by Ure, John
But rescue was at hand. A Persian officer of the Great Khan arrived unexpectedly in the village and on hearing that an Englishman was among the captives immediately demanded his release and that of all the other slaves, declaring, ‘Away with the chains from the Englishman and all the rest, for slavery is at an end throughout [the province]!’. More than two hundred others were set at liberty and, attributing their release to Wolff, roamed the streets calling out to him, ‘Oh, thou hast been an angel sent from the Lord!’ Wolff would not have dissented.
The Persian officer who had liberated them was himself however no angel. He declared to Wolff that he had no religion but was a man of justice. To prove this, he asked Wolff to tell him the exact amount of money that had been taken from him. Wolff obliged, and then the Persian officer had the Kerahe mercilessly flogged until they surrendered every last coin; ‘and then, putting the money into his own pocket, without giving Wolff a single penny, he added, ‘Now you may go in peace.’ So, much the poorer but undaunted, he continued his journey.
When he reached Meshed in eastern Persia, Wolff was able to meet Abbas Mirza and the latter paid so much attention to him that Wolff wrote to Lord Palmerston (then foreign secretary) suggesting that he should send ‘not merely a charge d’affaires but a full ambassador’ to Persia. Abbas Mirza also collected a large number of Turkoman chiefs together at his palace and made them promise not to harass Wolff on his onward journey to Bokhara; as a guarantee of their good faith, he announced that he was keeping two of the chiefs hostage until he had confirmation of Wolff’s safe arrival. Wolff had the honour of being seated near to Abbas Mirza during this session but the embarrassment of being ‘with his legs stretched out [. . .] for [he] was never able to learn to sit like an Eastern man [i.e. cross-legged]’.
All these introductions and safeguards seemed to be having some effect at last, because when Wolff reached Sarakhs (the next major settlement on his route) he was well received by the Turkomans, who lived in tents at the foot of the castle there, and who came out to welcome him as their guest and to ask for blessings from the ‘holy man of England’. He heard them speculating among themselves that he must be ‘the Prince Royal of England’ because he had been observed in the presence of Abbas Mirza ‘sitting with his legs stretched out, while all the grand ministers of state and others were standing’. As so often, Wolff’s disabilities had worked out to his advantage. He spent several weeks at Sarakhs, preaching to the Jews and the Turkomans. He also did what he could to make himself useful in other ways. When one Turkoman told him his wife had just died and asked him what he could do ‘by which a woman may be induced to fall in love with me’, Wolff quickly remembered that he had just heard of a woman whose fiancé had committed a breach of his promise to marry her, so Wolff suggested that the widower should approach the spurned lady with a proposal, which he promptly did ‘and was married to that lady the next day’.
When he reached Merv, the next settlement, he found that he was able to obtain the release of several Persian slaves by paying for them himself. But he was surprised to discover that many other Persian slaves preferred to remain there, because they said they were better treated than they would be as free men at home, and because they hoped to earn their right to live permanently in liberty among the Turkomans. It was also while he was at Merv that he consolidated and recorded his conclusions about the best way to preserve his own safety – conclusions that were to stand him in good stead on this and his subsequent journey to Bokhara. He realized, from what he saw at first hand all about him, that once someone had been accepted as a dervish or a holy fool they could get away with speaking to rulers and others with a frankness and even disrespect which would have led to fatal consequences for anyone else. Wolff realized that he was benefiting from this indulgence himself, and – with his usual disregard of humility – compared himself to the Prophet Elijah, and to John the Baptist calling his listeners on the desert banks of the river Jordan ‘a generation of vipers’ with impunity.
