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DAVID J. SHAYLER
with David M. Harland

ENHANCING
HUBBLE’S
VISION
Service Missions
That Expanded
Our View of
the Universe
Enhancing Hubble’s Vision
Service Missions That Expanded Our View of the Universe
David J. Shayler with David M. Harland

Enhancing Hubble’s
Vision
Service Missions That Expanded
Our View of the Universe
David J. Shayler, F.B.I.S. David M. Harland
Astronautical Historian Space Historian
Astro Info Service Ltd. Kelvinbridge
Halesowen Glasgow
West Midlands UK
UK

SPRINGER-PRAXIS BOOKS IN SPACE EXPLORATION

Springer Praxis Books

ISBN 978-3-319-22643-9 ISBN 978-3-319-22644-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22644-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946868

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage
and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does
not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are
believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give
a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that
may have been made.

Front cover: John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel, Mission Specialists from STS-125, the final Hubble Servicing
mission, are pictured close to the telescope on this the first of five EVAs conducted on the mission. The shiny
mirror-like surface of Hubble reflects their image, implying there are more astronauts than just two.
Rear cover: The companion title The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept To Success, plus the emblems of
the final four shuttle missions to the Hubble Space Telescope STS-82 (top left), STS-103 (right), STS-109
(bottom left) and STS-125 (right).
Cover design: Jim Wilkie
Project Editor: David M. Harland

Printed on acid-free paper

Praxis is a brand of Springer

Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media
(www.springer.com)
Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................ vii

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... xi
Foreword .................................................................................................................... xiii
Dedication .................................................................................................................. xvii
Prologue ..................................................................................................................... xix

1 Service Mission 2 ................................................................................................. 1

A difficult act to follow ......................................................................................... 1
Steps towards launch............................................................................................. 8
Enhancing the EMU.............................................................................................. 19
Being the “Arm Guy” ........................................................................................... 38

2 Service Mission 3A .............................................................................................. 48

Race against time .................................................................................................. 48
Service Mission 3.................................................................................................. 56
Launch processing ................................................................................................ 61
The final human space flight of the ‘old’ millennium ........................................... 68
A cause for celebration.......................................................................................... 87
After the mission ................................................................................................... 96

3 Service Mission 3B .............................................................................................. 103

A mothballed Columbia? ...................................................................................... 103
Service Mission 3B ............................................................................................... 110
The pilot’s role ...................................................................................................... 118
A different mind-set required ................................................................................ 141

v
vi Contents

4 Service Mission 4 ................................................................................................. 149

Hubble servicing is ‘off’ then ‘on’ again .............................................................. 149
Service Mission 4.................................................................................................. 160
SM-4 objectives .................................................................................................... 168
STS-400, the rescue option ................................................................................... 179
The reboost maneuver that never occurred ........................................................... 184
Launch processing ................................................................................................ 186
Letting Hubble go ................................................................................................. 204

5 After servicing, what next? ................................................................................ 210

Hubble flies on ...................................................................................................... 211
Parts of Hubble return ........................................................................................... 211
Materials engineering............................................................................................ 213
Environmental effects ........................................................................................... 218
Space debris .......................................................................................................... 221
Crew photo-documentation................................................................................... 224
Hubble post-retrieval hardware analysis ............................................................... 230
Batteries ................................................................................................................ 230
Solar arrays ........................................................................................................... 233
Thermal control materials ..................................................................................... 242
Attention to detail ................................................................................................. 244

6 On reflection ........................................................................................................ 249

Summarizing the servicing ................................................................................... 250
Display or destruction? ......................................................................................... 257
Museum artifacts................................................................................................... 259
What do others think? ........................................................................................... 267
EVA lessons learned .............................................................................................. 270
Contamination control .......................................................................................... 280
The Hubble legacy ................................................................................................ 281

Closing comments ..................................................................................................... 283

Afterword................................................................................................................... 288

Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ 291

Appendices ................................................................................................................. 299

Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 318

About the author ....................................................................................................... 322

Other works by the author ....................................................................................... 324

Index ........................................................................................................................... 326

Preface

As this project unfolded, it became clear that the amount of information researched and
volunteered by the various contacts would be sufficient to generate more than one book. I
have long believed there is always a greater story behind each space mission, but it takes a
little investigation and contacts to reveal that bigger picture. This project on Hubble and its
capability to be serviced on-orbit began for me in the 1970s, when I started to gather infor-
mation on the potential of EVA from the space shuttle. I collected and filed additional
details over the next two decades, and after the deployment of the telescope and the series
of servicing missions.
By the late 1990s I had enough information for an illustrated lecture entitled Keeping
an Eye on the Universe: The Shuttle Hubble Servicing Missions which was given over the
next few years to astronomical societies across the English Midlands.
It is strange how ideas develop from the most unlikely sources. In 1996 I was working
as a wine representative for an international (German) wine company, where I visited
homes and businesses for wine tastings. At these appointments it was always useful to find
out about the people you hope will place an order with you. It also helped by telling a little
about your own background. While visiting a family in Leicestershire, I learned that their
son was working in the United States in a support role for a contractor to the shuttle—in
fact, he was working on the preparations for the second Hubble servicing mission which
was to fly the following year. When I said that I, too, was interested in the space program,
they offered some spare press releases and other bits of information sent by their son. It
was this visit that sparked an idea for a future project. It was clear that the family were
proud of their son’s involvement in the shuttle program, albeit a small contribution.
Nevertheless, they understood that without such efforts, the payload wouldn’t be ready, the
shuttle couldn’t fly, and the telescope wouldn’t be repaired. I said that one day I would like
to write about the missions that serviced Hubble and explain how people who worked in
the background and in support roles were just as important as the astronauts who flew the
missions. Over the next decade, that idea evolved into the proposal for this project.

vii
viii Preface

Following the launch of the telescope in 1990, and the successful repair and servicing
of the optics in 1993, the intensity placed on the second or third servicing missions seemed
to be played down in the wider media, although in trade magazines and to those closely
involved in the program this was certainly not the case. Each mission was as important as
the last, and by its successes or setbacks it helped with planning the next flight.
When it was agreed by Springer to divide the story into two volumes, it became clear
that the most suitable cutoff was the success of STS-61 and the first servicing mission.
Therefore the first part of the story, related in The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept
To Success, would capture the early proposals and developments for creating a telescope
to be serviced by astronauts in space, and the facilities, tools and infrastructure to achieve
that. It would tell the story from its early concepts, through changes of design and wran-
gles with funding, to the success of launch, the disappointment of discovering the optics
were flawed, and the pressure to deliver on the promise of servicing that was so success-
fully demonstrated by STS-61.
This book takes up the story with preparations for the second servicing mission.
Although this was developed in the shadow of its higher-profile processor, the crew were
determined to ensure that their mission was just as important and successful. The story
continues with the difficulties encountered during preparations for the third servicing mis-
sion, at a time when it was thought Hubble was close to major failure, and when it was a
challenge even to get the shuttle off the ground. Following the success in splitting the third
mission into two flights, 3A and 3B, there was considerable debate, both prior to and after
the loss of Columbia in 2003 about mounting another servicing mission. In the end, the
success to date, a certain amount of political and scientific influence, and a growing public
awareness of the spectacular results of the telescope made Hubble a popular project. As a
result, a move to reinstate another visit to the facility developed momentum. The back-
ground to this final mission, and its achievements recalled here, does not mark the end of
the Hubble servicing story. Far from it. In many ways the story continues with the hard-
ware which was returned during the five missions, because a study of this material is help-
ing to improve the design of future spacecraft and the techniques used to fly them.
At the time of writing (May 2015), Hubble is still operating, sending back reams of data
of our universe. It also captures information which, although not so newsworthy, is con-
tributing to our understanding of how large items of hardware endure long term exposure
to the space environment, how internal components are able to perform 24/7, 365 days a
year and, as with Hubble, for over a quarter of a century. This is important not only for
today’s spacecraft such as the International Space Station, but also in the development of
future components, systems and structures that will fly in decades to come.
The story of the Hubble Space Telescope is not simply one of science and astronomy,
of engineering and technology, it is also about human endeavor and enterprise, of an
investment in an international team dedicated not only to keeping the telescope flying
across decades, but to analyzing the data and results as well as gaining the engineering
insights that will deliver results long after the telescope is turned off or sent to a fiery
 Preface ix

re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere, something it has long tried to resist. This is the story not
only of astronauts and astronomers, flight controllers and engineers, but also of hundreds
of workers whose small contributions to the bigger picture have resulted in placing instru-
ments in space to advance our understanding of our universe.

