful of the collective disfavour that looms so large in Professor Appiah’s scheme. Jim’s self-esteem is secure; he takes it for granted that the rule “thou shalt not eat people” is both good enough for him and good enough for everyone. He thinks that “the only thing that deserves full respect is doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do” — as Appiah ridicules the Kantian procedure he disapproves. But such ridicule has no effect on Jim. The right thing to do is embodied in a simple rule: Don’t Eat People. Jim is a Kantian through and through.

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There must be a thousand books about Wilberforce and Granville Sharp, and whole libraries devoted to the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. We hardly need more. What we need now — and which we cordially propose as Professor Appiah’s next project — is an explanation of why the moral revolution against slavery never happened in Africa. It may be this will require setting aside our admiration for exotic cultures, and our romantic enthusiasm for ways of life and being not our own. But diplomatic evasion can’t go on forever; looking African facts squarely in the face will have to be done sooner or later if we are to make sense of Mende Nazer’s world; and as we’ve already explained, nobody is better qualified for the task than Professor Appiah himself.

It happens that in 1826 a British governor on the Gold Coast, Sir Charles MacCarthy, was defeated by the Asante, who cut out his heart, ate it, and made his skull into a much admired drinking vessel for the king back in Kumasi. This was only seven years before the abolition of slavery in Britain. Did nobody in Ghana think this was wrong at the time? Where were Africa’s moral revolutionaries when they were needed? If ever there was a place where a thorough overhaul of values was called for it was West Africa in the 19^th century — and in the noble figure of the reluctant cannibal Flanders and Swann imagine a potentially heroic revolutionary figure for the times.  In Kumasi he might even have been a conscience-stricken Asante of moral sensitivity like Appiah himself. So why didn’t it happen? Why was there no Kumasi Anti-Slavery Convention led by the Appiah clan? No Benin Bill of Rights? No Dahomey Declaration of the Rights of Man? If a biographical history of the last fifty kings of Kumasi were written, would the phrase “human rights” even appear in the index?

As Flanders and Swann showed, all of this makes good comic material. Yet it is no trivial matter. It is largely because such things never did happen in Africa that the exact reverse of the civilizing process described by Norbert Elias — what amounts in fact to an uncivilizing process — is now flourishing on Europe’s fringes at the present time. For that is what the modern slave trade represents — the trade that trapped Mende Nazer in the Sudan and has doomed hundreds more African children from elsewhere.

The king of the Asante is said to have been surrounded by wise counsellors. But were they wise enough? Is it because there was no black William Wilberforce to stand up among the king’s counsellors in Kumasi and tell him forcefully that Slavery Is Wrong, that more than 200 years after the British abolition of the slave trade, Africa still practices slavery? This also relates directly to Appiah’s respectful anthropological account of the numerous grades of domestic servitude and patriarchal subordination in traditional West African society, grades blandly euphemised by numerous apologists as “our regional family culture,” and that all too easily collapse into subjection and brutality. Books take time to write, and no doubt we shall have to wait a year or two. But we look forward to learning from Professor Appiah why there was no spontaneous African push for abolition. It will certainly be of interest to the hundreds of Mende Nazers smuggled from Africa into England today.

Note: This essay is an expanded version of “The Slave Girl and the Princeton Professor,” first posted here on 22 October 2011.

Sources

Link for play about Mende Nazer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWLBxvl_yss
Mende Nazer website: http://www.mendenazer.org/
Slave, by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis. Perseus USA 2003
The History of Dahomy, by Archibald Dalzel. Frank Cass UK 1967 (1793)
Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, by T. Edward Bowdich. John Murray UK 1819
Buying Freedom, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Martin Bunzel. Princeton USA 2007
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Norton USA 2010
The Fall of the Asante Empire, by Robert B. Edgerton. The Free Press USA 1995

New ways of trying to understand the Middle East are being wheeled out almost every day. From Francis Fukuyama comes Praetorian Realism, an acknowledgment of Samuel Huntington’s scenario for imposing order on civil chaos in modernizing lands. (“Political Order in Egypt”, The American Interest, May/June 2011.) From Robert Springborg and Clement M. Henry comes Matrix Realism, similarly emphasizing the army’s role in the institutional arrangements of the Arab states. (“Army Guys”, The American Interest, May-June 2011.) In this expansive intellectual climate, with its growing range of options, perhaps there’s room for one more. Let’s call it Tribal Realism, the aim being to bring anthropological insights to bear on our political prospects abroad.

Tribal Realism should have a number of practical applications, but its immediate goal would be to vet Western political speeches carefully deleting all references to “the people” of Libya, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. It will then try to decompose this popular collective noun into its actual constituent parts. Admittedly, removing such a warmly democratic term as “the people” will make a sizeable hole in the prevailing rhetoric, exposing speech-writers for assorted presidents and prime ministers to a pressing need for workable replacements, but the benefits should outweigh the costs.

For one thing, it will expose the enemy too. From his Bedouin tent Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has said he wouldn’t dream of harming “his people” — let alone shooting and shelling them — and he undoubtedly means it. Correctly understood, however, Gaddafi’s people are, first, his family consisting of his wives and children; next, his clan; then, his tribe; and finally, by a no doubt deplorable process of geographical attenuation, those tiny insignificant figures in the direction of Benghazi who hardly count at all.

Once this meaning of “the people” of Libya is grasped, we will see that Gaddafi is telling the truth. In the Colonel’s ethical universe those who deserve his exclusive concern are the men and women he regards as kin: in contrast, that unruly rabble further east may legitimately be hunted down, wherever they’re hiding, and mercilessly killed. That is what desert chieftains have historically done when they could. That is what men like Gaddafi see it as their duty to do. And that is what his numerous dependents — “his people” — expect him to do.

We might reserve the role of resident Tribal Realist and vetter of speeches for Robin Fox, University Professor of Social Theory at Rutgers, and a man who has made the study of kinship, clans and the mental world of tribalism a lifetime speciality. His newest book, The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind (Harvard, 2011) is an exciting synthesis of earlier work like the anthropological classic Kinship and Marriage (1967) and his latest wide-ranging thoughts. In a way reminiscent of the breadth of Charles Hill’s recent masterpiece Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order, Fox ranges from a discussion of the Ten Commandments to an analysis of the great warrior epics and Sophocles’ King Oedipus, from incest taboos and the myth of Isis and Osiris to the ambiguous nature of “human rights,” from the plot of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights to Karl Popper’s thoughts on the desirability of “open” rather than “closed” societies. But his most topical and provocative comments are found in a chapter entitled “The Kindness of Strangers: Tribalism and the Trials of Democracy.”

Unkind Strangers

Fox begins this chapter by describing New York Times columnist John Tierney’s bafflement, in September 2003, upon discovering that the lavish weddings regularly taking place in his Baghdad hotel were mostly marriages of first cousins who were the children of brothers. Questioned about this practice, the young people told Tierney, “Of course we marry a cousin. What would you have us do, marry a stranger? We cannot trust strangers.” That, as others might have told him, is what marrying in low-trust cultures lacking effective central authority often entails. After presenting a similar example from Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather, Fox writes of a scene in David Lean’s 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia. A British agent tells the tribal chieftain Aouda that he should attack the Turks in Aqaba for the sake of “the Arabs.” “Who are these Arabs?” the chieftain asks. After reciting the names of some of the tribes he knows, Aouda demands to be told exactly what tribe “the Arabs” consist of that he should risk his men’s lives on their behalf. Fox comments, bringing all this to bear on Iraq today, “Thus some of the sheiks in Anbar province will ally with the Americans against al-Qaeda and its allies if it suits them. But their and Aouda’s sole concern is with their tribal advantage. This was Aouda’s highest moral imperative.”

Fox knows what Tierney and most other educated Americans apparently do not: that tribal communities are the default system of human social nature. Humanity evolved that way for millennia after leaving behind the hunting-and-gathering band stage of social life. Many of the world’s diverse societies have since moved on toward becoming modern states, but not all of them have. And even for those that have, the shadowy emotional residues of the distant past remain; we never lose anything in evolution but instead add new developments to older ones. That is Fox’s central idea and the theme running through The Tribal Imagination.

It is also a truth, he believes, that we ignore at our peril as we go stumbling about in strange far away places where tribes rule with an authority denied the more-or-less absent state. And the pride and latent violence of groups of mutually suspicious kindred must be the starting point, Fox says, for anyone venturing into this political landscape. Such men and women are not the free individual citizens of a recognized territorial jurisdiction; nor are they people with clearly defined and defensible legal rights vis-à-vis the state — whether in Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan.

This truth, Fox argues, sheds a harsh light on instances when our leaders make claims about human nature and the natural state of human society as justifications for political action, armed intervention included. These leaders, he suggests, simply refuse to understand the essentially tribal nature of the lands they hope to remake. They are reluctant to grasp that:

there is no ‘Iraqi People’. The phrase should be banned as misleading and purely rhetorical… What is not understood is that Iraq, like the other countries of the region, still stands at a level of social evolution where the family, clan, tribe and sect command major allegiance. The idea of the individual autonomous voter, necessary and commonplace in our own systems, is relatively foreign.

Numerous unforeseen events during the Iraq occupation have demonstrated the priority of tribal authority. When men came out and stole copper wire connecting hospitals to the electricity grid, indignant US soldiers tried to make the thieves see that their actions would hurt “the Iraqi People.” True to form, the thieves responded just as Aouda had a hundred years before. Who were these “Iraqi people,” they wanted to know, whose claims outranked the claims of their own needy relatives? The thieving clansmen felt no responsibility for some mythical collectivity called “the people” that, as far as they knew, didn’t include them, and that had been invented by foreigners without their approval. In contrast, they were absolutely bound to help their kin: those cousins who were also, in some cases, their own spouses.

To realistically understand the world of kinship obligations and tribal authority, Fox argues, one must first understand both history and social evolution. The domestication of homo sapiens and his living arrangements has been a very drawn-out affair, and requires a better grasp of tribal life than whatever the parents of a Baghdad bride or bridegroom might say to a passing journalist: namely, that strangers are not to be trusted, and that it is considered the only safe way of obtaining a virgin bride. While these passing remarks do tell us something, a deeper understanding of parallel-cousin marriage must be historical.

Fox writes that in the Middle East this institution probably originated in the desert-nomad stage of Semitic society when the patrilineal and patrilocal (descent through males, residence with the father) bands of Arab Bedouin wandered isolated in the desert, and when all other bands were potential enemies. They married within their own band, their own clan, their own tribe. Even among the settled Bedouin this was maintained, because it kept wealth and property inside the lineage. Outsiders were unmarriageable. This social arrangement represented a form of tribalism, moreover, that protected the individual “from the worst ravages of both neighbors and strangers. This includes the ravages of the predatory state organization that exists only for its own benefit and thrives on the plundering of its subjects.”

Social Evolutionist

Passionate, restless, curious, and intellectually driven, Robin Fox was born in 1934 in West Yorkshire. His soldier father was decorated for service in India on the North West Frontier, and the strong Empire, King, and Country sentiments of his parents helped make him some kind of conservative from an early age — the story is told in his autobiographical Participant Observer. This background may also have stimulated an interest in kinship well before settling into anthropology as a vocation. When contrasting social theories about incest taboos came up in conversation, most people he met at the time favored Freud over Westermarck, the late-19^th-century Swedish-speaking Finn and pioneer of social evolutionary thought. Fox adopted Westermarck’s theory because it was more commonsensical (a natural aversion underlined by a cultural rule) and because it put him squarely in opposition to the majority. Checking out the full range of theoretical solutions that had been suggested for the subject, he says it took him “only a few Popperian minutes to dump the lot.” It seemed self-evident even then that Westermarck was right, not Freud.

At the London School of Economics he joined the students’ Conservative Society at a time when Hayek was there, and Karl Popper, and Michael Oakeshott as well. In the 1950s the ethos of the LSE after Harold Laski still remained one of “determined, earnest, Fabian socialism.” As a student Fox hugely enjoyed being against all that. The year 1956 brought political distractions. He briefly found himself allied with the Left on Suez, chanting “No war in Egypt! Eden must go!” at a demonstration, and tangling with police. Soon after this fugitives from Hungary arrived, among them a student from some grey Institute for Marxism-Leninism, and Fox helped relocate him in England. The young man explained that his previous study had been “Proletarian Philosophy.” Asked what he wanted to do now he was in England he replied “Go to Oxford University.” Asked next what he wanted to study at Oxford he said “Bourgeois Philosophy.” No worries, thought his British interviewer, he’d do fine…

“God bless the USA! So large, so friendly, and so rich!” So sang the English poet W. H. Auden en route to California, and Robin Fox felt much the same way alighting in his own academic Promised Land. An ethnographic foray into New Mexico got him thinking about matrilocal marriage (where men moved in to live with their wives’ families) and he was pleased to meet members of an actual Fox clan in Cochiti. But maths was always a worry and when he attended a seminar on the componential analysis of Zuni kin terms, and was asked by the Chairman of Harvard’s Department of Social Relations, Clyde Kluckhohn, if he would like to comment, he said “No. I didn’t understand a word of it.”

There was a silence, a collective gasp, then a spontaneous burst of laughter and a round of applause. No-one in the thirty-year history of the lecture series had ever made such an admission… You never said you didn’t understand: this was status death.

Even harder to understand than componential analysis was the American infatuation with anthropological “culture”. In America culture was king. There were presumably at least some Americans who understood Darwin’s remark “Origin of man now proved… He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke”, but they were thin on the ground at Harvard. There, understanding human behavior meant understanding the kaleidoscopic variety of cultural rules. Whole courses (whole degrees and entire careers) could be built around minutely interpreting exotic details of ritual, conduct, and belief. But as for taking seriously a systematic comparison of the social behavior man shares with his fellow primates, or the universals we share behind all the cultural dazzle, forget it.

Of course the anatomical evolution of all those apes was recognized and accepted: the shared skeletal elements were inescapable. But Fox noted that human social behavior, especially its more tribal aspects, was somehow exempted from this rubric. Anthropological “culture” was in the USA a sanctified, autonomous, and purely human invention. Out of the air (not the genes) a numinous cloud of symbols and meanings and shapes to be delightedly scrutinised according to this or that intellectual scheme. In contrast, Fox saw human society as biosocial, and human social behavior as indissolubly linked to the social behavior of our primate kin. Back in England for a while he got to know Desmond Morris (author of The Naked Ape and “a chubby, balding, ebullient, bright man — a kind of animated Humpty Dumpty”) who was curator of mammals at the London Zoo. Morris encouraged Fox to take on the whole topic of inbreeding/incest and its controls, both among mammals generally and in human society.

Then Fox met Tiger. Intellectually it was a marriage made in heaven. Lionel Tiger said that “male bonding” was a behavioural inheritance from the days when our early ancestors made the evolutionary transition to hunting. You had to have this bond to successfully hunt and fight; it was part of “the biological substrate of human behavior.” From the day of their meeting the two anthropological soul-mates hunted together, drank together, and sometimes wrote together. Their arrival at Rutgers after the department of anthropology was relaunched by Fox in 1967 planted fresh and challenging ideas in American academic soil, some of them for the first time. In 1970 The Imperial Animal, by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, became an intriguing title in university catalogues.

Lévi-Strauss and Ernest Gellner

The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind is dedicated “to the memory of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) and Ernest Gellner (1925-1995). The Gellner dedication is to a man whose ideas about social and political evolution are broadly congruous with Fox’s own. The Lévi-Strauss dedication is more complicated, since the French sage’s The Elementary Structures of Kinship is dogmatically opposed to Fox’s evolutionary account, and indeed to any kind of historical explanation at all. On page 142 Lévi-Strauss forthrightly asserts that “We have been careful to eliminate all historical speculation, all research into origins, and all attempts to reconstruct a hypothetical order in which institutions succeeded one another.” Westermarck’s “familiarity” explanation for human incest avoidance was anathema to Lévi-Strauss: agreeing with Freud, he was convinced that we are all sexually attracted to close kin.

Lévi-Strauss went even further — he believed that Culture is to Nature as Rules are to Chaos. According to Lévi-Strauss the rules prohibiting incestuous relations were not only an “intrusion into nature”: by saying “no” to nature (in accord with his view that we are naturally sexually attracted to close kin and really want to say “yes”), they are foundational. For Lévi-Strauss incest taboos established the Nature/Culture distinction as not only basic but sacred.

But is animal behavior chaotic? Are there no regularities to be found among other primates that both anticipate and parallel our cultural rules, including the incest taboo? Fox thought there were, and his 1983 The Red Lamp of Incest became an authoritative study. He had by then already argued for some time that Lévi -Strauss confused rules with order. It was, he said, a re-run of an older muddle. “If you’re going to make that kind of mistake you are back to the old ‘law of nature’ and ‘law as edict’ confusion again.”

Chimps did not have rules. But they did have order — the regularities observed by primatologists. From a comprehensive 2008 study by Bernard Chapais (Primeval Kinship, described by Fox in The Tribal Imagination as “a brilliant recent account of incest avoidance, in-laws, and social origins”), it is clear that whatever Lévi -Strauss and his followers may have thought, Westermarck’s ideas have finally won the day. In some anomalous or pathological circumstances incest can occur (Egyptian royal marriage; enslavement in an Austrian cellar), but for most of humanity most of the time it doesn’t. Nor are legal edicts required. Sometimes discussed under the psychological rubric of “imprinting”, Westermarck’s theory suggested that close and prolonged childhood association led to spontaneous sexual aversion in adulthood. Fox agreed: “Familiarity did not only breed contempt, it did not breed at all.”

Back to the Baghdad Hotel

On this matter Lévi -Strauss was perverse, but his surpassing brilliance wins him the honor of being a dedicatee in The Tribal Imagination all the same. His exposition of the way human kinship rules work to ensure we marry out of the natal group powerfully stimulated Fox’s own interpretation. The distinguished member of the Académie Française was wrong to think there was no continuity between Nature and Culture. But he was right to emphasize an important difference between the behavioural routines of apes and men — a difference encapsulated by Fox as follows: while primates have kin, they do not have in-laws.

Unpacking this highly condensed formulation reveals a whole range of connected evolutionary phenomena: the dispersal of animal populations, the need for genetic variability, and the origin of language, the last enabling social structures to form in time and space among men and women who have never seen each other and in some cases never will. Other primates don’t do this, and here Lévi-Strauss was dead right. The uniquely human cultural fact that arose was something new: not (as he thought) the avoidance of incest — that was widespread among primates — but “the enduring relationship between natal kin separated by marriage but linked by kinship, by descent from a common ancestor…”

All mammals ensure genetic variability through population dispersal. Fox argues that this goes all the way back to “the emergence of self-replicating matter, and the crucial revolution that produced sex to replace cloning”. Sexual reproduction, plus dispersal, spontaneously produces the genetic variability natural selection needs to work on. If mammalian populations did not disperse, “close inbreeding resulted in a loss of such variability, hence mechanisms evolved to avoid it.” At the same time too great a dispersal — so great that separated bands lost contact with each other — meant that beneficial features might be lost. So it is that “organisms breed out to avoid losing variability, but not so far out that they dissipate genetic advantages.” Not too close, but not too far; that was the evolutionary Golden Rule.

Which brings us back to what was going on in that Baghdad hotel. In human terms, the Darwinian imperatives of dispersal, variability, and natural selection eventually produced a social world in which marriage with cousins was preferred. Historically, that’s how it has been in most traditional preindustrial societies until quite recently. And for Fox it is an integral part of the tribal default system of humanity everywhere.

Civilized men, tribal minds

The true originality of The Tribal Imagination lies in the author’s exploration of the historical and literary consequences of these facts. For the stories mankind tells itself about its own origins in creation myths repeatedly echo a primeval conflict between the bonds uniting kin, on the one hand, and the evolutionary need to marry out on the other — to divide the primal unity, to socially separate, to genetically disperse. Often the original bonded creators were brother and sister, like Osiris and Isis. “For the Egyptians, as for the Greeks and Teutons, a series of sibling marriages characterized the early history of the gods.” For ordinary mortals this was forbidden. But although brothers and sisters cannot marry (a near-universal human rule), their children not only can but often should. And in the commonly prescribed marriage of a brother’s daughter and sister’s son (more common than the Arab union of brother’s daughter and brother’s son) the centrifugal tendency of parents marrying “out” is balanced by the centripetal tendency of children marrying “in.”

This is the original atom of kinship from which a wide range of marital, procreative, and residential patterns throughout the world derive. It is also a source of continually repeated tensions and conflicts that humanity dramatises in its myths, legends and art — conflicts originating in the one between the illegitimate primordial pair of brother and sister and the legitimate outsiders (those strangers always regarded with suspicion) as marriage partners. Fox’s analysis of literary narratives leads to conclusions that are often surprising: What was the true sin of Oedipus? (Was it really incest?) What was the real conflict in Thebes involving Antigone? (Was it really individual vs. state?) “How do the descendants of Adam through Seth foretell the problem of democracy in Iraq and question the Westermarck effect? Does the story of Lot and his daughters reflect a demographic problem in evolution?” These questions are answered in successive chapters — ‘Tribal Norms and Civilized Narratives,’ ‘Ancient themes in Modern Literature,’ and ‘Tribal Bonds in Warrior Epics.’

But it was in his powerful reinterpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone that Fox had earlier set out the problem we face today, when a dose of Tribal Realism is sorely needed — the problem of clashing systems of authority and allegiance: of kinship versus the state. In “The Virgin and the Godfather: Kinship Law versus State Law in Greek Tragedy and After” (Reproduction and Succession, 1989) he radically alters our usual understanding of the play. And he begins with a quotation about the clash of kinship and authority from his own book Kinship and Marriage that is worth reproducing here:

The war between kinship and authority is alive in legend. In story and fantasy kinship struggles against bureaucratic authority, whether of church or state. It undermines, it challenges, it disturbs. The Mafia constantly fascinates because ‘the family’ demands total loyalty and provides total security. When the state fails to protect, people look longingly at the certainty of kinship.

Fox regards the European habit of viewing society as a loose aggregate of autonomous individuals as a barrier to understanding. It prevents us seeing the truth of Ernest Gellner’s argument in Muslim Society that under Islam “the individual acts toward the state essentially through the mediation of his kin group.” It equally prevents us seeing that in Ancient Greece (meaning the Greece of legend that long preceded the reforms of Cleisthenes and the rationalistic speculations of Plato and Aristotle), both autonomous individuals and the state itself were problematic.

To illustrate the point, Fox contrasts Sophocles’ dramatization of the issues with the issues themselves. In the play, the figures of Antigone and Creon individuate what are essentially collective matters. As Greek drama increasingly emphasized character, and the merely histrionic, the theatrical roles of individuals became inflated. But this should not deceive us as to the political point and meaning of the enterprise overall. In Antigone, Fox argues, the leading roles of Antigone and Creon are synechdochic: they stand for issues much larger than themselves. In the case of Antigone it is the inescapable kinship obligation to bury her brother the dead Polynices; in the case of Creon it is his demand that the body instead be left exposed.

Those who see this as a conflict between a passionate individual conscience and the state, says Fox, mistake style for substance. What is at stake for Antigone are divinely ordained sacred claims of kinship, eternally linking her ancestors to the born and the unborn for generations to come. What is at stake for Creon is more like an arbitrary municipal ordinance issued by a local chief whose amour propre seems to be running out of control. Creon almost hysterically invokes his “will” as if this alone were a self-sufficient certificate of legitimacy. But is he even a bona fide ruler? Or are his actions those of the chiefly leader of an embryonic and still insecure state formation where he may indeed call himself a king, but is perhaps better seen as the apex of an unstable confederation of tribes? And doesn’t all this sound familiar? Not unlike, indeed, the code of pashtunwali standing against the pretensions of the Kabul Karzais.

[Originally in The American Interest, July/August 2011 www.The-American-Interest.com]

[With the title “Objects 101” this originally appeared in The New Criterion for November 2011.]

One glass case had especially to be avoided. Inside it were two elaborately carved elephant tusks that I gathered were from the city of Benin, and while that itself could be explained to the children dragging along behind me, the ominous reddish-brown deposit that still clung to cracks in the ivory could not. So a detour was made around the walls of the Africa Room at the American Museum of Natural History. The children came from schools in Queens, the Bronx, and Harlem, and most spoke English. But talking about that particular exhibit would need a diplomatic finesse, and a happily managed dissimulation, far beyond the talents of a foreign student working as a guide in 1960.

What was really needed was a man like Neil MacGregor — Director of the British Museum since 2002, previously Director of the National Gallery in London, and a former editor of The Burlington Magazine. MacGregor is rightly admired for the firm stand he has taken on the Elgin Marbles, a treasure he plainly sees as being safer in Britain than in Greece. In the last year or so he has become well known for his BBC talks about a number of other items in his collection, later published as A History of the World in 100 Objects, where his easy manner and imaginative story-telling has allowed scores of previously silent objects to speak.

Give him a gold llama from Peru, and all you could want to know about the Incas comes packed into the next five pages. Give him some gold coins from Lydia in the time of Croesus and he tells us not only about their manufacture, but hints at our present financial discontents: “It was Croesus who gave the world its first reliable currency. The gold standard starts here. The consequence was great wealth.” Prompted by a Buddha from Gandhara, in Pakistan, circa 100-300 AD, he chats informatively about the kind of stone the image is made from, about the standard poses for the Buddha, and about the history of shrines in Gandhara — along with something he regards as “profoundly paradoxical”: that a “religion founded by an ascetic who spurned all comfort and riches, flourished thanks to the international trade in luxury goods.” The scope is wide; the writing clear; overall it’s a good read.

History and Identity

What interests me here however is something else — the profoundly paradoxical position of MacGregor himself. When resisting Greek calls for the return of the Elgin Marbles he is on record as saying that it is his museum’s duty to “preserve the universality of the marbles, and to protect them from being appropriated as a nationalistic political symbol.” They belong to mankind, they are part of the human heritage, and though modern Greeks may wish to regard them as an integral part of their national identity, the Greeks, alas, must be seen as the deluded victims of an unfortunate parochial obsession. Now this may be right, or it may be wrong, but the curious thing is that when MacGregor deals with a number of other museum items in his possession he invariably treats them as representing the enduring national “identities” of this or that cultural group that should be respected and preserved.

Moche pots from Peru tell him that “in the Americas, as all over the world… ignored histories are now being recovered to shape modern identities,” a process “that seems destined to acquire an ever greater political significance.” A Maya relief reminds him of the 1994 rising in Mexico of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation: “Today, the Maya are using their past to renegotiate their identity” and to regain “a central role in national life.” A colorful feathered helmet from Hawaii given to Captain Cook — here he incorporates comments by Nicholas Thomas on modern Hawaiian tribal aspirations — is “a symbol of what we lost” and might reasonably hope to regain. It represents “encouragement for our future… as we seek independence from the United States.” Elsewhere, Babatunde Lawal, a professor of art history, is invited to explain how a bronze Ife head inspires Nigerian artists to “energize their quest for identity in the global village…” You can only wonder what the Greeks will make of all this. Isn’t the Director of the British Museum playing with fire?

There are other problems. A distinguished authority on paint and canvas, he knows about carving too. The items in his book are mostly arranged chronologically over the last two million years, and among the earlier exhibits is a small 11,000-year-old carved object showing two reindeer swimming one behind the other. It’s not big — the piece of bone is only eight inches long. You and I might see it as something whittled on a rainy palaeolithic afternoon, a toy for the children perhaps, while waiting for nightfall and the usual famished bears. But in MacGregor’s view this would be sadly myopic. He draws attention to the male reindeer’s impressive antlers, the scrupulous naturalism of the genitals carved under its belly, the four little bumps on the female antler’s underside that, he says, “look just like teats.” As indeed they do. Using these and other illustrative features he then goes on to argue that this is “a masterpiece of Ice Age art… superbly observed… in execution as well as in conception a very complex work of art.” Indeed, it shows “all the qualities of precise observation and skilled execution that you would look for in any great artist.”

Extravagant appraisals

Now as whittling goes you’d have to say it’s not bad. And personally I like the palaeolithic — we’ve all seen gallery walls not half as pretty as the walls of Chauvet Cave. But here’s what bothers me: after extravagant language like this has been used to describe an ancient piece of fretted bone, how are we going to talk about Donatello and Co? Or take the example of music. There are people in Australia who uphold the virtues of the didgeridoo, an unprepossessing hollow log with a smallish bore. Earnest composers respectfully write passages for it in earnest chamber works. But again, if didgeridoos were really the equivalent of other wind instruments, and their gloomy eructations were written about in a way that exhausts the vocabulary of musical esteem, what is there left to say about Mozart’s horn concertos? Does Neil MacGregor actually believe that Donatello, and what used to be daringly called primitive art, are in some way culturally equivalent? Is that where the argument is leading?

There’s a million-year-old palaeolithic handaxe from Tanzania, and we are told that “not only human beings but also human culture” began in Africa. As a beginning this has its anthropological place. But the reiteration of what becomes a wearing mantra seems odd, as is the statement that “every one of us is part of a huge African diaspora — we all have Africa in our DNA and all our culture began there”. All our culture? Surely the thing about human culture is not how it began in the Stone Age; it is how it flourished afterward in several high civilizations around the world. On the whole it seems to me a rather good thing that our ancestors did walk out of Africa 60,000 years ago (I’m certainly glad my family did, and one notes that sensible people continue to walk or run or swim or fly out of Africa if they possibly can) but it is what their descendants produced afterwards in Europe, India, China, America and elsewhere that is the truly significant human story.

It’s almost as if MacGregor believes that no visitor should have his feelings hurt. Or thinks that everyone should feel better afterwards, and that the British Museum will have failed in its therapeutic duty unless that outcome is secured. Mind you, I have to say I understand the attitude. It’s exactly why I made a strategic detour around that glass case in the American Museum of Natural History fifty years ago. Because the story behind it was pretty grim and you didn’t want to go there — not if you had to deal with waiting parents afterwards. But the cowardice of a student in 1960 is I feel less excusable in a widely admired museum administrator in 2010.