Pressing on from Merv, Wolff crossed the frozen Oxus on the ice and proceeded through Karakul, where he called on the governor, who he was surprised to find was a former Persian slave. The governor gave him a meal of greasy tea and roasted horse flesh, and also gave him some good advice: ‘Friend, be cautious in Bokhara, because one word against our religion will make the people forget you are a guest, and they will put you to death; therefore, be cautious [. . .]’. Moving on, he had to cross another river (which he claims was the Oxus again, but may have been a tributary), and this time the ice had partly melted and he had to be taken over in a rowing boat; Wolff was always terrified by water and screamed as the boat edged its way through the ice, so his Tajik guides held their hands over his eyes so he should be spared the sight, and this calmed him down a little. They reached the walls of Bokhara at night, and before they could see the city, they heard ‘a loud rapping noise, as of strokes upon wood’, which was made by the night watchmen, and the chanting of Islamic verses. Wolff countered by calling out ‘Blessed be Thou, Jesus Christ, my God and my Lord, who hast redeemed me from all evil!’ They had arrived at the gates of the holy city, but Wolff did not seem to have the governor of Karakul’s warnings at the front of his mind.
It is at this point that the first volume of Wolff’s third-person dictated memoirs ends. The second volume starts with some shrewd observations by Alfred Gatty, his friend and editor. Gatty explains that Wolff was essentially an orator: he could dictate from memory, including names, quotations and biblical references, without a note, but his written work was ‘remarkably muddled’. Wolff’s was a mind ‘which requires hearers to whet its consecutive attention’. Although by 1860 he was already an old man by the standards of his time, he would exhaust three or four secretaries at a sitting, before drawing breath. Those who might have doubted the sixty-five-year-old’s claims to have survived naked in the desert were silenced by the reality of seeing him walking barefoot along stone passages in winter, sleeping with doors open to the foggy Yorkshire moors, and insisting on a cold bath every morning. Gatty also explains that Wolff was not insensitive: ‘his first feeling is fear [. . .] yet no man has faced more appalling dangers’. His egotism was said to be unlike other people’s egotism: ‘a large congregation or audience will make him believe that he has preached like St Paul, or lectured like Plato’. Nor did he doubt that his autobiography would be much read and admired: ‘It will be a standard book, like Robinson Crusoe’, was his verdict on his own work.
Wolff was well aware when he reached Bokhara that he was not the first Englishman in living memory to do so: William Moorcroft was much in his mind. As soon as the vizier of Bokhara heard that Wolff was outside the gates, he sent a horse and an escort to bring him in to his palace. And the first thing the vizier said to him was that they had not killed Moorcroft at Bokhara, as had been widely reported. The vizier questioned him closely about his origins and nationality. When Wolff responded by declaring he was of Jewish descent, but a naturalized Englishman, ‘suddenly a voice proceeded from the crowd of the Jews outside, which shouted – ‘He is a liar! He is a Russian spy!’. But Wolff managed to silence the man by pointing out that the bibles he was carrying were printed in London and not in Russia. The vizier was convinced of Wolff’s bona fides, and told him ‘The king’s [emir’s] command is that you go wherever you like among the Jews, but you must not talk about religion with the Mussulmans’. No sooner had this command been conveyed, than Wolff started expounding St Paul’s epistles to the Moslem vizier. His missionary spirit was irrepressible, and not confined to converting the lost tribes of Israel. However, he seemed to be forgiven for this, and the vizier on a later occasion told him he had permission to discuss the theological differences between Islam and Christianity; not surprisingly, Wolff jumped at the chance and a long debate ensued. Wolff was somewhat taken aback when he asked the vizier for the Islamic definition of purity in a man and was told it was ‘a man who makes holy war against infidels’.
After a t
hree-month stay, Wolff left Bokhara with the emir’s consent in April 1832, heading for Kabul. On his way, he was repeatedly advised to say that he was a Moslem from Arabia, and that this would enable him to pass safely through the region. However, Wolff refused to do this and said that as long as his companions did not betray him he would be able to look after himself without resorting to denying his faith. He was encouraged by the belief that ‘Eastern people are able to keep secrets in the most wonderful way’, and he quotes as evidence of this the ‘late conspiracy of the sepoys in India’ – that is the Indian Mutiny (or, as it is now called there, the First Independence War) which had taken place just three years before he was dictating his memoirs. He was as good as his word: when he reached Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan and the local governor started interrogating him about his origins and beliefs, he put up such a bewildering performance – talking in the same breath about the sons of Noah and steam ships in Malta harbour – that the governor declared that ‘this man is too learned for me’; Wolff went on to record that although the governor ‘did not understand a single word of it’ he nonetheless ‘walked away quite satisfied’. Wolff had not needed to tell any lies, let alone renounce his beliefs; he had merely bluffed, obfuscated and bored his way out of difficulty as so often before.