David J. Shayler, FBIS

Director, Astro Info Service Ltd
www.astroinfoservice.co.uk
Halesowen, West Midlands, UK
May 2015
Acknowledgements

As reflected in the companion title The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept To Success,
“This was a far reaching project involving the support and cooperation of a number of
individuals whose names are etched in the history books of the Hubble Space Telescope
program.” As a result, I duplicate my thanks to the very talented and dedicated individuals
whose assistance in this project extended and expanded the original proposal.
Firstly, I must extend my personal thanks and appreciation to all who have offered their
help and assistance in compiling both books, from those who supplied information or
offered their recollections and experiences to those who pointed me in the right directions.
There are also a number of people who worked tirelessly on the production side, which is
never an easy task.
My thanks go to a number of former astronauts who went out of their way to provide at
times some very personal recollections of their time working on the Hubble service mis-
sions, as well as their insights into the “real” workings of what it means to be an astronaut
and all that this entails. Specific to the Hubble missions, my thanks go to Steve Hawley
who, in addition to providing valuable explanations of what it was like to “be the arm
man,” also crafted the Foreword to the book. With Bruce McCandless, Steve also offered
personal recollections of the mission to deploy the telescope. From the crew of STS-61 my
thanks go to Dick Covey, Tom Akers, Jeff Hoffman and Story Musgrave; from STS-82,
Steve Smith, Joe Tanner, and once again Steve Hawley supplied useful information in
response to my queries; Mike Foale and European astronaut Jean-François “Billy-Bob”
Clervoy provided generous support; and from STS-109 Jim Newman and “Digger” Carey
gave fascinating insights into their roles and experiences on the fourth service mission.
Charles Shaw is to be thanked for providing the Afterword to the book.
Other astronauts who helped in my research included Bob “Crip” Crippen and “Pinky”
Nelson who explained both the early years of shuttle rendezvous and the servicing of the
Solar Max satellite, a precursor to the Hubble missions. Thanks also to Paul Richards, who
explained his role in developing tools for Hubble in the years before he became an astro-
naut and used those same tools on the ISS during 2001.

xi
xii Acknowledgements

Significant and important support came from the Public Affairs Office at Goddard
Space Flight Center in Maryland, in particular Susan Hendrix, Lynn Chandler and
Adrienne Alessandro. Also from Goddard, my thanks go to several individuals who pro-
vided insights into the background world of Hubble servicing: Preston Burch, Joyce King,
Ben Reed, Ed Rezac, Ed Cheung, Al Vernacchio and Russ Werneth.
At the Johnson Space Center, my thanks go to Robert Trevino for his explanations of
how its EVA support team functioned. Former Flight Director and Hubble Mission
Director Chuck Shaw explained in great detail the working of Mission Control in Houston,
and his role in support of Hubble servicing. The Public Affairs staff at JSC, and former
employees who worked at what used to be the History Office at JSC, now Clear Lake
University, the Collections held at Rice University then at NARA in Fort Worth, together
with those at the Still Photo Library and Audio Library at JSC and Media Services at KSC
have, over a period of many years, supported my research, including the early days of this
project. They include: Eileen Hawley, Barbara Schwartz, Dave Portree, Glenn Swanson,
Jeff Carr, James Hartsfield, Janet Kovacevich, Joey Pellerin, Joan Ferry, Margaret
Persinger, Lisa Vazquez, Diana Ormsbee, Jody Russell, Mike Gentry, and Kay Grinter.
And Ed Hengeveld is to be thanked for supplying some of the illustrations. In addition, my
thanks go to Lee Saegesser, Roger Launius and Bill Barry at the History Office in NASA
Headquarters for years of support and interest in my work.
At Lockheed, my thanks go to Andrea Greenan, Buddy Nelson and Ron Sheffield. At
the European Space Agency, I must thank Carl Walker and Lother Gerlach, with apprecia-
tion to Claude Nicollier for his offer of assistance. I am grateful to John Davis at Hawker
Siddley Dynamics/BAe Systems for information on a proposed orbiting astronomical
observatory. And I thank once again Suzann Parry and the staff of the British Interplanetary
Society in London for access to their library archives. I must also express my appreciation
to Andrew Brown, Joachim Becker of Spacefacts.de and Mark Wade of Astronautix.com
for permission to use some of their images. All images are courtesy of NASA and from the
AIS collection unless otherwise stated.
On the production side, I must thank Clive Horwood at Praxis in England, Nora Rawn
and Maury Solomon at Springer in New York, and project editor David M. Harland for his
expert guidance, additional efforts (and patience!). These projects are never easy. I must
also thank Jim Wilkie for his skills in turning my cover ideas into the finished product.
Love and appreciation go to my wife Bel for all the effort spent transcribing the numer-
ous audio-taped interviews in the AIS collection, and scanning numerous images for the
book, and to my mother Jean Shayler for the hours spent reading the whole document and
for her helpful suggestions to improve the manuscript. Apologies must also go to both of
them for the weeks spent away from all our home improvements, days out, and cooking
nice meals. Finally, I express my apologies to our wonderful German Shepherd Jenna for
having missed out on more than a few long walks!
To one and all, a huge thank-you.
Foreword

The success of STS-61, Servicing Mission 1, not only restored the optical performance of
the Hubble Space Telescope to that originally intended, it also showed that on-orbit servic-
ing by astronauts was feasible. Whereas STS-61 was a repair mission, STS-82, Servicing
Mission 2, was an upgrade mission. Its primary objectives were to install two new science
instruments and to improve the data recording facility by replacing a reel-to-reel tape
recorder with a solid state data recorder. After STS-61 there had been some concern that
NASA had barely escaped disaster due to the flaw in the primary mirror, and that because
the telescope was functioning well, perhaps it would be better to leave well-enough alone.
However, because continuing to upgrade the instruments to keep the telescope state-of-
the-art was important to maximizing the scientific return on investment, the risks of doing
so were deemed to be acceptable.
Among the risks were the modified first-generation solar arrays. As we planned and
trained for the second servicing mission, we knew that the structural integrity of the solar
arrays was going to be a significant concern and that we would have no replacements
onboard the shuttle if the arrays became damaged. A persistent static-twist meant the
arrays would need to remain deployed throughout the mission. That would affect clear-
ances with the RMS and the EVA crewmembers, and require minimizing the loads induced
by RMS maneuvering or EVA tasks. Furthermore, a new reboost technique would have to
be devised that could raise the orbit of the telescope without imparting excessive loads on
the arrays.
We encountered other surprises upon arrival. After we captured the telescope and were
able to inspect it, I thought it looked significantly “weathered” since I had last seen it seven
years earlier on STS-31. The yellow EVA handrails looked like they had been scorched.
There were numerous small holes in the solar arrays caused by impacts from micromete-
oroids and orbital debris, and a much larger hole in one of the high gain antennas. The
multilayer insulation on the Sun-facing side of the telescope appeared brittle, and was
peeling off in many locations. However, the detailed planning and months of training for
the mission paid off and enabled us to accomplish the scheduled upgrade and servicing
tasks. Despite the appearance of wear and tear, the telescope was performing normally.

xiii
xiv Foreword

After STS-82, my role during the servicing missions changed from crewmember to
crew representative to the Hubble Space Telescope Program and to the Mission
Management Team. Management was responsible for mission readiness and for determin-
ing the course of action when things were not going as planned on-orbit. Our job was to
let the crew concentrate on the tasks that they needed to do while we figured out how to
respond to any problems, including, when necessary, developing new plans or procedures
for the crew. For example, a problem developed with one of the freon coolant loops shortly
after the launch of STS-109. By flight rules, the loss of a freon loop would be cause to
terminate the mission. We were able to assess the situation, including the actual heat loads
and cooling capability along with the options available if the situation should get worse,
and made the decision to allow the mission to continue. That crew installed the ACS
instrument and a new set of solar arrays. On STS-103, after replacement of the failed gyros
and the installation of a new computer, the Mission Management Team decided to cancel
the final EVA in order to provide a margin that would assure landing prior to December 31,
1999, due to an abundance of caution regarding “Y2K” concerns.
Today, as a professor of astronomy, I share with my students both my experiences in
space with Hubble and its latest scientific results. However, as we celebrated the 25th
anniversary of its launch, I realized that as far as my students are aware, the telescope has
always been there. They simply don’t know what it took to make it arguably the single
most important scientific instrument ever built. So, I tell them about the 1946 paper by Dr.
Lyman Spitzer pointing out the benefits to be gained from placing a large telescope in
space. That vision was echoed over the ensuing two decades by influential astronomers to
develop the requisite political support. NASA began a Phase A study for a Large Space
Telescope in 1973 and Congress authorized it as a new start in 1977. After 13 years of
development and test, the telescope, then named in honor of Edwin Hubble, was launched
in 1990. Five shuttle missions over the next 19 years left the HST as it is today, a state-of-
the-art telescope with better capability than it had when we launched it on STS-31.
I want my students to understand that Hubble didn’t just happen. It was the result of
vision, advocacy, dedication, persistence, technical skill, teamwork, leadership and cour-
age. It is due to this dedicated effort by many individuals that the HST has revolutionized
our understanding of the universe and will continue to do so for several more years, and
perhaps for decades with use of the data archive. Now that the Space Shuttle Program has
ceased operations, perhaps those same qualities will allow the development of a way to
continue to maintain the HST on-orbit using one of the new launch systems currently
under development.

Dr. Steve Hawley

Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Director, Engineering Physics
Adjunct Professor Aerospace Engineering
University of Kansas
Former NASA Astronaut (Mission Specialist STS 41-D, 61-C,-31,-82 and -93)
 Foreword xv

Steve Hawley, wearing a NASA flight suit that displays the emblems of his five shuttle mis-
sions. Most prominent are those for his two Hubble missions: STS-31 (on his right) and STS-
82 (on his left arm under the flag patch).
xvi Foreword

The end of more than one era, with the last shuttle-based EVAs occurring during the final
servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009.
This project is dedicated to Hubble Huggers
everywhere. In particular recalling the work,
skills, and dedication of all who worked,
from the ground up, on the Hubble servicing
program, and to their families for allowing them
to devote time to work when they really
should have been at home.