From Kenneth Clark to Neil MacGregor

Amid so much that enlightens — from Nineveh to Byzantium, from Easter Island to the fabled Old Silk Road — one small additional cavil. Although the Preface tells us that the 100 objects chosen will “try to address as many aspects of human experience as possible”, connubial sentiment somehow goes missing in this two-million year survey, though room is found for the delights pictured on the sides of the Warren Cup, and in a Hockney etching, and suggested by a minute, vaguely obscene 9000-year-old curiosity known as the Ain Sakhri Lovers Figurine. The author surprisingly describes this last as “one of the tenderest expressions of love that I know, comparable to the great kissing couples of Brancusi and Rodin,” though whether animals, vegetables, or minerals are here conjoined is hard to say. It may help to remember that at least since the triumph of Bloomsbury, Britain’s cultural elite has combined moral equivocation, patrician bohemianism, and an urbane complacency regarding the commercial world that pays its bills — not to mention the spendthrift economics, promoted by its most intellectually distinguished leader, that is destroying our fiscal arrangements today.

So is there anything new? Perhaps there is. When in 1970 Kenneth Clark put the Apollo of the Belvedere alongside an African mask that had belonged to Roger Fry, he felt able to say: “I don’t think that there is any doubt that the Apollo embodies a higher state of civilization than the mask.” That was then. Today, when on pages 501 and 502 Neil MacGregor rates the significance of Michelangelo, Donatello and Cellini alongside a collection of bronze plaques from Benin, he manages to insinuate that the bronzes prove that in the 16^th century, “Europe and Africa were able to deal with each other on equal terms.” Ah yes, now that reminds me — about those tusks… Inquiry confirms that they too are from the ancient West African city of Benin. You may read about them in a 1903 book by H. Ling Roth with the title Great Benin: its Customs, Art, and Horrors. Not for the faint-hearted. And not perhaps what you’d want to build an identity around. But let the reader judge.

At first glance our two authors could hardly be more unlike. Judging from his new book Beauty, Roger Scruton’s idea of a pleasing view would probably be the Wiltshire countryside circa 1750 — a scene like that on his website banner, with perhaps some red-coated riders, left, and a fox, courant, hurrying into a copse. Turning next to Denis Dutton’s Darwinian The Art Instinct, and in sharp contrast, a congenially paintable vista for that author might be Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, circa 1,000,000 BC, with Stone Age hunters chasing antelope over Africa’s green hills.

Yet for all this I expect that across a wide range of cultural artefacts and activities their tastes would chime. They each believe in the best that has been written, painted, or composed, and they know what it is. Both of them grieve to see entire traditions of thought and work being dishonored and trashed. “A determination to shock or puzzle has sent much recent art down a wrong path,” Dutton writes in his Introduction. “A Darwinian aesthetics can restore the vital place of beauty, skill, and pleasure as high artistic values.” High artistic values are exactly what Scruton would also like to see restored and it’s encouraging to see two such thoughtful books about art appear within weeks of each other.

Though perhaps this conjunction is not so surprising after all, because the place of the arts in society, and the general condition of the arts, have long been seen as a gauge of civilised morale. Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy pioneered this critical tradition in the 19th century — but we’ve come a long way since then. Once confined to the bohemian margins, artists and their adversarial values have in the last century moved steadily closer to the center, while increasing their political clout, a development that drew the worried attention of such distinguished commentators as Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, and Jacques Barzun.

In The Use and Abuse of Art Barzun observed that the “invidious, resentful relation of art to life has become general and unremitting.” Characterizing “the sensibility of the sixties” and its typical creative works Daniel Bell wrote of its “violence and cruelty” and of “an anti-cognitive and anti-intellectual mood” that has hardly diminished since, something that also concerns Scruton and Dutton today. When Irving Kristol wrote that abandoning the constraints of the Protestant ethic caused “virtue to lose her loveliness”, who would have thought that “loveliness” (by which we mean the entire ethically ambiguous realm of the aesthetic) would soon assume the virtue that virtue itself had lost? Sceptics wondered whether the triumph of the aesthetic represented the moral defeat of the bourgeoisie.

That is doubtless an exaggeration — but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Both the books in question have more positive and elevating themes and purposes. About our ideas on beauty, and why we like what we like, they are primarily philosophical, and seek to explain and defend the place of cultural refinement in a life well lived — and Dutton might say in any life worth living. His Darwinian argument is that music and literature and much else are deeply rooted in human nature itself. This in turn raises questions about sources and origins. Where do we find the earliest signs of aesthetic sensibility? Is it in a primordial appreciation of nature? Can Africa’s Omo Valley be really where it all began?

Landscape and universals

Yorkshire Dales, photo: Geoff Lund

You don’t travel far with either author before the question is raised whether trees and rivers and hills are universally appealing. For most ordinary men and women (though varying with levels of articulacy) this could range from a hushed “look at that!” to my own excited reaction not long ago. Driving one morning around a curve in a country road I saw a sunlit view — rolling hills, low light, willows by a stream — and “God that’s beautiful!” burst unbidden from my lips. There may have been sheep and cows too. Not a very original expostulation you will say, but the question is this: was it as spontaneously unmeditated as it seemed to me at the time? While the words “instant” and “instinct” sound similar, do they here mean much the same thing?

Dutton would unequivocally answer “yes” and give his reasons. Evolutionary psychology (or EP) suggests that landscape preferences are deeply ancient and originated in Palaeolithic times, and that critical judgements about suitable real estate started way back then. However “disinterested” the appreciation of beauty either is or should be, according to Immanuel Kant, a beautiful Pleistocene landscape was always a matter of lively ancestral concern, and it was valued for straightforward down-to-earth reasons: available water, fertility, and abundant game. According to The Art Instinct the deep source of my excitement as those sunlit hills came into view was a primordial pattern of instinctive response. What’s surprising, however, is that with rather more equivocation Roger Scruton seems to agree.

According to the author of Beauty, Immanuel Kant also thought our response to nature was spontaneous and unstudied, and it’s not hard to see what he meant. Standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon you are at once struck dumb with wonder. Views of nature please us immediately and without concepts said Kant — and speaking for myself I’d have to say that’s how I felt on that morning drive. Unaware what was coming, and attending to nothing but a winding road, I was immediately riveted by the view, and my reaction was as unconceptualized as only passive visual sensation on the threshold of attention can be. Kant also maintained that “the primary exercise of judgement is in the appreciation of nature”, a statement glossed by Scruton when he adds that “a faculty that is directed towards natural beauty therefore has a real chance of being common to all human beings, issuing judgements with a universal force.”

Now unless I’m mistaken this tells us that a sense of “natural beauty” is “universal” and shared by “all human beings” — pretty much a matter of human nature you’d think, or what Kant himself called a sensus communis. In the course of his discussion Scruton twice refers to “our species”, and when mankind as a species is invoked can the universalities of origins, sources, evolution, genes, homo sapiens, Darwin, the lot, be far behind? Our mastery over nature converted the primaeval world “into a safe and common home for our species” Scruton writes on page 61. Then on page 65, elaborating on the contrast between the ‘free’ beauties of nature and the ‘dependent’ beauties of art, he tells us that “there is something plausible in the idea that the contemplation of nature is both distinctive of our species and common to its members…”

If the contemplative appreciation of nature is distinctive of our species perhaps it is also instinctive in our species: doesn’t this take us close to the evolutionary view? Dutton and Scruton start out from very different premises, to be sure, yet aren’t they talking about much the same thing?

The failings of EP

But no — Scruton won’t have any of that. Agreeing with an Australian philosopher, the late David Stove, he dismisses evolutionary psychology as “Darwinian fairytales”. As for The Art Instinct, although it receives bibliographical mention at the back of Scruton’s book, neither the work nor its argument is engaged directly (both titles appeared in 2009, The Art Instinct a little before Beauty). Instead, two other proponents of evolutionary psychology, Ellen Dissanayake and Geoffrey Miller (whose contributions are described in Dutton’s book) are made to represent evolutionary aesthetics overall.

Both thinkers however are too idiosyncratic to fill this role, and might be seen as easy game. In Homo Aestheticus and elsewhere Dissanayake had proposed that art arises from the human need to decoratively “make special” our ceremonies and religious rites. Making special by means of ornamental art supposedly encourages group cohesion, thereby conferring a collective advantage. Scruton allows that the theory has something to be said for it, but says it “falls critically short of explaining what is distinctive of the aesthetic”. Again, in The Mating Mind Geoffrey Miller pushes Darwinian fitness theory further perhaps than is entirely safe: like the peacock’s tail, both beauty and art itself are lumped in with all the other phenomena of sexual selection and reproduction. Not unreasonably, Scruton comments that “Even if the peacock’s tail and the Art of Fugue have a common ancestry, the appreciation elicited by the one is of a completely different kind from the appreciation directed at the other.”(p37)

Whatever evolutionary psychology may say, or evolutionists like Denis Dutton might think (so Roger Scruton argues), it is man’s good fortune to have been divinely touched with rationality, for “it is the very capacity for reasoning that distinguishes us from the rest of nature.” Reasoning about things we know and have experienced enables us to make the fine discriminations required in aesthetic judgement; reasoning allows us to enter into the mind of the artist and understand his intentions — what the poet was driving at, what the painter meant. After which on page 38 Scruton sweeps the whole Darwinian argument aside:

“As things stand, the evolutionary psychology of beauty offers a picture of the human being and human society with the aesthetic element deprived of its specific intentionality, and dissolved in vague generalities that overlook the peculiar place of aesthetic judgement in the life of the rational agent.”

The evolutionist’s response

So that’s that. But is it also “how things stand” with Denis Dutton? Within his Darwinian scheme of explanation, does a painter or poet know what he’s doing, mean what he says, and can we understand his intentions ourselves? The Art Instinct has in fact a lot to say about intention and intentionality, and it is neither vaporous nor vague.

Bison, Chauvet Cave

Fitness theory — the signs of vigor and male prowess that brilliant tail feathers and menacing antlers and fighting ability show — is important in Dutton’s argument, and it places conscious intention and visibly displayed individual achievement at the center of evolutionary aesthetics. Whoever drew the highly distinctive images of bears, bison, rhinoceros and lions at Chauvet Cave about 32,000 years ago knew exactly what he was doing, and must have been greatly admired for his skill. Moreover, Dutton’s thinking about Palaeolithic origins in the past is informed by research among tribes-people in the present. Evidence of self-conscious artistic intention is something he encountered doing fieldwork in New Guinea villages, where “the work of individual dancers, poets, and carvers is a focus of fascinated attention”.

From Scruton’s comment above you might think that evolutionary psychology had as one of its aims (or anyway one of its effects) an anthropological “abandonment of the author function”, a denial of individual agency, a view of abstract historical process without individual influence or meaning, of predetermining forces that supervene and displace the writer’s mind. Not so says Dutton — quite the reverse. It is in novels, poetry, and drama that individual demonstrations of superior skill, style, and imaginative intelligence provide some of evolution’s most persuasive indicators:

We admire clarity, accuracy, and relevance in realistic, descriptive uses of language and regard these qualities as showing that a speaker possesses desirable intellectual qualities. Fictional creations — stories, jokes, and ornamented speech, such as poetry — are similarly judged.

Behind every act of speaking, descriptive or artistic, looms the idea of the fitness test. Human beings are continuously judging their fellows in terms of the cleverness or banality of their language use.

Skilled employment of a large vocabulary, complicated grammatical constructions, wit, surprise, stylishness, coherence, and lucidity all have bearing on how we assess other human beings. Intentionally artistic uses of language are particularly liable to assessment in terms of what they reveal about the character of a speaker or writer.

Listing twelve “signal characteristics of art considered as a universal, cross-cultural category,” Dutton emphasizes the universal admiration for individual skill and virtuosity; the way relatively static traditional styles are the measure against which individual innovations are tested, registered, and adopted for mainstream performance; the role of novelty and creativity as “the locus of individuality or genius in art, referring to that aspect of art that is not governed by rules or routines”; and the potential for “expressive individuality” wherever tired conventions produce boring work for weary audiences.

Rhinos, Chauvet Cave

As for the common argument that artistic individuality is a “Western construct” (a post-modern claim, and certainly not Scruton’s), drawing again on his field experience Dutton declares this to be false: “individual talent and expressive personality is respected in New Guinea as elsewhere.” So standing back a little we can see that the supposedly contradictory propositions about universality and individuality are not so incompatible after all. Yes: on the one hand a universal “art instinct” is the biological foundation of music, painting, and literature. Yes: on the other hand, the particularity of individual genius is indispensable for climbing art’s highest peaks. What’s not to like?

Sex and beauty according to Scruton

No account of beauty would be complete without the effect of sexual attraction upon our judgement of personal appearance, and since Roger Scruton has already written much on this matter it was to be expected that he would also have something to say in his latest book. Kantian ethics demand that individuals be treated as ends, not means: in his discussion of feminine beauty it becomes important for Scruton to explain how a disinterested aesthetic admiration for the nude can be distinguished from mere lubricity.

One view of sex suggests that the machinery of reproduction is a divine joke, sent by God to perplex us when we should be just getting on with our lives. This is the comic view. Another and more tragic understanding is that the theatre of sexual desire exists for the enactment of spiritually uplifting moral drama — a serious matter that should be discussed by philosophers (some of them bachelors like Kant) suffering all the pains of restraint. Sometimes they are trying to restrain homosexual impulses, like Socrates. Sometimes their impulses are heterosexual, like Saint Augustine’s. One way or the other it’s no laughing matter.

Venus of Urbino, Uffizi Gallery

In Sexual Desire Roger Scruton devotes over 400 pages to this topic. In Beauty it receives 41 pages out of 197, over a fifth of the whole, where he tells us how to adopt a suitably contemplative attitude toward naked women in art and life. It is not clear to me how useful this is. He tells us that the Venus of Urbino — “that most provocative of Titian’s female nudes” — is to be sharply distinguished from Manet’s Olympia, the author’s judgement being that “the hand on the thigh of Manet’s Olympia is not the hand that Titian paints, schooled in innocent caresses and resting with a fairy touch: it is a raw, tough hand that deals in money, that grips far more readily than it strokes…”  As Scruton strains to distinguish the kind of work he approves as reflecting “conjugal passion” (Titian) from what he disapproves as incipiently pornographic (Manet), drawing on the bachelor sage of 18th century Königsberg to adjudicate (Immanuel Kant), we enter the philosophical zone of subjects that are not objects, objects that would prefer to be subjects, and subjects that are not really objects despite being treated as if they were — like Manet’s model for Olympia. But this is more for adepts and cognoscenti.

Scruton also regards the historic distinction between “fantasy” and “imagination” as important. “True art appeals to the imagination,” he writes, “whereas effects elicit fantasy. Imaginary things are pondered, fantasies are acted out. Both fantasy and imagination concern unrealities; but while the unrealities of fantasy penetrate and pollute our world, those of the imagination exist in a world of their own, in which we wander freely and in a condition of sympathetic detachment.” This is all very well — and not unpersuasive — until one looks at the author’s humorless discussion of Titian’s Venus of Urbino. In contrast to Botticelli’s Venus, Scruton observes, with Titian’s Venus we are no longer in heaven but in a down-to-earth realm of

“domestic safety and conjugal passion… She reclines among her drapes in full confidence of her personal right to them, immersed in a life that is larger, deeper, more inscrutable than the moment alone. Her body is revealed to us, but she does not show it to us — she is not as a rule conscious of being watched, save perhaps by a dog or a cupid whose calm unembarrassability merely emphasizes the fact that voyeurs cannot trouble her peace of mind, which is also a peace of body. She is not in a state of excitement…

Myrina Aphrodite, Pergamon Museum

What is this? Fantasy or imagination? Who knows? Though it does bring to mind Mrs Patrick Campbell’s thrust at her unmanageably loquacious vegetarian friend Bernard Shaw: “some day you’ll eat a pork chop Georgie, and then God help all women.”

No doubt some useful distinction between the healthily erotic and a sick lubricity can be made, as Scruton tries to do — the contemporary curse of pornography is real enough. And no doubt Kant’s distinction between means and ends helps us understand what has happened. I do feel however that if all this is of such grave moral concern to Scruton, then one would like to see him turn his attention away from the temptations of reclining nudes. The serene dignity of partially draped standing figures, exemplified by the Hellenistic Venus de Milo and the Myrina Aphrodite, remind us that antiquity did some things rather better.

Sex and beauty, the evolutionary view

The ordinary reader might easily feel there is little to be said here. Whatever the humorist James Thurber may have been thinking of when he asked plaintively “Is Sex Necessary?”, sex is certainly needed for evolution. After all, evolution is about reproduction, reproduction is about sex, and Darwin’s thoughts about sexual selection by mate choice are the starting point for any consideration of why some features of human anatomy and some shapes are preferred to others. Here the peacock’s tail returns in all its glory: any specimen strong enough to provide the walking squawking platform for such an extravagant display proclaims its biological fitness to peahens for miles around. And it has been confirmed experimentally that the better peacocks with the better tails have the better genes.

Natural selection is slow, passive, and excludes the unfit. Sexual selection is by comparison fast, active, and both includes and unites the fit. For anyone interested in what human fitness looks like there are well-known studies of waist-to-hip ratios showing what is required for female attractiveness. “Healthy premenopausal women will have a ratio of .67 to .80” writes Dutton, “hardly an hourglass, but possibly a Coke bottle; this body shape is regarded as “feminine’ and attractive by men.” We are told that there are sound statistical reasons for regarding this ratio as biologically adaptive, “as women who display a waist-to-hip ratio on the .7 or .8 range are significantly more fertile than women closer to the healthy male ratio of around .9.”

Yet the curious thing about modern evolutionary aesthetics is that this attention to physique is only the start. One could almost argue that it takes off from the point where Roger Scruton falters — perplexed by moral issues, and whether he should allow Olympia, clothed or unclothed, into his living room. Instead, evolutionary aesthetics concentrates on the remarkable creative attributes of artists and the dazzling achievements of conscious artistry. Not Olympia, but Manet the artist, is the focus of concern; and not the real-life Victorine Meurent, who modelled for Manet’s painting, but the innovative skills of painters who have historically portrayed at least as many women with their clothes on as off. That, I feel fairly sure, is true of Manet.

While anatomical excellence is fundamental, human mental development and the emergence of language brought a whole new range of attractive intellectual features, all convertible into art. Minds were expanding, and artistic virtuosity not only gave access to our minds, it enhanced our attractiveness too. Gorgeous paintings gradually came to supplement gorgeous anatomy; sharp wit and sharp dialog supplemented physical prowess. Muscly warrior castes may have thought such developments effete, distracting, and incomprehensible, but in evolutionary terms they were no less effective in determining mate choice.

Dutton writes: “Grammar, syntax, word choice, appropriateness, coherence, relevance, speed of response, wit, rhythm, ability to toy with words, and originality all play a part. Taken together, these skills and qualities of mind constitute eloquence, and the admiration of eloquence is solidly on the list of human universals.” So it is that from a foundation of words, and intelligence, and with the operation of sexual selection, the manifold glories of story telling and literary enchantment eventually grew — from tribal tales about hunting bears to the Odyssey, to Shakespeare, to Tolstoy and Thomas Mann.

Minimal beauty and the sense of order

A photograph in Beauty shows a place setting at a dinner table. A folded napkin, tied neatly with a bow, sits on a plate alongside a knife and fork, with wine glasses ready nearby and lighted candles in the background. A suspicion that this heralds a chapter on etiquette soon proves mistaken (though I look forward to neat little bows on our domestic napkins in future). The accompanying discussion is among the more interesting features of Scruton’s book, and it underlines two things. First, that an elementary sense of visual order lies at the foundation of the pictorial arts; second, that when the author writes of civilization providing “a safe and common home for our species”, this is the sort of home he has in mind. His species is cultural rather than zoological, and much of it can be found within a leisurely day’s ride of what Englishmen call the Home Counties, not too far from London.

“There is an aesthetic minimalism exemplified by laying the table, tidying your room, designing a web-site” Scruton writes, and however remote in scale and significance these are from the maximalism of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, or Beethoven’s Ninth, in each case we want things to “look right”. Perhaps it is unnecessary to be reminded of this amidst the welter of magazines dealing with house and home and the plethora of newspaper supplements about “design”, especially when more and more people call themselves “designers”. But because he feels that the more mundane features of modern life also belong in a general theory of beauty, Scruton usefully reminds us that “a nice pair of shoes or a tasteful piece of wrapping paper” are more important to many people’s daily lives than the great works of art that may, if we are lucky, fill our leisure hours. They both confirm and express “our desire for harmony, fittingness and civility.” (p12)

His ability to say helpful things about shoes and wrapping paper shows the practical turn of mind that is one of Scruton’s assets. His chapter on “Everyday Beauty” also treats gardens, distinguishing their aesthetic enjoyment from the open spaces of landscape. Kant had argued that unlike works of art landscapes “owe their appeal not to symmetry, unity, and form, but to an openness, grandeur and world-like expansiveness, in which it is we and not they that are contained.” In contrast, writes Scruton, gardens are extensions of the human world that mediate “between the built environment and the world of nature.” Gardens have been made and enjoyed for human purposes in every civilization. Does this make them also aesthetic universals?  Perhaps there’s a case for such a view:

This attempt to match our surroundings to ourselves and ourselves to our surroundings is arguably a human universal. And it suggests that the judgement of beauty is not just an optional addition to the repertoire of human judgements, but the unavoidable consequence of taking life seriously, and becoming truly conscious of our affairs. (p82)

But what is true of politics and economics is also true of aesthetics. A tension exists between the claims of the collective and the claims of the individual; between the communal requirements of cultural tradition and the personal ambitions of artists. A small town with an established architectural style that has grown and matured over centuries may not appreciate the egoistic audacities of Frank Gehry or Sir Norman Foster. The residential community may want something that fits in, that does not stand out; something where age-old patterns are honoured, not violated; a design in which the humble harmonies that make a house a home should be preserved. In brief, it may not want a big glass-walled egg in the town square.

The aesthetics of everyday life lead ineluctably to the place of consensus and tradition. Scruton places a high value on collective agreement whenever settled understandings of hearth and home are threatened by a spirit of “tear down and start again” — regardless of whose hearths and homes are pulverised. He argues the conservative case for a civilized life that consists, fundamentally, in providing congenial homes for people of taste in a social order “that does nothing to disturb our perceptions but which radiates a simple message of calm sociability.”(p92) His eloquence on behalf of this ideal is moving, but seems perhaps a mite too bland. It needs a dash of bitters — the sort of thing provided by Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. Whatever it does for the modern economy, and it plainly does a great deal, conspicuous consumption also “disturbs our perceptions” and does nothing at all for “calm sociability”. Some awareness of this is perhaps implied by the following contrast:

Our discussion implies that aesthetic judgement can be exercised in two contrasting ways: to fit in and to stand out.

Fitting in or standing out (and in the arts is there now a more popular way of standing out than being outrageous?), passively conforming or seeking attention, unconsciously accepting conventions or actively “making special”, these psychological alternatives have all sorts of implications — or they do for a Darwinian approach to art. Although he might be loath to admit it, Scruton’s thoughts on such matters as novelty vs. tradition relate to cognitive evolution, and to our organized understanding of the world around us. This begins with the perception of patterns, and their interpretation, and the way living organisms respond to regularity and order.

Cognitive evolution

It is over thirty years since E. H. Gombrich’s book The Sense of Order: a Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art, where he advocated “an evolutionist view of the mind”. Such a view, he wrote, “has become inescapable since the days of Darwin”, adding that it is “thanks to the researches of ethologists during the last few decades that more is known about inborn reactions for which animals are undoubtedly ‘programmed’ than even Darwin could have surmised.” His particular interest was how perceived regularities in the natural world (of light, sound, heat and cold, pressure, physical resistance) enable ‘cognitive maps’ to be built up — systems of “coordinates on which meaningful objects can be plotted.” Such maps were essential to survival; they enabled living things to orient themselves in space; and he set out to connect the resulting “sense of order” with a theory of decorative design.

What did this order consist of? Amidst the blooming buzzing confusion of the sensory flux organisms detect patterns — patterns in time and intensity, in duration and force. The simple association of mere pleasure and pain might lead to valuing one pattern over another — but how did primitive organisms think? You might say the amoeba “developed a hypothesis” about the danger of approaching too close to something hot. Or you might say it “told itself a story” about the danger of hot things. Anyway the neurological rudiments of thought have been there, along with elementary representations, for millions of years. As James Hurford writes in his 2007 The Origins of Meaning, a natural evolutionary approach means “that mental representations of things and events in the world came before any corresponding expressions in language; the mental representations were phylogenetically prior to words and sentences.”

When referential language eventually came along, words and concepts multiplied to manage the patterns (Gombrich drew on information theory to explicate avian behavior: the signal to noise ratio of the peacock’s tail enabled it to cut through the surrounding redundancy). With pattern recognition came an embryonic aesthetic sense: “In both space and time, in sight and sound,” writes Brian Boyd, “we sense beauty in ‘the rule of order over randomness, of pattern over chaos’.” Before long Homo sapiens got the idea that playfully imaginative story-telling was even more fun than description, and you could have horses with wings (Greece), serpents with feathery plumes (Mexico), or priapic heroes that travelled underground (Australia). After that the arts really took off. On page fifteen of Boyd’s 2009 On the Origin of Stories he writes that “We can define art as cognitive play with pattern.” This is universal among the higher mammals, he says, adding that play itself

evolved through the advantages of flexibility; the amount of play in a species correlates with its flexibility of action. Behaviors like escape and pursuit, attack and defense, and social give-and-take can make life-or death differences.

But it is “attention” and the incessant demand for attention by art and artists that Boyd emphasizes perhaps most of all. “Art dies without attention”, he writes, adding twenty pages later that “attention provides the selective mechanism of art. If a work of art fails to earn attention, it dies.” All of us seek attention, we are told, as a mark of acceptance, respect, and status; primatological studies show that “the more dominant a primate, the more attention others direct toward him or her”; and he then pursues this topic through an analysis of one of the most famous epic narratives of all time, the Odyssey. Asking rhetorically what Homer’s work can offer us after two thousand five hundred years, he answers that “it can stress the importance of attention itself… a sine qua non of all art. Art can affect minds over time because it so compulsively engages out attention.”

Art’s importunity appears to Boyd unproblematic, perhaps because he sees it in such heartily positive terms. Something else he approves are communal benefits both at human and pre-human levels. We learn that chimpanzees celebrate community through excited cries or matching movements and “derive a rich emotional response from harmonizing attention among themselves through pattern and rhythm, chant and dance,” while historian William McNeill “recalls the ‘sense of pervasive well-being’ that he experienced in the army drill yard in 1941 — ‘a strange sense of personal enlargement; a sort of swelling out, becoming bigger than life, thanks to participation in collective ritual.’” The implication being that a thorough-going incorporation into collective life is essential for everyone, that attention-getting is a social necessity in life as in art, and that ever-expanding creativity of every kind is desirable. As he writes on page 123, “For us, artistic creativity offers a good in itself.”

From making special to making vile

While walking today I saw a sticker saying “Art makes me feel unsafe.” I wonder who wrote it and why? Can it be that some art today is indeed unsafe and has a genuinely menacing purpose and character? In which case does evolutionary aesthetics throw light on the matter? As we saw at the beginning, although they differ in various ways both Roger Scruton and Denis Dutton are equally dismayed by the contemporary trashing of high culture. In his Introduction Dutton complains that “a determination to shock or puzzle has sent much art down a wrong path”, and he plainly feels uncomfortable with some modern trends. Scruton’s misgivings go deeper, and as an example of what he fears he describes a Berlin production by Calixto Bieito of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) set in a Berlin brothel…

with Selim as pimp, and Konstanze one of the prostitutes. Even during the most tender music, the stage was littered with couples copulating, and every excuse for violence, with or without a sexual climax, was taken. At one point a prostitute is gratuitously tortured, and her nipples bloodily and realistically severed before she is killed. The words and the music speak of love and compassion, but their message is drowned out by the loudly orchestrated scenes of murder and narcissistic sex that litter the stage.

As Scruton adds, this “flight from beauty” into sordid sadistic ugliness can be found in many aspects of contemporary culture. There is a self-conscious “desire to spoil beauty in acts of aesthetic iconoclasm.” Desecration is his word for it, and he argues that for a certain kind of nihilistic mind “desecration is a kind of defence against the sacred, an attempt to destroy its claims. In the presence of sacred things our lives are judged and in order to escape that judgement we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us.”

While I am not religious I tend to agree. And I regret to say that evolutionary aesthetics appears to offer little defence against such nihilism. As the inquiries of critics like Irving Kristol and Jacques Barzun suggested years ago, the purely egoistic activities of attention seeking and making special, and the hyper-individualistic drive for supreme distinction, increasingly take place in a moral void. Ellen Dissanayake writes (Homo Aestheticus, page 59) that “specialness may be strangeness, outrageousness, or extravagance” (my emphasis). So it seems that however outrageous it is, it’s still art, and the sacralizing of making special is fully compatible with the desecration of making vile. Having implied that attention-getting creativity is a good in itself (virtually the summum bonum) Brian Boyd adds correctly that “Evolution does not aim at creativity. It aims at nothing.”

For his part Denis Dutton looks critically at modernism and says its assumption that “culture can give us a taste for just anything at all” is false. In other words, we have a kind of built-in moral resistance to the runaway pathologies now visible in the arts. I am very glad to hear this, and I hope it is true, because if it’s not, then Calixto Bieito and the film director Lars Von Trier represent the future — the Showbiz incarnation of that sick outrageousness that infects the entertainment industry today. And if that happens I suspect art will make us feel unsafer still. It needn’t, and it shouldn’t, but it may.

Note: Although the argument remains the same, the text presented here is slightly longer than that appearing in The American last October.

It had been just an ordinary day at the office, metaphysically speaking, but it looked like ending with a bang. In a sunlit grove at the foot of the Acropolis, Plato was showing Aristotle something he’d found on the web:

I am one of them, the early adopters. I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto since the beginning… Grand Theft Auto III brought a level of immersion, a depth of play never before seen in videogames. Other games allow you to play God or a hero but GTA III came the closest to letting you play something far more basic and far more strange. It let you, in a way, play a person — an aberrant criminal killer of a person but a person nevertheless… You wanted to spend weeks building up a business or collecting a dandy wardrobe or raking in millions through gambling and robbery? Go for it.

What makes the GTA games so deliriously fun and so successful (beyond the genius of their mechanics and execution) is that you’re not playing reluctant heroes — you’re playing some straight-up thugs. No Name (aka Claude) from GTA III starts out a bank robber and all around amoral dude, and his quest for vengeance doesn’t exactly reform his character. And what about Tommy Vercetti? Tommy is a cold-blooded hitman coke dealer and you win the game by slaying your enemies and taking over Vice City’s underworld, not by recanting your evil ways.

