In the land of the lion and sun, or, modern Persia — Themes and Context

A Priest Making Wine

The excerpt centers on a striking figure: a Hadji who not only knows the craft of wine-making but actively supervises every stage, from stirring to sealing. Wills writes that he was “considerably amused at seeing the priest actually carrying on the art of wine-making and instructing the unbeliever.” This moment undercuts any simple expectation of religious rigidity in Qajar-era Persia. The Hadji’s involvement is not grudging; he works hard, “never shirking,” and his method involves counting strokes aloud with four attendants. The scene suggests that local expertise and practical cooperation could cross sectarian lines, at least in private settings. Wills does not comment on the irony at length, letting the action speak. The episode also reveals the author’s own role as a participant-observer, learning by doing rather than merely watching.

The Scale of Domestic Production

Wills’s wine-making is not a small experiment. He records producing “four hundred maunds of wine, or fourteen hundred quarts,” of which about thirteen hundred bottles remained after sediment. This quantity, he notes, was “certainly enough for three years.” The numbers anchor the narrative in material reality: the jars held forty maunds each, a maund being seven pounds or pints. Such precision is typical of the book’s approach to domestic economy. Wills also details the filtering process, the use of carboys, and the eventual auction of the aged wine at two kerans (one shilling sixpence) per bottle. The scale implies that a British medical officer in Persia could command resources and space for large-scale household production, a detail that quietly illuminates the expatriate lifestyle of the period.

Voice and Structure in the Excerpt

The prose is direct and unadorned, favoring concrete actions over reflection. Sentences are short and sequential: “On the fifth day after commencement the Hadji began to tilt the jars.” Wills uses the first person sparingly but effectively, as when he notes that he “only once made wine again” because “one’s house is thoroughly upset, and one has wine on the brain.” The humor is dry and understated. The passage is structured as a chronological narrative with embedded technical instructions, resembling a manual more than a travelogue. This style aligns with the book’s origin as a record of fifteen years’ residence, not a single journey. The excerpt gives no sense of overarching plot or argument; it is a discrete episode, self-contained and vividly particular.

Readers should approach this book not as a systematic survey of Persia but as a collection of such episodes, each grounded in Wills’s professional and domestic routines. The catalog subjects—travel and description—only partially capture its content; the text is equally concerned with the practicalities of expatriate life. The wine-making passage, with its priestly collaborator and precise measurements, exemplifies the kind of unexpected, locally informed detail that rewards patient reading.

That rainy afternoon, Dr. Wills’ account of a Persian priest patiently teaching him to press grapes felt less like history and more like a shared kitchen table. It reminded me how much of life is simply getting by with what’s at hand. The same quiet fortitude surfaced later, across an ocean, while turning pages of Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1864 — Text and Context. Different dust, same human rhythm.