Also to the memory of

Andrew Salmon
(1961–2013)

Fellow author and amateur astronomer

who would have loved this project,
and who would have offered countless
suggestions and guidance and probably
a third title.
Prologue

A “noble endeavor” is what Roundup, the newspaper of the Johnson Space Center called
the success of the STS-61 crew at the Hubble Space Telescope in its January 14, 1994
(Volume 33 No. 2) photo celebration article recalling the recently completed first servicing
mission. It had taken four years and five spacewalks to arrive at the point where the tele-
scope was fully operational.
The concept of an optical telescope orbiting high above the vision-restricting confines
of our planet’s atmosphere had intrigued scientists for over four decades when it was
finally launched aboard Discovery on STS-31 in April 1990. After several worrying
moments, the telescope was successfully deployed by the crew. During its checkout, after
the deployment crew had come home, it was discovered that a flaw existed in the primary
mirror. As a result the majority of the images were of poor quality at the very least. The
astronaut crew was not at fault. The problem lay in the fabrication of the mirror several
years before. After over two decades of promotion and expectation, delays and budget
wrangling it was a great relief to have the telescope finally in space, but the realization that
it was faulty was a great setback and bitter disappointment. It was also a huge embarrass-
ment to NASA, at a time when the shuttle was struggling to get off the ground owing to
hydrogen leaks in the orbiter, and budget woes with the planned Freedom Space Station.
The only glimmer of hope was that the telescope had been designed for orbital servic-
ing by shuttle astronauts on EVA. The problem was that the primary mirror was not one of
the candidates for servicing, and the original option of returning the telescope to Earth for
routine maintenance and upgrading had been canceled several years previously. At this
time of despair, NASA dug in its heels and found the solution to the mirror problem by
devising an ingenious set of mirrors that would reflect the images in a manner that would
correct the distortion. The agency also set about overcoming the problems with the shuttle
in order to send the planned first servicing crew to the telescope. The problems with the
space station would require more work, but the EVA program to service the telescope
would provide valuable information for the forthcoming space station EVA program.

xix
xx Prologue

In December 1993 the first servicing mission, STS-61, restored the quality of the
images from Hubble and NASA’s reputation flew high once again. In January 1994, 5
weeks after the engineering checkout of the optical alignment of the telescope and the cali-
bration of its instruments, it was declared fully operational. The installation of the
COSTAR package had corrected the images, which were now “as perfect as engineering
can achieve and as the laws of physical will allow,” stated Jim Crocker, Space Telescope
Science Institute Team Leader for that package, in the Roundup issue for January 21, 1994
(Volume 33 No. 3). STS-61 had been called the most challenging and rewarding mission
since the days of Apollo. Recalling those golden days at NASA, Dr. Chris Burrows of the
Space Telescope Science Institute said, “It’s been a small change for a mirror, but a giant
leap for astronomy.”
As recalled at the end of the companion title, The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept
To Success, Dan Goldin, the NASA Administrator at that time, stated in the same Roundup,
“This is phase two of a fabulous two-part success story. The world watched in wonder last
month as the astronauts performed an unprecedented and incredibly smooth series of space
walks. Now, we see the real fruits of their work, and that of the entire NASA team.”
Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md), who chaired the Appropriations Committee,
was delighted. “What a wonderful victory this is for the Hubble team of astronauts,
astronomers, scientists and engineers. Together they are moving American science and
technology into the 21st century with exciting new opportunities for science and eco-
nomic progress.”
Loren Shriver, a former astronaut who commanded the mission that deployed the
Hubble Space Telescope and then managed launch integration at the Kennedy Space
Center, said that the success of the first servicing mission, “opens up the whole range of
observation we had hoped for, and the mission proved what the program said all along;
that the 15–20 year life of the telescope requires a servicing mission every few years. We
proved that concept is workable.” Shriver also emphasized three important points which
made the STS-61 mission possible. Firstly, from very early in the program the telescope
itself had been designed to be capable of on-orbit maintenance and repair; secondly the
huge ground and training team were focused upon attention to detail; and finally the
importance of robotics, especially the Remote Manipulator System, made the tasks much
easier. Shriver also pointed out that, “All of these are equally important for space station
operations because if we have something designed to be worked on in space, and do it
properly, it will make the task a lot easier when it comes time to do it.”
Reflecting upon the period of over 2 years that it took to develop the on-orbit operations
for STS-61, the mission training manager, Dawn Thomas acknowledged, “It was satisfac-
tion with a job well done. We can look at the results of the mission and see the time and
effort put into the training was worth it.” It was not until the pictures came back from the
telescope and confirmed that the flaw in the primary mirror had been fixed, that STS-61
could be classified as a total success. The successful demonstration of the concept of on-
orbit servicing had far reaching applications, not only for future Hubble servicing but also
for the space station and beyond. Several months later, honors were awarded to the wider
Hubble servicing team. Over 40 individuals and 27 teams from various NASA field cen-
ters, contractors and support teams were recognized for their contributions to the success
of the first Hubble servicing mission.
 Prologue xxi

In reflecting upon the success of STS-61, Dan Goldin noted the dedication of the
Hubble servicing team, something that would become standard over the next 15 years,
“Men and women, all across the agency, committed themselves to this effort. They never
wavered in their belief that the Hubble Space Telescope is a true international treasure.”
And that was the point. Hubble had been transformed from a NASA embarrassment to
not just a national treasure but to an international one, if not exactly overnight, certainly
over the course of the STS-61 mission. At last there was an optical facility on-orbit which
could reveal so much more about the universe, and indeed about us, than could have been
possible before. But to do this, Hubble had to have been designed to be upgraded and
maintained over a very long period of time. The STS-61 mission was just the start of a
demanding program designed not only to keep the telescope operating but also to upgrade
its instruments in order to enable it to continue to deliver first class science.
As STS-61 flew, plans were being defined for what the next servicing mission would
do, and indeed the one after that. Between February 1997 and May 2009, four further
servicing crews visited Hubble. They restored systems, replaced instruments, attended to
the aging of the telescope and fixed numerous smaller issues, as well as photo-documenting
its degrading condition. All this was vital information for future telescopes, space servic-
ing techniques and the International Space Station. Each crew was immensely proud of
their small contribution to the overall effort, and each crew was also clearly told not to
break the telescope, as it was a national treasure. On Earth, scores of engineers, scientists,
controllers, managers and workers toiled over minuscule details for each new part sent to
the telescope, and later over every part returned from the telescope. There are so many
engineering lessons to be learned that it will take years to analyze and apply them all.
The people who devoted years (in many cases entire careers) to ensuring that the tele-
scope delivers its promise year after year are affectionately known as “Hubble Huggers.”
With the shuttle retired and with there now being no current capability for on-orbit servic-
ing, or Earth return, the twilight of the Hubble era is approaching. It is therefore fitting that
a part of the story to keep Hubble flying for over a quarter of a century is now recorded.
If one object sent into space is widely recognized and acknowledged, then it is the
Hubble Space Telescope. Members of the public can readily relate to the astonishing
images that the telescope returns. Scientists are eager for the scientific measurements. But
the true success of Hubble lies in the decision, right at the start, to enable the telescope to
be serviced in space. This capability saved it on several occasions, upgraded its instru-
ments, and extended its life far beyond that envisaged. The talents and devotion of the
astronaut crews is matched by the immense ground teams that have made Hubble the suc-
cess it is.
As Dan Goldin noted, the Hubble story can be divided into different phases. The strug-
gle to get the telescope designed and built, then funded and launched, together with the
efforts to enable it to be serviceable in space, and thus demonstrate that concept, was the
theme of the companion book From Concept To Success. From 1994 to the spring of 2015,
the other part of the story, in this volume, details the challenges of keeping the telescope
operating beyond its original mission life and upgrading it so that by the time the final
servicing crew returned to Earth the telescope was rather more capable that its designers
had envisaged. That effort and success transformed Hubble from being an anonymous
item of space hardware into an object of pride and affection. The Hubble Space Telescope
xxii Prologue

has, in its own lifetime, become a source of international interest, scientific value, and
world headlines. It is truly a “national treasure” for America.
Like Voyager before it, Hubble’s longevity and success, together with the stunning
images captured by its instruments, created its appeal and growing affection. For those
who had the good fortune to work directly on the missions that enabled that affection to
grow, there is an intense pride in being not only part of space history, but also in being part
of a team which overcame so many hurdles to enable those pages of space history to be
written in glowing admiration of a job well done.
1
Service Mission 2

The point of the second service mission was not to fix Hubble,
but to improve it.
Steve Hawley, STS-82 Mission Specialist

Following on from the success of the first Hubble service mission in December 1993, the
main media focus shifted to the forthcoming flights of American astronauts to the Russian
Mir space station and the transformation from what was to have been the American Space
Station Freedom with the cooperation of a number of foreign partners, to the newly desig-
nated fully International Space Station which would use some of the hardware originally
intended for Mir 2 before those plans were put on hold by the breakup of the Soviet Union.
To accommodate missions to both Mir and the ISS, NASA had to sacrifice some of the
planned scientific missions on the shuttle. Several Spacelab pressurized module and pallet
missions were excised from the manifest, but planning for a further three (possibly four)
service missions to Hubble remained firmly on the manifest, although the preparations to
launch them would be as challenging as ever.

A DIFFICULT ACT TO FOLLOW

In contrast to the first service mission, the progress towards the second mission and the
media coverage of it, was markedly different. Hubble had been restored to its full potential
and whilst there was an instrument failure just prior to the mission, there was not the
urgency and public attention of that first mission. Being first was always a difficult act to
follow, and so it was for SM-2, but it was a challenge the STS-82 crew and the ground
team were determined to take up.

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

D.J. Shayler, D.M. Harland, Enhancing Hubble’s Vision, Springer Praxis Books,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22644-6_1
2 Service Mission 2

The SM-2 emblem illustrated the cooperative teamwork that supported each servicing
mission.

Naming the crew

On May 31, 1995, NASA named the EVA crew for the second Hubble service mission,
which was scheduled to launch in early 1997.1 They were assigned in advance of the rest
of the crew to make an early start on their EVA training. They were Joseph R. “Joe”
Tanner (MS1 and EV4), Gregory J. Harbaugh (MS3 and EV3), Mark C. Lee (MS4, EV1
and Payload Commander), and Steven L. Smith. (MS5 and EV2). The four were paired
up into two teams, with Lee and Smith assigned to the first, third and fifth (if that was
required). Harbaugh and Tanner were assigned to the second and fourth EVAs. For iden-
tification purposes on the video downlink and photographs Lee wore a suit with solid red
stripes, Tanner had diagonal red stripes, Harbaugh had broken red lines, and Smith’s suit
had no stripes.
That left the Orbiter crew to be named. On February 29, 1996, Steven A. Hawley
returned to astronaut status after serving in various management positions in NASA. He
was assigned to the crew of STS-82 as MS2. In addition to being Flight Engineer, assisting
on the flight deck during ascent and entry, he would be in charge of operating the
RMS. Then on March 15, 1996, NASA completed the crew by naming Kenneth D.
Bowersox Commander and Scott J. “Doc” Horowitz as Pilot.2
 A difficult act to follow 3

The STS-82 crew on-orbit (left to right) Tanner, Hawley, Lee, Bowersox, Smith, Horowitz
and Harbaugh. The traditional inflight crew portrait was taken after completion of the five
EVAs. The sign held by the crew and the shirts bearing an image from Hubble paid tribute to
the telescope and the team of controllers on the ground.

A mixture of experience and familiarity

Once again, the crew was highly experienced, with 15 flights and two spacewalks between
them. Ken Bowersox was chosen as an astronaut candidate in June 1987 as a member of
Group 12. He had previously flown as Pilot on STS-50 in 1992 and on STS-61 in 1993, the
previous service mission. Having led the STS-73 mission less than 6 months earlier, this
would be his second flight as mission commander. “Doc” Horowitz had joined the astro-
naut team in March 1992 (Group 14). His appointment to the STS-82 crew came only a
week after his return from piloting STS-75. Assisting the two pilots on the flight deck was
Steve Hawley, an astronaut for 18 years (1978, Group 8) who flew on STS-31, the Hubble
deployment mission, some 6 years earlier. He also brought a wealth of experience from
flying as a Mission Specialist on STS-41D in 1984 and on STS-61-C in 1986.
The EVA crew was led by Mark Lee, a member of the 1984 Class (Group 10) who had
flown on STS-30 in 1989, STS-47 in 1992 and STS-64 in 1994, and had worked on Hubble
issues even before the telescope was deployed. Joining Lee on two, possibly three EVAs was
Steve Smith, who had been selected for astronaut training with Horowitz in 1992 and had
flown on STS-68 in 1994. Greg Harbaugh was selected as an astronaut along with Bowersox
and had flown on STS-39 in 1991, STS-54 in 1993 and STS-71 in 1995. He would work
with Joe Tanner, another 1992 (Group 14) candidate who had flown on STS-66 in 1994.
4 Service Mission 2

For two of the veterans, this would be their second Hubble mission. Hawley had been
on the deployment crew and Bowersox on the first servicing crew, so their experiences and
knowledge would be an advantage in preparing the crew for the task ahead, especially
because Hawley had been the lead RMS operator on STS-31 and Bowersox had served as
the backup RMS operator on STS-61. Harbaugh also brought Hubble experience, having
served as backup EVA astronaut and Capcom for STS-61.
None of the seven astronauts had flown together before, but Horowitz, Tanner and
Smith had been selected in the same group. As a crew, they brought a broad mixture of
skills to the flight. Lee and Harbaugh had both participated in EVA demonstration tests in
preparation for both the Hubble and space station programs, with Lee being the first to test
fly the SAFER maneuvering unit untethered. This prior experience meant they took the
lead with their rookie EVA partners.

Hubble’s bible
As a young child, Steve Smith was fascinated by television coverage of the undersea world
of Jacques Cousteau and the early space missions. He drew pictures of spacewalking
astronauts, little knowing that one day he would do so himself. “A lot of children don’t
really know what they want to do but I was one of the ones that did,” he explained.3
In 1989 Smith had joined NASA as a payload officer, and he believes this experience
was invaluable prior to becoming and astronaut. At the time of the STS-31 mission the
following spring, “I was a trainee in the back room of Mission Control, so I wasn’t in the
prime role of doing anything, but I was responsible for monitoring and helping to resolve
any problems both with the Hubble communications system and how it was communicat-
ing with the shuttle. So it was a data handling system responsibility.” Right from day one
at NASA, Smith was mentored by Jeff Hanley, who became a Shuttle Flight Director and,
later, Manager of the Constellation Program. Hanley explained to Smith how the shuttle
communications system worked, and how the Hubble communications system worked. He
also wrote the Hubble Cargo Systems Manual (HST-CSM). “This was a huge book”, Smith
pointed out, “with all these diagrams, that anyone who was operating the shuttle and
Hubble during the joint flights used.” Indeed, it became “the Hubble Bible”.
Smith’s experiences in working the operational side of STS-31 gave him a great respect
for those who designed and built the spacecraft, which is the majority of the work effort,
with the astronauts just the “tip of the spear, we just implement what they tell us to do”. In
some of his post-flight motivational speeches to these workers, Smith explained that he was
one of the few people to have worked on both sides of the equation, the support side and
the flight side. “I can tell you,” he would say, “that the support side job was a lot harder than
my job as an astronaut.” He pointed out that astronauts could be heard counting out loud
while performing many EVA tasks. That was because they had been instructed pre-flight to
turn a bolt eight times and they’d count, one… two… three, to the number of turns required
for that particular bolt. “And that was the hardest part of my whole spacewalk, counting up
to ten or to sixteen or whatever the longest bolt was. I didn’t design the bolt, I didn’t build
the bolt, I didn’t procure the bolt, I was just given the bolt and was told to turn it sixteen
times. So really that’s a really good example of how—in my view anyway—the astronaut
job is really easy compared to what everybody did together.” But sometimes things didn’t
 A difficult act to follow 5

work out as planned, and this became a useful reference in a post-flight debrief. As Smith
noted, when a problem occurred, it had to be dealt with there and then. “We have all kinds
of things that don’t go exactly as they’re supposed to do, so you say, ‘Hey, I only got four
turns on that bolt, is that good enough?’ Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t.”

It’s all the genes!

Smith became an astronaut in 1992 and after his first space flight on STS-68 in 1994,
where he had trained for a contingency EVA, he had hoped to be assigned an actual EVA
on his second flight, hopefully to Hubble because the space station was still several years
away. “My dream was to do a spacewalk. In those days, spacewalks were extremely rare,
but I was hopeful. Bob Cabana called me and told me [of the STS-82 assignment] and of
course I was thrilled.”
Teamed with another EVA rookie, Joe Tanner, the pair went to Mark Lee, then Chief of
the EVA office and himself on STS-82 as the Payload Commander, to thank him for his
influence and help in getting them assigned, presumably Smith had thought due to good
training reports. However, Lee informed them that one of the reasons for their selection
was because they were tall, so they ought not to get too excited about the assignment.
It was just that there were some tasks at Hubble that required someone with long arms.
“So Mark really damped my enthusiasm, my pride. I thought okay, now I need to call my
parents and thank them for me being tall.” The secret of how astronauts were selected for
crews, at least for Smith and Tanner, was that it was all in the genes!

Joe Tanner and Steve Smith during the STS-82 TCDT at KSC, Florida.
6 Service Mission 2

Management experience
Following STS-31, Steve Hawley took a position of management at Ames Research Center
in California, but he returned to JSC in 1992. “When I went out to Ames, I wasn’t sure
what I wanted to do long term. I wasn’t sure where my interests were,” he explained in his
2003 oral history.4 He was excited about the prospect of being involved in the management
of science but wasn’t ready to leave the operational side of the program. He had thoughts
of going to Kennedy Space Center, or to NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, but he
decided that becoming the Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations at JSC “would be
kind of fun”. Management roles were not new to Hawley, who was Technical Assistant to
the Director of the Flight Operations Directorate during 1984 and 1985 and Deputy Chief
of the Astronaut Office between 1987 and 1990. Although reluctant to leave Ames, he was
pleased to be returning to operations.
His term as Deputy of FOD had included the preparatory phase for STS-61, the first
Hubble service mission. He attended a lot of meetings and saw how all the parts of the
mission came together. He fully appreciated what was at stake. “Normally the Director
represents Flight Crew Operations at the launch site and is in the control center for launch.
For whatever reason, maybe just because I was familiar with Hubble, he didn’t go at that
time and I got to go.” Hawley feels it was a privilege to have been involved in such a
personal manner with both the launch of the telescope, as part of that crew, and the first
service mission. That pride and sense of personal involvement in operations and decision-
making was, at times, balanced by the reality of his new role. He recalled one trip to LCC
on a different mission where the launch had been scheduled for 3 am and he’d been up all
day. It was possibly the second or third attempt to get the vehicle off. “I do remember
for an instant sitting there thinking ‘Jeez, I’m tired.’” But in the next instant he realized,
“Of all the people in the country or the world, there’s about ten or fifteen of us that are
allowed to sit in this room at this time and do this thing, and suddenly the fact that it was
three in the morning and I’d been up all day didn’t seem very important, I was privileged
to get to be a part of this.”
Hawley had not expected to fly again, but one day he was in the office of Dave Leestma,
the Director of Flight Crew Operations and was asked whether he wanted to fly as arm
operator on the next Hubble mission. He had not planned it that way, and it was not some-
thing that he was actively seeking, but by returning to JSC he knew there would be the
chance of flying again if the circumstances were right and others thought he was good
enough to be the right person for the job. Hawley said he would like to do the mission, but
should consult his wife. The next day he signed up for the flight. During his time on the
crew, Hawley’s management position would be filled by several acting deputies.

Training
The numbering of Mission Specialists was determined by the seating arrangements for
ascent. Clearly Steve Hawley was the right choice for the MS2/FE role because, as Joe
Tanner says, it was sensible not to use an EVA person in that role. “Then we said, ‘Okay,
who wants to ride on the flight deck going up?’ So I said, ‘Well I wouldn’t mind doing
that.’ Mark and Greg were on their fourth flight each and didn’t really care. So I said I’d
Another random document with
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parties of the grandees of Kermanshah, coming out with their
servants to inquire the result of the “accident.”
I replied to their questions that the man was dead, on which these
bearded men burst into loud weeping and shed floods of tears,
getting down to take up handfuls of mud, which they immediately
plastered on their hats as a sign of mourning.
I was spared any interview with the Imād. His people stated that
he was aware of what had happened, and was in retirement in his
women’s quarters. The unfortunate young man’s funeral was
conducted with every show of grief.
Pierson left for Teheran, where he was called to act temporarily as
Director, and I became now much occupied in looking after the
building of my house, which a native had contracted to finish in six
weeks under penalty of one toman a day for any delay over that
time. I frequently sent to the man to ask why he did not commence,
but the answer was always the same, “Furder” (“to-morrow”). To-
morrow, of course, never came, and the fellow incurred a penalty of
six hundred kerans. I let him off two hundred, but he was compelled
to pay up the remainder, much to his astonishment and disgust.
I had occasion to go to Kerind, which is the last telegraph-station
in Persia. The country was covered with snow, so I could not see
much of the place. The Kerindis are reported to be a very turbulent
set, and bad Mussulmans. They eat many things that are unlawful,
as the hare, and are said to be devil-worshippers, or Yezeedis, and
to celebrate certain unchaste rites.
However this may be, they seemed to me to be a fine, honest lot
of people, and their then Governor, Malekneas Khan, certainly was
not deficient in politeness and florid compliment, for he sent me a
letter addressed “To the great English doctor, he who sits in the
presence of princes.”
On my return I passed through Myedesht, some seven farsakhs
from Kermanshah, celebrated for its horses. Here I bought a strong
three-year-old horse for four hundred kerans (sixteen pounds). My
stud had now got to five, for my patients kept me in corn and fodder,
so all an animal cost me was his price and pay of groom. I used to
take long rides each day, and we always managed, the groom and I,
to tire all five horses over the turf. In fact, after dispensary hours
there was little else to do, for there were only two signallers here, of
whom I did not see much, as when one was on duty the other was
sleeping.
Captain Chambers, who was newly appointed to the Persian
Telegraph, now arrived, and it was a change for the better to have a
companion. He received orders to buy mules for the Indian
Government, for use in the Abyssinian war, and purchased some
three hundred. Hardly was the mule-buying over, when orders came
that the line from Teheran viâ Hamadan and Kermanshah, was to be
handed over to the Persians; and I received orders to march across
country to Ispahan, to which station I was now appointed.
We started—Mr. Hughes, clerk in charge of Kermanshah office,
and his wife; Sergeant Hockey, Line Inspector, and his wife; and two
signallers, all of whom, with myself, were transferred to the Ispahan
section.
We went as far as Kangawar upon the post-road towards
Hamadan, and then turned off on a less-known route to Ispahan, viâ
Khonsar and Gūlpigon.
Nothing particularly noticeable occurred till we got to a large
village called Gougas, where we had to make a day’s halt to rest the
mules. The spring was well advanced, and the whole plain showed
heavy crops. What, however, interested us was the quantity of ruined
kanaats, or underground watercourses, these teemed with pigeons;
some of them were of a depth of seventy feet.
The greater part of the irrigation of Persia is carried on by systems
of underground tunnelling, called “kanaats.” A well is dug, generally
on the slope of a range of hills, until water is reached; then, a few
feet above the bottom of this well, a tunnel is made some four feet
high and two wide, having its outlet in a second well, and so
constructed as to have a very slight fall towards well No. 2. Should
the ground be soft these tunnels are lined by large oval hoops of
baked pottery, two inches thick and a foot wide. By placing these
continuously the prime cost of the tunnel is much increased, but the
expense for repairs is very much less; the great charge being the
annual clearing out that the tunnels, unless lined, require, the soil
falling in and blocking them, and the fall of water being lost by
accumulations of the settlings of mud and sand.
Sometimes the wells of the kanaats are not more than twenty
yards apart; sometimes as far off as fifty or even eighty. As each well
is dug, the “mokennis,” or tunnellers, draw up from it all the earth,
which they carefully place round it in a circle. As they come to water,
the mud which is drawn up is poured on the earth, and as it hardens
in the sun, a number of crater-like mounds are formed; these mark
the lines of kanaats, which may be distinguished running across
barren plains for many miles, or even farsakhs. They are often dry,
and disused ones are rather dangerous.
I once, when riding, went into an old one, horse and all, but
managed to scramble out as my horse struggled; he plugged the
well, and had to be, with some difficulty, dug and drawn out.
A very curious accident happened to Mr. H⸺, of the Department,
when coursing at Teheran. Fair coursing was obtained in the
immediate vicinity of the capital, but the kanaat-holes rendered it
somewhat dangerous. A run took place, and Mr. H⸺ was missed.
His horse, riderless, joined the others, and the only conclusion was
that he must have tumbled down a well-hole, which occur here in
tens of thousands, and in every direction. After a long search his hat
was discovered at the margin of one of the innumerable well-holes.
That saved his life; for had his hat not been found, he would still be
in the kanaat, as his voice would never have reached the surface.
Stirrup-leathers were joined, and he was drawn out not much the
worse, strange to say, though his face and hands were badly cut. To
construct a kanaat is the highest benefit a rich man can confer upon
a village; it at once becomes a flourishing place. Sometimes a long
series of tunnels and wells are dug, and by some error in calculation
there is no supply of water; but this is very rare. The great advantage
of these subterranean channels is, that loss by evaporation is
reduced to a minimum, and water cannot be stolen; of course the
cost of making is very great; but if successful it is a very profitable
transaction, for the ryots have to buy the water, and at a high price.
Most of the kanaats are full of fish: where they come from is a
puzzle, as the water is lost in the ground at one end and rises
subterraneously at the other. I believe it has been shown by Darwin
that fish-spawn is carried on the feet of frogs: this at times accounts
for it. The larger kanaat fish are not very nice, having a sodden
muddy taste—they are like tench; but the smaller ones, when fried,
resemble much the “Friture de la Seine” sold at the restaurants at
Asnières. We often, when marching, amused ourselves by obtaining
a good friture from the openings of the kanaats in the villages, in
rather an unsportsmanlike manner. Cocculus Indicus (some ten
beans) was pounded and mixed with dough, and cast down one of
the wells; in an hour, at least a half-bushel of fish were always
caught. The fish poison imparted no poisonous effects to the flesh of
the fish, probably because so small a portion was taken. The fish, if
allowed to remain in the water, generally recovered; the large ones
always did. This mode of getting a dish of fish would have been
hardly excusable; but in a country where the only food on the road is
fowls or eggs, a change is of great importance. These kanaat-fish
will not take bait as a rule, though I have known them to be
voracious and easily taken by paste.
The ruined and dry kanaats are much more numerous than those
in working order, and form a secure asylum for jackals and
porcupines. Three very good bull-terriers I had, once went down a
kanaat near Shiraz after a porcupine; two were badly wounded from
the quills, and the third, a very old and decrepit dog, was lost,
probably drowned. I fancy from their muzzles that they must have
killed the beast, but the dogs did not recover from the effects of the
quill wounds for a fortnight; and one had a piece of quill lodged in her
thigh that I did not detect till she showed it me and almost asked me
to extract it a month after. In the unsuccessful search we made for
the decrepit dog in the kanaat, we nearly came to grief ourselves, for
as I was creeping along with a lantern in my hand, up to my knees in
mud and water, a quantity of earth and stones fell from the roof,
separating me from my man who followed. I rushed for the well in
front, and was drawn out by servants who were awaiting me, while
my man made for the one we had descended by; we were equally
glad to see each other. It was the first time I had been in a kanaat—I
mean it to be the last.
Pigeons may generally be shot for the pot from these kanaats, and
afford very good practice; the pigeons are similar to our blue rocks.
One simply follows a line of wells, and just before you reach a well, a
servant throws a stone into that behind; if there be any pigeons they
usually rise and give a fair chance, returning to the kanaat by a
neighbouring well. Considerable amusement may be got out of this.
Gougas was full of pigeons, and here we first saw the pigeon towers
so common in Ispahan. A description of one will serve for all, for they
differ merely in size. The towers are constructed simply for the
collection of pigeons’ dung, which commands a high price as a
manure for the raising of melons, and, in fact, is a kind of guano. The
pigeon when living in the kanaats is liable to the depredations of
jackals, foxes, etc., so the Ispahanis, the most careful and
calculating of the Persian nation, build these towers for the pigeons.
They are circular, and vary in height, from twenty to seventy feet,
and are sometimes as much as sixty feet in diameter. The door,
which is merely an opening in the wall half-way up, is only opened
once a year for the collection of the guano, the remainder of the time
it is plastered like the rest of the building, which is composed of mud
bricks and ornamented with a ring of plaster painted with scrolls or
figures in red ochre. These bricks are made on the spot, and cost
from one keran to two kerans a thousand. The whole surface of the
inside of the circular outer wall is covered with small cells open to
one side about twelve inches in size; in these the pigeons build. In
the centre of the circle are two walls cutting each other at a right
angle, and so forming a cross; the sides and ends of these walls are
also covered with cells.
I have counted cells for seven thousand one hundred pairs in a
large pigeon tower; there were five thousand five hundred in the
outer wall, and sixteen hundred in the cruciform wall occupying the
centre. Most of those near Ispahan are now in ruins, for as it is no
longer the capital, an excessive price cannot be obtained for early
melons, and so pigeon-keeping is not so profitable. In no case did
the proprietor of the tower feed the birds; they picked up a living from
the fields of the neighbours.
A ridiculous incident now occurred to us. As we were marching
across an immense plain, we noticed men in a crowd on the side of
the mountains; they were all armed, and seemed over a hundred in
number. We were considerably alarmed to see that they ran in a
body towards our caravan, which we had no doubt would now be
looted, for what were three revolvers and a cavalry sabre against a
hundred armed men? The muleteers ran away, shouting “Doz, doz!”
(“Thieves, thieves!”) We could not save ourselves by flight, for two of
the party were married—Mr. Hughes and Sergeant Hockey—and
their wives were in palikees, or paniers, on the mules.
The armed crowd advanced at a run; we put ourselves on the
supposed danger-side of the caravan. The mules had all stopped
when the drivers ran away, and to our delight we found that the
armed men were merely some villagers who had fled to the
mountains rather than pay excessive taxes. These poor fellows
begged us to intercede with the Governor of Ispahan for them on our
arrival, which we promised to do. Our muleteers, seeing there was
no fighting, now returned; we put up our revolvers, and on we went.
We did not pass through Khonsar, which is off the road.
That night we arrived at a small village which had a quantity of
warm springs. So unsophisticated were the natives that, having no
other shelter to give us, they suggested that we, like Mussulman
travellers, should put up in the mosque. To this we did not object,
and had a very good resting-place. This was a very extraordinary
occurrence, as villagers are generally very bigoted; but I fancy these
people did not really understand that we were not Mahommedans.
The next stage was Lilliane, an Armenian village; the people were
apparently prosperous; they wore the dress of the ancient
Armenians, or Feridan costume. Feridan is a collection of villages,
most of which are Armenian, in the neighbourhood of Ispahan. The
priest put me up; he had been to Bombay, and seemed a decent
fellow. He was an old man, and told me that, were it not for their
secluded position, they should be much oppressed.
The men and boys seemed very boorish; the women were clad in
the peculiar ancient costume referred to. Cylinders of pasteboard
were swathed in chintz of various colours, and worn as head-
coverings. These hats, if they may be so called, were ornamented
with strings of silver coins; they wore long trousers, the bottoms of
which were in some cases elaborately embroidered. It is these
embroideries, called naksh, that are exhibited in the Persian
collection in the South Kensington Museum. At one time they were
part of the universal indoor dress of the Persian women; each bride
worked herself a pair during her girlhood, and they are said to have
employed three, four, or even five years in the labour. The figures
are flowers, generally roses, worked in diagonal rows in fine silk on
muslin; there is no filling in, it is all stitching.
To return to the women. They had high shagreen shoes and thick
socks of coloured wool; the skirts were long but not voluminous; over
the dress was worn a long mantle of red cloth, trimmed and lined
with foxes’ skin; the shirts were red or green, and the breasts were
allowed to be fully exposed as ornaments. This liberal exhibition
struck us as very strange. A huge metal belt of copper plated, or
silver, girded their waists; the hair was hidden by long kerchiefs tied
over the head and hanging down behind, while, strangest of all, a
white cloth was tied round the neck and hid the nose and mouth.
This, I was informed by the priest, is never removed—they even
sleep in it. With them it is what the veil is with the Mahommedan
woman, the sign of modesty: this completed the costume.
The women, all save the very old, spoke only in whispers or by
pantomime. A girl on marriage never speaks in the presence of her
mother-in-law or husband—she only signs. The very young girls and
very old women, however, fully made up for the silence of the rest.
The priest was much surprised that we did not accept his invitation
to get drunk, telling me that “if one didn’t get drunk one might as well
be a Mussulman.” The Armenians were very friendly, but charged us
much more for provisions, etc., than the Mussulmans. They are great
beggars.
Of Gūlpigon, a large, scattered place, we saw nothing, from the
weather being bad, but I got some good carpets there.
Our last stage brought us again on the regular caravan road to
Ispahan, and there we found a magnificent stone caravanserai
(Charlēseah).
There were quantities of travellers, but we were lucky enough to
arrive in time to find good rooms. This is of great importance, for if
one happens to come in after the arrival of a big caravan with
pilgrims, or a regiment of soldiers, it is next to impossible to get
rooms, and a row is often the result, for the presence of a large
number of co-religionists makes the people put on the appearance of
bigotry; and some beggar will insist perhaps on occupying a room
large enough for ten, and decline to be even bought out; an
unpleasant wrangle will ensue, and then, if one is not good-
tempered, a row. First come is first served, and good road law.

ARMENIAN WOMEN.
 (From a Native Drawing.)

Generally, however, a few kerans will secure two rooms, and as a

rule stratagems obtain the accommodation that force fails to secure.
I thought myself, when a married man, that it was better to pay a
small fee when I found, as I did at times, every room occupied and
no other place to go to. At the same time it is a crying shame that the
employés of our Persian Telegraph Department, who always travel
on business, should not be enabled to go to the post-houses as a
right, and that they are at times compelled to argue in the rain, or
engage in serious rows, when they find that there is absolutely no
other means of getting shelter for themselves and families. This is
particularly hard, too, on the signaller and subordinate member, who,
with few muleteers and perhaps two servants, finds it more difficult to
secure a place to put his head in than the superior officer, who has a
regiment of servants and muleteers, and can consequently overawe
opposition, and be too strong to provoke a row.
At times one must have recourse to stratagem. At Dehbeed, the
loneliest and coldest station in Persia, there is no village, only a post-
house and caravanserai, the latter quite in ruins; these, with the
telegraph-office, form all the shelter in winter, in summer-time there
are a few black tents. One bitter winter’s day I arrived at Dehbeed,
marching, and proceeded to the post-house. This I found full of
irregular horsemen, some twenty in each bottom room, while their
master, a Khan, engaged in collecting taxes, occupied the top room.
I, supposing these men were servants, asked them to vacate one
room; they declined, and told me to get out of the place, and not on
any account to wake the Khan.
What was I to do? Dehbeed is twenty-four miles from any village,
the caravanserai in ruins, and the greater part of the telegraph-office
had fallen in from heavy snow. The unfortunate sergeant in charge
had reported to the superintendent, Mr. W⸺, the state of his office,
and on asking how he was to keep the instrument dry with no roof,
had been told “to sit on it.” He and his family were at a loss for room,
and there was no other shelter of any kind, and snow to any amount,
temperature awful, and three in the afternoon. The only thing was to
shake down in the stable. I had no right in the post-house as I was
marching, and not riding, post, nor had this Khan, for the same
reason.
Programme:—to attempt to get a room by begging and trusting to
his politeness; if that fails, a ruse. I shout violently, and am
threatened by the rough horsemen.
At last I wake the Khan, and a message is sent down to know
what I want. I reply that a room is all I need, and will he give me one
of the three he occupies?
I am invited to a cup of tea.
Fortunately my caravan is not yet arrived, I being ahead, so I go
up-stairs, am very polite, and have no doubt of getting a room. I am
regaled with a cup of tea, and after a long explanation from my
entertainer, the royal tax-gatherer, as to what a great man he is, and
how he is waiting orders from the Governor of Fars, at Shiraz, I am
told I had better march twenty-four miles, through the snow, to the
next stage.
I did not argue with the Khan, but I was determined to get
quarters, and I told him that I should telegraph at once to the
Governor at Shiraz and complain.
“Go to the devil,” was the reply.
Boiling with rage I plodded through the deep snow to the
telegraph-office. I knew the line was down, and that I could not
telegraph to Shiraz, but I had my plan.
I returned with a large telegraph form covered with English writing,
and entering the Khan’s room in a blustering manner sat down and
tossed him the supposed despatch.
“What is this, sahib?”
“A message for you.”
“But I can’t read it; please read it for me.”
I carelessly comply, after pulling off my wet boots.
“His Royal Highness the Governor of Fars to ⸺, Khan.
 “What do you mean by refusing to give the European quarters?
Vacate post-house at once, and proceed instantly to Abadeh for
orders.”
Now had this Persian been as sharp as he was ill-mannered and
dog-in-the-mangery he would have known that he would never have
received such a message; but he gave credit to it, supposing that I
had complained by wire, and he cleared out with many apologies.
Poor devil! He started for Abadeh, seventy miles off, the nearest
halting-place twenty-eight miles, just as day was fading and my
caravan marching in to the post-house. The weather was very bitter,
and this rather Persian way of getting the man out did not weigh on
my conscience. I told the Governor of Fars, and he said simply,
“Serve him right, he ought to have given you at least one room.”
Ispahan was surrounded by gardens and full of ruins. Here a
street, of which a fourth of the houses were inhabited; there a ruined
quarter; then miles of bazaar full of buyers and sellers, who shouted
“Bero, Armeni!” (“Be off, Armenian!”) with occasional gaps of ruins.
Then a huge maidān, or public square, the largest in Persia, one end
thronged by hucksters, at the other the Musjid-i-Shah, or royal
mosque; more ruins, then a magnificent and lofty bazaar, also in
ruins, through which we rode; then the Char Bagh, a royal garden,
with its tile-domed college and golden ball, and with its rows of
magnificent planes, and its dry and ruined tanks and watercourses;
then a fine and level bridge which crossed the river Zendarūd, which
just at that time was full of rushing muddy water, passing furiously
under the many arches.
At length we arrived in Julfa, the Armenian village on the further
side of the Ispahan river, after seventeen days’ marching from
Kermanshah, and two occupied by our halt in Gougas. We had
found the grass and young wheat high there, and plenty of lambs to
be bought; but Ispahan was not so forward, the trees being only just
in leaf, and weather cold.
 CHAPTER XII.
JULFA.