CJ in San Andreas, the first black lead, starts the game out trying to put his gang back on top before being sucked into the machinations of a crooked cop. In other words, these were not your mom and dad’s action heroes. These dudes were straight bad. With Tommy or CJ as your moral compass, running folks over and robbing prostitutes (sometimes killing them in order to scoop their money) didn’t seem like too big a stretch… [Novelist Junot Diaz reviewing Grand Theft Auto IV last June in the Wall Street Journal.]

Fear not, it’s just Showbiz

Aristotle

Aristotle looked concerned but not alarmed. He was an early adopter himself, he told Plato, adding that his well-known remarks about theatre were not meant to legitimate coke dealing or running folks over or robbing vulnerable women. Nothing nasty like that. Theatre had a noble heritage, and would doubtless survive the deliriously fun straight-up thugs of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Plato said nothing — but his face said “told you so”. It was now more than 2,300 years since he warned about the likely effects of Showbiz Athenian style; by 2009, with millions of youngsters playing straight bad dudes as virtual criminals in a world of virtual crime, the new entertainment confirmed his prediction; this could be long-range forecasting’s greatest coup.

And perhaps he’s right, or partly right anyway: but to come to the point of our argument, do Plato’s views in The Republic have anything to tell us about Showbiz today? About games like Grand Theft Auto IV, or movies like The Dark Knight, and the moral universe these puerile pyrotechnic shoot-’em-ups endlessly come from? Or perhaps more immediately the movie Anti-Christ and its director Lars Von Trier, a man (if Charlotte Gainsbourg is to be believed, and I think she should be) who is plainly deeply disturbed. Who first identified theatrical outrageousness as the classical artistic faiblesse?

Plato’s teaching

Plato

Used judiciously and with a suitably grim humour I think Plato can be a help. On the one hand he suggests that the issues raised by the relation of Showbiz to the rest of society have changed little over more than two thousand years. On the other, that the myriad effects of high-tech modern illusionism, both social and political, should not be too casually brushed aside.

Plato’s disquiet starts with the idea of ‘mimesis’. Is it a good thing or a bad? The term translates as copying, imitation, mimicry, and impersonation — things known or done indirectly and at second hand — with overtones of dishonesty and inauthenticity. And for Plato (unlike Aristotle later) those moral overtones were more important than anything else.

He had come to believe that in the hands of the Showbiz set, given their priorities, the effects of mimesis were generally bad. Trust and truth are the foundations of what we today call civil society; they require stable identities from week to week and year to year; but if actors are professionally required to be all things to all men, how can one believe what they say? And how could anyone think that thespians (from the figures onstage at Epidaurus to Lars Von Trier’s cast today), were appropriate guides to things that really count?

He tackled this issue in three places in The Republic, Books Two, Three, and Ten, where his subject is the training of moral character — especially the education of a trustworthy, truthful, and responsible governing class. But the emphasis differs in each place. In the earlier parts of The Republic his concern is mainly with the message being imparted in the schools; in Book Ten it is more the ignorance and superficial character of the typical messenger (painter, poet, or actor) that arouses his indignation.

In ancient Greece dramatic recitation was an essential part of Greek education, and this involved acting roles and representing characters before other children. Moreover, if some of Eric A. Havelock’s argument in Preface to Plato is accepted, in those days most Greeks were still semi-literate at best, and in an oral culture continual recitation was how information was remembered and passed on: the works of Hesiod and Homer amounted to encyclopaedias, in poetic form, of all that the Hellenic peoples had learnt and known and done. Such recitations were quasi-theatrical performances, rhetorically embellished, for audiences who listened because most of them could not read.

Imitation and the moral life

Plato thought the characters presented should be exemplary, and that boys should model themselves on “men of courage, self-control, independence, and religious principle.” And because first impressions are important, he believed that dramatic impersonations of rogues and scoundrels could be dangerous for both actors and audiences.

Schoolchildren “must no more act a mean part than do a mean action or any other kind of wrong. For we soon reap the fruits of literature in life, and prolonged indulgence in any form of literature leaves its mark on the moral nature of a man, affecting not only the mind but physical poise and intonation.” (Book Three, 395, H.D.P. Lee translation)

This being the case, the curriculum in Athenian schools was downright scandalous. Those with little more than a gift for the gab had undue influence. Myths were being treated as matters of fact; drunken and violent gods were held up for emulation; all educational discourse was cast in poetic and histrionic forms. This was pernicious because “Children cannot distinguish between what is allegory and what isn’t, and opinions formed at that age are usually difficult to eradicate or change; it is important that the first stories they hear shall aim at producing the right moral effect.” (Book Two, 378).

The theory of ideas

Things get more complicated in Book Ten. Metaphysics looms, along with his celebrated Theory of Ideas. This is hardly the place to summarise Plato’s philosophy, but to see where mimesis fits into the picture at least three elements should be understood. Ultimate reality resided in the “forms” — invisible, impenetrable except to God and largely unknowable by man, yet primary and fundamental. Second came visible life and tangible artefacts, copies of the forms. Third and finally came artistic representations — copies of copies.

This trinity can also be seen as a moral continuum from truth to falsehood (or, more theologically, from divinity to damnation), with thespian mimicry coming last. As Plato’s alter-ego Socrates puts it, “the artist’s representation stands at a third remove from reality.” And for those dedicated to truth that was not good enough. (Book Ten, 597)

Added to this was the importance of calm and reason — not unhinged romantic emotion — in public affairs. Our aggressive drives and sexual longings belong to the animal level of human existence: their restraint and management is the foundation of civilized life. But the arts invariably appeal to the less rational part of human nature, and working oneself up into an emotional state over nothing was something actors did every day. Furthermore (and think now of the lonely player of video games or the solitary surfer on the web) it is when a man is without the social constraint of company that he is most likely to give way to his worst impulses, and in these circumstances he may “say or do things he would be ashamed to let other people hear or see.” (Book Ten, 604)

Outrageousness and audiences

Again, Plato shows a keen understanding of why the arts favour outrageousness — and comes up with a Showbiz perennial. It had not escaped his notice that playwrights avoid mundane scenes showing ordinary people and ordinary life. For who would come to watch them? The trouble being that calm reasonableness is not dramatic.

What the box office needed at Epidaurus, as it needs in movies today, are characters that are unstable, impulsive, and violent. Thus Oedipus. Thus Hamlet. Thus the figures in Anti-Christ. But not your local butcher or baker or candlestick-maker working away at his trade. “If a playwright wants to build a popular reputation”, wrote Plato, (Book Ten, 605) “he will consciously devise dramas with characters that are unstable and irritable.” That way lies fame and fortune.

So what about Aristotle? Didn’t he also give mimesis a central place? He did, but with a very different emphasis. Aristotle was a critic rather than a moralist; an observer, not an advocate; a man who saw his scientific task as finding out how the devices, forms, structures, and mechanisms of poetry, music, and theatre work — without dwelling too much on political ideals, social effects, or moral consequences.

The imitative instinct

He was pretty laid back about mimesis. In Chapter Four of On the Art of Poetry he writes that “The instinct for imitation is inherent in man from his earliest days; he differs from other animals in that he is the most imitative of creatures, and he learns his earliest lessons by imitation. Also inborn is the instinct to enjoy works of imitation.”

That audiences might model their conduct on what they saw in the theater, or find pleasure in the vicarious company of madmen and ruffians, left Aristotle unfazed. He didn’t think in pedagogic terms. He didn’t ask that impersonations be exemplary. The characters to be found on the stage came in all sizes, shapes, and moral condition — good, bad, and indifferent — and by and large he was content that this was so.

Or anyway that’s how Aristotle felt until Grand Theft Auto IV. Despite appearances it had left him a bit rattled. Plato noticed this and teased him about the golden mean. As they strolled together through the dusk he remarked that his young friend was inclined to think “moderation in all things” would take care of evil. But it wouldn’t. Not with unbridled hedonism wrecking the lives of young and old.

Are some actions evil in themselves?

Aristotle calmly responded that he had covered this in The Nicomachean Ethics where, in Book Two, Chapter Six, he wrote that “the choice of a mean is not possible in every action; some actions are evil in themselves” — and as for the pleasure principle, in human affairs it was always necessary to take happiness (eudaimonia) into account.

That is why the pleasures of mimesis on the stage should be accepted. Of course theatrical mimicry involved lots of clever deception. But, he added, lightly touching the Master’s elbow, accepting the pleasure principle in art was one thing — justifying ‘noble lies’ to deceive the public was something else. Think where that had led!

Sometimes their disagreements, however intellectually fertile, were wearying: it occurred to Aristotle that Plato had become a bit of a killjoy and he wondered what the old man would be demanding next. Universal surveillance? Better to remember Pericles’ speech to the Athenians in 431 BC:

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.

But here we shall leave them, debating long into the Athenian night an issue that is still with us today — is Showbiz a cause or an effect of the decline of civility in private and public life, and who should we blame, and what should we do?

Comment

Mimesis and Grand Theft Auto

We are all familiar enough with the perennial debate about whether identifying with nasty characters in literature (a) encourages nasty behaviour or (b) discourages it by providing sufficient outlet for impulses which are otherwise likely to result in nasty behaviour. GTA (and the technology associated with it) takes mimesis and empathetic identification a step further, which, paradoxically, might seem to strengthen both sides of the debate.

Much of course depends on the psyche of the person doing the identifying. While Plato had an exaggerated fear of the first possibility, Aristotle was (as Roger mentions) much more relaxed about mimesis as such, though his discussions of it relate to highly socialised genres such as tragedy and comedy. Thus the tragic effect requires the mimesis of suitable people; the spectator of tragedy could not identify with a thoroughly evil person. But would Aristotle have approved of the genre (rather than the technology as such) to which GTA belongs? It is scarcely conceivable that he would have, though we have no ancient approximations to such a genre. The mimesis of which he approved in tragedy was designed to stimulate very basic emotions (pity and fear), but to stimulate them in very sophisticated and controlled ways.

Perhaps the shows in the Roman amphitheatre provide an interesting kind of contrasting parallel to GTA. We might see them as taking modern reality TV a step further (as in The Running Man). Instead of merely humiliating people, why not kill them? The Roman shows and reality TV however approach the mimesis from, as it were, the opposite end. In GTA the ‘art work’ itself remains securely in the realm of the aesthetic or the virtual, but the spectator moves from the more imaginatively detached, though still empathetic, attitude one brings to conventional art to enter, as it were, the art work itself as its hero, though only in an imaginative, aesthetic or virtual sense.

But in the Roman arena the spectator retains the conventional distinctness or separation from the ‘art work’ (though of course ready and able to identify imaginatively and sadomasochistically with the performers), while the ‘art work’ itself shifts so that it no longer merely imitates reality; the slaughter really occurs. The relevant ancient philosopher here is the Stoic Seneca who, like Plato, was anxious about the effects of bad examples taken from art or from being in bad company about which, having been Nero’s tutor, he was something of an expert. He warns against attending the games because of the sort of people you rub shoulders with and the demoralising effects of the spectacle itself:

Nothing is so damaging to good character as the habit of lounging at the games; for it is then that vice steals subtly upon one through the avenue of pleasure….I mean that I come home more greedy, more ambitious, more voluptuous, and even more cruel and inhuman – because I have been among human beings.
(Seneca, Letter 7, Loeb translation).

Stuart Lawrence, Classical Studies, Massey University

White Science, Black Humour

(Encounter, December 1986)

“We found many of the natives dressed in a thin French gauze, which they called ‘byqui’; this being a light airy dress, and well calculated to display the shape of their persons. The manners of these females, however … were rude and troublesome in the highest degree … being so vehement in their solicitations that I found it impossible to resist them. They tore my cloak, cut the buttons from my boy’s clothes, and were proceeding to other outrages, when I mounted my horse and rode off, followed for half a mile by a body of these harpies… ” Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799)

Mungo Park was lucky to have that horse for his getaway. Even 200 years later a horse might still be useful, for as Nigel Barley relates, a modern traveller in West Africa may have to deal with women no less vehement in their solicitations—and certainly no less rude—who “walk straight up to the intended male and simply grasp him between the legs in a vice-like grip.” Barley explains that an exhausted visitor might find some respite from their attentions in the shelter of a hotel; yet even there he found himself pursued by “an extremely large Fulani woman in her mid-fifties”, bearing a distinct resemblance to Oliver Hardy, who pushed her way into his room and promptly began to unrobe. Very soon, he says, he found himself “trapped in a farce”.

Like a lot of the entertaining anecdotes in The Innocent Anthropologist and A Plague of Caterpillars, Dr Barley’s two books about anthropological fieldwork in Cameroon,¹ this is obviously in questionable taste. And how grateful we must be for that, since with the exception of a mere handful of writings (the late Shiva Naipaul’s North of South comes to mind) reports on African life have been unusually mealy-mouthed, and as for the observations of social scientists, these have tended to read as if the United Nations General Assembly were peering over the author’s shoulder as he wrote. One never gets that sinister feeling with Barley’s work, which combines the candour and colour of the early traveller’s tales with a sharp wit and a laughing sense of the absurd.

This is just as well, for being “trapped in a farce” is the lot of every fieldworker. Misunderstandings never cease, and from the moment one muddily sets foot in a place like Cameroon, life is a comedy of errors. The times of appointments are wrong, not by hours, but by days: the ceremony has finished before one arrives. Recovering from setbacks like this, the anthropologist sits down to enquire into Cameroonian cosmology; but, tripped by a faulty noun, utters only farragos or obscenities.

Inevitably, word of his doings spreads. His more hilarious ineptitudes are related far and wide. He enters into lore: then into legend. The plain fact of the matter is that anthropologists provide so much innocent amusement that it is hard to believe the longueurs of primitive life were ever endurable without them. Sentimentalists sometimes tell of seeing tears in the eyes of their informants when, at long last, the farce concludes and the fieldworker packs to go home. But we all know why. Nothing can replace the fun an anthropologist provides.

Irreverent details

Yet anthropologists are not supposed to laugh back, even though primitive life abounds in material for guffaws. Doubtless it was Dr Barley’s violation of this rule of decorum, and the audible laughter echoing through his first book, which led The Guardian to describe it as “unconventional”; while The Times Literary Supplement, going further, felt obliged to comment on its “irreverent detail on African bureaucratic and anthropological customs.” Now, without wanting to make too much out of a casual expression, surely the word irreverent is a very odd one. Can the reviewer have actually believed that the normal attitude, and perhaps even the appropriate attitude toward “African bureaucratic and anthropological customs”, was one of reverence? Hardly. Yet it was a sound instinct which led the writer to this term, for as Barley himself said recently, “the subject of anthropology today is afflicted with a dreadful piety.”

The dreadfulness of this piety is a fairly recent development. It is mainly due to a notable change in the character and motives of those who are drawn to the subject of anthropology—a change which has seen the familiar figure of “the Anthropologist” being displaced by what, for want of a better term, we may call “the Anthropologue”.

At his best the anthropologist was disinterested. By contrast, when the anthropologue studies primitive life he always has an ulterior motive—often, if not invariably, of a salvationist kind. One consequence has been that the status of anthropology as a science is even shakier than it was, since science is of little or no interest to such people. Instead they vainly rummage about in the great ragbag of primitive cultures, seeking means of personal redemption or models for their political or ideological hopes.

Such high ambitions are not to be taken lightly. And this is the main reason why, like that prototypical anthropologue, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, they are driven by a deep emotional necessity to dignify everything in the pre-industrial world. The laughable must be made grave; the repellent must be made somehow endearing; and the downright revolting must be swathed in a language so latinate and extraordinary that it is often hard to know exactly what is going on. Words like sacred, sacral, and ritualistic may be called on to produce a vaguely sanctifying effect; and if this is successful, then plain speaking about African tribal life will always seem tasteless, and usually irreverent as well.

Plain speaking, of course, is the very last thing your true anthropologue wants—as a glance at Basil Davidson’s The Africans (1969) shows. When Mr Davidson wrote this, it was as an enthusiastic auxiliary rather than as a ranking member of the anthropological corps. But his chapter on kings and kingdoms in Africa could hardly be improved upon as an example of the language of anthropologuery and how it works.

The challenge, mind you, is considerable: his topic includes that place of legendary horrors, 19th-century Benin. But he takes it all in his stride. Speaking respectfully of “the royal party” and the “atmosphere of majesty at court” the author glances, more in sorrow than in anger, at a priesthood whose sacrificial excesses may simply have resulted from a fit of theocratic zeal; and he even manages to suggest that the carnage found by the British force of 1897 was largely, if not wholly, of their own making.

The quintessence of kingship

A quotation referring to kingship among the Nigerian Jukun extols “the indefinable spiritual potency which is the quintessence of kingship … immortal and indivisible”; while Davidson’s own prose, swelling in honour of his royal theme, proclaims that the Ashanti king was “the manifest apex and prime representative” of his people, whose task was to “procure unbroken the moral order” of the state. The moral order of the Tutsi state was symbolised by a “ritual drum”, and the cumulative adjectival effect Basil Davidson achieves is so majestical and impressive that we can only regard it as a gross tactical error when the author admits that the “ritual drum” is festooned with severed testicles, donated (presumably under duress) by defeated enemies of the king.

It is a thousand pities that Nigel Barley wasn’t around in 1897 to give us his impression of life at the court of Benin. Any man who can title one of his chapters “Ex Africa Semper Quid Nasty” would surely have revelled in the pits full of sacrificial victims and the altars running with gore. Still, I suppose we should be grateful that we have him at all, however belatedly, because his humorous attempts to throw light on current anthropological superstitions would be welcome at any time.

He observes that it is one of the more dearly held beliefs of a certain kind of fieldworker that you can only get to know your people, and win their acceptance, by labouring in a comradely way side by side while tilling the soil. But in The Innocent Anthropologist we find that the Dowayo of North Cameroon regard this insistent egalitarianism as pure affectation. As soon as they set eyes on Barley they know at once that this visiting Englishman is made for higher things than hewing wood or drawing water; when he tried to do so, he writes, “frail old ladies insisted on carrying the water jar for me.”

In his latest book, A Plague of Caterpillars, he again pokes fun at exhibitionistic “solidarity with the workers”, but this time it takes on a deeper seriousness with the appearance of Bob, the “Black White Man”. (The designation “Black White Man” is Cameroonian for a black man who is Westernised and behaves like a white man.) In the absurdity of his career and his expectations, Bob’s story has in it much of the pathos surrounding the sort of people drawn to anthropology in the era of the anthropologues. When Barley picks him up by the roadside and gives him a lift into town, the Black White Man, (an Afro-American), describes himself as an anthropologist.

Soul brotherhood

It turns out that Bob’s is the sort of anthropology offered in a Black Studies course at an American East Coast college, a course which led him to believe that “it was vital for coloured Americans to have an alternative cultural tradition that would assign them a higher place than did the white one.” He never celebrated Christmas, but observed an obscure festival of Swahili origin, and was mortified to discover that Africans had never heard of it. He had learned Swahili in the USA, and imposed it on his wife and children for one day a week in the house:

“Having never been informed otherwise and having assumed that Africa was in some sense a unity, he had been genuinely astonished that no one in Cameroon could speak it or had even heard of the language.”

Arrived in Africa, he installed his wife and three children in a waterless hut in an unsalubrious section of the town, “in order to share the rich and colourful life of the local people and “find his roots’.” Result: appalled by everything, and being sensible people never exposed to anthropology, his wife and children ran off home to the USA as fast as they could.

Bob so accurately depicts the confused alienation of many recruits to anthropology today that he seems almost too good to be true. Can we really believe in this incarnation of Soul Brotherhood whose determination not to impose on his African fellows the indignity of menial tasks “led him to refuse all offers from washermen, gardeners, house-repairers, drivers and the like”, thus directly violating the African rule that it is the duty of the rich to supply employment for the poor, and destroying all attempts to know the people?

Is Bob a fact or an artefact? The bit about being black is intriguing. But perhaps it is only a story-teller’s disguise, for the emotional and ethical make-up of the Black White Man is so eerily like that of certain White Black Men I have met that for all I know he’s just an ingenious invention. And if that is the case, shouldn’t a charge of wantonly fictionalising his material be indignantly brought against Barley by his peers?

Anthropology à la mode

Fat chance! Both Dr Barley and his Black White Man are on safe ground. And this is because so many practitioners of anthropology à la mode regard distinctions between fact and fiction as both positivistic and passé—and, more seriously, in very bad taste. For many years now they have thought and argued that, given the subjectivity of observers and the bias of observation, it would be the most painful of solecisms high-handedly to call for a distinction between facts and fiction in the name of anthropological “science”. All one can hope to do—all one should hope to do—is interpret the infinitely varied frames of social action; to decode the infinite codes of meaning which social life presents, codes layered as richly as a semantic sedimentary deposit 100 feet thick. They would gladly use almost any other word than science to describe this game of cultural cryptography—if only one existed of equal prestige.

“Interpretive explanation”, wrote Clifford Geertz in 1980, is a form of explanation, not just exalted glossography” (my emphasis). But there was a defensiveness in his phrasing all the same. Does it explain? And what does it explain? Could hermeneutics (“the science of interpretation, traditionally applied to the discovery of the real but hidden meanings of sacred texts”) ever even try to explain the principal dynamic forces of social life?

Stimulating this interpretive push was the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, work which increasingly authorised a form of ratiocinative aestheticism as the proper way of understanding the primitive world. All things cultural were best seen as shaped into symmetries and patterns—if only, that is, enough ethnographic odds-and-ends were assembled, and if enough inspired ingenuity were applied to their arrangement.

Just how far the Paris master himself was prepared to go in his explanatory claims for aestheticism can be found in The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (1964, tr. 1970), which he hoped would be listened to as a sort of “musical work, as the plan and chapter headings try to suggest.” In what he calls the “Overture” to its “confused and indigestible pages” (and this characterisation is his own) Levi-Strauss asserts that:

“music itself is the supreme mystery of the science of man a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress …”

This enterprise simultaneously posed as a form of scientific enquiry, and prudently disclaimed any such status. Of the discussion of mythology to be found in The Raw and the Cooked, its author announced that “this book on myth is itself a kind of myth.” But within metamythology what did it matter if reality was this way or that? Whether it was the object or its mirror image, or any one of an infinite recession of subjectivities which had become the locus of enquiry? The important thing was not to notice what the recessive series was actually receding from.²

Spellbinding tales

When a narrative study of myths, and the myths themselves, were defined as pretty much the same thing (explanans and explanandum democratically shaking hands), this kind of anthropology could all too easily be regarded as little more than “the telling of tales about the tales other people tell.” There could not, according to the rules of this game, be such a thing as a false tale; nor was it easy to see how research which succeeded could be distinguished from research which had failed. Success would apparently be measured by the persuasiveness of the narrative, or the spellbinding nature of the tale.

Once this was accepted, anthropology à la mode became an intellectual disaster zone, waiting for Carlos Castaneda to happen. And pat he came, like the catastrophe in the old comedy, a real live sorcerer’s apprentice carrying under his arm a book he had written. The book’s title was The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968), and the title was itself significant, for it popularised the mere apprehension of the occult as “knowledge”. This usage, along with talk about there being a “way” toward it, was the traditional usage of mysticism; in future, the language of mysticism would often be anthropology’s language too. References to the knowledge of witches and sorcerers, meaning simply the baseless and unverified beliefs of witches and sorcerers, became commonplace in student essays—and not only there.³

After Castaneda’s global sales passed into the millions his muse appears to have fallen silent. But he had made his point, and had won disciples: the book Shabono: A Visit to a Remote and Magical World in the Heart of the South American Jungle (1982), written by yet another sometime California student of anthropology and bearing encomia on its cover from Castaneda himself, shows that the strain of writing he pioneered is still alive and well. Shabono, however, seems to have been received rather more sceptically than its predecessors.

A reviewer in The American Anthropologist discovered that this supposedly new work was largely made up of material pilfered from the earlier Yanoamo: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians (1971). It is worth noting, moreover, that in the course of discovering the fraudulent nature of Shabono, “the most unsettling clue” (according to the reviewer) was the crudity of the borrowings—not factual errors in the ethnographic detail.

The detection of plagiarism requires a sensitivity to literary rather than scientific criteria. Presumably, had the author shown more skill in the art of fabrication, her work (like Casteneda’s) might have enjoyed for a while the status of social science”. Marvin Harris’s criticism of interpretive anthropology as “mystification … an esoteric and nihilistic venture”, the product of “essentially literary minds hostile to applying scientific methods”⁴ may be relevant here. As scientific method declines, literary methods (a weak defence at best) may be all that remains as a protection against fraud.

The dialectitians move in

With the empirical base of the discipline becoming undermined and discredited, it was inevitable that the dialecticians would move in. Inevitable, in the first place, because the affinities between the anthropologues and the Marxists are so close. Both share an atavistic enthusiasm for BC—Before Commerce, Before Capitalism, Before Civilisation itself. The average academic Marxist, even while tippling convivially at the bar, betrays a deep unhappiness in modern industrial society, and is obviously pining for a more primitive social order than modern capitalism provides.

And the anthropologue is no less unhappy—anthropology being, as the editor of the quarterly journal Dialectical Anthropology, Stanley Diamond, has so trenchantly said, “the most alienated of the professions.” When both Marxists and anthropologues realised they had so much in common, they rushed into each other’s arms.⁵Observers foresaw a happy marriage, while wedding guests were later heard to remark that the only surprising thing was that it hadn’t taken place years before.

So much for the teachers. What about the taught? The success of Marxism was inevitable, in the second place, because it is so much more emotionally satisfying for modern anthropology students than the alternatives. Playing around with the meaning of meaning and the signification-of-signs can be very tough mental work, whether you are trying to follow Wittgenstein or Levi-Strauss.

Only a few rare souls can find fulfilment in translating a corpus of primitive fables into literary symphony—and after you’ve done it, what then? But the programme of the Marxist anthropologues requires only the mastery of a few slogans and cliches, leads straight from the lecture room into the streets, and promises not only the drama of local demonstrations but a sense of participating in world-historical upheavals in foreign lands.

Inevitable, in the third place, because for both the teachers and the taught it presented a congenially Manichaean view of the world—on one side the satanical West: on the other, the poor and oppressed. All the free-floating evangelical energy of our time could now be employed demonstrating, in course after course in the anthropological curriculum, that European expansion and colonialism

“created the underdevelopment of the Third World [and that] a constant drain of wealth … has produced incredible poverty and has not only hampered but systematically destroyed indigenous economic development.”

Indian poverty was created by the British, and

“…we will see that it is no accident that the post-colonial governments of Africa, Asia, and modern Latin America have so often been repressive dictatorships, and that so often military regimes of right-wing generals or admirals run countries in what is often curiously called the ‘free world’… The stake of the United States in maintaining police states in the Third World … Pinochet and the army … the Chilean ruling classes … The Shah’s police state … the Somoza dynasty … ” etc.

Political sorcery in Cameroon

Shadows are lengthening across the walls of the Seminar Room. The speaker has just returned from Cameroon. In a mixture of his native Dutch and the usual Marxified jargon he talks about “ze hegemonic project of ze neo-colonial elite under conditions of capitalist penetration.” His talk has been billed as a discussion of “Sorcery as Political Protest”; but after a few sketchy suggestions about revolutionary witchcraft he loses interest and has to admit that in Cameroon witches are everywhere. One feels that Nigel Barley’s presence would be welcome.

A still surviving Tory slumbers fitfully. The Leninists smile encouragingly at what they hope are jests (are those, perhaps, Dutch jokes?). At question time a grey-faced woman asks anxiously about Gramsci, while a particle of dust, drifting slowly down upon her agitated head, catches the evening light. Do the sorcerers constitute a potential hegemonic bloc? The speaker fondles his oily curls but is non-committal. A merciful silence follows.

Yes indeed, the Golden Age of Anthropology is well and truly dead.

1 The Innocent Anthropologist. By Nigel Barley. Penguin Travel Library, £2.95. A Plague of Caterpillars: A Return to the African Bush. By Nigel Barley. Viking, £9.95. Published in the US as Ceremony: Adventures in a Mud Hut. Henry Holt, $14.95.

2 Note the frequency of recursive or recessive formations in Clifford Geertz’s useful survey, “Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought”, American Scholar (No. 49, 1980), pp. 165-179: “so many signs signing signs …  what we assert in asserting … how we think about how we think… “

3 See Kenneth Minogue, “The Guru: Thoughts after Reading Carlos Castaneda” (Encounter, August 1976).

4 See “Anthropology’s Native Problems” by Louis A. Sass, Harper’s Magazine (May 1986), p. 52.

5 From Chapter 21, “The Creation of the Third World”, in Roger Keesing’s widely-used introductory student textbook. Cultural Anthropology (1981).

[In a 1960s television series about western civilization, Sir Kenneth Clark said that we survived the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome only by "the skin of our teeth". The text below freely adapts and abridges his narration, and is followed by a number of selections from Civilisation, A Personal View, the subsequent BBC book.]

Reims Cathedral

What is civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms — or not yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it; and here in France I am looking at it now. Ruskin said: “Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.”

On the whole I think this is true. If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a politician (or by some king or bishop), or the actual buildings put up in his time, I should believe the buildings and the art, whether it be Reims Cathedral or the Apollo of the Belvedere. A Hellenistic work now in the Louvre, the Apollo of the Belvedere was once the most admired sculpture in the world, and it was Napoleon’s proudest boast to have looted it from the Vatican.

This doesn’t mean that the history of civilisation is merely the history of art — far from it. Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies: in fact, the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century, in France, one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship — like the carving shown below on the left — coming up the river. It is a powerful work. But to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut nearby it would have seemed as menacing as the periscope of a nuclear submarine today. Two other similar examples are from Polynesia and Africa.

I fancy that many people today would find these images more moving than the statue from antiquity in the Louvre. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Apollo embodies a higher state of civilisation. They all represent spirit beings (both the Apollo and the carvings from elsewhere) messengers from another world, the world of our own human imaginings.

But while to the Viking imagination this is largely a world of fear and darkness, ready to inflict horrible punishment for the smallest infringement of a taboo, to the Hellenistic imagination it is a world of light and confidence, in which the gods are like ourselves, only more beautiful, and descend to earth in order to teach men reason and the laws of harmony.

Greece and Rome

Western Europe inherited such an ideal. It had been invented in Greece in the fifth century before Christ and was without doubt the most extraordinary creation in the whole of history, so complete, so convincing, so satisfying to the mind and eye, that it lasted practically unchanged for over six hundred years. The same architectural language, the same imagery, the same theatres, the same temples, were found all around the Mediterranean.

Graeco-Roman civilisation stretched much further than that — right up to the Rhine, right up to the borders of Scotland. It must have seemed absolutely indestructible. And of course some of it never was destroyed. The Pont du Gard, in the south of France, was materially beyond the destructive powers of the barbarians arriving from the north and east.

What exactly happened? What precipitated the fall of Rome? Thinking about this almost incredible episode tells one something about the nature of civilisation. It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it is actually quite fragile. It can be destroyed. What are its enemies? First of all fear — fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, all the things that make it simply not worthwhile building for the future, or even planning next year’s crops.

And also fear of the supernatural, which means that you daren’t question anything or change anything. The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed self-confidence. And then again boredom, the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of material prosperity.

Civilisation does require a modicum of material prosperity — enough to provide a little leisure. But it requires confidence far more. Confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. Vigour, energy, vitality: all the great civilisations have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversation and all that. These may be among the agreeable results of civilisation, but they are not what make a civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.

Islam

In the aftermath of Rome, civilisation might have drifted downstream for a long time, but in the middle of the seventh century there appeared a new force, with faith, energy, a will to conquer and an alternative culture: Islam. The early Christian Church had dissipated its strength in theological controversies. But Mahomet preached the simplest doctrine that has ever gained acceptance; and it gave to his followers the same invincible solidarity that had once directed the Roman legions. In a miraculously short time — about fifty years — much of the classical world was overrun. Only its bleached bones stood out against the Mediterranean sky.

Now the old source of civilisation around the shores of the Mediterranean was sealed off. And if western civilisation was to be renewed it would have to be on the harsh shores of the Atlantic. What a hope! People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. They would soon find that barbarism is more boring by far.

Quite apart from discomforts and privations, there’s no escape. Very restricted company, no books, no light after dark, nothing to look forward to. On the bleak Atlantic shore the sea battered away; inland there were endless stretches of bog and forest. Yet it was to this unpromising region that Christian refugees from Islam came to the West, struggling on in search of the most inaccessible fringes of Cornwall, Ireland, and the Hebrides. In 550AD a boat-load of fifty scholars arrived at Cork, looking for anywhere that offered security for like-minded men.

And what places they found! It is hard to believe, but for quite a long time — almost a hundred years in fact — western Christianity survived by clinging on to places like Skellig Michael, a pinnacle of rock eighteen miles from the Irish coast, rising seven hundred feet out of the sea.

The wandering tribes that overran Europe as Rome declined brought a cultural and physical impoverishment that seems astonishing. Even allowing for the fact that most of their buildings were in wood, and so have vanished, the few surviving stone structures are pitifully humble and incompetent. It’s amazing they couldn’t do better — but the wanderers seem to have lost the impulse to make durable habitations.

Iona and Lindisfarne

Christian refugees needed more settled conditions, especially for the copying of books, and two or three parts of the British Isles offered, at least for a short interval, relative security. One of them was Iona, a place sacred to the memory of those holy men who for two centuries kept western civilisation alive.

Lindisfarne Gospel

Almost the last work of art to be produced in Iona was the Book of Kells, but before it was finished the Abbot was forced to flee to Ireland. A new barbarism had arrived by sea: the Norsemen were on the move. A furore Normannorum, libera nos Domine — ‘From the fury of the Norsemen, O Lord, deliver us!” This prayer has an almost comic sound today. But between 800 and 1050AD the fury of the Norsemen was no laughing matter.

“If there were a hundred tongues in each head,” said a contemporary Irish writer, “they could not recount or narrate or enumerate or tell what all the Irish suffered of hardships and of injuring and of oppression in every house from those valiant, wrathful, purely pagan people.”

The invaders were almost illiterate, rapacious, and murderous. All the same, they have a place in European civilisation, because these marauding pirates were not merely destructive, and their spirit did finally contribute something important to the western world. It was the spirit of Columbus. They set out from a base and with unbelievable courage and ingenuity they got as far as Persia, via the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and they put their runic writing on one of the lions at Delos, and then returned home with all their loot, including coins from Samarkand and a Chinese Buddha.

Atlantic man

If one wants a symbol of Atlantic man that distinguishes him from Mediterranean man, a symbol to set against the Greek temple, it is the Viking ship. The Greek temple is static and solid. The ship is mobile and light. When one considers the Icelandic sagas, one must admit that the Norsemen produced a culture. But was it a civilisation?

Civilisation means something more than energy and will and creative power: something the Vikings hadn’t got, but which, even in their time, was beginning to reappear in Western Europe. How can I define it? Well, in brief, it was a sense of permanence. The wanderers and the invaders were in a continual state of flux. They didn’t feel the need to look forward beyond the next season or the next voyage or the next battle. And for that reason it didn’t occur to them to build stone houses, or to write books.

Almost the only stone building that has survived from the sixth century AD is the Baptistry at Poitiers. It is pitifully crude. The builders tried to use some of the elements of Roman architecture — capitals, pediments, pilasters — but had forgotten their original intention. But at least this miserable construction was meant to last. It isn’t just a tent. Civilised man, or so it seems to me, must feel that he belongs somewhere in space and time; that he consciously looks forward and looks back. And for this purpose it is a great convenience to be able to read and write.

For five hundred years this achievement was rare in Western Europe. It is a shock to realise that during all this time practically no lay person, from kings and emperors downwards, could read or write. Charlemagne learnt to read, but he could never write. He had wax tablets beside his bed to practise on, but said he couldn’t get the hang of it. Alfred the Great (849-900AD), who was an exceptionally clever man, seems to have taught himself to read at the age of forty, and was the author of several books, although they were probably dictated in a kind of seminar.

Great men, even ecclesiastics, normally dictated to their secretaries, as they do today and as we see them doing in tenth-century illuminations. Of course most of the higher clergy could read and write, and the pictures of the Evangelists, which are the favourite (often the only) illustrations of early manuscripts, become, in the tenth century, a kind of assertion of this almost divine accomplishment. But St Gregory, who was intensely devoted to scholarship, is credited with having destroyed whole libraries of classical literature lest they seduce men’s minds away from the study of holy writ.

And in this he was not alone. What with prejudice and destruction, it’s surprising that the literature of pre-Christian antiquity was preserved at all. In so far as we are the heirs of Greece and Rome, we got through by the skin of our teeth.

Civilisation and war

We also got through by fighting. All great civilisations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. The Romans were the best organised and most ruthless fighters in Latium. So it was with the Franks. Clovis and his successors not only conquered their enemies, but maintained themselves by cruelties and tortures remarkable even by the standards of the last thirty years. Fighting, fighting, fighting. And the fighting was necessary. Without Charles Martel’s victory over the Moors at Poitiers in 732AD, western civilisation might never have existed; and without Charlemagne’s tireless campaigning we should never have had the notion of a united Europe.

Charlemagne is the first great man of action to emerge from the darkness since the collapse of the Roman world. He became a subject of myth and legend. A magnificent reliquary made about five hundred years after his death expresses what the High Middle Ages felt about him, but the real man, about whom we know quite a lot from a contemporary biographer, wasn’t so far from the myth.

He was a tireless administrator. And with the help of an outstanding teacher and librarian named Alcuin of York, he collected books and had them copied. People don’t always realise that only three or four antique manuscripts of the Latin authors are still in existence: our whole knowledge of ancient literature is due to the collecting and copying that began under Charlemagne, and almost any classical text that survived until the eighth century has survived till today.

In copying these manuscripts his scribes arrived at the most beautiful lettering ever invented; also the most practical, so that when the Renaissance humanists wanted to find a clear and elegant substitute for the crabbed Gothic script they revived the Carolingian. And so it has survived, in more or less the same form, until the present day. Like most able men who have had to educate themselves the hard way, Charlemagne felt strongly the value of education, and in particular the importance of an educated laity. He issued a series of decrees to try to achieve it.

The lands he conquered — Bavaria, Saxony, Lombardy — were organised a good deal beyond the capacities of a semi-barbarous age. His empire didn’t survive him. But the old idea that he saved civilisation isn’t so far wrong, because it was through him that the Atlantic world re-established contact with the ancient culture of the Mediterranean world. There were great disorders after his death, but no more skin of our teeth. Civilisation had come through.

*     *     *

Selections from the 1971 edition of Civilisation, by Sir Kenneth Clark (BBC & John Murray)

Chartres

Chartres is the epitome of the first great awakening in European civilisation. It is also the bridge between Romanesque and Gothic, between the world of Abelard and the world of St Thomas Aquinas, the world of restless curiosity and the world of system and order.

Great things were to be done in the next centuries of high Gothic, great feats of construction, both in architecture and in thought. But they all rested on the foundations of the 12th century. That was the age which gave European civilisation its impetus.

Our intellectual energy, our contact with the great minds of Greece, our ability to move and change, our belief that God may be approached through beauty, our feeling of compassion, our sense of the unity of Christendom — all this, and much more, appeared in those hundred marvellous years between the consecration of Cluny and the rebuilding of Chartres. (From Chapter Two)

Urbino and the Renaissance

The discovery of the individual was made in early 15th century Florence. Nothing can alter that fact. But in the last quarter of the century the Renaissance owed almost as much to the small courts of northern Italy — Ferrara, Mantua and, above all, Urbino, a small remote town on the eastern perimeter of the Apennines. It could be argued that life in the court of Urbino was one of the high-water marks of western civilisation. The reason is that the first Duke of Urbino, Federigo Montefeltro, was not only a highly cultivated and intelligent man, and a passionate book collector, but also the greatest general of his day who could defend his dominions from the surrounding ruffians. (From Chapter Four)

Michelangelo and Julius II

People sometimes wonder why the Renaissance Italians, with their intelligent curiosity, didn’t make more of a contribution to the history of thought. The reason is that the most profound thought of the time was not expressed in words, but in visual imagery.

Two sublime examples of this truism were produced in the same building in Rome, not more than one hundred yards from each other, and during exactly the same years: Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s frescoes in the room known as the Stanza della Segnatura.

Both of them we owe entirely to Pope Julius II. For centuries writers on Michelangelo have criticised Julius for taking him off the tomb, on which he had set his heart, and putting him to work on the painting of the Sistine Ceiling, although he always said he hated the act of painting.

I think it was a stroke of inspiration. The original project for the tomb included almost forty marble figures, over life-size. How could Michelangelo ever have completed it? We know that he carved marble faster than any mason, but even with his heroic energy the tomb would have taken twenty years, during which time his mind was changing and developing.

And the fact that, on the Ceiling, he decided to illustrate themes, not simply to concentrate on single figures, freed him to extend his thoughts about human relationships and human destiny. (From Chapter Five)

Genius and circumstance

In studying the history of civilisation one must try to keep a balance between individual genius and the moral or spiritual condition of a society. However irrational it may seem, I believe in genius. I believe that almost everything of value which has happened in the world has been due to individuals.

Nevertheless, one can’t help feeling that the supremely great figures in western history — Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Newton, Goethe — must be to some extent a kind of summation of their times. They are too large, too all-embracing, to have developed in isolation.

Rembrandt is a crucial instance of this conundrum. It is very easy — indeed rather more convenient for the historian — to imagine Dutch art without him; and there was no one else in Holland remotely comparable to him — nothing like the group of poets and dramatists who preceded and accompanied Shakespeare.

Yet the very fact that Rembrandt was so immediately and overwhelmingly successful, and went on being successful — his etchings and drawings never went out of fashion — and that for twenty years almost every Dutch painter was his pupil, shows that the spiritual life of Holland needed him and so had, to some extent, created him. (From Chapter Seven)

Wren’s hospital at Greenwich

This room in the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, this shining enclosure of space, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It was built on the spur of a hill overlooking the old palace of Greenwich, and this too was rebuilt by Wren, transformed from a palace into a naval hospital.

How much of what we see is from his design is hard to say… But he certainly provided the plan; and the result is the greatest architectural unit built in England since the Middle Ages. It is sober without being dull, massive without being oppressive.

What is civilisation? A state of mind where it is thought desirable for a naval hospital to look like this and for the inmates to dine in a splendidly decorated hall. In fact the Painted Hall in Greenwich hospital is one of the finest rooms in England, and its ceiling, painted by Sir James Thornhill, is perhaps the best attempt made in England to imitate provincially the metropolitan glories of Roman Baroque. (From Chapter Eight)

Bach and his world

Bourgeois democracy, which had provided a background to Dutch painting in the seventeenth century, became partly responsible for German music; and it was a society more earnest and more participating than the Dutch connoisseurs had been.

This provincial society was the background of Bach. His universal genius rose out of the high plateau of competitive musical life in the Protestant cities of northern Germany. One can even say that it rose out of a family that had been professional musicians for one hundred years, so that in certain districts the very word ‘Bach’ meant a musician.

And Johann Sebastian’s life was that of a conscientious, somewhat obstinate, provincial organist and choirmaster. But he was universal. A great musical critic said of him: ‘He is the spectator of all musical time and existence, to whom it is not of the smallest importance whether a thing be new or old, so long as it is true.’ (From Chapter Nine)

The enlightenment smile

The busts of the successful dramatists of eighteenth-century Paris stand in the foyer of the Comédie Française, the national theatre of France, which, strange as it may seem to us today, did a great deal, for a hundred years, to promote good sense and humanity.

What witty, intelligent faces! And here is the wittiest and most intelligent of them all; in fact, at a certain level, one of the most intelligent men that has ever lived, Voltaire. In Houdon’s sculpture he is smiling — the smile of reason. Perhaps this state of mind originated with the French philosopher Fontenelle who, by living to be nearly a hundred, bridged the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — the world of Newton and the world of Voltaire. He held a position known as ‘perpetual secretary’ of the Academy of Science.

Fontenelle told someone that he had never run and never lost his temper. A friend asked him if he had ever laughed. He said: ‘No, I have never made ha ha.’ But he smiled, and so do all the other distinguished writers, philosophers, dramatists and hostesses of the French eighteenth century: Crébillon, Diderot, Marivaux, D’Alembert. (From Chapter Ten)

Humanitarianism

The early reformers’ struggle with industrialised society illustrates what I believe to be the greatest civilising achievement of the nineteenth century, humanitarianism. We are so much accustomed to the humanitarian outlook that we forget how little it counted in earlier ages of civilisation. Ask any decent person in England or America today what he thinks matters most in human conduct: five to one his answer will be ‘kindness’.

But kindness is not a word that would have crossed the lips of any of the earlier heroes of this series. If you had asked St Francis what mattered in life, he would, we know, have answered ‘chastity, obedience and poverty’; if you had asked Dante or Michelangelo they might have answered ‘disdain of baseness and injustice’; if you had asked Goethe, he would have said ‘to live in the whole and the beautiful’.

But kindness, never. Our ancestors didn’t use the word, and they did not greatly value the quality — except in so far as they valued compassion. Nowadays, I think we under-estimate the humanitarian achievement of the nineteenth century. We forget the horrors that were taken for granted in Victorian England: the hundreds of lashes inflicted daily on perfectly harmless men in the army and navy; the women chained together in threes, rumbling through the streets in open carts on their way to transportation.

Credo

At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.

On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history.

History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos.

And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible. (From Chapter Thirteen)

In conclusion

I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Fifty years ago W. B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I have ever known, wrote a famous prophetic poem.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Well, that was certainly true between the two world wars, and it nearly destroyed us. Is it true today? Not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. The trouble is that there is still no centre. The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn’t enough. One may be optimistic, but one can’t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us. (From Chapter Thirteen)

A. H. Layard, by William Brockedon

Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894) is famous for discovering and excavating the palaces of the Assyrian kings. Undertaken between 1845 and 1851, this achievement made him celebrated as one of archaeology’s great pioneers, a man who brought to public notice a civilization few knew very much about before. The autobiographical materials presented here describe his earlier life in England and on the continent — and especially the years of his original journey eastward and his dramatic adventures among the Bakhtiari of the Zagros Mountains (1849-1842). The excerpts below are from Volumes I and II of his Autobiography and Letters, 1903, and from the 1894 edition of his Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia.

Born in England in 1817, Layard spent much of his boyhood in Florence. The family arrived in Italy in 1820. Young Layard’s formal schooling both in England and on the Continent was somewhat patchy, and it was his father who seems to have taught him most about art and literature. In Italy he played as a boy with the children of the English poet Walter Savage Landor.

Landor, literature, and The Arabian Nights

They were allowed to run wild, nearly barefooted, and in peasant’s dress, amongst the contadini (peasantry). Almost before they could lisp, Landor began to teach them ancient Greek. They were not sent to school, and the only time at which they were subjected to any kind of discipline was when his ungovernable temper was excited by something which they may have done to displease him, when he treated them very harshly. It is not surprising that this mode of bringing up his family should have led to much unhappiness. As it is well known, he left his wife soon after the time to which I am referring, and led a solitary and querulous life in England, until shortly before his death, when he returned to Florence, and was, I believe reconciled to her and his children.

Although my father had shunned personal intercourse with Landor, he greatly admired some of his writings and the vigour and purity of his English. He made me read the “Imaginary Conversations,” and learn passages from them. I took great delight in them; but they produced one effect which my father little contemplated: I imbibed from them those radical and democratic opinions which I sturdily professed even when a boy. The grand figure and powerful head of Walter Savage Landor, his sonorous voice, when he impressed upon me the beauty of the old Greek language, and the importance of its acquisition in order to speak and write good English, as he was often in the habit of doing, are still present to my memory. Many years after he addressed an Ode to me, which is published amongst his poetical works.

I profited little from my schooling at Signor Rellini’s Istituto, except that I obtained there that acquaintance with the Italian language which in after days was a source of so much pleasure, and of so much use to me. For such general knowledge as I acquired, and for the development of a taste for Literature and the Arts, I was indebted to my father. He was fond of reading, and possessed a small, but not ill-selected library. His favourite authors were those of the Elizabethan age. He taught me to appreciate and enjoy the plays of Shakespeare and Spenser’s “Faerie Queene.” Occasionally he read aloud to me passages from the plays of Ben Jonson, and other dramatists of the time, whose works he did not think it desirable to place in my childish hands. He admired the style of Hume, whose “History of England” I read with him. He was also fond of reciting the verses of “Peter Pindar” with me.

I had my own favourite books in which I was allowed freely to indulge. Before I had reached my thirteenth year, I had read all the novels of Walter Scott then published. But the work in which I took the greatest delight was the “Arabian Nights.” I was accustomed to spend hours stretched upon the floor, under a great gilded Florentine table, poring over this enchanting volume. My imagination became so much excited by it that I thought and dreamt of little else but “jins” and “ghouls” and fairies and lovely princesses, until I believed in their existence, and even fell in love with a real living damsel. I was deeply smitten with the pretty sister of one of my school-fellows. I fancied I had a rival in an English boy of my own age. We quarreled in consequence, and as we were both taking lessons of a fencing master, we determined to settle our differences in mortal combat with foils without the buttons. How we were prevented carrying out our bloody intentions I now forget.

My admiration for the “Arabian Nights” has never left me. I can read them even now with almost as much delight as I read them when a boy. They have had no little influence upon my life and career; for to them I attribute that love of travel and adventure which took me to the East, and led me to the discovery of the ruins of Nineveh. They give the truest, the most lively, and the most interesting picture of manners and customs which still existed amongst Turks, Persians and Arabs when I first mixed with them, but which are now fast passing away before
European civilization and encroachments. (Autobiography, v. I, 25-27)

Intellectual influences in London

Returning to the land of his birth, where his father died not long after, Layard joined his uncle’s law firm in London at the age of 16. His aunt kept a salon attended by distinguished artists and men of letters — one of them a friend of Goethe. Wordsworth was also frequently among the guests.

The person who exercised the greatest influence upon my future career was Mr Henry Crabb Robinson. I had made his acquaintance at Paris in August 1835, when on a tour in France and Switzerland with Mr Brockeden. With Stansfield, the painter, he joined company and travelled with us, took a friendly interest in me, and invited me to call upon him on my return to England at his chambers in the Temple, where he was in the habit of receiving many literary men of eminence. He had been the friend of Goethe and Wieland. He was so good a German scholar that the former said of him that “not only did he speak good German, but made good German.”

He was amongst the first Englishmen who cultivated the language, and made known to his countrymen the principal works of the most eminent German authors. His conversational powers were considerable. Having read and seen much, he possessed a large store of anecdote, and told his stories well. His experience of the world was large. He had lived during his youth in Germany and was a correspondent of the Times newspaper when Napoleon invaded that country. He used to narrate, with much effect, how he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the French authorities, who would have shot him on account of the letters, which were very hostile to the Emperor…

It was Mr Robinson’s habit to have his friends to breakfast, especially on Sunday mornings. I received a general invitation to these breakfasts, of which I was delighted to avail myself. I soon became a welcome and almost a necessary guest on these occasions as I was useful in helping him to entertain his company. These meetings became a source of great pleasure and instruction to me. I frequently met at them some of the most eminent literary men of the day—amongst them Wordsworth, with whom Mr Robinson was very intimate. They had travelled together on the Continent, and he was accustomed to pay frequent visits to the poet at his residence at Rydal Mount. He was an ardent and enthusiastic admirer of Wordsworth’s poetry, which he read aloud with great animation and effect. He gave me a love for it which has not left me.

The poet himself, with his venerable and stately appearance, inspired me with the greatest respect and admiration. He was very kind to me, allowed me to talk to him freely about his works and on other subjects and even made at my suggestion a translation of one of Michael Angelo’s sonnets of which I was very fond. I have still in my possession the slip of paper upon which I wrote down this translation as he dictated it to me. It was afterwards published with some variations…

Mr Robinson was a Unitarian and what was then called “a philosophical Radical.” He introduced me to Mr Fox, the celebrated Unitarian preacher, who then had a chapel in the city which I frequently attended. The eloquence and powerful rhetoric of this remarkable man were a great attraction to me. His discourses and the conversation of my friend Mr Crabb Robinson rapidly undermined the religious opinions in which I had been brought up, and I soon became as independent in my religious as I had already become in my political opinions.

My uncle, who was supposed to look after me, and to exercise a moral control over me, was little pleased with either, as they both differed so entirely from his own. Being a Tory of the old school and a strict Churchman, he was bound to look upon them with feelings approaching to horror. He was afterwards wont to accuse Mr Crabb Robinson of having unsettled my mind, and of having encouraged in me pursuits and tastes entirely opposed to the serious study of the law, and which led me to abandon it for a life of travel and adventure. The charge was perhaps well founded. I have no reason to regret that it was so. (Autobiography, v. I, 54-56)

Italian society and politics

In the 1830s Layard made a number of visits to the Continent — travelling in Italy, mixing in Italian society, and befriending Cavour and the Carbonari. He particularly remembered the Contessa Galateri, ‘well-known in Turin Society’ for her beauty and accomplishments.

Although the education of women was, up to a very recent period, sorely neglected in Italy, and their intellects had been as little attended to as their morals, an accomplished and highly-cultivated Italian lady—and I have known many such—has always appeared to me the most perfect type of her sex. The Galateris were acquainted with, or allied to, the principal families in Piedmont. During our excursion (i.e., in 1835-36) we spent much of our time in country houses, and in the most agreeable society. We were a merry party, committing all manner of extravagances, singing, dancing, serenading by night on the water, and making expeditions in the hills.

We spent a very pleasant week in rambling about the mountains, and then paid visits to country houses, amongst them to the villa of the Cavours, where Camille de Cavour was then staying. Italian countryhouse life, with its freedom and complete absence of conventionality, has always had a great charm for me. The society was delightful. We everywhere met handsome and accomplished women. We had concerts, and I played more than once on the flute in Masses performed at church ceremonies…

One of the young men whose acquaintance I had thus formed, a certain Signor Soffietti, who was a zealous member of one of these secret associations, had given me a letter and some papers to be delivered to a Piedmontese political refugee living at Lyons. I stopped there a couple of days to see him. There were many other fugitives from Piedmont and other parts of the Peninsula living in the city, who were in correspondence with the promoters of the insurrectionary movements in Italy, and who were known as “Carbonari,” the name then given to the members of the secret revolutionary societies which were conspiring against the Austrian rule in Italy.

Their agents had on many occasions been guilty of acts of bloody vengeance upon the oppressors of their country, which had brought them to the scaffold. I was presented, as a friend of Italian liberty, to several of these youthful conspirators at a secret meeting to which I was invited, having been previously warned that such meetings were strictly prohibited by the French authorities, and that, if we were discovered, we should all pass into the hands of the police, and probably find ourselves in prison. My enthusiasm in the cause induced me, however, to run the risk, although I remember being well pleased when I found myself safe back in my hotel.

Although these young men were as conspirators odious to, and persecuted by, all Continental Governments, they were, for the most part, honest and sincere patriots in the truest sense of the word—ready to make every sacrifice, even that of life, for the freedom and independence of their country, and for what they believed to be its welfare. They lived in the greatest poverty; had renounced all worldly advantages; and had, in numerous instances, even cast off the dearest of ties—those of the family—when their relations disapproved, or feared to be compromised by, their proceedings… To their indomitable courage and perseverance, and to their readiness to sacrifice even life for their country, Italy owes her freedom and her regeneration. I little thought that it was under the lead of the young man whose acquaintance I had made at Turin that this great work was to be accomplished. (Autobiography, v. I, 78-92)

Travelling east — Montenegro

Wearying of the routine in his uncle’s London law office, where he was employed copying documents, Layard (22) joined Edward Ledwich Mitford (32) on a journey to Turkey and the Middle East.  Ledwich was to continue overland to India. For Layard it was the beginning of his association with Mesopotamia and the long-buried remains of ancient Nineveh.

It chanced that Mr Edward Ledwich Mitford, a young Englishman who had been connected with a mercantile house at Mogador in Morocco, and who had made some interesting excursions through little known parts of that dangerous country, desired to establish himself in Ceylon as a coffee-planter. Like myself, he wished to leave England as soon as possible; but being of an adventurous disposition, and dreading the sea, he had formed a plan for going to Ceylon by land through Europe, Central Asia, and India. He proposed to me that we should perform the journey together.

I was much struck by this grand idea. It coincided entirely with my love of travel and adventure, and, if carried out, would enable me to visit many of the most interesting parts of the East, and to realize the dreams that had haunted me from my childhood, when I had spent so many happy hours over the “Arabian Nights.” I willingly accepted his proposal. And it was agreed that we should leave England without delay. (Autobiography, v. I, 102)

But notwithstanding these doubts and considerations, I experienced a happy sensation of relief at leaving England and abandoning a pursuit which was odious to me. I was now independent, and no more exposed to the vexatious interference and control to which I had hitherto been subjected, and greatly resented. I was of sanguine and hopeful temperament; I had robust health and much energy, and courage and determination enough to grapple with any dangers and difficulties that I might have to encounter. I was consequently in no way dismayed by the prospect before me, but was fully prepared for the consequences, whatever they might be, of the step that I had taken.

In leaving England I had nothing to regret except the separation from my mother. Had I remained, I should in all probability have passed through life in the obscure position of a respectable lawyer, unless some opening, which could not have been foreseen, might have enabled me to distinguish myself in some other career. (Autobiography, v. I, 108-109)

A visit to the capital city of Cetinje. At Cetinje Layard stayed with the Vladika, the Prince-Bishop of Montenegro who was head of government. The Vladika’s reform program, intended to introduce his subjects to Western Civilization, appeared to be faltering.

We remained several days at Cetinje, passing most of our time with the Vladika, with whom I had much conversation as to the condition of his people, and as to his attempts to civilise and educate them. He had procured a billiard-table from Trieste, and was fond of the game. We played several times together. On one occasion whilst we were so engaged, a loud noise of shouting and of firing of guns was heard from without. It proceeded from a party of Montenegrin warriors who had returned from a successful raid in the Turkish territory of Scutari (Albania), and, accompanied by a crowd of idlers, were making a triumphal entry into the village.

They carried in a cloth, held up between them, several heads which they had severed from the bodies of their victims. Amongst these were those apparently of mere children. Covered with gore, they were a hideous and ghastly spectacle. They were duly deposited at the feet of the Prince and then added to those which were displayed on the round tower near the convent.

I could not conceal from the Vladika my disgust at what I had witnessed, and expressed my astonishment that, with the desire he had expressed to me of civilising his people, he permitted them to commit acts so revolting to humanity and so much opposed to the feelings and habits of all Christian nations. He replied that he must readily admit that the practice of cutting off and exposing the heads of the slain was shocking and barbarous, but it was an ancient custom of the Montenegrins in their struggles with the Turks, the secular and bloodthirsty enemies of their race and faith, and who also practiced the same loathsome habit.

He was compelled, he went on to explain to me, to tolerate, if not to countenance, this barbarous practice which he condemned on every account, because it was necessary to maintain the warlike spirit of his people… They were few in number compared with their enemy, and unless they were always prepared to defend their mountain strongholds, they would soon be conquered and exterminated… There was nothing he dreaded more, he said, than a lengthened peace, for if the Montenegrins were once to sleep with a sense of security, and were no longer in a state of continual warfare, they would soon be conquered.

It was for these reasons, he declared, that it would be unwise on his part to make any attempt for the present to put a stop to a practice which encouraged his people in their hatred to the Turks, and in their determination to perish rather than allow the Moslems to obtain a footing in their mountains. (Autobiography, v. I, 132-133)

Law and order in Montenegro. A poet and a man committed to reform, Montenegro’s leader discussed with Layard his plans for the Balkan nation. He was busily building schools, and planned to appoint Serbians to staff and manage them.

The Vladika had introduced, for immediate purposes, some new laws, but he was then occupied in framing a new code better adapted to improve the civilisation of his subjects. He explained to me how hitherto human life had been too lightly esteemed amongst the Montenegrins. Injuries and insult were readily avenged by the death of the offender, and quarrels were of frequent occurrence; murders were constantly committed.

In the past the murderer had been only punished by a fine in money paid to the family of the victim; now he was punished by death, the criminal being taken to his own village, and there shot by his own kith and kin. Women when convicted were stoned to death also in their native villages. He made to me the almost incredible statement that previous to the enactment of this new law the feuds ending fatally between individuals and between villages were so frequent, that there were years in which as many as 600 deaths occurred, and that there were never less than 300. For the previous two years the average was 400, and in each case the murderer had been condemned and executed. (The estimated population of Montenegro at the time was around 100,000. RS)

Punishments were now inflicted for robbery, theft, and other crimes; this formerly was rarely the case. The result was that public order and security had been, His Eminence maintained, established to a great extent in his dominions, although he did not deny that there was yet much to be done. He was, however, engaged in framing a complete code of laws, which he hoped would have the effect of placing Montenegro on an equality in these respects with European states. But in order to accomplish this fully, it was necessary to educate its population, and with this object he was engaged in building schoolrooms in different parts of the principality, which would be opened within a year, and placed under the direction of schoolmasters from Servia, as there were no Montenegrins yet capable of undertaking their management.

He declared that his subjects, although ignorant and occupied with little else but war, looked with anxiety and interest to the successful result of his efforts to introduce civilisation amongst them, and that he had every hope that in a few years a great change for the better would have taken place in their habits and condition. He greatly extolled the independence of character and love of liberty of his people. The Austrians and Russians, he declared, were slaves, the Montenegrins free men who would not tolerate arbitrary or despotic rule. They were all equal… (Autobiography, v. I, 134-135)

Character and conduct of the Montenegrins

I was much struck with the superior intelligence and liberal views of the Vladika. It was certainly remarkable that so young a man, brought up in the prejudices of a wild and barbarous people — hostile to all change and improvement, excessively tenacious of their ancient national habits and traditions, and cut off from the rest of mankind by implacable enemies and almost impassable mountains — should have developed the qualities which he possessed. I could not but admit that he deserved the reputation which he enjoyed amongst those who had known him during his travels.

At the time of my visit to him the Montenegrins had the character of being a tribe of robbers, marauders, and assassins, brave and ready to die in defence of the freedom which they had maintained in their mountain fastnesses, but bloodthirsty and treacherous. They were not altogether undeserving of their reputation. Their constant and frequently unprovoked raids upon their neighbours’ territories for the purpose of plunder, or to gratify their religious fanaticism by slaughtering the infidels, were accompanied by acts of ferocious cruelty, which had long rendered the name of Montenegrin odious and dreaded by Mussulmans and Christians alike.

Secure in their inaccessible mountains, excellent marksmen, awaiting their enemies behind rocks, brave and ready to die rather than lose their freedom, they were able to resist for generations the numerous attempts made by the Ottomans and Austrians to punish and subdue them. When, as in more than one instance, the Turks were obtaining advantages over them which might have led to their subjection, they received the powerful support of Russia, who for political objects of her own, and out of sympathy for people of her own race and faith, was always ready to step in for their defence, and to menace the Porte with her displeasure if it ventured to take advantage of the successes which its troops might have achieved over the mountaineers.

The Mussulman inhabitants of the districts adjacent to the Black Mountain were consequently compelled to submit to the depredations and excesses of their restless and barbarous neighbours. Their villages were burnt, their women and children barbarously mutilated and slain, and a harvest of heads periodically carried off as trophies by their invaders. (Autobiography, v. I, 136-137)

In the vicinity of Tarsus, on the Mediterrranean. After calling at Constantinople, and crossing Anatolia, the travelers descended from the Taurus Mountains to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey at Selefkeh, on their way to Aleppo and Jerusalem.

Our path was carried through a valley along the bank of the Calycadnus, a broad and clear stream, now called by the natives the Ghiok Su — “blue water.” The mountains on either side were thickly wooded. As the night came on we saw on all sides the fires of an encampment of the Ourouks. Although Iapandé, which we reached after dark, had only three or four houses, it contained the travellers’ oda (guest-house), which was rarely, if ever, absent from a Turkish village. There we installed ourselves, and were hospitably supplied with the best supper that the village could produce.

The evening meal, served to us by the kindly villagers in the room reserved for their guests, usually consisted of a very palatable soup, small lumps of boiled mutton, an omelet, a pilaf, and large flat cakes of unleavened bread. Sometimes, however, there was no meat to be obtained, as the inhabitants themselves did not often enjoy what was to them a luxury. I need scarcely say that we were never given wine or any spirituous liquor in a Mussulman house, whilst strong raki was usually presented to us by Christians, nor had we any provision of such things with us. We drank nothing but water and the usual sour milk which is found in most Turkish cottages in the interior. Fresh milk is considered unwholesome by all Easterns, and is rarely, if ever, drunk.

According to the custom of the country, nothing is paid for food, which is furnished by the community gratuitously to a stranger, but it was our invariable habit to give a small sum for the Odabashi, or owner, or man in charge of the guest-house. Sometimes we were, in addition, supplied with coverlets, which now that the weather was cold — we were in the month of November — were very acceptable, and we slept on the mattresses covered with European chintz, which formed a kind of low divan round the room, the floor of which was covered with mats. The principal drawback upon these otherwise pleasant nights’ quarters were the fleas and other vermin. We were, however, free from their attacks in our “Levinge” sheets, and they diminished and finally disappeared as the cold weather came on.

Before the supper was brought in upon a polished metal tray, the chief men of the village would sit with us. They retired when we ate and returned after we had finished our meal, leaving us when we desired to retire to rest, which we did very early, as we were generally fatigued with our long day’s ride. I still look back to those evenings pleasantly spent in conversing with these simple and kindly people, and in obtaining information as to their country habits, and customs. I thus learnt to appreciate the many virtues and excellent qualities of the pure Turkish race, and to form that high opinion which I have never had reason to change of the character of the true Osmanlu, before he is corrupted by the temptations and vices of official life and of power and by intercourse with Europeans and the Europeanised Turks of the capital. (Autobiography, v. I, 192-193)

After arriving at Selefkeh (ancient Cilician Seleucia) and crossing the Calycadnus by a Greek or Roman bridge, they explored the nearby country.

We wandered about during the remainder of the day in search of ruins. We found the remains of two temples with many columns of white marble still standing, and of a theatre with porticoes and adjacent edifices; architectural ornaments of exquisite delicacy of work and beauty of design; numerous capitals and shafts of columns of a florid Corinthian order scattered about the town, and built into the walls of houses — I counted no less than fifteen of the latter in the yard of our khan (guest-house) — an extensive excavation in the rock below the castle, about 150 feet long, 75 broad, and 40 deep, with arches of solid masonry round the sides, the bottom reached by stairs formed of large blocks of stone; many excavated tombs in the surrounding rocks, with the troughs similar to those we had met with in such abundance in Phrygia; sarcophagi used as reservoirs for fountains, with remains of inscriptions, some of the Christian era; and on all sides traces and foundations of ancient buildings.

About two miles from Selefkeh, in a valley wooded with larch, I found an aqueduct of which fifteen arches in two tiers, nine in the lower and six in the upper, still remained. The view which it commanded was of marvelous Southern beauty — the fine old castle and the ruins of the ancient city backed by the lofty serrated range of Taurus, the small plain with its luxuriant vegetation, beyond the blue Mediterranean, in the extreme distance Cyprus faintly visible. Scenery of this exquisite loveliness abounds along the Karamanian coast which we had reached.

As we continued along the coast we passed many ruins, some apparently of small temples, others of tombs and the remains of buildings. During the day we had seen in the distance to the east the mountains of Syria rising majestically from the sea. As we forced our way through myrtle and olive bushes and marshy ground, game of many descriptions rose in all directions — francolins (the black partridge), partridges, quails, snipe, ducks, widgeon, and various kinds of water-fowl.

The sun went down in all its glory, lighting up this beautiful coast and the distant mountains of Taurus and Syria, and turning the blue Mediterranean into a sheet of purple and gold. In the distance, close to the coast, rose the picturesque castle of Korgos, built upon a small island. I never saw anything more lovely, nor had I ever enjoyed so many delightful sensations as our day’s ride afforded me. I have never forgotten it. The beauty of the distant mountains, the richness of the vegetation, the utter loneliness and desolation of the country, the wonderful remains of ancient civilization, the graceful elegance of the monuments, the picturesque aspect of the ruins, the blue motionless sea reflecting every object, with here and there a white sail, all combined to form a scene which it would be difficult to equal and impossible to surpass. (Autobiography, v. I, 197-200)

Jerusalem and Petra

Although the British consul in Jerusalem strongly warned against it, because of the menace of marauding Bedouin, Layard was determined to visit Petra. The following narrative combines material from his Autobiography and Letters with excerpts from the more complete account provided in the Early Adventures.

I had determined to visit Petra and some of the more important sites and ruins on the other side of Jordan. The authority of the Egyptian Government had not been established to the east of that river… The country was consequently unsafe for travelers, and the British Consul, and such Europeans as I had met in Jerusalem, declared that I could not attempt to pass through it without running the greatest risk. Parties of Bedouin marauders were said to be scouring the plains, and the scanty Arab population of Moab and Petra was said to be treacherous, fanatical, and hostile to Europeans.

Wherever I might go I should find myself in the midst of robbers and assassins. It would be impossible to reach Petra without either engaging the services of an Arab Sheikh of local influence and of power, who could conduct me in safety through the tribes on my route, for which I should have to pay a handsome backshish, or without a large military escort, which the Egyptian authorities would be unable to afford me…

The difficulties and dangers of this expedition which I meditated appeared to be so great, and the warnings of the Consul and others were so serious and urgent, that my companion, Mr Mitford, considered it prudent not to run them. I was determined, however, not to be baffled. We agreed to part for the time, and to meet again at Aleppo, to which place he would proceed leisurely by way of Damascus, after prolonging for some time his stay in Jerusalem. I was to make the best of my way to that place through the desert. (Autobiography, v. I, 279-281)

The journey described in Layard’s Early Adventures was an unending succession of fraught encounters with Bedouin tribesmen, one of them taking place soon after he reached Petra. Layard was accompanied by a personal servant, Antonio, and two youthful Arabs, Awad and Musa.

On the following morning we entered the Wady Musa, or Valley of Moses, and in an hour and a half I found myself amid the ruins of Petra. Everywhere around me were remains of ancient buildings of all descriptions, whilst in the high rocks which formed the boundaries of the valley were innumerable excavated dwellings and tombs. As I had intended to visit the ruins leisurely, I did not stop to examine them but, passing through them on my camel, ascended to a spacious rock-cut tomb, in front of which was a small platform covered with grass. There I made up my mind to pitch my tent.

I dismounted and spread my carpet. I had scarcely done so when a swarm of half-clad Arabs, with disheveled locks and savage looks, issued from the excavated chambers and gathered round me. I asked for some bread and milk, which were brought to me, and Antonio prepared my breakfast, the Arabs watching all our movements. Their appearance was far from reassuring, and my guides were evidently anxious as to their intentions. They were known to be treacherous and bloodthirsty, and a traveler had rarely, if ever, ventured among them without the protection of some powerful chief or without a sufficient guard.

They remained standing round me in silence, until they perceived that I was about to rise from my carpet with the object of visiting the ruins in the valley. Then one of them advanced and demanded of me in the name of the tribe a considerable sum of money, which, he said, was due to it from all travelers who entered its territory. I refused to submit to the exaction, alleging that I was under the protection of Sheikh Abu-Dhaouk. I was ready, I added, to pay for any provisions that might be furnished to me, or for any service of which I might be in need.

This answer gave rise to loud outcries on the part of the assembled Arabs. They began by abusing my two guides, whom they accused of having conducted me to Wady Musa without having first obtained the permission of their sheikh. A violent altercation ensued, which nearly led to bloodshed, as swords were drawn on both sides. An attempt was made to seize my effects, and I was told that I should not be allowed to leave the place until I had paid the sum demanded of me. As I still absolutely refused to do so, one, more bold and insolent than the rest, advanced towards me with his drawn sword, which he flourished in my face. I raised my gun, determined to sell my life dearly if there was an intention to murder me. Another Arab suddenly possessed himself of Musa’s gun, which he had imprudently laid on the ground whilst unloading camels….

In the first place, I thought it right to resist this attempt to blackmail a traveller; and, in the second, had I been even disposed to yield, I had not enough money with me to give what was asked. I therefore directed Musa and Awad to reload the camels and to prepare to accompany me. Seeing that I was determined to carry out my intention of visiting the ruins without their permission, the Arabs formed a circle round me, threatening to prevent me from doing so by force, gesticulating and screeching at the top of their voices. With their ferocious countenances, their flashing eyes and white teeth set in faces blackened by sun and dirt, and their naked limbs exposed by their short shirts and tattered Arab cloaks, they had the appearance of desperate cut-throats ready for any deed of violence. (Early Adventures, 14-17)

At this juncture the Sheikh of Wady Musa made his appearance.

Having somewhat calmed his excited tribesmen and obtained silence, the Sheikh of Wady Musa inquired into the cause of the disturbance. Having been told it, he announced that he had a right, as chief of the tribe in whose territory the ruins were situated, to the sum originally demanded, and that unless I paid it he would not permit me to visit them. He was a truculent and insolent fellow, tall, and with a very savage countenance; rather better dressed than his followers, and armed with a long gun and pistols, whilst they only carried swords and spears.

I repeated my resolution not to submit to this imposition, and warned him that if any injury befell me he would be held personally responsible by Ibrahim Pasha, who had given ample proof that he could punish those who defied his authority. Abu-Dhaouk, moreover, I said, was a hostage for my safety. I then rose from my carpet and, directing Awad and Musa to follow me with the camels, which they were loading, prepared to begin my examination of the ruins.

The sheikh, seeing that I was not to be intimidated, and fearing the consequences should any violence be offered to me or to my guides which might lead to a blood-feud between his tribe and that of Abu-Dhaouk, ordered his men to stand back, and I went on my way without further interference. As I descended into the valley he called out to me by way of benediction, ‘As a dog you came, as a dog you go away.’ I gave him the usual Arab salutation in return, and threw him a piece of money in payment for the bread and milk which had been brought to me on my arrival. This return for hospitality would have been resented as an insult by a true Bedouin, but he picked up the silver coin, and as I left I saw him crouching down on his hams surrounded by his Arabs, evidently discussing the manner in which I ought to be dealt with.

Awad and Musa were a good deal alarmed at my reception, and feared that the sheikh and his followers would find some means of avenging themselves upon me. They urged me, therefore, to leave the valley as soon as possible. But I was convinced that, notwithstanding the chief’s threats, he would not venture to rob or injure me… I was determined, as I had come so far to visit the ruins of Petra, to examine its principal monuments leisurely, and I spent the whole day in doing so. I was not molested, but I observed Arabs watching all my movements…

The most striking feature at Petra is the immense number of excavations in the mountain-sides. It is astonishing that a people should, with infinite labour, have carved the living rock into temples, theatres, public and private buildings, and tombs, and have thus constructed a city on the borders of the desert, in a waterless, inhospitable region, destitute of all that is necessary for the sustenance of man — a fit dwelling-place for the wild and savage robber tribes than now seek shelter in its remains. (Early Adventures, 17-19)

Though he survived the journey south of the Dead Sea, and made it back to Damascus, Layard admits in his Autobiography that the venture was foolhardy. He was in fact lucky to come out alive.

Consul Young and my other European acquaintances considered me guilty of unjustifiable foolhardiness in undertaking so dangerous a journey under such conditions, and foretold that all manner of mishaps were certain to befall me, the least of which would be that I should be stripped to the skin and have to find the way back to Jerusalem naked and barefooted.

They were right, and had I had a little experience of Arabs and of travelling in the desert, I should have listened to their warning. But I had romantic ideas about Bedouin hospitality, and believed that if I trusted to it, and placed myself unreservedly in the power of the Bedouin tribes, trusting to their respect for their guests, I should incur no danger. I did not know that the Arab tribes who inhabit the country to the south and east of the Dead Sea differ much from the Bedouins of the desert, of whom I had read in the travels of Burkhardt, and that they fully deserved the evil reputation which they had acquired at Jerusalem. (Autobiography, v. I, 282)

From Mosul to Baghdad

Layard and Mitford crossed on horseback from Aleppo to Mosul, then travelled by raft down the Tigris to Baghdad. En route, Layard’s imagination was fired by scenes along the way — his mind turning romantically back to The Arabian Nights.

The Tigris was now swollen by the melting of the snow in the great range of mountains in which it takes its source. During the usual floods of spring, which generally last for about two months, the inhabitants of the banks use its rapid stream for the conveyance of their merchandise and other produce by raft to Baghdad. These rafts, which are frequently of large size, are made of the inflated skins of sheep and goats, which are fastened together by willow twigs. Upon these are laid reeds and planks, on which the goods to be conveyed are piled. They are guided by one or two men, and, when large, by more with paddles. When they arrive at their destination they are, after being unladen, broken up. The wood finds a ready sale — the skins are brought back for further use.

When travelers use these rafts, as they frequently do, they have wooden bedsteads placed upon them, which, formed into a kind of hut by being arched over with canes covered with felt, afford a pleasant shelter from the sun during the day, and from the cold air during the night. We determined to avail ourselves of this comfortable means of conveyance to Baghdad, and to sell our horses. I sold my mare — although greatly out of condition after her long journey — for about the same price as I had paid for her…

Our raft was about twelve feet long and eight feet wide, and was made up of fifty skins, the price of a raft being regulated according to their number. On the planks and reeds which were laid across them were placed two bedsteads such as I have described. One boatman only was required to guide our craft. He seated himself on his hams on a board, with paddle in hand, which he used to keep the raft in the centre of the stream, or to impel it to the bank in case we desired to land. We shot rapidly down the current in the middle of the river, which had overflowed its banks to a considerable distance, and were soon out of sight of Mosul.

Late in the afternoon we perceived the great conical mound of Nimroud, which I had before seen from Hammun Ali, rising in the distance. We were carried over the remains of a very ancient dam, probably of Assyrian times, over which the river dashed in foaming waves. Our pilot skillfully guided his raft, which bent and heaved as if it were about to break up and deposit us in the stream through the perilous rapids. We then glided swiftly and calmly onwards, the huge Assyrian mounds gradually disappearing in the evening twilight. During the night we continued our voyage, our boatman apparently not sleeping, and in the morning when we woke, found ourselves floating past the barren, precipitous Hamrin Hills, through the lower ridge of which, soon losing itself in the desert, the Tigris forces its way. We swept by many ancient mounds and ruins, with the walls and foundations of buildings exposed where the banks had been washed away by the impetuous stream.

We reached the ruin of Tekrit, inhabited by Arabs, in the afternoon. Here we had to wait for about an hour to change our boatman, and to refill the skins of the raft, from which the air had escaped. We then resumed our voyage, and the next day, having floated onward all night, came in sight, about noon, of the first grove of palms on the Tigris, and the first that I had ever seen. Amongst these tall and graceful trees, and beneath their shade, were clusters of orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, in the full blossom of spring. A gentle breeze wafted a delicious odour over the river, with the cooing of innumerable turtle-doves. The creaking of the water-wheels, worked by oxen, and the cries of the Arabs on the banks added life and animation to the scene. I thought that I had never seen anything so truly beautiful, and all my “Arabian Nights’” dreams were almost more than realized.

I know of no more enchanting and enjoyable mode of travelling than that of floating leisurely down the Tigris on a raft, landing ever and anon to examine some ruin of the Assyrian or early Arabian time, to shoot game, which abounds in endless variety on its banks, or to cook our daily food. It is a perfect condition of gentle idleness and repose, especially in the spring. The weather was delightful — the days not too hot, the nights balmy and still. We were warned that there were Arabs on the banks who would rob us and plunder us of our raft if we ventured to land, or would fire upon us if we refused to approach the shore. But we saw none of them. (Autobiography, v. I, 322-325)

Baghdad 1840

There was a reason why they were not attacked — a ferocious penalty for robbery had until recently been imposed in Baghdad, although Layard was not to find this out until later. After they had arrived in the city a small house was put at the travellers’ disposal by the Political Resident or Agent of the East India Company at Baghdad, Colonel Taylor, a scholarly man who had previously seen service in the Indian army.

In the society of Englishmen and native gentlemen my time in Baghdad passed most agreeably and too quickly. I still look back to those days with pleasure and regret. Nor was it spent unprofitably. Upon the advice of Colonel Taylor I engaged a moonshee (writer/secretary) to give me lessons in Persian, and I was able to acquire sufficient of that language to be of great assistance in my subsequent wanderings in Persia. Colonel Taylor himself was a most accomplished and profound Eastern scholar, with a rare acquaintance with Arabic literature, and abounding in general knowledge.

He possessed a choice and valuable collection of Arabic and Persian manuscripts, and especially of the works of the early Arabian geographers, which threw light upon the ancient geography and history of Babylonia and Assyria and the regions subsequently ruled by the Caliphs… Colonel Taylor was as modest and retiring as he was learned and accomplished. He published little or nothing, and when he died in England his great and rare knowledge died with him.

The residency was a vast building, divided, as I have said, into two parts, the Divan Khaneh, and the enderun or harem. The Colonel entertained his guests in the Divan Khaneh, the rooms of which were handsome and spacious. His table was spread for every meal with the most profuse hospitality, and there were places for all the English in Baghdad, who were welcome to it whenever they thought fit to dine or breakfast with him and his family. The service was performed by a crowd of Arabian and Indian servants in their native costumes, moving noiselessly about with naked feet, and attending promptly and well to the wants of the guests.

At breakfast, the Indian non-commissioned officer in command of the guard of Sepoys always appeared, and after drawing himself up in military fashion and giving the prescribed salute, announced in Hindustani that “all was well.” When the meal was ended, an army of attendants brought in kalleons, the Persian hookah, or waterpipe, of silver and exquisite enamel, one for each person at the table, except, of course, the ladies. (Autobiography, v. I, 339-340)

The condition of Baghdad. Layard describes the misgovernment of Baghdad under the Sultanate, and visits a typical local Governor, or Pasha, of the time. He contrasts what he knows about the city under the Caliphate and its appearance under Ottoman rule.

Much as I had been struck with the appearance of Baghdad as we had floated to it through groves of palms and orange and citron trees, with the gilded domes of Kausiman, and the many cupolas covered with bright enameled tiles of the city itself rising above them and glittering in the sun, so much the more was I disappointed when I found myself in its narrow and dirty streets. More than one quarter was nothing but a heap of ruins without inhabitants.

Even in the part occupied by the better class of the population, the houses, some of considerable size, were for the most part falling into decay. The exteriors, like those of the houses of Damascus, were of sun-dried bricks without ornament or window. It was only after passing through a long, tortuous, vaulted entrance that the extent of the interior and the beauty of its painted and sculptured decorations, fast falling into decay and perishing, were perceived. The streets had consequently a mean and poverty-stricken appearance, which was not altogether warranted by the condition of the inhabitants.

The mosques, with their beautiful domes and their elegant minarets, were falling to ruins. No attempts were made to repair and maintain them. The ample revenue which had once been applied to these purposes, and came from the bequests of pious persons, and from other sources, had now passed into the hands of the Turkish Government, and no part of them was applied to the object for which they had been intended. Of the great edifices, the palaces, the colleges, the caravanserais, the baths, and other public edifices which had once adorned Baghdad, scarcely anything remained… The city of the Caliphs had become a desolation and a waste.

The only part of Baghdad which retained any animation and life was the bazaar; long, gloomy, narrow streets, covered with awnings of matting to keep out the rays of the sun, and lined on either side with shops or booths, with raised platforms in front, on which were seated cross-legged their owners, patiently waiting, smoking their narguilés (hookahs) and sipping their coffee, until a customer might ask for their wares. At constant intervals were the coffee-shops, within and in front of which sat on low stools a mingled crowd of Mussulmans and Christians, inhabitants of the town and Arabs from the country, some playing at draughts or chess, or at a game in which beans were moved backwards and forwards in cups cut into a board, and passers-by occasionally stopping to offer advice and to suggest a move.

These bazaars were always crowded from daybreak to nightfall, after which they were entirely deserted except by solitary watchmen and the usual street dog. I often passed through them in the night, and was always impressed by their gloomy, weird, and silent aspect after the busy and noisy scene that I had witnessed during the day, when Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Indians, and men of every colour and clime hustled each other, and the place resounded with their discordant cries. Then, a horseman could with difficulty make his way through the crowd; and the mounted officers of the Pasha, and the Bedouin on his mare, with his long spear tufted with ostrich feathers, were assailed with loud or muttered curses as they attempted to force their way through the dense mass of human beings. (Autobiography, v. I, 342-343)

New Turkish regime no better. Under the old Turkish system, Pashas or Governors were “almost independent of any control.” They sometimes made improvements, but their discipline was harsh. In 1840 things were changing. Now the worst kind of officials were being sent from Constantinople to govern the provinces — men driven by no higher motive than personal gain from extortion and bribery.

The last of the semi-independent Governors in Baghdad had been one Daoud Pasha, a man of energy, and of sufficient intelligence to take some interest in the prosperity of the province. He had introduced the cultivation of sugar, and had found other means of giving employment to the population. By measures of great severity and cruelty he maintained order in his Pashalic. In his time robbers were rare, the Bedouins were kept in check, and the roads were secure; he was the last who had inflicted upon evil-doers the horrible punishment of impalement.

He was in the habit of placing them on the stakes at the two ends of the bridge of boats across the river, and on either side of it, as a warning to those who visited the city and had to pass between them. Dr Ross had recently seen four culprits thus exposed, one of whom was said to have lived for several days in excruciating agonies.

Daoud’s successor, one Ali Pasha, was one of those officials brought up in the Porte, who, after the abolition of the old system, were generally sent from Constantinople to govern the provinces. He was an ignorant, narrow-minded, idle, and corpulent Turk, with a thin varnish of civilization, and an affectation of European manners which distinguished the new school of Turkish statesmen and public functionaries… He thought of little else than of making money wherewith to bribe persons of influence at Constantinople, in order to retain his government for as long a period as possible. He took no interest whatever in the prosperity of the province or the welfare of its population…

In company with Mitford I called upon him. We were mounted on Arab horses with splendid trappings embroidered with gold, specially provided by the Pasha himself. We were preceded by several cawasses (armed bodyguards) on horseback in picturesque costume, carrying silver-headed maces, and by runners with staves of the same metal. A guard of Sepoys and a number of attendants on foot completed the procession. We had to force our way through the crowded bazaar, scattering the buyers and sellers, the Arabs with their vegetables and other produce of their fields, the women with their baskets of fruit and bowls of sour curds, to the right and to the left…

We ascended a flight of steps, and were ushered into a beautiful apartment, the walls and ceilings of which were adorned with exquisite designs and carved trellis work in wood, and inlaid with ivory and small mirrors. It was a chamber quite worthy of Haroun al Reshid in his prime.

The Pasha was standing ready to receive us, and after the usual ceremonies and salutations, sank down again upon the low, luxurious divan, inviting us at the same time to sit upon the chairs which had been prepared for us. He was disgustingly obese, and his appearance was rendered even more repulsive than it would otherwise have been by his costume. Unaccustomed to the heat of Baghdad, and suffering, as he informed us, greatly from it, he wore nothing but a light jacket of white linen and a pair of shalways or baggy trousers of wide dimensions, was without shoes or stockings, and his naked chest was fully exposed.

Masses of fat hung upon him. Such was the type of many Turkish functionaries, men who took no exercise, rarely left their divans and their long pipes, gorged themselves twice a day with the most fattening dishes, and thought of little but the delights of the harem. His head was small and close shaven; he constantly removed his fez to mop it with his handkerchief. His countenance was insipid, stupid, and sensual, and his small eyes and the few straggling white hairs on his chin, which served for a beard, showed that he was of real Tartar descent.

Pipes — the cherry and jessamine sticks were then still in use — and coffee were brought to us. Our conversation was limited to the usual compliments and to the stereotyped questions and answers which passed on such occasions between Turkish Pashas and European travellers. Our audience was soon brought to a close, and we took our leave, returning to the Residency.  When one saw the kind of men to whom the government and welfare of the Sultan’s subjects were confided, the condition of his Empire, the signs of poverty, misery, and decay which surrounded one on all sides, could scarcely be a matter for surprise. (Autobiography, v. I, 344-349)

In Persia: seeking permission from the ‘Matamet’ in Isfahan

It was known that there were ancient ruins in the southern Zagros mountains, those of the city of Susa among them. Because it was across the Persian border Layard needed permission to enter the region. To obtain it from the regional governor, the ‘Matamet’ — a eunuch by the name of Manuchar Khan — he made his way from Hamadan to Isfahan, a violent storm striking his party en route.

I soon got wet to the skin. Except when the vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by deafening peals of thunder, showed us surrounding objects, we were in total darkness. When the storm had ceased and we had wandered about for some time, distant lights and the barking of dogs directed us to the village of which we were in search. After scrambling through ditches and wading through water-courses, we found ourselves at the gate of a ruined khan (guest-house) where some men were gathered round a bright fire.

They were strolling shoemakers, who were on their way to Isfahan, and had taken up their quarters for the night in a vaulted passage which had afforded them shelter from the storm. Upon the fire they had kindled was a large caldron of savoury broth, which was boiling merrily. The long ride had given me an appetite, and I seated myself without ceremony in the group, and began to help myself without waiting for an invitation.

The shoemakers, although good Mussulmans, made no objection to my dipping my own spoon into the mess with them. Seeing that my clothes were soaked by the rain, and that I was suffering from ague, they very civilly left me alone in the recess in which they had established themselves, and I was able to dry myself by their fire and to spread my carpet for the night by the side of its embers.

The gardens amongst which I had entered before arriving at Tehrun reach in an almost uninterrupted line to Isfahan. They produce fruit and vegetables of all kinds, especially melons of exquisite flavour, which have an unrivalled reputation throughout Persia… The many horsemen, and men and women carrying loads of produce, whom I passed on the road showed me that I was approaching Isfahan; but nothing could be seen of the city, which was completely buried in trees. By constantly asking my way I managed to reach, through the labyrinth of walls which enclose the gardens and melon beds, the Armenian quarter of Julfa…

Mr Edward Burgess, an English merchant from Tabreez, who was at Isfahan on business, hearing that I had arrived, came to see me and offered to be of use to me. He proposed that we should present outselves to the governor, Manuchar Khan, or, as he was usually called, ‘the Matamet’, to whom he was personally known. (Early Adventures, 112-114)

Layard now had his first meeting with Manuchar Khan, the much-feared Persian governor of Isfahan who was determined to humble the Bakhtiari and to put its leader in chains. Manuchar Khan, the ‘Matamet’, would have a lot to do with Layard’s fate in the next two years.

The Matamet himself sat on a chair, at a large open window, in a beautifully ornamented room at the upper end of the court. Those who had business with him, or whom he summoned, advanced with repeated bows, and then stood humbly before him as if awestruck by his presence, the sleeves of their robes, usually loose and open, closely buttoned up, and their hands joint in front — an immemorial attitude of respect in the East. (A footnote adds that ‘the attendants of the Assyrian King are thus represented in the sculptures from Nineveh.’)

In the ‘hauz’, or pond of fresh water in the centre of the court, were bundles of long switches from the pomegranate tree, soaking to be ready for use for the bastinado, which the Matamet was in the habit of administering freely and indifferently to high and low. In a corner was the pole with two loops of cord to raise the feet of the victim, who writhes on the ground and screams for mercy. This barbarous punishment was then employed in Persia for all manner of offences and crimes, the number of strokes administered varying according to the guilt or obstinacy of the culprit.

It was also constantly resorted to as a form of torture to extract confessions. The pomegranate switches, when soaked for some time, become lithe and flexible. The pain and injury which they inflicted were very great, and were sometimes even followed by death. Under ordinary circumstances the sufferer was unable to use his feet for some time, and frequently lost the nails of his toes. The bastinado was inflicted upon men of the highest rank — governors of provinces, and even prime ministers — who had, justly or unjustly, incurred the displeasure of the Shah.

Manuchar Khan, the Matamet, was a eunuch. He was a Georgian, born of Christian parents, and had been purchased in his childhood as a slave, had been brought up as a Mussulman, and reduced to his unhappy condition. Like many of his kind, he was employed when young in the public serve, and had by his remarkable abilities risen to the highest posts. Considered the best administrator in the kingdom, he had been sent to govern the great province of Isfahan, which included within its limits the wild and lawless tribes of the Lurs and the Bakhtiari, generally in rebellion, and the semi-independent Arab population of the plains between the Luristan Mountains and the Euphrates.

He was hated and feared for his cruelty; but it was generally admitted that he ruled justly, that he protected the weak from oppression by the strong, and that where he was able to enforce his authority life and property were secure. He was known for the ingenuity with which he had invented new forms of punishment and torture to strike terror into evil-doers, and to make examples of those who dared to resist his authority or that of his master the Shah, thus justifying the reproach addressed to beings of his class, of insensibility to human suffering.

One of his modes of dealing with criminals was what he termed ‘planting vines.’ A hole having been dug in the ground, men were thrust headlong into it and then covered with earth, their legs being allowed to protrude to represent what he facetiously called ‘the vines.’ I was told that he had ordered a horse-stealer to have all his teeth drawn, which were driven into the soles of his feet as if he were being shod. His head was then put into a nose-bag filled with hay, and he was thus left to die. A tower still existed near Shiraz which he had built of three hundred living men belonging to the Mamesenni, a tribe inhabiting the mountains to the north of Shiraz, which had rebelled against the Shah.

They were laid in layers of ten, mortar being spread between each layer, and the heads of the unhappy victims being left free. Some of them were said to have been kept alive for several days by being fed by their friends, a life of torture being thus prolonged. At that time few nations, however barbarous, equaled — none probably exceeded — the Persian in the shocking cruelty, ingenuity, and indifference with which death or torture was inflicted. (Early Adventures, 115-117)

Among the Bakhtiari

After the Matamet gave his permission to visit this part of Persia, Layard was delayed for five weeks: the men who were to accompany him into the world of the Bakhtiari tribes were in no hurry to leave Isfahan. During this period he familiarized himself with the Persian language and acquired the Bakhtiari costume he wore over the months to come.

The day after my interview with the Matamet I succeeded, after some trouble, in finding Shefi’a Khan, who had promised to introduce me to Ali Naghi Khan, the brother of the principal chief of the Bakhtiari tribes. They both lodged in the upper story of a half-ruined building forming part of one of the ancient royal palaces. The entrance was crowded with their retainers — tall, handsome, but fierce-looking men, in very ragged clothes. They wore the common white felt skull-cap, sometimes embroidered at the edge with coloured wools when worn by a chief, their heads being closely shaven after the Persian fashion, with the exception of two locks, called ‘zulf,’ one on each side of the face.

The Bakhtiari usually twist round their skull-caps, in the form of a turban, a long piece of coarse linen of a brown colour, with stripes of black and white, called a ‘lung,’ one end of which is allowed to fall down the back, whilst the other forms a topknot. In other respects they wear the usual Persian dress, but made of very coarse materials, and, as a protection against rain and cold, an outer, loose-fitting coat of felt reaching to the elbows and a little belong the knees. Their shoes of cotton twist, called ‘giveh,’ and their stockings of coloured wools, are made by their women.

A long matchlock — neither flint-locks nor percussion-caps were then known to the Persian tribes — is rarely out of their hands. Hanging to a leather belt round their waist, they carry a variety of objects for loading and cleaning their guns — a kind of bottle with a long neck, made of buffalo-hide, to contain coarse gunpowder; a small curved iron flask, opening with a spring, to hold the finer gunpowder for priming; a variety of metal picks and instruments; a mould for casting bullets; pouches of embroidered leather for balls and wadding; and an iron ramrod to load the long pistol always thrust into their girdles. I have thus minutely described the Bakhtiari dress as I adopted it when I left Isfahan, and wore it during my residence with the tribe.

I was equally astonished at the magnificence of the palaces of Shah Abbas and other Persian kings, with their spacious gardens, their stately avenues, and their fountains and artificial streams of running water, then deserted and fast falling to ruins. It was not difficult to picture to oneself what they must once have been. Wall-pictures representing the deeds of Rustem and other heroes of the ‘Shah-Nemeh,’ events from Persian history, incidents of the chase and scenes of carouse and revelry, with musicians and dancing boys and girls, were still to be seen in the deserted rooms and corridors, the ceilings of which were profusely decorated with elegant arabesques… In the halls, the pavements, the paneling of the walls, and the fountains, were of rare marbles inlaid with mosaic… These gorgeous ruins — desolate and deserted — afforded the most striking proof of the luxury and splendour of the Persian court in former times…

But the most characteristic and curious scenes of Persian life were those I witnessed in the house of a Lur chief who had left his native mountains and had established himself in Isfahan, professing to be a ‘sufi,’ or free-thinker. He invited me more than once to dinner, and I was present at some of those orgies in which Persians of his class were too apt to indulge. On these occasions he would take his guests into the ‘enderun,’ or women’s apartments, in which he was safe from intrusion and less liable to cause public scandal. They were served liberally with arak and sweetmeats, whilst dancing girls performed before them.

Many of these girls were strikingly handsome — some were celebrated for their beauty. Their costume consisted of loose silk jackets of some gay colour, entirely open in front so as to show the naked figure to the waist; ample silk ‘shalwars,’ or trousers, so full that they could scarcely be distinguished from petticoats, and embroidered skullcaps. Long braided tresses descended to their heels, and they had the usual ‘zulfs,’ or ringlets, on both sides of the face. The soles of their feet, the palms of their hands, and their finger- and toenails were stained dark red, or rather brown, with henna. Their eyebrows were coloured black, and made to meet; their eyes, which were generally large and dark, were rendered more brilliant and expressive by the use of ‘kohl.’

Their movements were not wanting in grace; their postures, however, were frequently extravagant, and more like gymnastic exercises than dancing. Bending themselves backwards, they would almost bring their heads and their heels together. Such dances are commonly represented in Persian paintings, which have now become well known out of Persia. The musicians were women who played on guitars and dulcimers. These orgies usually ended by the guests getting very drunk, and falling asleep on the carpets, where they remained until sufficiently sober to return to their homes in the morning. (Early Adventures, 118-125)

Living with the Bakhtiari. Given the reputation of the Bakhtiari for treachery, cruelty, and murder, Layard pondered how he would manage life among them. After some days of difficult travel over mountain trails he arrived at Kala Tul, the fortress of their chieftain Mehemet Taki Khan.

As I rode along I could abandon myself to my reflections, which were of a very mixed kind. I was much elated by the prospect of being able to visit a country hitherto unexplored by Europeans, and in which I had been led to suppose I should find important ancient monuments and inscriptions. It would have been impossible to have undertaken the journey under better auspices. Shefi’a Khan seemed well disposed towards me. I had every reason to believe that during our intercourse at Isfahan I had gained his friendship, by various little services which I was able to render him.

As he had earlier served for a short time in a regiment of regular troops organized by English officers in the Persian service, and had thus acquired some knowledge of Europeans, he did not look upon them, as ignorant Persians did in those days, as altogether unclean animals, with whom no intercourse was permitted to good Mussulmans. His wild and lawless followers were kind and friendly to me, and I had no cause to mistrust them. But the Bakhtiari bear the very worst reputation in Persia. They are looked upon as a race of robbers — treacherous, cruel, and bloodthirsty. Their very name is held in fear and detestation by the timid inhabitants of the districts which are exposed to their depredations. I had been repeatedly warned that I ran the greatest peril in placing myself in their hands, and that although I might possibly succeed in entering their mountains, the chances of getting out of them again were but few.

However, I was very hopeful and very confident that my good fortune would not desert me, and that by tact and prudence I should succeed in coming safely out of my adventure. I determined at the same time to conform in all things to the manners, habits, and customs of the people with whom I was about to mix, to avoid offending their religious feelings and prejudices, and to be especially careful not to do anything which might give them reason to suspect that I was a spy, or had any other object in visiting their country than that of gratifying my curiosity and of exploring ancient remains. Accordingly I abstained from making notes or taking observations with my compass except when I could do so unobserved. Whilst associating with my companions on intimate terms, and conversing freely with them, I abstained from touching their food and their drinking vessels unless invited to do so, and from showing too much curiosity and asking too many questions about their country, its resources, and the roads through it.

Two tracks led to Kala Tul — the castle of Tul — where Mehemet Taki Khan was then residing. One track followed the course of the river and crossed the plain of Mal-Emir, the other took a direct line across the mountains. We passed through a hamlet called Sheikhun, surrounded by pomegranate trees in full fruit, but deserted at this time of the year by its inhabitants, who were living higher up on the mountain side. The chief of Sheikhun, who received Shefi’a Khan and his followers with the warmest expressions of friendship, embracing them all round, was an immediate retainer of the great Bakhtiari chief. As he could not persuade them to pass the night in his encampment, he insisted that they should remain to breakfast. He slew a sheep for them, and brought us a great bowl of sour milk and delicious honeycombs.

We reached our night’s quarters after a most toilsome and dangerous climb. We had now entered the district of Munghast, and had reached a high elevation. The air was keen and piercing, and I had good reason to lament during a bitterly cold night the loss of my wadded quilt… After scrambling and crawling down a most precipitous descent — men and horses appearing to those below them as if piled up one upon the other — we came to a narrow ravine formed by a torrent now dry. Making our way over the loose stones and boulders in its bed, we issued into a small plain, and saw, high up on a mound at a short distance from us, the castle of Tul — the end of our long and weary journey. (Early Adventures, 131-144)

In the Fortress of Kala Tul. The chieftain Mehemet Taki Khan was away when Layard arrived at his castle, so he was formally received by the Khan’s first wife, Khatun-jan Khanum. She told him that her son was gravely ill with fever, and when the boy’s illness worsened she urgently sent for her husband to return. Together, the Khan and his wife implored Layard to try and effect a cure.

My reputation as a Frank (i.e., European) physician had preceded me, and I had scarcely arrived at the castle when I was surrounded by men and women asking for medicines. They were principally suffering from intermittent fevers, which prevail in all parts of the mountains during the autumn. Shortly afterwards the chief’s principal wife sent to ask me to see her son, who, I was told, was dangerously ill, and I was taken to a large booth constructed of boughs of trees, in which she was living. It was spread with the finest carpets, and was spacious enough to contain a quantity of household effects heaped up in different parts of it.

The lady sat unveiled in a corner, watching over her child, a boy of ten years of age, and about her stood several young women, her attendants. She was a tall, graceful woman, still young and singularly handsome, dressed in the Persian fashion, with a quantity of hair falling in tresses down her back from under the purple silk kerchief bound round her forehead. As I entered she rose to meet me, and I was at once captivated by her sweet and kindly expression.

She welcomed me in the name of her husband to Kala Tul, and then described to me how her son had been ill for some time from fever, and how two noted practitioners of native medicine had been sent for from a great distance to prescribe for him, but had failed to effect a cure. She entreated me, with tears, to save the boy, as he was her eldest son, and greatly beloved by his father. I found the child very weak from a severe attack of intermittent fever. I had suffered so much myself during my wanderings from this malady that I had acquired some experience in its treatment. I promised the mother some medicine and told her how it was to be administered… The condition of the boy, however, became so alarming that his father was sent for.

The guests at the castle, myself included, came down to meet him. Mehemet Taki Khan was a man of about fifty years of age, of middle height, somewhat corpulent, and of a very commanding presence. His otherwise handsome countenance was disfigured by a wound received in war from an iron mace, which had broken the bridge of his nose. He had a sympathetic, pleasing voice, a most winning smile,and a merry laugh. He was in the dress which the Bakhtiari chiefs usually wore on a journey, or when on a raid or warlike expedition — a tight-fitting cloth tunic reaching to about the knees, over a long silk robe, the skirts of which were thrust into capacious trousers, fastened round the ankles by broad embroidered bands.

His arms consisted of a gun, with a barrel of the rarest Damascene work, and a stock beautifully inlaid with ivory and gold; a curved sword, or scimitar, of the finest Khorrassan steel — its handle and sheath of silver and gold; a jeweled dagger of great price, and a long, highly ornamented pistol thrust in the ‘kesh-kemer,’ or belt, round his waist, to which were hung his powder-flasks, leather pouches for holding bullets, and various objects used for priming and loading his gun, all of the choicest description… His saddle was also richly decorated, and under the girths was passed, on one side, a second sword, and on the other an iron inlaid mace, such as Persian horsemen use in battle. Mehemet Taki Khan was justly proud of his arms, which were renowned throughout Khuzistan. He had a very noble air, and was the very beau-idéal of a great feudal chief.

Although tribal politics in Asia are notoriously tainted with, if not founded upon, treachery and deceit, Mehemet Taki Khan had the reputation of being a generous and merciful enemy, and a trustworthy, just, and humane man, and his followers were devotedly attached to him. He could neither read nor write, but he was exceedingly intelligent, and especially fond of poetry. He was sincerely anxious to promote the good of his people and the prosperity of his country by maintaining peace, by securing the safety of the roads through his territories, and by opening his mountains to trade.

He had scarcely entered the enderun of the castle, to which his wife had removed, than he sent for me. I found him sobbing and in deep distress. His wife and her women were making that mournful wail which denotes that some great misfortune has happened or is impending. The child was believed to be at the point of death. The father appealed to me in heartrending terms, offering me gifts of horses and anything that I might desire if I would only save the life of his son. The skilful native physicians he had summoned could do nothing more for the boy, and his only hope was in me.

The child was in a high fever, which I hoped might yield to Dover’s powder and quinine. I administered a dose of the former at once, and prepared to pass the night in watching its effect. I was naturally in great anxiety as to the result. If the boy recovered I had every reason to hope that I should secure the gratitude of his father, and be able to carry out my plan of visiting the ruins and monuments which were said to exist in the Bakhtiari Mountains, and which it was the main object of my journey to reach. If, on the other hand, he were to die, his death would be laid at my door, and the consequence might prove very serious, as I should be accused by my rivals, the native physicians, of having poisoned the child.

About midnight, to my great relief, he broke out into a violent perspiration, which all the native remedies hitherto given him had failed to produce. On the following day he was better. I began to administer the quinine, and in a short time he was pronounced out of danger, and on the way to complete recovery. (Early Adventures, 147-152)

The success of his medical treatment secured Layard’s position, not simply as a guest, but as a treasured member of the tribe and even of the household itself. He was provided with new clothes, mothered, and invited to marry the most beautiful woman in the enderun — providing he converted to Islam first.

The gratitude of the father and mother knew no bounds, for the affection among these mountaineers for their children is very great. They insisted that I should in future live in the enderun, and a room was assigned to me. Mehemet Taki Khan made me accept a horse, as mine had not recovered from the effects of the journey over the mountains. But what I most needed was linen and clothes. These were supplied to me by his wife. I was indeed sadly in want of my second shirt. I had been compelled, after I had been robbed of it, to hide myself in the rushes on the bank of a stream to wash the one I wore, and to wait without it until it had been dried by the sun. My Persian clothes, of European cotton print, were in the shabbiest condition, and beyond repair. The Khatun’s women soon made for me all that I was in want of.

Khatun-jan Khanum — ‘Lady of my soul’ — was the principal wife of Mehemet Taki Khan, and the mother of his three children. There were two other ladies who ranked as wives of the chief, but who were on a very different footing from the Khanum, whose apartment her husband regularly shared. She was one of the best and kindest women I ever knew. She treated me with the affection of a mother, nursing me when I was suffering from attacks of fever, which were frequent and severe, and during which I was frequently delirious for several hours. She took charge of the little money that I possessed, as she feared that in my wanderings in search of ruins and inscriptions I might be exposed to great danger if it were known that I carried it with me. She acted as my banker, and gave me what I needed for immediate use, which was very little indeed, as there was nothing to buy, all that I required being furnished to me by her husband and herself.

Neither she nor her women, nor indeed any of the wives and female relatives of the chief and his brothers, ever veiled themselves before me. I was in the habit of passing the evening listening to the Khanum’s stories about the tribes. The chief was frequently present and took part in the conversation. I was even permitted, contrary to the etiquette of the harem, to eat with her, and Mehemet Taki Khan would jokingly taunt me with introducing European customs into the enderun, as it was not proper for even the husband to sit at the same tray with his wife, although in private. The other wives of the Khan, who were young and not ill-looking, never sat in his presence unless invited to do so, taking their places among the waiting-women of the Khanum, who was always treated with the greatest respect and consideration by her husband, and by her partners in his affections.

Khanumi, Khatun-jan’s sister, who was some years younger than herself, was the beauty of Kala Tul. Indeed, it was said that there was not a more lovely woman in the tribe, and she deserved her reputation. Her features were of esxquisite delicacy, her eyes large, black, and almond-shaped, her hair of the darkest hue. She was intelligent and lively, and a great favourite with all the inmates of the enderun. The chief and the Khanum would often tell me that if I would become a Mussulman and live with them they would give her to me for a wife. The inducement was great, but the temptation was resisted. (Early Adventures, 152-154)

At sunset attendants bearing trays on their heads appeared in the lamerdoun (guest’s quarters within the castle). The dinner consisted of the usual pillaus, with the addition of kibabs, stewed fowls, roast game, and several kinds of sweet dishes. After dinner coffee was handed round in the Arab fashion, kaleôns were smoked, and some of the guests played at backgammon, whilst others conversed or read or recited poetry until it was time to sleep, when every one spread his carpet upon the floor and settled himself for the night.

I usually dined in the enderun. Mehemet Taki Khan was fond of talking with me about England and her institutions and European inventions. He took a very enlightened view of such matters, was eager to induce the wild inhabitants of his mountains to engage in peaceful pursuits, and was very desirous that the country should be opened to commerce. These conversations generally took place in the evening in the inner court, where his favourite horses were tethered, and where he would sit amongst them on his carpet. But he was also in the habit of questioning me on those subjects when we were seated at the entrance to the castle, surrounded by the elders and principal men of the tribe.

He would make me describe to them railways and various modern discoveries, and explain to them the European sciences of astronomy, geology, and others unknown to his people. As they were at variance with the teachings of the Koran, he would direct a mullah to argue the matter with me and to endeavour to confound me. The learned man was generally satisfied with a simple denial of what I had stated, quoting in support of it some verse from the holy volume. But this did not satisfy the chief, who was anxious for knowledge. He would make me describe the wigs worn by judges and barristers in England, and then, with a jovial laugh, would exclaim, ‘You see that to make a cadi (judge) in England it only requires two horses’ tails!’

He had some difficulty in understanding why I had left my home to incur the privations and dangers of a journey through wild and inhospitable regions. He could scarcely believe that I had been impelled to do so by the love of adventure, and by a curiosity to visit new countries and to explore ancient remains…

The Bakhtiari are probably the descendants of the tribes which inhabited the mountains they still occupy from the remotest antiquity. They are believed to be of pure Iranian or Persian blood. They are a splendid race, far surpassing in moral, as well as in physical, qualities the inhabitants of the towns and plains of Persia — the men tall, finely featured, and well built; the women of singular beauty, of graceful form, and when young almost as fair as Englishwomen. If the men have, for the most part, a savage and somewhat forbidding expression, it arises from the mode of life they have led from time immemorial. They are constantly at war, either among themselves or with the Persian Government, against which they are in chronic rebellion.

In addition, they are arrant robbers and freebooters, living upon the plunder of their neighbours and of caravans, or of the pusillanimous population of the plains, amongst which they are in the habit of carrying forays with impunity. But notwithstanding the fierce and truculent appearance of the men, I have never seen together finer specimens of the human race than in a Bakhtiari encampment. (Early Adventures, 160-162)

Mehemet Taki Khan

I frequently witnessed whilst in Mehemet Taki Khan’s camp the effect which poetry had upon men who knew no pity and who were ready to take human life upon the smallest provocation or for the lowest greed. It might be supposed that such men were insensible to all feelings and emotions except those excited by hatred of their enemies, cupidity, or revenge. Yet they would stand until late in the night in a circle round Mehemet Taki Khan as he sat on his carpet before a blazing fire which cast a lurid light upon their ferocious countenances — rather those of demons than of human beings — to listen with the utmost eagerness to Shefi’a Khan, who, seated by the side of the chief, would recite, with a loud voice and in a kind of chant, episodes from the ‘Shah-Nameh,’ describing the deeds of Rustem, the mythical Persian hero, or the loves of Khosrau and Shirin.

Or sometimes one of those poets or minstrels who wander from encampment to encampment among the tribes would sing, with quavering voice the odes of Hafiz or Saadi, or improvise verses in honour of the great chieftain, relating how he had overcome his enemies in battle and in single combat, and had risen to be the head of the Bakhtiari by his valour, his wisdom, his justice, and his charity to the poor. The excitement of these ruthless warriors then knew no bounds. When the wonderful exploits of Rustem were described — how with one blow of his sword he cut horse and rider in two, or alone vanquished legions of enemies — their savage countenances became even more savage.

They would shout and yell, draw their swords, and challenge imaginary foes. When the death of some favourite hero was the poet’s theme, they would weep, beat their breasts, and utter a doleful wail, heaping curses upon the head of him who had caused it. But when they listened to the moving tale of the loves of Khosrau and his mistress, they would heave the deepest sighs — the tears running down their cheeks — and follow the verses with a running accompaniment of ‘Wai! Wai!’

Such was probably the effect of the Homeric ballads when recited or sung of old in the camps of the Greeks, or when they marched to combat. Such a scene as I have described must be witnessed to fully understand the effect of poetry upon a warlike and emotional race.

Mehemet Taki Khan himself was as susceptible to it as his wild followers. I have seen him, when we were sitting together of an evening in the enderun at Kala Tul, sob like a child as he recited or listened to some favourite verses. When I expressed to him my surprise that he, who had seen so much of war and bloodshed, and had himself slain so many enemies, should be thus moved to tears by poetry, he replied, ‘Ya, Sahib! I cannot help it. They burn my heart!’ (Early Adventures, 211-213)

A fugitive from the Matamet

Manuchar Khan — the ‘Matamet’ or Persian Governor of Isfahan — was determined to subdue the Bakhtiari and break the power of their chieftain Mehemet Taki Khan. He demanded a huge payment in taxes, and when this demand was ignored, marched with a military force toward the mountains. Separated from Mehemet Taki Khan, and trying to rejoin him, Layard became a fugitive in Arab country threatened by the Persian army, where whole tribal groups were confusedly on the run.

The plains between the rivers Karun and Jerrahi were now a parched and dreary waste with occasional remains of ancient cultivation, and of former habitations, marked by low mounds strewed with bricks and potsherds. The heat was intense and I had to ride about thirty miles, the owner of the mule walking by my side. It was evening before we found ourselves at Kareiba, a large village of huts built of reeds and mats, on the banks of the Jerrahi. I dismounted at the ‘musif’ of the sheikh, who was a Seyyid (a purported descendant of the Prophet).

Before daybreak on the following morning a messenger arrived from Thamer, the chief of the Cha’b Arabs upon whose territories I had now entered, with orders for the sheikh to abandon the village at once, and to move with its inhabitants and their property to the neighbourhood of Fellahiyah. Similar orders were sent to the Arab settlements higher up the river. It was reported that Mehemet Taki Khan had crossed the Jerrahi on the previous night, about three miles above Kareiba, and that the Matamet had already left Shuster (modern Shustar) with a large force in his pursuit. But my host, the Seyyid, pretended to be entirely ignorant on the subject, and maintained that not only had the Bakhtiari chief not entered the Cha’ country, but that he had turned back to the mountains.

The village now became a scene of great confusion and excitement. The men and women began to pull down the huts, and to bind together the reeds of which they were constructed in order to make rafts on which to float down with their families and their property to Fellahiya. Domestic utensils, such as caldrons, cooking-pots, and iron plates for baking bread, with quilts, carpets, sacks of corn and rice, and the poultry, which had been in the meanwhile captured by the naked children, were piled upon them. The herdsmen were collecting their cattle and their flocks. All were screaming at the top of their voices, and sometimes the men, ceasing from their work, and joining hands, would dance in a circle, shouting their war-song.

Already rafts similarly loaded began to float past the village, the orders of the Cha’b sheikh having been promptly obeyed by the Arabs on the upper part of the river. The inhabitants of Kareiba showed great activity in making their preparations, and early in the afternoon they had for the most part already departed on their rafts, and the village was nearly deserted. Those that remained were in great alarm, expecting every moment that the Matamet’s irregular cavalry would sweep down upon them. (Early Adventures, 239-240)

Dykes are destroyed to flood the country and obstruct the Persian advance

The country between Kareiba and Fellahiyah had been placed under water by destroying the dykes and embankments of the river and of the canals, so that it was impassable by horsemen, and I could go no farther. Everyone was too much occupied with his own affairs to attend to a guest and a stranger. The ‘musif’ had been pulled down, and the owner could with difficulty prevail upon his women to prepare for me a mess of boiled millet and sour curds, which was barely sufficient to satisfy my hunger after a long fast.

Rafts, with their loads of men, women, and children, and their miscellaneous cargoes of domestic furniture, provisions, and poultry, were leaving one by one. My guide informed me that, although he had engaged to accompany me to Fellahiyah, he could not, as the waters were out, reach that place. As he could not remain in the deserted village, he declared that he must make his way back at once with his mule, and, mounting the beast, started off at a brisk trot across the plain.

At sunset the sheikh was ready to leave, his wives, children, and property having been already placed in a large flat-bottomed wicker boat, coated with bitumen — the only one belonging to the village. As there was plenty of room in it, I expected that he would allow me to accompany him; but when I asked him for a passage he curtly refused to permit an infidel Christian to be with his women and to pollute his vessel. Then, turning sulkily away, he got into it himself and pushed it into the middle of the stream. He was the last to leave the village, which was now completely abandoned by its inhabitants, and I was left standing alone on the river-bank.

The only course left to me was to follow the example of the Arabs, and to make a raft for myself. As the moon would not rise for some time, I spread my carpet on some reeds and mats which I had collected together, hoping to get a little sleep, as I was much fatigued. But I was soon surrounded by hungry dogs which had been left behind and were howling piteously. It was with difficulty that I could keep them off with a long stick. The discordant cries of hundreds of jackals, seeking for offal amongst the remains of the huts, added to the frightful chorus.

It was not impossible that lions, which are found in the jungle and brushwood on the banks of the rivers in this part of Khuzistan and other beasts of prey, might be attracted to the spot. But what I had more reason to fear than the dogs and wild animals were the bands of horsemen, and especially the Bowi Arabs, who were scouring the plain in all directions in search of plunder. Had I been discovered by them, I should at least have been stripped to the skin and left to my fate, if nothing worse had befallen me.

At length my raft was ready. I placed myself upon it, with a tent pole to guide it, and pushing it from the bank trusted myself to the sluggish stream. The dogs followed me, barking and howling, until a deep watercourse stopped them. I floated along gently, keeping as well as I could in the centre of the river.

The river-banks presented a scene of extraordinary bustle and excitement. They were thickly inhabited, and there seemed to be an endless succession of reed huts upon them. These their owners were now busy in destroying for the purpose of making rafts. The whole population was engaged in this occupation and in driving herds of buffaloes and camels and flocks of sheep through the mud and water, and swimming them across the stream and the numerous canals for irrigation which were derived from it on both sides.

Some were floating across the river on inflated sheepskins, carrying their children on their shoulders and bundles on their heads. Even the women and girls, divesting themselves of their long blue shirts — their only garment — were helping to convey their goods and chattels to the opposite side of the river, which was considered safer from the hostile incursions of marauding horsemen than the western bank. There was a general flight. Everywhere men sent by the Cha’b chief were breaking down the dams in order to flood the country. The crops which were ripe had been set on fire, and on all sides clouds of smoke rose into the clear sky. A thickly peopled and highly cultivated region was thus utterly devastated in a few hours.

I passed unobserved among the numberless rafts, and unnoticed by the Arabs on the banks. At length I came to an extensive grove of palm-trees…  extending for about two miles where the inhabitants seemed to consider themselves secure from attack, as they were not, like those on the upper part of the river, removing their property. The stream, which had been much reduced in size by the numerous watercourses for irrigation derived from it, passed through the centre of a court. I perceived on both sides rows of Arabs seated on carpets. Attendants were hurrying about with little coffee cups, and with water-pipes, formed of the shell of the cocoa-nut, such as are usually smoked by Arabs.

Pushing my raft to the bank, I landed, and was informed that I was in the ‘musif’ of Sheikh Thamer, the chief of the great Arab tribe of Cha’b. The sheikh himself was seated, with some of his guests, at the upper end of the enclosure. When I presented myself to him, he invited me to be seated, making room for me by his side. In answer to his question whence I came and where I was going, I explained to him that I was an English traveller coming from Shuster on account of the disturbed state of the country.

The sheikh was known to be untrustworthy and treacherous, and to have upon his head the blood of more than one relation, whom he had murdered in order to attain the chieftainship. But he was very generous to seyyids and mullas, who, in consequence, flocked to Fellahiyah and condoned his evil deeds. When we were seated I informed the sheikh that the object of my coming to Fellahiyah was to see Mehemet Taki Khan, who, I had reason to know, had taken refuge in his territories. He called Allah to witness that Mehemet Taki Khan had thought of taking refuge with him, but he had turned back towards the mountains, and had probably reached a place of safety in them. I was convinced that Sheikh Thamer was not telling me the truth; but, finding that it was useless to press him further, I returned to the ‘musif’, determined to remain there until I could discover where Mehemet Taki Khan was concealed.

I spread my carpet in that part of it which was reserved for visitors of distinction. In the evening I was not a little surprised to see my old friend Mirza Koma, the governor of Behbahan, enter the ‘musif,’ accompanied by one Muhammaed Ali Khan, the chief of the Noui tribe, whom I also knew. They had arrived in Fellahiyah accompanied by about fifty horsemen. The whole party, covered with mud and showing evident signs of having suffered great privations, had a wretched and forlorn appearance. Their horses, too seemed to be nearly starved and could scarcely walk. The Mirza was glad to see me, and after supper related to me what had occurred since we parted at Behbahan, how he had been betrayed, like Mehemet Tai Khan, by the Persians, his son made prisoner, and his town taken and sacked, and how he had escaped with a few followers to Fellahiyah.

On my condoling with him upon his misfortunes, he replied with his usual good humour, ‘God is great! This is the fifth time that I have been driven from Behbahan, a fugitive, without wife or family, and naked. When those dogs of Persians have stripped the flesh off the bone they will leave it to me to gnaw.’

It was late before the inmates of the ‘musif’ could compose themselves to sleep, for Arabs never tire of chattering. I had not slept the previous night, and the events of the day had added not a little to my fatigue. I was not sorry when I could stretch myself upon my carpet, to take the rest of which I was so greatly in need. I sank at once into a profound sleep. (Early Adventures, 239-247)

With the whole countryside in disorder, and Mehemet Taki Khan now a prisoner of the Persians, anarchy prevailed. Both the Bakhtiari and the Arabs, “without a chief whom they respected, and who was able to maintain some authority over them, were fighting among themselves, and were plundering and maltreating the peaceable inhabitants of the province.” In these circumstances Layard and one of Taki Khan’s younger brothers, Au Kerim, fell into the hands of a Bahmehi chief certain to betray them — Khalyl Khan.

Caught as we were in a trap, and surrounded by Khalyl Khan’s retainers, had we sought to defend ourselves, and blood had flowed, we should have been instantly cut to pieces. There was nothing to be done but to submit… I was in the hands of lawless men, who might have considered it their duty to murder a European and an infidel, and who were as fanatical as they were ignorant. I therefore took my saddle-bags, which contained a few things that were precious to me — my medicines, my compass, and my note-books — and followed Au Kerim into the enderun.

We were no sooner within the room than the door was closed upon us and bolted from the outside. Au Kerim then denounced Khalyl Khan in the strongest terms that his vocabulary could afford, but in a low voice lest he should be overheard, for there are some insults which, among the Lurs, can only be washed out with blood… Although our host was known to be capable of any villainy, Au Kerim believed that Khalyl Khan would probably only take our horses and a little property, and leave us to shift for ourselves in his inhospitable mountains, and that having robbed us, and after recovering from his nightly debauch, our treacherous host would allow us to continue on our way.

Knowing the bloodthirsty and savage character of the Bahmehi, I did not feel the same confidence as my companion as to our fate. I was labouring under too much anxiety, and overwhelmed by too many thoughts to be able to sleep. To be murdered in cold blood by a barbarian, far away from all help or sympathy, the place and cause of one’s death to be probably forever unknown, and the author of it to escape with impunity, was a fate which could not be contemplated with indifference.

We could hear the voices of the chief and his companions in the adjoining room, and the sounds of wild Lur music. They were evidently carousing. Khalyl Khan had the reputation of being given to arak and wine — a rare vice among the mountain tribes. At length all was quiet, and the carousers had apparently retired to rest.

Escape and flight

It was some time after midnight when we were disturbed by the withdrawal of the bolt of the door. Au Kerim sprang to his feet, and I followed his example, not knowing who was about to enter and with what intent. The chief’s wife, whom we had seen in the afternoon after our arrival, stepped stealthily into the room. She denounced her husband to Au Kerim, in a whisper, as a ruffian who had no respect for the ties of family or the duties of hospitality. She would not, she said, have the blood of a kinsman upon her head, and she had come to release the guest whom he had treacherously seized.

The gate of the castle was open. Khalyl Khan, after his debauch, was fast asleep, and Au Kerim could take his horse and depart, and God be with him! Then, addressing me, she said, ‘What have we to do with you, a stranger, and what have you done to us that we should do you harm? Go with him, and let not your blood be also upon our heads’

Our arms were still in the guest room. We took them and went down, with as little noise as possible, to the yard, where our horses, with their saddles on, had been tethered for the night. The chief’s wife accompanied us to the gate, which had not been closed, and wishing us again ‘God speed,’ left us when we had passed through it… As soon as we were out of the gate we led our horses down a precipitous descent away from the village. We proceeded as cautiously and noiselessly as possible, and when we were at a short distance from the foot of the mound we descended the mountainside over rocks, loose stones, and bushes, as fast as we could.

It was with great difficulty that we could drag our horses to the foot of the high mountain range. A stony, hilly country, at this time of the year uninhabited — the tribes being in the summer pastures, with their flocks and herds — still separated us from the plain of Behbahan. We were at some distance from the castle when, about midday, we perceived that we were being pursued by a party of horsemen. Au Kerim, who was mounted on a high-bred Arab mare, put her to full speed. Khatun-jan Khanum had lent me one of Mehemet Taki Khan’s horses, which was strong and fast, and I was able to keep up with my companion. Both our animals were tired, and the heat on these bare and rocky hills, reflecting the burning rays of the sun, was intense.

We were following a long, narrow valley, through which ran the Tab, a small stream, one of the confluents of the river Jerrahi. It wound through the flat alluvial land formed by the various changes in its course. We could, therefore, gallop our horses, and were gaining on our pursuers, when Au Kerim’s mare stumbled and fell, throwing her rider over her head. I was a little behind him, and when I came up to him he was on the ground evidently in much pain and unable to rise. His mare had run away.

I was about to dismount to help him, but he entreated me to leave him, and to fly as fast as my horse could carry me, as I could not be of any use to him, and he would be unable to protect me. He advised me to strike into the hills as soon as I could do so, and to conceal myself in some ravine during the rest of the day. I saw that I could be of no assistance to him, and to remain with him would have been to risk my life unnecessarily. The horsemen who were in pursuit, and were rapidly approaching us, were too numerous to admit of the possibility of resistance. With a heavy heart and a sad presentiment of the fate which awaited him, I urged on my horse, and following his advice, turned into the hills by a track which led through a narrow defile.

After awhile, seeing that I was not followed, I endeavoured to discover some sheltered spot well hidden in the hills, where I could find water and grass for my horse and shade for myself, as the midday heat and scorching rays of the sun were almost beyond endurance. I had not slept for nearly thirty-six hours, and had eaten nothing since the previous night. I was suffering from excruciating thirst, and I dreaded lest an attack of the intermittent fever, which had never left me, might come on, and that I should be delirious and helpless.

My horse, greatly distressed from want of food and water, could scarcely carry me any longer. I was in despair, not knowing what to do or which way to turn, when I happily came to a retired place where there was an abundant spring, shaded by a few stunted konar trees. The soil around produced an ample supply of grass. I owed this welcome discovery to my horse, which suddenly began to neigh and to sniff the air — a sign that water was near. I gave it the rein, and it turned immediately to the spot, which was so well concealed that I should not probably have found it but for the instinct of the animal.

I was beyond measure thankful when I found myself in this oasis and was able to take some rest. Fortunately I still had some think cakes of unleavened bread and a few dried figs, which Khatun-jan Khanum had crammed into my saddle-bags. As my small stock of provisions would not suffice for long, and as I could not foresee when I might reach tents in which I could safely trust myself, I ate sparingly. My horse had made a rush at the springs. After it had drunk sufficiently I tethered it in the grass, and, stretching myself in the shade of a tree, fell at once asleep. (Early Adventures, 270-275)

When I related my adventures to my Bakhtiari and Shusteri friends, they declared that I must have been under the special protection of Hazret Ali, as without it no single horseman could have passed through the country which I had traversed without being murdered by robbers or devoured by lions.

It was not until long after this that I learnt the fate of my unfortunate friend, Au Kerim. He had been captured by Khalyl Khan and his horsemen, who were our pursuers. The Bahmehi chief, fearing that if he were to put his kinsman to death there would be a perpetual blood-feud between him and the Bakhtiari, had given over his prisoner to Ali Riza Khan, Mehemet Taki Khan’s rival, who the Matamet had appointed chief of the tribes in his stead. There was ‘blood’ between the two chiefs and their families. Ali Riza Khan told Au Kerim to prepare for death. The unhappy youth covered his face with his hands and was immediately shot dead.

Had I fallen into the hands of Khalyl Khan I might have shared the same fate. The death of Au Kerim caused me sincere grief. Of all the brothers of Mehemet Taki Khan he was the one who possessed the most estimable qualities, and for whom I entertained the greatest friendship. (Early Adventures, 279-280)

Between Basra and Baghdad
Layard’s continuing loyalty to Mehemet Taki Khan led the Persian authorities to order his arrest. Escaping from detention in the city of Shuster Layard then made his way back to Baghdad. On the final stage of his journey between Basra and Baghdad he was accompanied by two other men, one of them a postal courier.

We were in the plain of Babylon, and were approaching the site of that mighty city… The Euphrates having overflowed its banks, and no attempt having been made by the Turkish Government to retain it in its original bed, a vast tract of country once populous and highly cultivated had been covered with water. The great marsh thus formed extended from above Hillah, an Arab town built on the site of Babylon, to below the junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris, at Korna.

The local Seyyid killed a sheep for us, believing me to be an officer in the service of the Pasha of Baghdad, and the Agayl not considering it desirable to undeceive him, as we were still in danger of being stopped and robbed. He would not allow us to continue our journey before daylight, as several lions, he declared, had been seen and heard skulking round the place during the previous night. I wished to brave the danger, which, I was convinced, was much exaggerated, if it existed at all, and to avoid what I considered a more serious peril, the burning rays of the midday sun; but my companion refused to stir, and it was not until dawn that we resumed our journey.

We stopped in the afternoon in a small village at a short distance from Hillah, on learning that a large party of Shammar Arabs were plundering the country in all directions and that horsemen had been seen during the day on the road to that place. This great Bedouin tribe was then at war with the Pasha of Baghdad, and was committing depredations in this part of the province. In the night we were alarmed by an attack upon the village. There was a great deal of firing; the men chanted their war-song, and the women made that piercing, quavering noise called the ‘tahlel,’ or ‘kel,’ by striking their open mouths with the palm of their hands, yelling at the same moment. After some time the enemy — whether Bedouins, or more probably thieves seeking to rob the date trees — retired, and I returned to my carpet, which I had spread on the roof of a house.

Before daylight some travellers, who had walked from Hillah, arrived and told us that they had found the road clear of Bedouins. We consequently started at once for that place, which was only four miles distant. On arriving there, I stopped at a coffee-house, to obtain some refreshment, whilst the postman went to find a brother Agayl, in order to inform himself of the state of the country between the town and Baghdad. He was advised to proceed at once… and after we had eaten some kibabs and rice in a cook-shop in the bazaar we mounted our horses. We soon left behind us the palm groves and the great mounds which cover the palaces of ancient Babylon, and found ourselves on the broad and well-beaten caravan track leading to Baghdad.

Parties of irregular horse were stationed at the caravanserais which have been built at regular distances on the much-frequented road between Hillah and Baghdad. Their officers assured us that the road was safe, as the Bedouins had retired to the desert, pursued by the Pasha’s troops. We had passed the third of these great buildings, when we saw in the distance, amidst a cloud of dust, a number of horsemen galloping towards us. Members of the Shammar tribe, they were soon upon us. One or two galloping at full speed towards me, brought their mares up on their haunches when their long quivering spears were almost within a few inches of my body.

In an instant, and before I had time to make myself known, the Agayl and I were thrown from our horses. When I fell my ‘keffiyeh’ (Arab head-dress) dropped off, and exposed a red ‘tarbush,’ or fez, which I had put on under it to protect my head from the sun. One of the Arabs cried out that I was a ‘Toork,’ and a man who had dismounted, seizing hold of me as I lay upon the ground, drew a knife and endeavoured to kneel upon my chest. I struggled, thinking that he intended to cut my throat, and called out to one of the party who, mounted upon a fine mare, appeared to be a sheikh, that I was not a ‘Toork,’ but an Englishman.

He ordered the man to release me, and then told me to get up. He was a handsome young man, with a pleasing expression, the most brilliant and restless eyes, the whitest teeth, which he constantly displayed, and long tresses of braided hair falling from under his ‘keffiyeh.’ Looking at me for a moment he exclaimed ‘Billah! He tells the truth. He is the English “hakim” (doctor) of Baghdad, and he is my friend, and the English are the friends of our tribe.’ Then, addressing himself to me, he asked me why I was there alone and without the protection of Sofuk, the great sheikh of the Shammar, who was known to be at war with that ‘dog, the son of a dog,’ the Pasha of Baghdad, and to have defeated his troops and occupied his country.

It was evident that he either took me for Dr Ross, of Baghdad, who had more than once visited the celebrated chief of the Shammar, and was well known to the tribe, or that he desired to protect me, and had invented an excuse for doing so. I endeavoured to explain to him that I was travelling to Baghdad, and that I was accompanying the Agayl, who was employed by the English ‘balios’ (consuls), in conveying letters, and had consequently never been molested by the Bedouins, and that, as an Englishman, I had no fear of the Shammar, who, I knew, were the friends of the English, and that I placed myself under his protection. He replied that it was fortunate that I had met with him, as he was a kinsman of Sofuk. Had I been a ‘Toork,’ my life would have been forfeited, as there was blood between the Shammar and the Osmanli.

He then bade me continue my journey. But in the meanwhile his followers had torn open the letter-bags, and had scattered their contents upon the ground. They had also robbed the Agayl of the greater part of his clothing, and had emptied my saddle-bags, taking my watch and compass and a few silver pieces which I possessed. They appeared to be but little under the control of the young sheikh. I appealed to him to restore my property. He ordered the men who had plundered me to do so, but after high words had passed between them they not only refused, but compelled me to give them my ‘zibboun,’ or long Arab gown, my ‘keffiyeh,’ and my shoes and stockings, leaving me only my ‘tarbush,’ Arab shirt, and ‘abba.’ They then took possession of our horses, the young chief being unable or unwilling to interfere further in our behalf.

We were left standing alone, almost stripped to the skin. I, however, considered myself fortunate in having escaped with my life. Had it not been for the interposition of the sheikh and for my having been taken for Dr Ross, I should unquestionably have been put to death for a Turk. The Agayl, who had not recovered from his fright, declared that he had only feared for me, as these dogs of Shammar, although they had robbed him, would not have dared to murder him, and have thus caused a blood-feud between the two tribes. But as for me, he said, they would have cut my throat as they would have cut the throat of a sheep.

We then began to collect the letters as fast as we were able. The day was rapidly drawing to a close, and in my utterly destitute condition I was anxious to lose no time in reaching Baghdad. We were still some hours distant from the city. Not being accustomed to walk with bare feet, I suffered the greatest pain and inconvenience from the want of shoes and stockings. The ground was so heated by the sun that it burnt the soles of my feet, which soon began to swell, blister, and bleed. My companion, who had gone barefooted from his birth, did not suffer as I did, and took compassion upon me.

Notwithstanding the great suffering I experienced, I hurried on as fast as I could, fearing lest I should not arrive at Baghdad before the sun rose. It was the beginning of September, and the summer heat had not yet diminished. I felt that I should die of thirst and fatigue if I had to cross the plain before us during the day, and I hoped that we might reach the city before morning. But the night was not to pass without a further adventure. We were suddenly stopped by two Arabs on foot, armed with short, heavy clubs. They demanded our clothes, and as we had no means of resistance, I was compelled to surrender my ‘tarbush’ and my ‘abba’, for which one of the thieves generously gave me his own ragged cloak in exchange. My head was now bare, and as it had been shaved in order to complete my disguise, I had an additional motive for wishing to avoid the scorching rays of a Mesopotamian sun.

At the gates of Baghdad

My thirst during the night was almost more than I could bear. Only once I was able to quench it. Under the walls of the last caravanserai we found a small caravan preparing to depart for Hillah. With it were one or two Agayls who were known to my companion. They offered me a skin filled with ‘leben,’ or sour milk, and I drank until I could drink no longer. Thus refreshed, notwithstanding the tortures that I had suffered from my feet, I felt fresh courage to continue our journey.

As the dawn drew near I could distinguish, with a joy and thankfulness that I cannot describe, the long line of palm groves which cover the banks of the Tigris above and below Baghdad. We soon reached the river, and as it was necessary to cross it, the Agayl went in search of a boatman whom he knew. He shortly returned with a ‘kufa,’ a circular boat made of reeds overlaid with bitumen, the owner of which quickly ferried us to the opposite bank. We landed in a garden outside the city walls, and near one of the gates. It was still closed and would not be opened until sunrise. I sank down on the ground, overcome with fatigue and pain.

A crowd of men and women bringing the produce of their gardens, laden on donkeys, to the bazaars, were waiting for the moment when they were to be admitted. At length the sun rose and the gate was thrown open. Two cawasses (servants) of the British Residency, in their gold-embroidered uniforms, came out, driving before them with their courbashes (whips) the Arabs who were outside, to make way for a party of mounted European ladies and gentlemen. I was the same party that, on my previous visit to Baghdad, I had almost daily accompanied on their morning rides.

The passed close to me, but did not recognize me in the dirty Arab in rags crouched near the entrance, nor, clothed as I was, could I venture to make myself known to them. But at a little distance behind them came Dr Ross. I called to him, and he turned towards me in the utmost surprise, scarcely believing his senses when he saw me without cover to my bare head, with naked feet, and in my tattered ‘abba.’

Very few words sufficed to explain my position. He ordered a ‘syce,’ or groom, who was following him, to give me his horse, and helping me to mount, which I had much difficulty in doing, took me to his house. (Early Adventures, 307-312)

Layard’s letters home were few and far between. Months elapsed between his joining the Bakhtiari and his writing about his experiences when he finally got back to Baghdad. Included in his Autobiography and Letters is a communiqué briefly summarizing several months of adventuring that he sent to his mother on his return.

Baghdad, 24^th January 1842

I regret that I have been unable to make drawings; the state of the country would not allow me to do so, and indeed it was very seldom that I was able to make a note, or to take a bearing by the compass. During my last trip I discovered other sculptures and the sites of several ancient cities.

I luckily escaped very well, having only been plundered once, although the journey was a very dangerous one, and, succeeded in visiting every spot of any interest that, during my former excursion in Khuzistan, I had left unexamined. I found my poor friend Mehemet Taki Khan still in chains, with his family in a most distressing state. One of his brothers, with whom I had spent many happy hours, had been cruelly murdered, and on entering Shuster one of the first things I saw was the head of an old friend rotting in the Bazaar!

The number of persons that have perished in this province is scarcely credible. I visited the great robber Baktiyari chief, who received me very civilly in his celebrated mountain stronghold, and, contrary to my expectations, gave me every opportunity of visiting the country. I had the honour of being introduced to all his wives (he has twelve), and of getting well drunk with him on some Shiraz wine. In fact, we were sworn friends, and I only regretted that time would not allow me to join him in a few plundering expeditions, and other parties of pleasure, which he very kindly offered to bring about for my amusement.

I also spent a few days with the Wali of Luristan, who received me with much kindness and treated me with great hospitality. The only two Englishmen who had ever ventured into this country, Captain Grant and Mr Fotheringham, had been murdered by the predecessor of the present Wali, and, as Major Rawlinson had strongly warned any European against attempting to enter the country, I was somewhat anxious as to the result of my journey.

I am now, however, so well acquainted with this curious people that I had little difficulty in forming a friendship with him. The only scoundrel that ill-treated me was the Sheikh of the Beni Lam Arabs… Whilst among the tribe I was daily in the greatest danger, and had I not luckily been in company with a Seyyid, a descendant of the Prophet, I scarcely know how I should have succeeded in passing through the country. As it was, I was attacked, and robbed of the little money that I possessed. The Matamet, the commander of the Persian troops, had also left orders at Shushter to have me arrested; but I dared the Governor to do so, and remained in the town and travelled about the country without noticing his threats or remonstrances.

I have avoided living with the Colonel or any of the residents here, although I dine with them every day, and have taken a small house to myself, where I sit alone and am busily occupied during the day, writing and putting my notes in something like order. I have every reason to be most grateful to Colonel Taylor, who is a most amiable and worthy man. It would be well for England if every city in the world had such a Resident.

During the thirty years he has resided here it is impossible to describe the mode in which he has established the English name and character. A few days back we celebrated the birth of the Prince of Wales with great éclat. The steamer on the river was dressed with flags and fired a Royal Salute. In the evening the Resident’s house was illuminated, and the street hung with lamps. Who a few years back would have anticipated this? (Autobiography and Letters, V. 2, 12-13)

In Constantinople, 1842-45

Layard’s hard-won knowledge of the situation on the Turko-Persian border came to the attention of the British Ambassador in Constantinople, and he was eventually made an unpaid attaché at the Embassy. He also engaged in risky after-hours escapades in the company of another member of the Embassy staff — a Mr Alison — on one occasion secretly visiting a Princess of the Sultan’s Imperial family in the seclusion of her private apartments.

Mr Alison was in every respect a most delightful and entertaining companion, and, as we had the same tastes and pursuits, we agreed very well together. His perfect knowledge of the Turkish language and character were of great use in our frequent walks in Stamboul and our excursions in the neighbourhood of the city. Many were the adventures we had together, some amusing, some not without risk and danger. One of these adventures may be worth relating.

We were in the habit of going on Friday afternoons to the ‘Sweet Waters of Asia’ (a district of the city, RS) to look at the gay and picturesque groups of Turkish women, who assembled there on that day in spring, and, seated on the grass with their children, enjoyed a kind of picnic, smoking their narguilés, drinking sherbet, and eating sweetmeats. We were returning from one of these excursions in Mr Alison’s caique, which was rowed by three of the most stalwart and skilful Turkish caiquijis on the Bosphorus, when we perceived some ladies in very bright-coloured ferigis (cloaks), evidently of high rank, standing on the marble steps of an imperial kiosk, built on the water’s edge, and about to enter an eight-oared boat.

We stopped for a time to observe them. One, who was the most richly dressed of the party, stepped into the caique followed by the others, who were evidently her attendants, and, seeing that we were looking at her, cautiously lowered her veil, and showed her face, which appeared to us, from the glimpse we obtained of it, surpassingly lovely, and made a sign which we interpreted as an invitation to follow her.

Accordingly, when her caique left the stairs of the kiosk, we directed our boatmen to keep as near to it as they prudently could. As it had a larger number of rowers than ours, we had some difficulty in keeping up with it, especially as our caiquijis were evidently unwilling to continue the pursuit, and did not row their best. When we came to the spot where the Golden Horn meets the two streams — one coming from the ‘Sweet Waters,’ the other from the direction of the sacred suburb of Ayoub — the lady’s caique turned into the latter. We were about to follow, when our caique struck against something, and a dead body rose to the surface of the water close to us.

Our boatmen now threw down their oars, and refused to go any further. The appearance of the corpse was an evil omen, warning them, they said, against taking any part in an adventure, which might have grave consequences both to us and to them. The ladies, they declared, belonged evidently to the harem of a person of high rank, and if we were caught by the police, or were seen following them, we might incur the greatest possible danger. As they could not be persuaded to continue the chase, we had to return home much disappointed.

The following morning a Turkish woman, closely veiled, called at Mr Alison’s house, when I chanced to be there, and requested to speak with him. Having assured herself that no one except ourselves was present or could hear what she had to say, she told us that she had been sent by the lady, whom we had seen and followed on the previous day, to invite us to visit her. She refused to disclose the name of her mistress or to say who she was. If, she said, we would go to a garden wicket in a street in the Ayoub quarter which she described, at a certain hour on the following day, we would be admitted and the lady would receive us. She then left us.

Although the adventure was not without peril, and it was even possible that a trap might be laid for us, we determined to run the risk. The following day we accordingly went to Ayoub at the appointed hour. We had no difficulty in finding the wicket the messenger had described, in a narrow, solitary street in an out-of-the way part of the quarter. The gate was at once opened by a woman, and we entered it, apparently unobserved. She led us across a garden to a large kiosk of old Turkish architecture, with broad, overhanging eaves. We were ushered into a large hall, the walls and ceiling of which were sumptuously and most exquisitely decorated with gilding and painted ornaments in the Oriental style, whilst the ceiling was inlaid with pieces of looking-glass, which produced a rich and lovely effect. Such in those days, before Turkish taste was corrupted by European influence, were the decorations seen in the palaces of the Ottoman nobles.

On a very low divan at the further end of this hall was seated a lady, whom we recognised at once as the one we had seen at the ‘Sweet Waters.’ We had not been deceived by the glimpse she had allowed us to obtain of her face, when she furtively lowered her veil as she stepped into her boat. She was young and singularly beautiful, with the large almond-shaped eyes, the delicate and regular features, and the clear, brilliant complexion, somewhat too pale perhaps for perfect beauty, peculiar to Turkish women of mixed Circassian descent. She was splendidly clad in the dress then worn by wealthy Turkish ladies, before it was rendered vulgar and unbecoming by the introduction of French fashions. Round about her stood a number of girls, all richly clad, and for the most part exceedingly pretty, who were evidently her attendants.

She invited us to be seated on the divan beside her, and entered at once into conversation. She asked numerous questions upon all manner of subjects, politics included, said that she knew who we were, and that, seeing that we had observed her at the ‘Sweet Waters’, she had resolved to make our acquaintance, but that she had been imprudent in inviting us to follow her and was glad that we turned back when we did. She then ordered narguilés, coffee and sweetmeats to be brought, which were handed to us by some of her damsels, she herself partaking of them with us.

We were soon engaged in a very lively discourse. The ladies were delighted with Alison, who spoke their language perfectly, and laughed uproariously at his jokes and anecdotes. No one knew better how to entertain and amuse Orientals than he did. After we had talked for some time, the lady directed some of her attendants to play on the usual Turkish instruments, and others to dance, which they did very gracefully. But the dance soon degenerated into a kind of romp in which all the girls took part — pelting each other with comfits, and tumbling over each other on the floor and divans amidst shouts of laughter, to the great amusement of their mistress, who encouraged them in their somewhat boisterous play.

In those days this sacred quarter of the Turkish capital, which contains the tombs of the first Mussulman martyrs who fell before Constantinople, was rarely visited by Europeans, who were exposed in it to insult and molestation from its fanatical inhabitants, chiefly Mullas and Softas, or students of the religious law. We were glad, therefore, to ecape from it unobserved, and to regain our caique, which we had left at some distance in the Golden Horn.

The lady, whose acquaintance we had thus made, had given us no clue as to who she might be; nor would the attendant who admitted us to the garden answer any questions on the subject. She was evidently of high rank, from her distinguished manners, the richness of her dress, and the luxury in which she lived. Our curiosity was greatly excited, and we determined to satisfy it. With this object we sent for an old Italian woman, generally known as ‘La Guiseppina,’ with whom we were well acquainted, and who kept a small hotel in Pera. She had access to most Turkish harems, and was much employed by Turkish ladies in executing commissions for them.

We informed her of our adventure, and described the lady and the house in which she had received us. ‘La Guiseppina’ undertook to discover our mysterious beauty and to communicate with her, and to return with the information we required before the end of the day. According to her promise she reappeared after a few hours, but with a face pale with terror. The lady, she declared, belonged to the Palace, and was, she had reason to believe, a sister of the Sultan. She implored us not to persist in the adventure, or to meet the lady again under any circumstances. If we were found with her, our lives would unquestionably, she said, be forfeited, and even if a suspicion arose that we had visited her, the consequences to us might be most serious.

We were quite ready to follow the advice of ‘La Guiseppina’, as the scandal of an exposure — to say nothing of the danger we might run — would have been very great, especially in the case of Alison who held a high diplomatic post. We, therefore, determined not to repeat our visit to our lovely friend. She continued for some time to send her messenger to reproach us for not having fulfilled our promise to see her again, and to appoint a time for meeting her. But we persisted in our resolution not to expose her or ourselves to further risk.

This Princess — for the lady was, no doubt, the Sultan’s sister — subsequently made herself notorious by not wearing a yashmak, or veil, and by throwing off many of the restraints placed upon Turkish women, and especially upon members of the Imperial family and harem, who were not then permitted to appear in public without precautions being taken to prevent any man from approaching them, and to maintain for them the strictest privacy. She was accustomed to appear at the ‘Sweet Waters’ and other places of public resort without concealing her features, and even to mix with the crowd.

Europeans were led to believe that the Princess was a ‘strong-minded’ person who was seeking to reform the condition of women in Turkey, and who was herself setting an example of freedom and independence of the restraints placed upon her sex which would soon be followed by others. But the Mussulmans were much scandalised by proceedings contrary to their religion and their customs, and the Sultan was soon compelled to interfere to put an end to them. The Princess was ordered not to appear any more in public, and, when it was necessary for her to do so, to wear the thickest of yashmaks. She disappeared from the scene, her vagaries were soon forgotten, and I do not know what became of her. (Autobiography, V. II, 145-150)

The educational work of American missionaries

During the winter of 1843-44 I passed most of my time at the Embassy — working for Sir Stratford Canning and obtaining political information for him, corresponding with the Morning Chronicle, and continuing my studies in the Turkish, Hebrew, and Chaldean languages.

I was anxious to promote the establishment of schools amongst the indigent Christian and Jewish populations of the Turkish capital — a matter in which Lady Canning took a very lively interest. We were able to open some schools in the poorest quarters of the city, and eventually one was founded for the education of children of the better classes without distinction of faith, it being meant for Christians and Mohammedans alike. To conduct it Lady Canning obtained the services of two ladies from England, the Misses Walsh, who managed the establishment very creditably and successfully, and devoted themselves to the work.

Later on, the Sultan generously presented Sir Stratford Canning with a large house in the main street of Pera, which belonged to the Turkish Government or to the Imperial domain, and to which this school, previously existing in a bad and inconvenient locality, was transferred. In it the children of many of the English engineers, who were then employed in the Turkish Arsenal and elsewhere, as well as those of Ionian and Maltese families and of Greeks and Armenians, received a fairly good education.

At that time the only schools in Constantinople where children could obtain anything like a European education were under the direction of the Jesuits, and of the American Missionaries. The former, who succeeded in making many converts, principally among the Armenians, were under the protection of the French Government, and were used by it for political purposes and to spread the influence and promote the interests of France. The American Missionaries, who had no political objects in view, and who did not profess to make converts to the Protestant faith, although the instruction they gave often led indirectly to that result, were a most zealous, devoted, and learned body of men.

They had spread themselves over the greater part of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and Asia, and in parts of Persia — especially in the provinces occupied by the Nestorians — and everywhere opened schools for the instruction of the native Christians. I was intimately acquainted with many of them, in Constantinople and elsewhere in Turkey, and received much kindness from them. After long struggling against the opposition and persecution they incurred, chiefly from the native Christians, and notably from the Greek and Armenian clergy, who were jealous of their influence and hostile to the spread of knowledge amongst those whom it was their interest to maintain in complete ignorance, the labours of the American Missionaries were rewarded by no inconsiderable success.

To them may be attributed in a great measure the movements which have since taken place in European Turkey, and in Armenia, in favour of national independence and against the rule of the Turks. Most of the leaders of the Bulgarians in their struggle against the Porte were educated in the American College, known from its founder as ‘The Robert College,’ a vast and commodious edifice, situated near the village of Bebek, and commanding one of the most beautiful and extensive views over the Bosphorus and its shores. There they acquired their knowledge of the institutions, laws, and customs of civilised countries, and those principles of political freedom which they sought to carry out in the rising against the Turkish rule, which led, many years after the time of which I am writing, to the independence of the Bulgarian race.

Another important result of the endeavours of the American Missionaries to establish schools amongst the native Christians was that, whilst it excited the jealousy and hostility of the Greek and Armenian clergy, it compelled them to make efforts to spread education amongst their own flocks, and so to prevent their having recourse to the teaching of foreigners, who were looked upon as heretics, and who were accused of the design of making converts to the Protestant faith.

Nothing has contributed more to the improvement of the Christian races throughout the Ottoman Empire in an educational, and perhaps a political, point of view, than these early efforts of the American Missionaries to open schools and to disseminate knowledge amongst those populations by means of translations of standard works of all kinds, and by teaching the elements of science in their various establishments.

They were amply supplied with money from the United States — chiefly, I believe, through the Board of Foreign Missions. Braving the climate, and the persecution and ill-treatment to which they were not infrequently subjected, they established themselves in the most remote and least frequented parts of the Turkish Empire, where they lived with their families — not forgetting the comforts of their native land, especially rocking-chairs and pumpkin-pie. I frequently, in the course of my wanderings, partook of their hospitality, and always received a warm welcome from them. Several whom I knew fell victims to their devotion, and to the hardships, exposure, and vexations to which they were subjected. (Autobiography, V. 2, 120-122)

[A shorter version of this article appeared on the website of The American in March 2009.]

Two museum exhibits

The two exhibits stood side by side in adjacent halls. One room, lofty and spacious, displayed Pergamon’s Great Altar and various associated sculptures — the other was mainly given over to Babylon’s Ishtar Gate.

Athena

The ruins of both the Altar and the Gate took years to excavate, and in the early decades of the 20th century they had taken Berlin’s most famous archaeologists even longer to reconstruct. Though to me it was a comparison of cheese and chalk, or caviar and brickwork perhaps. Because while the Pergamon display with its statue of Athena represented Hellenism and the light of Greece, the Ishtar Gate symbolised Mesopotamia’s long dark age before the light — an age that some might say has yet to end.

But the zeitgeist is of course hostile to such a view. It says demandingly that Babylon’s time has come and that today the east should receive its proper due. For too long has Hellenism been uncritically exalted in the west — that’s the political story. Now is the time for the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome to stand aside so that we can gaze upon the je ne sais quoi that was Mesopotamia. For that reason the combined resources of the British Museum, the Louvre, and Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, had prepared a travelling exhibition called Babylon: Myth and Reality. Though as for Babylon itself, what exactly was it? Imperial majesty? Architectural folly? A voluptuary paradise? Or just oriental despotism of the usual kind?

Mesopotamia

The Ishtar Gate

That remained to be seen. As I discovered while visiting Berlin in 2008, entry to the Mesopotamian exhibit was through the Ishtar Gate, a permanent display first opened to the public about 1930. If you find the fortresses of kings impressive — the Tower of London for example — then you’ll certainly be impressed. A towering affair in glazed bricks nearly 15 meters high and 16 meters wide, its walls ornamented with tiers of bulls and dragons and surmounted by crenellated ramparts, it had been the entrance to a palace where supplicants prostrated themselves at the Great King’s feet.

But once past that intimidating entrance-way the exhibition was rather less impressive. The museum hall requisitioned for the Babylon show had been divided into narrow winding ways, and in the heat of July, with indifferent air conditioning, Berlin felt like Baghdad. In packed discomfort hundreds of us moved slowly past scores of glass cases containing horoscopes, cylinder scrolls with royal braggadocio, magical arcana, topographical maps, and cuneiform tablets of baked clay — terra cotta evidently being Mesopotamia’s main industrial product.

Creation of the World

One tablet told of Babylon’s creation epic. Another contained a magical spell. The most significant declaimed the illimitable power of kings, and to accompany the tablets were rigid lifeless busts thought to show this royal or that. There was an oracular object the shape of a dogfish, and stamp seals from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. There was a crude 6th century clay statue, 15.5cm tall, of a god with a horned headdress. Students of ancient middle-eastern languages were not neglected: those who felt up to the challenge were invited to read a “remarkable tablet from 500 BC” showing “interaction between the age-old syllabic cuneiform writing used for the Akkadian language and the new alphabetic Aramaic that ultimately displaced it.”

Now and then something stood out. The dragons of the Processional Way outside the gate were striking, and a seven-foot-high black basalt stone on which Hammurabi’s Code was written around 1750 BC was a useful reminder that law and civilization are inseparable. Good for Hammurabi: it’s something people forget. But another stone raised more questions than it answered — especially at an exhibition designed to demonstrate that Mesopotamia’s achievement should be taken as seriously as that of Greece. About 60cm by 50cm and dating from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (605-562 BC), its four columns of early cuneiform script were described as “a masterpiece of archaising Babylonian epigraphy” — and no doubt they are.

East India House Inscription

But what is inscribed? What royal ruminations are here set down that might claim our attention, diverting it from things Greek? We were told it “memorialises Nebuchadnezzar’s building operations in stone. After quoting his royal titles and describing his personal piety, it describes the decorating of the chapels of Marduk, Zarpinitu and Nabu; the reconstruction of the processional boat of Marduk, the rebuilding of the Akitu house, the restoration of the Babylon temples…” and so on. Peggy Lee’s disenchanted question has no doubt been overworked, yet it was difficult to emerge from those claustrophobic museum corridors without gasping “Is that all there is?” What literary evidence is there from antiquity of a polity and a culture meriting as much attention as ancient Greece?

The route through the exhibits wound on; the scrolls and tablets and sticky heat continued; and it was a huge relief to at last escape out through the Ishtar Gate to the world beyond. Since the Jewish captivity, one feels that Babylon must always have been a good place to leave. As you walked back into the rival hall of the Great Altar of Pergamon with its flanking statues of Athena and Poseidon a sense of oppression lifted. It was like taking off from a barren desert airstrip and landing in Paris. Once more there were faces of human scale with human emotions — gods like men and men like gods. In the Telephos Frieze, young and elegant figures were clothed in drapery arranged with all the delicacy of civilized feeling and all the art that gifted sculptors can bestow. Exploring in the nearby Greco-Roman collection I found, instead of the cold faces of despots, the statue of a young girl playing knucklebones.

Discovering Pergamon

A German engineer named Carl Humann discovered the Great Altar back in the 19th century. A cultivated man, he was working in Anatolia at the time, and had heard there were remarkable ruins high on a hilltop above the Caicos River — an entire Acropolis in fact. So he decided to take a look. Perhaps he’d also read the single literary reference to the site that we have from antiquity. This appears in a 3rd century AD work by the Roman Lucius Ampelius where he writes: “At Pergamon is a great marble altar, 40 feet high with remarkable statues, and the entire is surrounded by a Battle of the Giants.”

Great Altar, Pergamon

What Humann found among the weeds and grasses on top of the hill were the Pergamon Altar’s massive foundations. What he also found was an ominously smoking limestone oven where local peasants were pulverising the remains of the spectacular 2nd century BC altar frieze to make fertilizer for their fields. Though to be fair to men and women whose priorities understandably differed from his own, destruction of one kind or another had been going on for centuries. Under Byzantium much of the altar was torn down and its masonry used to build a retaining wall. Anyway, like Lord Elgin before him, Carl Humann arrived at the 11th hour.

Back in Germany he got the support of Alexander Conze, director of the sculpture collection of the Royal Berlin Museums; Conze got Bismarck’s backing; and around 1878-1879 the Turks, who at the time didn’t much care what happened, formally authorised the rescue of surviving relics and their transport to Germany. Humann had been planning this for years, and once excavation started the work went quickly. By April 1880, according to a museum catalogue by Max Kunze, “97 relief panels of the Gigantomachy and 2000 fragments, with 35 panels from the Telephus Frieze and 100 fragments, as well as numerous free-standing statues, busts, inscriptions and architectural elements had been excavated.”

What Pergamon stood for

The Giant Alkyoneus

These were the surviving relics of a major Hellenizing endeavour. In the 3rd century BC, writes Kunze, “not only had Pergamon set about becoming the new cultural and scientific center of the Greek world, but also the successor and legitimate heir of fifth and fourth century Greek culture which at that time was considered the Classical age.” In brief, Pergamon stood for everything that Babylon did not. This capital of the Attalid empire, opposite the island of Lesbos, with its 200,000-scroll library and its sculptures and theater and Greek temples, defiantly asserted 5th-century Athenian cultural ideals on the shores of Asia. That’s why the Hellenizing Attalids (281-133 BC) built Pergamon. That was their empire’s rationale. Extending at its height across much of Anatolia, it was a Greek gauntlet flung in the teeth of the enemy, as if to spite the Mesopotamians to the east.

Aphrodite from Myrina

The spirit of 5th century Athens also flourished elsewhere in the region. Nearby lay Myrina (Smyrna), and around the time the Great Altar was built, in the middle of the 2nd century BC, an unknown sculptor produced a figure of Aphrodite described as “one of the finest works made in workshops in Asia Minor at the height of the Hellenistic period”. The sculpture is worth both study and introspection, bringing to mind the deep traditions of art and thought that lie behind it, the uniqueness of the Greek achievement overall, and the virtuosity of the anonymous sculptor. Much smaller than the better-known Venus de Milo, and standing only 37.6 cm tall, it is made of terra cotta. Humble stuff. The same as all those baked clay tablets. But nothing remotely like this figure came out of Mesopotamia in three thousand years.

Academic fashions

The war in Iraq and events at the Baghdad Museum provided one motive for the Babylon exhibition — a concluding chapter in the British Museum’s English-language catalogue says as much. But the underlying academic reasons go deeper than that. For much of the past thirty years admirers of classical Greece have been on the defensive, while easternizing admirers of Mesopotamia — a region including the Assyrians of the 9th to 7th centuries BC, the 6th century BC Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Persians who took over under Cyrus in 539 BC — have been on the attack. Darius and Co have been talked up; Pericles and Herodotus and Co have been talked down.

That distinguished and venerable classicist Peter Green apologised for having been too keen for freedom in his 1970 book Xerxes at Salamis. Revising it in 1996 under the new title The Greco-Persian Wars he regretted embracing so enthusiastically “the fundamental Herodotean concept of freedom-under-law (eleutheria, isonomia) making its great and impassioned stand against Oriental Despotism.” What he called “the insistent lessons of multiculturalism” had forced all classical scholars “to take a long hard look at Greek ‘anti-barbarian’ propaganda, beginning with Aeschylus’s Persians and the whole thrust of Herodotus’s Histories.”

George Cawkwell, the Oxford author of the 2003 The Greek Wars, told us in a short preface that he was proud to be part of a scholarly movement that aims “to rid ourselves of a Hellenocentric view of the Persian world.” Much of the first three pages of his introduction then proceeded to ridicule and discredit Herodotus, who, he wrote, showed “an astounding misapprehension” concerning the Persians, whose stories were sometimes delightful but were certainly absurd, and who “had no real understanding of the Persian Empire.”

But if Herodotus didn’t get it right, who exactly did? Obviously some nameless Persian equivalent to Herodotus might have had “a real understanding of the Persian Empire”, but who was he and where is his narrative? What book by which contemporary Persian historian provides an alternative account of Achaemenid manners and customs, institutions and political thought, imperial policy and administration and ideals? The courts of Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, not to mention Xerxes, King of Kings, employed numerous chroniclers recording royal achievements and military victories. Is it conceivable that whole decades of the new research referred to recently by both Peter Green and Tom Holland (author of the 2005 book Persian Fire) reveal no Persian literary endeavours to compare with the achievements of the Greeks?

Alas, that seems to be the case. Even the Oxford don so jeeringly hostile to Herodotus admits that though the evidence of past Persian glories “is ample and various, one thing is lacking. Apart from the Behistun Inscription which gives an account of the opening of the reign of Darius 1, there are no literary accounts of Achaemenid history other than those written by Greeks.” Moreover, he admits, such literacy as existed in the Persian Empire was largely Greek; and such writing as took place was mainly done by Greeks.

NOTE A further article provisionally titled The Assyrian Puzzle will continue this discussion. It looks at a curious anomaly — the London decision to make no use of the British Museum’s famous reliefs from Nineveh in the Babylon: Myth and Reality exhibition, despite their being described by the BM itself as “among the most magnificent artistic creations from ancient Iraq.” Was the decision organizational? Diplomatic? Or perhaps PC? Watch this space.

Hullo, what’s going on here? Is this an old movie set, or something carelessly lost in translation, or an Australian architectural joke?

Driving down from a rainy plateau where I’d been enjoying the country air, steering around fallen rocks until the winding road from the escarpment straightened out on the valley floor, this is what loomed in the mist: a bridge with battlemented towers of stone massive enough to frame a royal portcullis, two at one end, two at the other. (And believe it or not the place is called Kangaroo Valley.)

Had archers crouched behind those castellations or knights in armor clashed beside the creek? Most unlikely. When the Hampden Bridge was built in 1895 the district contained a bunch of dairy farmers, a butter factory, and a pub. Bridge design gives engineers plenty to think about—they have to reconcile money and time, materials and stability and strength. In Kangaroo Valley they must have decided that the local stone looked good, and since masons were available and towers were needed anyway for the suspension cables, why not add a bit of castellation too?

Yet historians tell us that within only a decade, in 1905 at Tavanasa on the Rhine, the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart built a reinforced concrete bridge very like the one at Salginatobel shown on the right. (For Maillart’s full and remarkable story see David P. Billington, Robert Maillart: Builder, Designer, Artist, Cambridge University Press 1997.)

Severe, elegant, and entirely original, Maillart’s designs changed bridge construction forever—or they did eventually, since he got little help from the conservative Swiss authorities that awarded civil engineering contracts in his day. Nevertheless during his lifetime (1872—1940) his bridges left an indelible aesthetic impression, and though he cared little for the arts, and never thought of himself as an artist, his work received an admiring chapter in Sigfried Giedion’s Space, Time, and Architecture.

But the question is this: which design do we prefer and why? Which seems more natural? Which seems odd? I suppose one shouldn’t make too much of the principle that form should follow function, even if it’s true of surfboards; and we willingly concede that medieval revivalism might make sense in Europe in the form of cathedrals.

But what about turrets and battlements in the land of Terra Australis, where there’s nothing to “revive”, where all historical association is lacking, where the last several thousand years of human occupation have seen little but bough shelters and grass huts… In the land of the gumtree what in God’s name is the point?

Pugin, Ruskin, and pointed architecture

Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin would have argued that God’s name provided all the point that was needed. Europe’s cathedrals are the greatest architectural achievement of mankind—nothing else comes close—and the whole meaning of what was sometimes called “pointed architecture” was to glorify God with spires and pinnacles rising to the heavens—their ascent was aspirational.

He would have angrily rejected any parallel between sham battlements (whether English follies or Australian oddities) and his own religious work. Pugin would also have argued that in his own writings he regularly ridiculed merely decorative or fashionable Gothic: it was serious church architecture in the “pointed” style that really mattered.

* * *

From Rosemary Hill’s superb new book about Pugin, God’s Architect (Allen Lane 2007), it’s obvious that in the early 19th century the aesthetic rage of both Pugin and John Ruskin was turned against two things—the ugly factory world with its heedless aggrandisement and no-brow taste, and the mad electicism of upper classes with more money than sense, whose building projects enthusiastically mimicked everything from Hindu to Egyptian to Chinese. (See Ruskin’s parody prospectus below.)

Both Ruskin and Pugin looked backward; both were vehement in debate and wrote passionately on behalf of their ideals; both banged on relentlessly about truth and honesty in art; both had episodes of madness and both had difficulties with women—Ruskin alternating between aversion and nympholeptic delirium, Pugin being perhaps too uxorious for his own good (though dying young he outlived two wives, married a third, and fathered any number of children).

But beyond their shared commitment to a vision of Christian religious art they had little in common, numerous differences separating the rhapsodising cultural patrician and the rough-tongued part-time sailor. (Pugin once said “there is nothing worth living for but Christian architecture and a boat.”) Ruskin deprecated Doric because it allowed little scope for ornament; Pugin detested it because it was ‘pagan’. Ruskin was drawn to Amiens Cathedral because its exterior was alive with sculptures; Pugin loved cathedral interiors because the spellbinding godly atmosphere provided the right setting for Christian worship.

Pugin’s work

Architects need patrons, and Pugin was lucky to have the support of the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, a wealthy Catholic who had inherited property valued at £347,511. His predecessor, the 15th Earl, had filled his gardens with a deplorable confusion of Indian temples, Chinese pagodas, and a model of Stonehenge. The enlightened 16th Earl wanted none of that, and commissioned Pugin to improve and Gothicise a number of buildings he owned. At one point Shrewsbury wanted to extend a ruined castle he owned to include a hospital for elderly priests. Sham castellation would be needed to make the hospital blend in. Pugin was outraged:

I would sooner jump off the rocks than build a castellated residence for priests!

More significantly, Shrewsbury also funded what Rosemary Hill describes as “one of the most admired and visited of all Victorian buildings.” This was the church of St Giles in the little Staffordshire town of Cheadle. On a small scale it embodied the ideals displayed in his 1836 book Contrasts, which compared as invidiously as possible the bare unornamented nonconformist churches of the day (Evangelical chapels and Quaker meeting halls) with the visionary splendors of medieval cathedral naves that filled his imagination:

…what a burst of glory meets the eye, on entering a long majestic line of pillars rising into lofty and fretted vaulting!

The eye is lost in the intricacies of the aisles and lateral chapels; each window beams with sacred instructions, and sparkles with glowing and sacred tints…

* * *

The plates in God’s Architect show why Pugin’s church at Cheadle was so admired. No detail of ornament or fixture had been overlooked. Cardinal Newman described St Giles as “the most splendid building I ever saw… enough to convert a person. The chapel is on entering a blaze of light. I could not help saying to myself ‘Porta Coeli’.”

Among the visitors who came for the church’s consecration in 1846 was Sir Charles Barry, the architect appointed to design the new Houses of Parliament. Pugin made a huge but little-known ornamental contribution to this most famous example of Barry’s Gothic work. It was however little known because Pugin had converted to Catholicism, and in Sir Kenneth Clark’s words, “all parties were half-ashamed of this uncouth renegade.”

The issue was later muddied by a dispute between the two families, but the truth is roughly as follows: Without Pugin’s mastery of medieval detail the British Houses of Parliament and Big Ben itself would not look the way they do; without Barry’s direction and control they wouldn’t exist at all. In The Gothic Revival Sir Kenneth Clark wrote that

The silly question, ‘Who was the architect of the Houses of Parliament?’ is well forgotten; but it is worth remembering that every inch of the great building’s surface, inside and out, was designed by one man: every panel, every wall-paper, every chair sprang from Pugin’s brain, and his last days were spent in designing ink-pots and umbrella-stands.

The educational deficit

In his sketch of Pugin’s biography Clark wastes little time on childhood: “At this period of their lives, it seems, men of talent are all much alike—the same solitary school-time, the same violence of temper, the same omens of a brilliant future”. We know what he means. But Rosemary Hill properly gives Pugin’s early years more space. Only by understanding the deep impression left on him during his visits to Lincoln Cathedral and York Minster, planting “ideas and impressions that would last all his life”, can we understand both the passion of his vocation and its limitations.

At an age when men like Ruskin were at university, Pugin was still employed working for his father helping illustrate books about England’s cathedrals. Largely self-educated, he was never apprenticed to an architect, never studied architecture formally, never even understood that the Reformation he reviled for its destruction of so much religious art came after, not before, the Renaissance. His enthusiasm for medieval buildings was combined with a lofty contempt for neo-classical styles—including Michelangelo’s work at St. Peter’s. When in his teens he left his father’s studio, his first encounter with the outside world was at Covent Garden.

Stage-struck between the ages of 16 and 20, Pugin became a valued scene-painter and designer, Clark telling us that his greatest triumph came when “his correct and gorgeous scenery made a success of the opera Kenilworth”—an adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s novel that made much of Kenilworth Castle. At Covent Garden Pugin befriended the workmen at the theatre, many of them sailors who “knew the ropes” both on deck and in the flies, bought himself a boat, and began the lifelong habit of wearing self-designed clothing on the lines of a seaman’s rig.

He had little money; at Covent Garden he sometimes slept in the boxes; and the friendly habits of the theatrical crowd meant that his nights were not always alone. Rosemary Hill intimates that it was probably at this stage of his life he contracted the syphilis from which, at the age of 40, he later died.

Pugin visits Rome

His dress was idiosyncratic. He was often dishevelled. He frequently swore like a sailor. But all this was combined with great good humor, and in the room where he worked—with nothing more than a rule and a rough pencil—there was “a continual rattle of marvellous stories and shouts of laughter.” He had tales to tell of the sea, of trips to Flanders to buy religious antiquities, and of being wrecked on the Scottish coast. In Kenneth Clark’s words, no-one could escape “his medieval vehemence and whole-heartedness.” He loved the exotic language of the ecclesiastical world:

The stoups are filled to the brim; the rood is raised on high; the lamps of the sanctuary burn bright; the albs hang in the oaken ambries and the cope chests are filled with orphreyed baudekins; and pix, and pax, and chrismatory are there, and thurible and cross.

Not originally Catholic, Pugin became convinced that it was only within the Roman Catholic Church that “the grand & sublime style of church architecture can ever be restored”. He converted in his early 20s, and about the same time moved to Salisbury where he built himself a second house. Friends found his enthusiasm and warmth irresistible. Cardinal Newman, however, though an admirer of the church of St Giles at Cheadle, was finally unable to bear its architect. He described Pugin as an “immense talker” who was “rough tongue-free unselfgoverned.” And unselfgoverned tongue-free talkers were something Newman couldn’t abide.

In 1847, recovering slowly from a bout of mental illness (he would die within five years), Pugin took himself off to Europe wearing his sailing clothes, carrying one spare shirt, and looking far from clean. In Rome he felt compelled to speak his mind. The city was “disgusting and depressing”, he loathed the “paganism” of both the Renaissance and the Baroque, and he told two prelates who were “in immediate attendance on the Pope” that he “expected St Peter’s to be rebuilt in the Gothic style.”

Should we take much notice of this? I don’t think so. In his final years he was under considerable strain, with declining health, and his mind was failing fast. More important is the fact that during his amazingly productive short life, this distinguished artist, in Rosemary Hill’s words, “inspired, transformed, and reinvigorated English architecture and design”, profoundly changing British thinking about religious architecture and the face of Britain itself.

The Hampden Bridge revisited

But what about that Australian bridge? Is there nothing more to be said about Kangaroo Valley’s unusual ornament? The first thing to remember is that the bridge is still standing and carrying a heavy load of main road traffic. It was plainly well-built. And the second thing is that perhaps we shouldn’t take it all too seriously. If you were brought up to revere Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, and bridges that look like Robert Maillart’s, it may look odd—and it certainly looks odd to me.

But there’s more to life than art, and there’s more to art than the canons of modernism. Aesthetic taste in 2008 is a commercial gallimaufry reinvented each day for a largely juvenile market. And children in a parental SUV coming down that mountain road and glimpsing the Hampden Bridge on a misty day would probably find it exciting—the gateway to a theme park maybe. Standing on a river boundary, it might seem to lure them into the enchantments of endless mock-medieval movies: avoid the troll in the brook, step quickly past the towers… And beyond lies Camelot.

Perhaps, too, those funny castellatory bits and pieces are more life enhancing than one might at first think. The birds of the air may appreciate them, including cockatoos. When Duncan comes to the rough battlements of Macbeth’s castle he comments favourably on the aspect, and Banquo adds a little natural history:

The temple-haunting martlet does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle…

Not too many accommodating jutties or coigns of vantage on Maillart’s bridges. Or on the Sydney Opera House for that matter. Though a really desperate martlet might just find room for a nest.

Reading

David P. Billington, Robert Maillart: builder, designer, artist, 1997

Michael W. Brooks, John Ruskin and Victorian Architecture, 1991

Kenneth Clark. The Gothic revival: an essay in the history of taste, 1996 (1928)

Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot, 1985

Rosemary Hill, God’s Architect: Pugin and the building of romantic Britain, 2007

Bernhard Schütz, Great Cathedrals, 2002

Addenda

Eclecticism

It was the complaint of both Pugin and Ruskin that architects in the early 19th century would concoct anything for a price—Scotch Baronial, Old English, Italian Gothic. Ruskin parodied their eager acceptance of whatever their rich clients might suggest, writing that the architect

is requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealth, nay, of established taste in some points, to make a design for a villa in a lovely situation. The future proprietor carries him upstairs to his study, to give him what he calls his “ideas and materials,” and in all probability begins somewhat thus:

“This sir is a note I made on the spot. The approach to Villa Reale, near Pozzuoli. Dancing nymphs, you perceive, sir; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch made by an American friend of mine: Whee-shaw-Kantamaraw’s wigwam, King of the Cannibal Islands I think he said sir. You may observe a log, scalps, and boa constrictor skins: curious. Something like this would look neat, I think, for the front door, don’t you?

The lower windows I’ve not quite decided upon. But what would you say to Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, storks, and coffins, with appropriate mouldings above. I brought some from Fountains Abbey the other day…

Ruskin’s debt to Pugin

Rosemary Hill seems rather too accommodating in her response to Ruskin’s contemptuous dismissal of Pugin. She accepts Ruskin’s claim that he had neither read Pugin’s writings nor allowed them to influence him in any way (“Ruskin in fact owed nothing to Pugin, though they had much in common…” she writes on page 458.)

Regarding the claim that Ruskin “owed nothing” to Pugin, and had never even read what Pugin wrote, Michael W. Brooks in John Ruskin and Victorian Architecture says that this is simply not true: “It is known that he had read and made notes on Pugin’s The True Principles of Architecture. The notes survive.” Brooks goes on:

But perhaps the real point to be made is that Ruskin would have been indebted to Pugin even if he had read nothing at all by him. He would surely have seen reviews of Pugin’s books—including the very long one in the March 1837 issue of the Architectural Magazine.

He would have discussed Pugin’s ideas with fellow members of the Oxford Architectural Society. Above all, he would have been aware of the influence of Pugin on Scott’s design… (for a church in Camberwell).

Scott revised his plans in accordance with Pugin’s call for reality in construction, and it was precisely this demand that Ruskin later expressed so powerfully in ‘The Lamp of Truth’. There are significant differences between Ruskin’s view of Gothic and Pugin’s, but Ruskin’s denial of any debt can only be explained by the sectarian fervor that gripped much of England at mid-century. (Brooks, page 49)

The Oxford Museum

Among the weirder creations of the period is the Oxford Museum of Natural History. In the 1850s the question of an appropriate style for its design was fiercely debated: Should the façade be Gothic or Classical? Largely as a result of Ruskin’s campaigning Gothic was approved for the whole structure, inside and out, some of the decorative details being provided by Ruskin himself. Among other things it contained a chemistry lab in the shape of an abbot’s kitchen. In his 1949 biography of Ruskin Peter Quennell provides an entertaining account of the sad disappointment Ruskin felt at its final appearance:

Over the main entry of this shrine of learning, an angel displayed in his right hand the open Book of Nature, while in his left he supported a cluster of ‘three living cells,’ symbolic (it was understood) of Life’s mysterious origins. Within an imposing quadrangular hall, columns of cast iron soared up towards the glass roof, bursting, as they completed their ascent, into a wealth of wrought-iron foliage.

Organic Form again predominated; arching over the student’s head were spandrels twisted into the shape of interwoven forest-boughs; the angularity of brackets and girders was softened by the profusion of leaves and blossoms and fruit that had somehow curled among them. Here were the elm, the holly, the briar, the passion-flower and the water-lily.

In the main court, with its double arcade, polished shafts of stone had capitals and bases enwreathed with the forms of numerous plants and animals, disposed in a manner at once aesthetically pleasing and scientifically enlightening.

* * *

It was a notable task nobly performed. And yet—across the happiness that Ruskin felt, or that he should have felt, there crept a lengthening shadow. The intention had been good, the execution honest. He had been stimulated by the task on hand: now that it was finished and he could at last stand back, so sensitive a lover of the best in art must needs admit that the Oxford Museum, as it had risen, was not entirely beautiful.

He did not see it, let us piously suppose, even for a second of horrible illumination, in all its true ugliness. But he was obliged to confess—after Wordsworth’s early death of consumption in 1861—that the building had, from some points of view, “failed signally of being what he hoped.”

Somehow the plan had miscarried; a malicious spirit was abroad—the spirit of an age he hated and despised and feared—which came always between himself and the satisfaction that he coveted.

At its touch the flowers and fruit he had designed, losing their virginal freshness, shrivelled into curlicues of tormented cast-iron: a chemical laboratory in the shape of an abbot’s kitchen seemed unsuitable and awkward: his visionary fabric shed its lustrous antique patina and was revealed, beneath one of those lowering skies that often weigh on Oxford, as a mere pretentious accumulation of livid modern masonry.