Wolff was now venturing into the domains of Murad Beg, the ruthless, European-hating ruler of Kunduz who had caused so much trouble and alarm to Moorcroft seven years earlier. Wolff (who had read Moorcroft’s account of his adventures) ‘kept himself quietly in a caravanserai’ and pressed on as quickly as possible to the Hindu Kush, which he found so beautiful that ‘it reminded the beholder of paradise’. But it turned out to be very different from paradise.
Soon he fell into the hands of some extremist Moslems – the mullahs of Doab – who refused to recognize him as a pilgrim and said that he must either declare publicly that Allah was the only God and Mahomet his prophet or they would ‘sew you up in a dead donkey, burn you alive and make sausages of you’. Wolff – true to form – promptly declared, ‘There is nothing but God, and Jesus the Son of God.’ He then sat down and wrote a letter to Lord William Bentinck (the governor-general of India) explaining that when his letter arrived, he would undoubtedly be dead and could the governor-general please pay off his servants and ‘write the whole account to my wife, Lady Georgiana’. (Incidentally, no message of farewell was sent to her.) It was at this juncture that the exchange occurred which is quoted at the beginning of this chapter. One of the factors that persuaded the mullahs of Doab not to kill him outright, but merely to rob him of everything he had (including his clothes) was that he claimed the right to be sent to Murad Beg, the dreaded ruler of Kunduz. Wolff takes up the tale:
When they heard the name of Muhammad Moorad Beyk [Murad Beg], they actually began to tremble, and asked Wolff, ‘Do you know him?’ As Wolff could not say that he knew him, he replied, ‘This you will have to find out.’ They said, ‘Then you must purchase your blood with all you have.’ Wolff answered, ‘This I will do. For I am a dervish, and do not mind either money, clothing or anything.’
And pursue his journey he did. His servants, who went on with him, were lost in admiration for his nerve and luck, and offered up their own Islamic prayer for his safekeeping. The governor of the next settlement he passed through was too poor to provide him with clothes, but sent him on with a letter describing him as an English ambassador who should be protected. Wolff knew this lacked credibility, and would have preferred to have been called an English dervish. As was to be expected, the next local governor along his route read the letter and exploded – ‘What! A ragamuffin like you, without clothing! Do you want to make me believe you are an ambassador!’ And he promptly ordered his staff to turn him out and send him packing on his way.
But his luck took another turn for the better as he approached Kabul. He had sent messages ahead, and was greeted as he reached the outskirts of the capital by mounted messengers who brought a letter to him from a Lieutenant Burnes (the future Sir Alexander ‘Bokhara’ Burnes) who had by good chance arrived at Kabul the previous day on his famous journey from India to Bokhara.2 Burnes had been asked by Lord and Lady William Bentinck to look out for Wolff, as they knew he was on his way and rightly guessed he might be in serious peril. Greatly to Wolff’s relief, a set of ‘beautiful Afghan suits’ was also sent to him, so he need no longer look like Adam in the garden of Eden. Dost Mohammad, the king of Afghanistan, invited Burnes and Wolff to a joint audience. Burnes gave a good account of himself, describing the system of government in England and India. When it came to Wolff’s turn to speak, the conversation predictably became theological, and a mullah had to be called in to cope with Wolff’s rantings until eventually Burnes managed to shut him up. Later Wolff tried to interest Burnes in his concept of an afterlife in which man would return to his natural state and ‘eat of all manner of fruits’; Burnes on return to India reported Wolff as having told the king of Afghanistan that heaven consisted of a lot of vegetarians running around with no clothes on! There can have been little common ground between the highly motivated and ambitious Indian army officer and the self-styled holy fool from Bavaria.