Illness and death of horse—Groom takes sanctuary—Sharpness of Armenians—

Julfa houses—Kūrsis—Priests—Arachnoort—Monastery—Nunnery—Call to
prayer—Girls’ school—Ancient language of the Scriptures—Ignorance of
priests—Liquor traffic—Sunday market—Loafers—Turkeys—Church
Missionary school—Armenian schools.

I was given quarters in Ispahan that did not possess a stable, and
I had to hire one a good way off. This cost me one of my horses, for
my careless groom, instead of giving the animals “teleet,” the mixture
of grass and straw, simply filled their mangers with clover, and,
leaving them to their fate, went to enjoy himself in the town. The
natural result followed: I was hurriedly summoned to the stable, and
found my Myedesht horse “Armchair” (I had given him this name on
account of the ease of his paces) flinging his head about against the
ground, from which he was unable to rise; he had acute inflammation
of the bowels, as I found from an examination after death.
At that time, knowing little or nothing of the diseases of horses, I
was compelled to send for a native farrier, and let him work his
wicked will on the poor beast. The treatment he employed was to put
on a quantity of heavy clothing, canter the animal furiously about,
and deprive him of water; in about four hours he died. I have since
had horses who suffered in a similar way, notably in one case where
I was offered ten tomans for a horse which cost sixty. I bled him
largely and saved his life, but his hoofs were never any good
afterwards, becoming hollow, and he was chronically foundered. I
had better have dealt. Bleeding, in my experience, is the only
remedy; of course, the violent cantering is the very worst possible
thing.
 During the excitement, my groom, a Persian of Kermanshah,
slipped away, and I found that he had taken sanctuary in the
Armenian Cathedral. I, however, as he was a Mussulman, got him
with some difficulty away, gave him the thrashing he deserved, and
kicked him out.
I found that in Julfa the cost of living was much higher than in
Kermanshah, the Armenians never allowing anything to be sold to
the English save at a high price; and in this manner a sort of special
rate was paid by the Europeans. The remedy we adopted was to buy
everything from the town, and this answered so well that, in about six
months, our pay went twice as far as before. Mr. Walton, the
superintendent, with some difficulty got a bazaar list with the real
prices of the usual necessaries as sold in the town of Ispahan, and
circulated it among the staff. These prices turned out to be nearly the
same as those we had paid in Kermanshah.
Julfa itself was, for an Armenian village, unusually pleasant in
appearance. The Armenians are essentially gardeners, and each
house had its vineyard or orchard; the water for irrigating these was
led in open channels through the middle of the principal streets, and
the edges of these channels were thickly planted with “zoban-i-
gungishk,” or “sparrow-tongue,” a quick-growing kind of willow, so
called from the pointed leaf. This tree makes the best firewood,
giving a lasting ember; the trees are lopped each year, and the twigs
and branches are used for making thatch, over poplar or plane
poles, for roofing those rooms which are not arched. In Ispahan most
rooms have an arched roof.
The houses in Julfa are all built of mud bricks; some of them are
very ancient, going back to four hundred years. The clay of Ispahan
is very tenacious; and as the walls, particularly of the older houses,
are built from four to five feet thick, very substantial dwellings are the
result, warm in winter but cool in summer.
The Armenians almost invariably at that time (1871) built their
rooms with arched brick roofs; these were quite impervious to the
weather and delightfully cool in summer. The cold in winter was very
great, but as the Armenian does not use an open fire, but sits the
greater part of his time, his feet under a “kūrsi,” or platform having a
brazier under it, and is very warmly clad in wool and skins, he does
not feel it.
These “kūrsi” (literally platforms) are an economical arrangement
used in every Armenian house. A small hole is dug in the floor (in
summer it is planked over); in this is placed a clay fire-pan, half full of
wood ashes; on them are a few handfuls of lighted charcoal. The
“kūrsi,” a frame eighteen inches high, and varying from two feet
square to four, is placed over this fire, and over this “kūrsi” is laid a
“lahāf,” or thickly-wadded cotton quilt of such size as to cover the
“kūrsi” and extend beyond it for a yard and a half. Around the “kūrsi”
are placed thin mattresses or cushions; on these the whole family sit
by day, and here they all sleep at night. In the day the “kūrsi” acts as
a table, on which the meals are eaten; at night the feet are kept
thoroughly warm by the fire-pot and the quilt. As the Armenians
never wash more than once a month, and very seldom that, the
“kūrsi,” with its heat, forms a nidus for the vermin with which they are
infested; but it enables them to support the cold of their large and
airy rooms at a minimum cost for fuel. Whole families thus sleeping
in one apartment, guests, married couples, children and all, does not
tend to promote morality, which with these people is at a very low
ebb.
What struck me most was the great multitude of priests in the
place. India and Batavia are supplied with priests from Julfa; these
priests are under the jurisdiction of a bishop, whose head-quarters
are the so-called monastery, or Egglesiah Wang, literally “big
church.” He is assisted by a monk of jovial port, the Kalifa Kuchek,
or, as he is familiarly termed, the little bishop. This little bishop, who
has held his post for many years, is much and deservedly respected
in the place. Nominally the jurisdiction of Julfa is in the hands of the
bishop; literally, the little bishop attends to this temporal power, and
gives general satisfaction.
The Arachnoort, or bishop, at the time of my arrival was one
Moses; and he added to his income, regardless of consequences, by
accepting bribes to make priests; some of the priests he made he
accepted as little as ten pounds for, and many could neither read nor
write. His successor, the present bishop, a man of singularly
prepossessing appearance and blameless life, does not do this, and
exacts a fair education and a good character in his candidates for
ordination.
A very amusing instance showing this occurred in 1881. I had a
dirty, drunken cook, whom, though knowing his work, I had to
discharge for drunkenness and dishonesty; he was notoriously a
great blackguard, but a clever fellow. To my astonishment in a day or
two I met my drunken cook, dressed in sad-coloured garments,
washed and sober. I was much surprised at the change for the
better, and was told that the reason was that he was to be made a
priest in a day or two. I inquired of the little bishop, and was told that
he had offered a bribe of twenty pounds, or kerans five hundred, to
be made a priest; but that, as the bishop did not like to hurt the
man’s feelings, he had told him to live cleanly, keep sober, and that
with study he might hope in time for ordination, but that just at that
time it was impossible to comply with his wishes. The man’s feelings
were thus spared. Alas! for the cook; in a few days he was found, as
usual, drunk and incapable in the street, and compelled to say, “Nolo
episcopari.”
The “Egglesiah Wang” (great church) was formerly a large
monastery, and many monks inhabited it; the cells are now mostly
used as store-rooms. Besides the Arachnoort and the little bishop,
there were only two monks in my time, of whom one died; the other,
after offering himself as a convert to Protestantism, and then to
Catholicism (previously he had even tried to turn Mussulman), was
sent to Etchmiadzin, in Armenia, on condition of being subsequently
reinstated, and there was subjected by the patriarch to severe
discipline, and forgiven. He has not returned.
The nunnery is still flourishing, and there are many nuns; some of
them have attained a great age. They are harmless women, whose
only fault is a love of the bottle; they fast religiously, and conduct
their services, which are very frequent, by day and night, with great
regularity. There was a time when the Julfa churches were not
allowed to have bells, and over each church-roof is a board, hung
from two posts. This is drummed on with mallets, at first slowly, then
fast, for some fifteen minutes before each service at the nunnery;
and, as my house was near it, I can testify to the punctuality of at
least the call to prayers, at half-past three a.m. and other unearthly
hours.
These boards are used on every church save the “Wang,” which is
provided with a handsome bell-tower, standing in its inner court on
four substantial brick columns, and covered by a dome-like roof; it is
at least one hundred and thirty feet high.
On Sundays, Saturday afternoons, and all feast-days, the
knocking is deafening, and the awakening power is certainly greater
than the bell to those in the neighbourhood. We may yet have it
adopted in England as one of the primitive forms of the early Church.
Great scandals have at times arisen in this nunnery. A nun, the
sister of a deserving artist who had learnt his profession in India, was
starved and beaten to death, and the corpse buried at night-time by
the nuns on account of her alleged irregularities. The elder nuns are
very fanatical and ignorant old women. A curly-headed young
Armenian, who was detected on the premises by them, and excused
himself on the ground that he wished to convert them to
Protestantism, of which faith he was a paid teacher, nearly met with
the fate of Orpheus; that enterprising youth, after having an
application for increase of pay refused, left religion as a business
and took to dealing in skins, which offered more scope for his
talents. So much care had been expended on his education that he
could read the New Testament in the original Greek; he, however,
wisely left a calling for which he felt he had no vocation.
The nuns visit the sick, and teach, under the superintendence of
an able priest (Mesrop), all the Julfa girls. They are instructed in the
elements of religion, and taught to read the Scriptures, without
understanding them, in ancient Armenian, and to embroider, or to
knit socks. The Armenian Scriptures and prayers are written in
ancient Armenian, which is a language as different from the modern
dialect as nineteenth-century English is from that of Edward the
Confessor. Consequently, all the people, and most of the priests, do
not understand either the Scriptures or the prayers, which many can
read. I was present at the burial of a Christian child by the Shiraz
priest; the poor man could neither read nor write, but he was
prompted with the beginning of each prayer by a member of the
congregation, who could read the ancient tongue; as he had these
prayers all by heart he, on getting the cue, recited them fluently.
A great portion of the service in an Armenian church is performed
behind a curtain, which is raised and lowered at intervals. The
sacrament is, I believe, not administered to the laity. The services
are inordinately long. I was present once at a wedding, and the
ceremony certainly lasted two hours.
Baptism is performed by total immersion, and the infant is
anointed in seven places with a cruciform mark, with green oil, said
to be brought from Etchmiadzin.
A priest, as a rule, is sent forth for two years to either India or
Batavia—where he goes is the important point. If he be sent to
Bombay, or a large community of rich Armenians, he returns with
enough to keep him for life and provide for his children; if to a poor
village, he returns as poor as he went; he then is without duty for
perhaps five years. All this is arranged by the Arachnoort, and is
usually determined by the amount of bribe tendered by the priest to
him; kissing, in fact, goes by favour.
Some few of these priests are well educated, and have made the
most of the advantages of their stay in India—notably the vicar,
Kashish (priest) Mardyros. He is an enlightened man, and honest,
but he can never become bishop, for the bishop must be a monk,
and is always sent from Etchmiadzin.
The present Arachnoort speaks only ancient Armenian,
Constantinople Turkish, and a little Persian, and the power for good
or evil is mostly in the hands of the little bishop and vicar. A priest
may marry before he receives priest’s orders, but if his wife dies he
cannot re-marry, and the widowed priest often becomes a monk.
This rule leads to a good deal of immorality, some of the priests
being of very bad repute.
 Another cause of crime in Julfa is the existence of a barely-
concealed traffic in liquor with the Mussulmans of the town. Certain
wine-sellers are tolerated by the venal authorities; these men allow
the Persians to frequent their houses at all hours of the day or night,
selling to them dreadful mixtures of sour wine and arrack. A Persian
is never a tippler—he drinks till he is mad drunk, or till overcome by
sleep. As a rule the Armenian receives him as a guest, and he
deposits his weapons with his host for their mutual safety. He then
hands over his money, and drinks it out. Of course scenes of
violence ensue: stabbing is common. A fatal case again occurred
during my last stay in Julfa. I have been twice myself threatened in
the street by men carrying naked knives; on the second occasion I
thrashed the man severely, and took away his knife. Any appeal to
the authorities would be useless. They reply, “He went to Julfa to get
drunk; what can you expect?”
A few months after my arrival I removed to comfortable quarters in
the Shireh-Khaneh, or wine-sellers’ street. Unfortunately mine was
the first house; at all hours of the day and night violent knocks would
be given at my door by intending arrack-buyers. I could only
reluctantly, and as a last resource, administer a good beating to the
knockers. This, after a time, had the desired effect. In my street, too,
a sort of Alsatia or Tiger Bay was established; all the houses were
inhabited by wine-sellers save my own, and down this street the
inebriates from the town, and their Armenian friends, were in the
habit of swaggering, often with drawn swords (kammer). On meeting
these men I always used to thrash them, and gradually this nuisance
too was abated, and when they got drunk, they got drunk on, and not
off, the premises of the wine-sellers. All the Julfa houses are made
with small low doorways, and massive doors are provided, of great
thickness. In many of the wine-sellers’ houses a beam is kept, which
leans against the door, the end going into the ground; the door is
then safe against the attacks of those without.
All the old gardens and vineyards, too, are protected by low doors,
some yard square, constructed of stone six inches thick; these
revolve on a pin, and are like those figured as “stone shutter at
Bashan” in ‘The Rob Roy Canoe in the Holy Land.’
 There is a weekly market held each Sunday in the little maidān, or
square, of Julfa; it is well attended. Raw cotton, fruit, grey shirting,
chintzes, and notions, are sold here, and also beef, for the
Armenian, unlike the Persian, is a beef-eater. Fairly good meat is
obtained; one’s cook goes with a chopper and hacks off what is
wanted; they have no idea of any difference in the value of joints.
Here, too, the Persian women hawk their cotton-yarn and buy
socks, which are hand-knitted in Julfa by the Armenians, of wool,
and also of cotton. Any hard-working woman can keep herself in
Julfa by knitting; the earnings barely exceed five kerans (three and
ninepence) a month; but this, with economy, is enough to keep and
clothe them.
As a rule the Armenian women are industrious and notable
housewives. In the summer they knit socks in groups at the doors of
their houses, and gossip; in winter they do the same around the
kūrsi, as long as it is light. Wine is made by all, and the jars used in
the fermenting are often very ancient, some being two and three
hundred years old.
Most of the men who work do a little market-gardening, and many
have orchards or vineyards. But the more active and brighter travel
to India or Batavia, and often make fortunes in retail trade; some
have even established well-known houses in Manchester, Liverpool,
and London. Many enter the Persian service; these generally
apostatise. The effect of this emigration on the inhabitants of Julfa is
deleterious in the extreme. The rich relations rarely forget the family
in Julfa, and there are consequently a number of people subsisting
on what the successful husband, father, or son, sends as a pension.
These will not work, but prefer to drag on a life of idleness on a
pittance. I often have asked a man, “What are your resources?” and
he has replied, “My relatives at Bombay,” etc., as the case may be.
Armenians at times rise to high employ: the chief of the Arsenal to
the Shah is an Armenian, so is the Ambassador in London.
The first day of my arrival in Julfa I was visited by twenty-six
priests; they were all regaled with brandy. The next day there were
twenty-nine, including the original twenty-six, who called again.
However, I treated them this time to tea, saying I had no more
brandy. The third day no more priests came.
Near the banks of the river is the old church of “Soup Gework,” or
“St George.” This is celebrated for being the receptacle of two
miraculous stones, which have reputed power in the healing of
diseases. They are said to have flown from Etchmiadzin, in Armenia,
in one night, and are the ordinary stones of the country brought to
Julfa by some rich citizen in bygone days for some building which
was never erected.
There are also the ruins of the old church of the Jesuit Fathers
standing in its garden. There is nothing remarkable in it. It is a plain
brick building, less pretentious than most Julfa churches, and
whitewashed inside; it is rapidly going to decay, as are many other of
the Julfa churches, for the population is lessening by emigration.
The successful Armenian seldom returns; when he does, he
repairs his father’s house, buys up the gardens round it, and his
estate is usually devoured at last by the priests and the Persian
authorities.
At one time turkeys were bred in Julfa, but the Governor of
Ispahan having imposed a tax of a certain number of fat birds at the
New Year, the Julfa Armenians allowed them to become extinct. At
the present moment—thanks to the protective presence of the
English in Julfa—the Armenians are quite on an equality with the
Persians, nay, even treat them with a certain amount of arrogance.
When I first came to Julfa, no Armenian dared to ride a horse, and all
used to get off their donkeys when they saw a Persian of position.
Education has advanced. The English missionary school and its
energetic teacher, Mr. Johannes—who, educated in England, left the
Nassick School, where he was a master, to take charge of the
C.M.S. school—has effected wonders. The boys, really well
educated, go off at about seventeen to India, and get their living
respectably; and the C.M.S. has done really good educational work;
as to the proselytising, no Mussulman convert has ever been made.
Many fanatics of the Baabi sect have sought and obtained temporary
protection, to which they owe their lives, but as a Christianising