The Bossier banner., 1886-07-08
PERSIAN ASSASSINS.
How Robbers Are Punished In the Shah's
Dominions-A Singular Sect.


How Robbers Are Punished In the Shah's
Dominions-A Singular Sect.
The.dangers of travelling in Persia
are far more real than imaginary, not
withstanding the fact that the Govern
ment takes all the precautions its in
efficient officers can think of to prevent
outrages upon travellers; even resorting
to abominably cruel punishments.
Some of these appear to be set apart
especially for robbers.
One of my travelling companions told
me that some years ago as he was
passing this place, near the frontier, he
saw the skeletons of several robbers
who had been seized and put to death.
A small round tank had been con-
structed, as high as mans chin. The
condemned man was then put into the
tank and newly-mixed plaster of Paris
poured in until the tank was full. The
man was thus suffocated, and perma-
nently fixed as warning to other high
waymen. Sometimes the condemned
one is placed with the head down in
the tank, or in hole excavated for the
purpose, and the liquid plaster is poured
in until the body is firmly fixed; the
feet and ankles are left to protrude
Such are some of the Persian
methods punishment. Notwithstand-
ing the severity with which theft and
robbery are punished, yet there are
clans which follow the business. 1t was
related to me at another time that
chief of one of the Loree clans en-
tered an Armenian village at the head
OF several horsemen, at night, being
exasperated at the refusal of the peo-
pie to comply with his demands, and
at the words spoken by some people.
They took the priest, and some of the
principal men Of the village, and tied
them one by one in sack with large
dog, and then beat the dog until in his
rage he killed the man tied up with
him. The Persian Government hear
ing of this affair, adopted an expedient
to arrest the guilty parties, by which
he avoided battle with the clan. He
made hunting excursion into the ter
ritory of the tribe. Etiquette required
that the chief should visit the Prince.
He was sumptuously entertained in the
pavilion of the Governor, his followers
being without. When his suspicious
had been dispelled, in moment an
iron band was slipped around his neck
and chains put upon his feet, and he
was thrown alive into one of the fur
uaces with which the baths are heated.
The Persians have an exaggerated
fear of night travel, partly from the
bands of robbers who infest the north
ern boundary, of the country and partly
from superstitious inherited dread of
a singular sect of religionists, who like
the Thugs of India, regarded deed of
murder, under certain circumstances,
as religious duty. This sect, known
as Assassins, has been long extinct, but
such dread did their members inspire
by murders, always committed at night,
that all infantile Persia, and not few
of the grown population, retain an un-
Willingness to 60 out at night for fear
of the Assassins. One of the authors
experiences with his travelling compan-
ions in the region once infested by the
Assassins is detailed:
tOn the following evening we
started with the twilight and the rising
moon, Intending to 60 to Sefir Hojah,
a distance of six farasangs. After we
had ridden few miles the road APP
peared to take a course toward the
mountains. The two Persians now be-
gan to protest against travelling at
night; they argued that being strang-
sr in the countryI could not appreciate
the dangers of the situation. The
people of the country, they said,
were desperate characters, and
the mountains were infested with
robbers who could easily come
down upon us here, and rob and
kill as they might choose, without any
possible escape for us, or of detection
of the robbers by our friends. They
had evidently heard some legend of
the bands of Hassans whose rendezvous
was now so near. The fortress of Al
mood has long since gone to ruin The
devastations of six and half centuries
since the last of the Assassins have OBJ
liberated all traces of the fanatics ex-
cept such as are left in the rocks Of the
mountain peaks and the structures
erected upon it. But in the imagina-
ton of the simple-minded natives the
spirit of the Assassins seem to frequen.
their ancient haunts in the shadows of
these cliffs. From James Bassett's
persia, !" published By Cbas. Scrabper's
Sons.