After thirty days in Kabul, Wolff went on by river, on a boat consisting of skins stretched over a wooden frame – which must have terrified this aquaphobic traveller – first to Jalalabad and on to Peshawar. This important crossroad, then in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan, was then governed by a brother of the king of Afghanistan. This ruler asked Wolff to tell the governor-general of India that ‘he would always be ready to serve the English nation’ and that he wanted protection against the ruler of the Punjab and others. So once again Wolff was involved in political dialogue, whether he liked it or not. On grounds of principle however, he declined to take a political agent from Afghanistan with him through the Punjab and on to India; he thought this would have abused the hospitality of the Punjabis and was incompatible with his missionary role.
However much fun Burnes might have had in India at Wolff’s expense, he tried to do him one good service in Kabul. Burnes warned Wolff to have nothing to do with one particular resident of Peshawar, whom he described as a total scoundrel. Consequently, when this dubious character called on him in Peshawar, Wolff ‘took him by the shoulders and ejected him from his room’. He was not to know that the same man would be responsible for the murder of Stoddart and Conolly in Bokhara a decade later, and that Wolff himself would be entirely in his power when he returned to Bokhara on his second – as yet unanticipated – mission.
When Wolff passed through the Khyber Pass he found the scenery ‘most romantic’ and – as in the Hindu Kush – thought it must have been the site of the Garden of Eden or be paradise. He was less enthusiastic about crossing the Indus River by a suspension bridge on the back of an elephant to reach Attock, but when he got there he had a very warm welcome. His legend as a holy man with a gift for survival had preceded him. Ranjit Singh, ‘the mighty conqueror of the Punjab’, sent ‘twenty pots of sweetmeats of all kinds, and linen to make twenty shirts [. . .] to the Padre of England’. Among a pile of letters for him were ones from the governor-general of India and from Lady William Bentinck. The former congratulated him on his safe arrival, and the latter very helpfully reminded him that, although there was a strict rule against British officials receiving valuable presents from native rulers, this did not apply to him as he was a private individual and was free to accept anything he was offered. As the sweetmeats and the linen had also been accompanied by a substantial monetary gift, this was welcome news to one who – however much he despised money – was from time to time dependent on it.
One of the letters was a friendly one from Ranjit Singh himself (who was absent in Amritsar) and Wolff felt it necessary to respond to this with one of his usual dissertations about the heavenly Jerusalem and the uniquely saving grace of Jesus Christ. When Lord William Bentinck saw a copy of this letter he went into his wife’s room ‘with a long face’ and said that they must get
Wolff to travel on through the Punjab just as fast as he could, since his militantly evangelical and provocative letter was all too likely to excite a revolution there. But it seems that Ranjit Singh did not take Wolff’s letter amiss; he did however object when the irrepressible Wolff started putting up posters in the streets of Lahore ‘calling on the nations to turn to Christ’, and he wrote to Wolff saying that ‘such words must neither be said nor heard’. Once again, he had overstepped the mark but got away with it.
It was not until he reached Amritsar that Wolff actually came face to face with Ranjit Singh. Hearing that he was invited to an audience with the great warrior, Wolff decided to tidy himself up by shaving off his beard, but he was advised not to do so as ‘Ranjit Singh was very fond of people with fine beards’. So he left his beard – ‘reddish in hue and a foot long’ – and was told he looked like a lion. An elephant was sent to convey him to the royal palace. When Wolff found a circle of learned men and scribes surrounding the Sikh ruler, he tactlessly inquired whether they were all Moslems; this he soon realized was ‘as it would have been in England to ask in the House of Lords whether all the peers were gypsies’. Again, no offence was taken, and Ranjit Singh ‘laughed loud – Ha! Ha! Ha!’
But the short-sighted Wolff at least avoided an even worse faux pas when he nearly asked the extremely short Ranjit Singh ‘whether he was one of the great king’s little boys?’; just in time, he drew his chair nearer to the ruler and observed he had an immense beard and was blind in one eye. He had no compunction however in telling Ranjit Singh, who had brought on some dancing girls to entertain his guest, that ‘as an English Fakir, he did not approve of seeing the girls dancing’. The ruler next tried him with a strong alcoholic drink, but he declined this too. Ranjit Singh, who had proved such a sinister and terrifying figure to Moorcroft, was obviously amused by Wolff but determined to catch him out. According to Wolff’s memoirs, he next tested him with theological arguments: