Other armies than Xenophon’s have marched and fought over its ruins. Here, in B.C. 331, Alexander the Great encountered the great army of Darius at the little village of Gaugamela in the angle between the Tigris and the Zab. This was that great “decisive battle of the world” which was to decide the Empire of Asia, and Alexander’s signal victory laid the whole of Persia at his feet. Gaugamela is about equidistant between Nineveh and Arbela, which lies about twenty miles from the battlefield on the further side of the Zab river. But all Darius’ baggage and treasure were parked around Arbela; and as the pursuers poured headlong towards the place where they would find the plunder, it is Arbela and not Nineveh which has given its name to that day.

Here too in A.D. 627, upon the very site of Nineveh, was fought the last battle in the long duel between the Sassanid Persians and the Byzantine Romans. Five years previously the Emperor Heraclius, driven within the very walls of Constantinople, had sallied from his last refuge, and had created in northern Syria the army with which he made his last throw. For five years he had marched and fought among the mountains of Armenia, striking right and left with unerring judgment and with unvarying success, at the armies which hemmed him round. At last Chosroës, brought to bay in his turn, mustered his troops for the final struggle, and met him on the site of Nineveh with an army of (it is said) 500,000 men. The Persians fought with desperation, and “it was easier to kill than to break them,” but once more the skill and good fortune of the warrior-emperor triumphed; and he himself with his own hand slew Rhazates the Persian Commander,[67] in single combat between the armies before the battle was joined. The power of Chosroës was crushed: but the Romans were as much exhausted by the long-drawn struggle as the Persians; and, within a few years, both empires alike succumbed to the onslaught of the Mohammedans.[68]

{116}

In a bird’s-eye view from the mountains this country seems all one dead level, with the solitary height of Jebel Maklub rising like an island in the midst. But, to the wayfarer actually traversing it, it is a range of hills and hollows, with marshy valleys[69] intervening between sparsely cultivated downs. A few good-sized villages are passed, the largest being Tel Keif and Tel Uskof—each, as their names imply, grouped round the base of an ancient tel: and after a long day’s journey (performed at the pace of the mules, which is rather slower than walking) we reach the township of Alkosh, placed just at the foot of the hills.

A glance at the map would suggest that it is by no means easy to determine the precise point where the plains end and where the mountains begin. But actually there is no such uncertainty. The breastwork range of the mountains rears itself up like a wall above the minor inequalities of the plateau, and the heights stretch away right and left continuously as though they were toeing a line. Of all the countries of Europe, Spain is the land which is nearest in sympathy with the Orient; and the sudden uplift of the Cantabrian mountains above the basin of the Duero is an excellent reproduction of the rise of the Kurdistan ranges above the plain of Mosul.

Alkosh, at the foot of the steeps, is just an unmitigated sun trap; and the town seems positively sizzling under the blaze that is poured on it from the south. It is a mean little hole; but its synagogue boasts a notable shrine in the tomb of the prophet Nahum, who of course also holds local brevet rank (like Jonah) as a Mussulman saint. Commentators generally assert that the Elkosh of Nahum was in Palestine; but local tradition adheres unshakenly to the claims of the Assyrian Alkosh, and the Jews make an annual pilgrimage in order to visit this shrine. After{117} all there is much to be urged for it. Nahum was “of the children of the captivity,” and he certainly knew his Nineveh better than most dwellers in Palestine can have done.

It was a weird and striking effect that we witnessed from it next morning. The clouds lay low and horizontal above the plain beneath us; and many of them seemed to have sunk on to the ground, and looked exactly like lakes under the level rays of the rising sun. As his orb rose higher they lifted, and dispersed into wreaths of vapour. How well might such an effect have inspired the words of the Prophet, “Nineveh is of old as a pool of water: yet they shall flee away!”

Some three miles east of Alkosh lies a great recess in the mountains—hardly so much a valley as a deep pocket among the cliffs. And at the end of this pocket is ensconced one of the most interesting Christian relics in these regions—the ancient monastery of Rabban Hormizd, the Scetis of the uttermost east. Rabban Hormizd is no western monastery; it is a typical Oriental Laura: a rookery of independent hermits rather than a community of monks. And to speak of it as a “rookery” is hardly so descriptive as to call it a warren of sand-martins; for the anchorites’ cells are all caves, some natural and some artificial, burrowed into the escarpments of a great natural cirque.

Rabban Hormizd, the original and eponymous hermit, established himself here in the eighth century; and the fame of his singular sanctity soon drew hundreds of other eremites to the neighbourhood of his lonely retreat. Here he lived praying, fasting, and macerating himself after the manner of the Great St. Anthony; and wrestling mightily with the devils who notoriously frequent such desert spots. He was evidently a believer in “close action,” for the adjoining pocket is known as the Vale of Devils; and, appropriately enough, a little village of “Devil-Worshippers” is situated at the mouth of it to this day.

But perhaps in the eyes of Rabban Hormizd even the very devils themselves were not so foul an abomination as{118} the great rival monastery on Jebel Maklub,[70] which rises conspicuous in the midst of Mosul plain in full sight of his cell. For Rabban Hormizd was a “Nestorian,” while the monks of Sheikh Mattai were “Jacobites;” their monastery being still the abode of their Maphrian, the second dignitary in their church. Both sects are equally obnoxious to the intermediate orthodox; but they are even more obnoxious to each other, for they draw towards opposite poles.

His zeal against the monks of Sheikh Mattai roused Rabban Hormizd to the great deed of his lifetime. He actually quitted his cell (for the only occasion on record) and started on a lone-hand raid against his adversaries’ stronghold. The monks of Sheikh Mattai received him hospitably, and gave him lodging in their monastery. But at dead of night he arose and groped his way to their library, where the works of “the accursed Cyril” stood stored like cordite shells. By virtue of his prayers he summoned up a miraculous spring in the centre of the floor, and carefully washed every line of writing off every page of their books! Then leaving them a collection of nice clean leaves free from every taint of heresy, he departed joyfully to his hermitage and thereafter stirred from it no more.

This scandalous transaction was of course accounted to him for righteousness; and indeed Oriental religious controversies continue to be conducted on very similar lines to this day!

The monastery of Rabban Hormizd has always been kept going ever since the date of its foundation; but now it is only the Succursale of the big modern monastery established on the plains below it, and there are but some four or five monks still left in the old mother house. They are Uniat Nestorians who have submitted themselves to the Papacy, and are consequently not at all in charity with the independent Nestorian church from which they have seceded. Hearing that we were going to Tyari, the home of the independent Nestorians, they inquired artlessly “Pray, do{119} you know anything of a deacon there? one Werda, a very wicked person—a tall man with a red beard?” (Our deacon is short and rotund, and his beard is black).

“I am Shamasha Werda,” replied that worthy with a twinkle.

“Oh! but we don’t think you can be the man we mean!” protested our hosts in some consternation.

“Oh, yes! I am,” persisted the delighted deacon.[71]

Despite this contretemps, however, we got on with our hosts very amicably. They fed us with tea and cake, and wine from their own vineyard; and finished by conducting us over their monastery and showing us all the sights.

The place must be a furnace in summer time, for the cirque faces due southward; the tawny precipices are completely destitute of vegetation, and must radiate the heat mercilessly all round that breathless pit. In the caves would lurk such coolness as was going; but the lack of water must have been a sore trial in summer. Hermits, however, are generally credited with requiring a very moderate supply.

The cells lie some way up the ramp, and are reached by a steep zigzag pathway. How many of them there may be we do not pretend to guess; but we think we may safely say hundreds; for they extend laterally for several hundred yards along the concave sweep of the corrie, and (like the port-holes of an old line-of-battle ship) they are ranged up in tier above tier. They are not of any uniform pattern, like the older hermitages at Dara; and some few (probably those which have been most recently occupied) are furnished with windows and doors. A series of narrow pathways and rude rock staircases strings the whole assortment together, and by these the solitaries were enabled to assemble at their church.

Here and there the main pathway is barred by the erection of a rude arched gateway: but the only real building is the church, which is terraced out on a buttress of rock. This church is comparatively modern, dating from about 1500;{120} but behind it, jammed against the face of the cliff, is another and much older church erected in the ninth or tenth century, and adorned with some nice bits of carving somewhat similar to the Runic work of our own land. Behind this again, excavated in the rock itself, is the veritable cell of Rabban Hormizd—a chamber some eight feet square, and approached by a sort of winding rabbit burrow. The original door and window of this cell are now closed, the church having been built up against it; and the grave of the hermit is placed in one of the walls, at a spot which is situated immediately behind the altar.

The church of Rabban Hormizd is very much “Lord of Name,” that is it enjoys great repute as a place of pilgrimage; and the virtue for which it is chiefly celebrated is the healing of the insane, or (as they are more commonly called in this country) the “possessed.” The lunatic (often quite willing) is solemnly conducted to the church, and is tethered up in it for the night with a ponderous iron chain and collar affixed to a staple in the wall.[72] By morning (unless he is very mad indeed) he will usually profess himself cured. Quite a number of other mountain churches can boast a similar reputation, but their methods of treatment (as will be hereafter related) are often more drastic still.

We rejoined our caravan at the mouth of the gorge, and pursued our way steadily eastward along the foot of the mountains; passing first the village of Baadri, dominated by Ali Beg’s castle, and then rejoining the road which we had followed previously on our visit to the Yezidi shrine. Some two hours beyond Ain Sufni, we reached the river Gomel, a fairly large mountain stream; and here we swung round to the left, perhaps half a mile up the river, in order{121} to get a passing glimpse of the famous “Picture Rocks” of Bavian.[73]

The Gomel emerges from the mountains by a flat-bottomed winding valley shut in on either hand by vertical walls of rock; and along the cliffs on the right bank a little above the point of exit, hangs that marvellous gallery of “pictures” so well known to Assyriologists. The principal bas-relief is a huge square panel, graven on the face of a rock bastion which immediately overhangs the stream. It comprises four gigantic figures; now wofully battered and weather-beaten, but awesome beyond all telling in the loneliness of that desolate glen. Some dozen smaller panels are ranged above it, along an upper story of the cliff; and at its foot two great detached stone tables lie half submerged in the waters of the stream. The design of the big panel is self-repeating, each half being mirrored by the other; and this circumstance is of great assistance in deciphering the details of the work. For, some thousand years after the carvings were executed, a party of mis-begotten hermits came to settle down in the valley, and burrowed a set of cells for themselves along the face of the cliff. Two or three of these vandals chose to excavate immediately behind the great panel, and cut out their windows in the middle of it, quite regardless of the “idols” outside. With fortunate carelessness, however, they did not do their damage symmetrically, and the portions destroyed upon one side remain on the other intact. The subject is King Sennacherib making an offering to the goddess Ishtar; and the inscription records the destruction of Babylon, which had rebelled against him at the commencement of his reign, and which he took and razed to the ground.

The panels on the cliff above are all identical with each other. They have semi-circular heads, and are carved with the figure of the king. Of the two great slabs in the water, one bears on its face three figures—apparently the god Bel and two worshippers—and is carved on one of the{122} angles into a small human-headed bull. The second is so much eroded that it is impossible to distinguish the design.

It seems that the cliffs of the Gomel were one of the principal quarries which supplied the materials for constructing the ancient palaces of Nineveh. Most of the great slabs were quarried from the upper beds of the limestone, and were brought down to the river bank, at the foot of the principal bas-relief, by a broad inclined way which can still be distinctly traced. Down this they could be lowered on rollers, and would then be safely deposited upon the spit of sand and shingle piled up under the bank by the river; for this work would be done in summer, at a time when the waters were low. The gravel beneath the slab would then be dug away in sections; and, bit by bit, there would be inserted under it a wicker-framed raft or keleg supported on inflated skins. Given a sufficiency of skins such a raft can be made to float anything, and in autumn, when the river rose again, the slab would be floated down to the Tigris, and landed under the walls of Nineveh near the palace for which it was destined. The two slabs now lying in the water were evidently intended to be transported in this manner, but for some cause (which we can now only guess at) they were eventually abandoned unshipped. Possibly they were mis-handled and damaged. Possibly the building of the palace was interrupted by the assassination of Sennacherib, and was never resumed subsequently when Esarhaddon had quelled Sharezer’s revolt.

It is conceivable that the great panel also would eventually have been cut from the rock behind it, lowered on to the spit beneath, and dispatched in similar fashion; but it is perhaps more likely that this was always intended to remain as a permanent monument in its present site. The smaller panels along the crest of the cliff do not look as if they had been destined for removal. They were probably carved for mere “swank,” to give dignity to the royal quarries; or to keep the carvers’ hands in, at a time when contract work was slack.

The handling and moving of the ponderous blocks habitually employed by the ancients would tax even modern{123} constructors, with all the resources of machinery and steam power which nowadays they have at command. But the Assyrians (like the Romans after them) could avail themselves of a limitless amount of dirt-cheap labour. The hordes of captives taken in their wars had to be used somehow; and no one raised any objection if they were rather rapidly used up. Men cost less than oxen or asses, and their strength could be applied more effectively. They could be drilled to keep step, and to give their tugs in unison. Moreover the old Oriental task-masters possessed an asset which we have lost—a supreme scorn for being unduly hurried. They could well afford to spend a generation or so on buildings which were designed to endure for centuries, and which might have endured for millennia if only they had been left alone.

But even their works of utility have been no more spared by posterity than the tablets which recorded their learning, or the palaces which were the trophies of their pride. And such a work also had its source at the quarries in the Gomel valley; one of those splendid irrigating channels which used to feed the desert with the waters of life.[74] Its course can be traced for some distance alongside the banks of the river; where for yards upon yards the ample conduit is hewn through spurs of solid rock. Werda had seen further remains of it far away on the plains to the southward; “and the villagers were carrying off the stone facing of the embankments to use in building their huts.” It was “only the work of infidels,” and consequently fair loot for anyone. Now European engineers are labouring to re-establish what might have been so easily preserved.

The “Pictures of Bavian” are at least exempt from the fate which has befallen most pictures. They are fixed for ever immovably in the position for which they were designed. They are like some forgotten “Old Master” which still hangs tarnished and ill-lit above the altar where it was dedicated; and which shows there far more nobly than{124} when restored and exhibited in a brand-new gilded frame on a glaring gallery wall. There are far finer Assyrian sculptures in the Louvre and the British Museum than the grim, gaunt, battered sentinels that keep watch over the Gomel vale. But ranged along a Bloomsbury corridor they are obviously mere graven images; while enthroned amid the solitudes of their own eerie mountains they seem to be the very gods themselves.

There are several similar bas-reliefs scattered here and there about the mountains—some fairly well preserved like those at Malthaiyah between Dohuk and Alkosh, some now almost obliterated like that by the gate of Amadia. The great king seems to have delighted in setting his seal upon any conspicuous point that was reached by his conquering armies: and to this day that instinct re-asserts itself in the behaviour of Private Atkins, who delights to carve the badge of his regiment upon any conspicuous precipice in Afghanistan.

A caravan moves but slowly, but it generally wants to keep moving, and the novice who is travelling with it finds that he is allowed few lengthy halts. The old stagers always seem thinking of some point a little way ahead which they would much prefer to have behind them. Sometimes it is a bad bit of road which can only be traversed in broad daylight; sometimes a river which may suddenly be rendered unfordable by the intervention of an unforeseen spate. On this stage the unknown factor was the conduct of the Khozr river, a much more considerable stream than the Gomel, which lay some four hours further east; and whose behaviour on the present occasion was more problematical than usual because the dark clouds to the northward might imply heavy rain in the hills.

“Rabbi Mr. Wigram” had lively recollections of his last experiences with the Khozr. He had been kept for three days on the banks of it, waiting for the floods to subside. And he had forded it at last “in his birthday suit,” with the water over his horse’s withers, and his clothes slung over his shoulders to keep them out of the wet. We are wont to deride the rustic who expectat dum defluat amnis;{125} but our derision only shows our own ignorance as much as his expectancy showed his. The rustic was quite well acquainted with the behaviour of his own mountain rivers, and knew that when they were in spate there was simply nothing else to be done.

And our chances of passing the Khozr were rendered additionally dubious by the fact that none of our party knew the right road to take for the fords. The zaptiehs had never been in this district and could offer us no assistance. The Rabbi Effendi had approached the river from a different direction, and that some years before. We caught a guide in one of the villages; but as his first step was to ask the way himself at the very next village that we came to, we grew distrustful of his capacity and dismissed him again to his home. Few of the inhabitants ever stray beyond the bounds of their own village, and on a more extended excursion they are often hopelessly at sea.

Thus thrown on our own resources we took a bee-line across the moorland, steering our course by the light of nature and by a very small scale map. And fortune so far favoured us that we found the river in its very mildest mood; and though we had struck it at none of the recognized fording-places, there was no difficulty in getting across.

But safe on the further bank our perplexities recommenced again. The dusk was falling rapidly, and we needed a lodging for the night. By now we should have been at Khalilka, a prosperous and desirable village, which is part of the private estate of the ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid, and which on that account enjoys immunity from taxes and conscription and raids.[75] But of course in missing the fords we had also missed Khalilka, and not knowing whether it were above or below us, were uncertain which way to turn. However, it was tolerably obvious that if we followed the river either way we should presently find a village of some sort; and a little distance down the left bank we alighted{126} upon a straggling hamlet of miserable Kurdish hovels, which we unanimously accepted as being “Hobson’s choice.”

Of course no khan is to be looked for in any of these outlying villages, and it is customary for the traveller to quarter himself upon the rais or head man. He will obtain fire and shelter, and liberty to eat his own provisions, and possibly (if he is fortunate) will be able to purchase bread. Such entertainment should be requited, if mine host is poor, in money; if he is a person of importance, by some kind of trifling gift. Hospitality is hardly ever refused even to the humblest wayfarer, and public opinion quite backs a man who enforces it if it is denied.

In the present case the only shelter available was the veranda of the rais’ house; which afforded us a roof certainly, but no outer wall—only a wattle hurdle about five feet high. Here, however, we kindled a fire, and packed ourselves in pretty comfortably; though the night was made constantly hideous by the howling of the village dogs. Their uproar was not unjustified, for (as we were informed next morning) a scavenging pack of “you-eë-yahs” had been prowling round the hamlet all night. A “you-eë-yah” is a sort of hyæna which haunts the neighbourhood of villages, and gives intimation of its presence by incessantly howling out its own name. It is known alternatively as a Ghul or Sheitan because it is addicted to digging up and devouring the corpses buried in the graveyards; a foul and stealthy brute, but not dangerous to man. We had heard the howls all night intermittently between the volleys of barking, but had thought it was only the village cats taking their share in the row.

Next day the road was easier to follow; not because it was marked more clearly, but because its direction was defined by a string of Mohammedan cemeteries which were dotted across the moorland at intervals of three or four miles. These are small square walled enclosures, generally with a santon’s tomb in the middle, and with tall slender Moslem head-stones marking some of the principal graves. The country was open and undulating, but everywhere barren and pebbly; one can hardly as yet call it stony, as{127} that more emphatic word will be urgently needed later on. Here and there were traces of villages; but these were all abandoned and ruined, with nothing left but foundations, or a fragment or two of broken wall. The only inhabited villages stood high on the hills overlooking us, generally with an Agha’s castle planted somewhat aggressively in the midst.

There is something unnatural in this desertion, for the land might obviously be cultivated, and within the walls of the cemeteries there stand many well-grown trees.[76] But the key to the flight of the inhabitants is not the parsimony of nature:

And this essential condition is very conspicuously lacking in the country between Bavian and Akra, not to mention several districts further north; for across this ground twice a year pass that horde of human locusts, the wandering Heriki tribesmen; and one skinning every six months is more than any village can survive.

The Heriki are a large tribe of Kurdish nomads who possess no permanent domicile. They encamp in winter on the plain of Mosul, and in summer on the loftier and cooler plateau of Urmi; and with all their flocks and herds and their other possessions, they migrate every spring from Mosul to Urmi, and every autumn from Urmi to Mosul. It is not a good thing for a village to lie in the track of the Heriki, for everything that is not too hot or too heavy they annex and carry away. They “lift” the sheep and cattle first; then the rugs and kettles and pitchers and the scanty household plenishing; and they leave their hapless entertainers with nothing but bare walls and rags.

We had learned something of their thoroughness at our last night’s lodgings on the Khozr; for in the veranda of the rais’ house we had found three or four large bales, securely corded up in pieces of carpet, and had casually{128} asked what they were. Our poor host replied despondently that he was “warehousing” them for the Heriki. They would call upon him and claim them when next they passed that way. No; they paid him nothing for “warehousing,” but he had to be responsible for them; and he had to restore four-fold if any of the contents were lost.

“And what is in them?” we asked. The poor wretch grew even more dejected. “Oh, it is all my own property; my own rugs and cooking pots,” he replied. “That is to say part of it mine, and part the property of the other villagers, which the Heriki took from us when they plundered the village last time!”

So complete was the reign of terror which the impudent scoundrels had established, and so powerless was the Government to keep their depredations in check, that they could actually dragoon their victims into keeping their own plunder till they called for it, and go off for six months quite confident that their orders would be implicitly obeyed!

Our day’s stage ended at Akra; a considerable mountain township and the seat of a Turkish kaimakam, a departmental governor, subordinate in the present instance to the Vali of the province of Mosul. Akra displays itself most imposingly to a traveller approaching from the westward, and indeed forms a striking spectacle from whatever point it is viewed. Behind it a group of steep-pitched ridges are gabled out from the main mountain chain like a range of gigantic dormers, and drop down in rugged hipped ends to the level plain far below. Their crests are hacked and indented like the “dissipated saw” of the Bab Ballads, and the intervening gorges are half choked with the avalanches of boulders which have cascaded down their flanks. The lower portions of these gorges are filled with trees which grow in the terraced garden plots alongside the little rivulets, but the upper slopes are all bare and tawny like broken craters of half-baked clinker brick.

One of the most prominent of these ridges breaks down into a sort of saddle, and surges up again into a rocky knoll before its final descent to the plain; and across this saddle are hung the houses of Akra, with the ruined fragments of{129} its ancient citadel crowning the highest point of the rocky ridge above. The bulk of the town overflows into the ravine on the western side, where the houses are ranged round the sweep of the hollow like the stepped seats of an amphitheatre. So steep are the slopes on which they lie that the roof of each house serves as a front yard to its next door neighbour, or perhaps one should say to its neighbour on the next story; and the streets are all so narrow that they are quite undiscernible from a distance, though one of them is in fact wide enough to accommodate a rudimentary bazaar.

Akra does not boast a khan, but our zaptiehs had already decided for us at what house we were to spend the evening. We were to put up with the malmudir, the departmental treasurer;[77] and one of our escort had already spurred ahead to inform that worthy functionary of the treat that was in store for him. This seemed rather an arbitrary proceeding, but the malmudir quite acquiesced in it. We met him at the entrance to the town, walking out to make us welcome; a young and pleasant looking man, who greeted us in French very hospitably, and guided us up the steep stepped streets to his house on the saddle above.

None of the houses in Akra can be called in any way palatial, and probably the malmudir’s lodging was a typical residence of the better class. He occupied a single apartment on the first floor, the big landing outside serving as his kitchen and servant’s room, and the ground floor consisting only of an entrance hall and lumber room. The furniture of his living room (as usual) consisted only of carpets and cushions. The windows were set very low down, so that one could see out of them comfortably when squatting on the floor; and above them were square recesses which served as receptacles for books.

He gave us a capital supper, consisting of fried eggs,{130} rissoles wrapped in cabbage, and a curry of meat and fruit. This was served in several dishes on one large tray, round which we all sat cross-legged straying from dish to dish with our wooden spoons. We had only one tumbler between the three of us, which we all used in turn; and the meal was concluded with the usual tiny cups of coffee.[78]

Meanwhile he poured out his woes to us: woes with which we could heartily sympathize, and which afforded an instructive commentary upon the progress of Turkish “Reform.” He himself was a native of Aleppo, a Syrian Catholic Christian. He had been duly trained for his post in the Government offices at Constantinople; and had received his present appointment in pursuance of that great Principle which was first enunciated at the Revolution, recognizing that Christians and Moslems should possess equal standing in the State. This admirable theory worked fairly in Constantinople itself, and even at the more accessible provincial capitals such as Smyrna and Aleppo; but alas for its practical efficacy in such out-of-the-way districts as Mosul! It would take at least a generation for reform to filter through here! Here all the administrative offices had been long since cornered by the invincibly corrupt “Old Gang;” a set of pig-headed reactionaries whose dead weight nothing could shift. What use was it to tell them that Christians and Moslems were equal, when the Koran expressly stated that they were emphatically not? Why should they use the powers that were their inalienable birthright to make true believers obey a Christian dog?

Accordingly the poor malmudir found himself cold-shouldered and thwarted at every turn by the officials who were nominally his colleagues; by the cadi, or judge of the district; by the binbashi who controlled the police. They persistently refused to support him in carrying out his own duties, particularly if the defaulters whom he wished to bring to book chanced to be their own private friends; and{131} their continual snubbing of him had infected even his own subordinates who obeyed him grudgingly and reluctantly. The kaimakam, his immediate chief, had indeed always shown himself friendly; but even with his support he felt he could make no headway; and, though still but new to his office, he was already sick of the job. Indeed he had already written twice to the Vali begging to be transferred to Beirut or Aleppo, but as yet he had received no answer. This however, we privately thought, was not surprising; for Tahir Pasha never answers anybody; and every official in his vilayet would like to be transferred to Beirut or Aleppo if he could!

Of course it is not at all improbable that centuries of subjection have left the Christians in Turkey constitutionally unfit for positions of authority: that, for all their superior intelligence, they are at present as incapable of governing Turks and Kurds and Arabs as the Bengali Babus are of governing Pathans and Sikhs. But even if the power is latent in them, it is bound at first to be exercised in the face of intense resentment; and this fact will long constitute a formidable obstacle to any constitutional reform.

It seemed that the malmudir’s welcome to us was to some extent accounted for by the distinction which European visitors would confer upon him in the eyes of his carping colleagues. He was earnest with us to remain as his guests for a second day in order that he might exhibit us; but from this we begged to excuse ourselves as we could not spare the time. However, faute de mieux, we might at least call on the kaimakam, and thither our host conducted us as soon as we had finished our coffee.

The kaimakam resided in the Government House, a dilapidated two-story building disposed around a forlorn courtyard and generally resembling a khan. It was picturesque enough in a slummy way, and the groups of soldiers snoozing under the lanterns in the deep entrance archway would merit yet higher commendation. But there was little enough of traditional “Oriental glamour” about the dirty white-washed walls; and the governor’s official audience hall resembled an ill-kept village school-room.{132} Conversation turned on the Italian war; a subject on which all parties were profoundly ignorant; for we had heard nothing since leaving Europe, and the kaimakam nothing but what Government channels allowed to filter through. The Government does not encourage the dissemination of inauspicious news; and herein no doubt they act prudently, for such news might easily excite the Kurds to break out in reprisals against the nearest Christians. But it is certainly somewhat amazing to discover how thoroughly authentic intelligence can be stifled. They had heard of nothing but Turkish victories: have very likely heard nothing else to this day.[79]

Two or three of the prominent residents dropped in to chat while we were sitting there; but the resident whom we would most have wished to see was unfortunately not among them. For among the inhabitants of Akra is an old gentleman of the bluest blood in Asia—the last living descendant of the Khalif Harun al Raschid the hero of the Arabian Nights. Akra formed a part of the Abbassides’ ancestral principality before they attained to the Khalifate; and when their dynasty was overthrown by the Seljuk Sultans in 1050, it was to their ancient patrimony that they retired again. Now even this last possession has also slipped through their fingers; and the poor old survivor, though his social status is impregnable, lives on, as a private citizen of Akra, in very reduced circumstances indeed.

Our final impressions of Akra were gleaned in the bazaar, and induce us to rank it more highly as a centre of sport than of business. “Rabbi Mr. Wigram” had needed some trifling repair to his boots, and had accordingly sent them overnight to a cobbler. But when the boots were returned next morning, the part that needed repair had been ignored completely, and the repairer had only displayed his forethought by appropriating the English nails.

Akra, however, in this respect had certainly shown more{133} enterprize than Mosul; for the Sheikh Birader Effendi had previously tried his fortune there. He had the prescience to allow three days for the job; but when the boots were demanded on the morning of the fourth day they had not even lost their nails. Friday (it was explained) had been the Mohammedan Sabbath, and Saturday the Jewish, and Sunday the Christian; and no doubt a Bank Holiday on Monday was only averted by the fact of the boots being prematurely reclaimed.[80]

The second incident at Akra was of a still more farcical character. A Kurd had come in from the mountains in order to purchase a mule, and after a good deal of chaffering had traded off a pistol in exchange. The seller had promptly proceeded to test the purchase money by the rather drastic method of firing a bullet through his leg; and, on the accident being reported to us, we had deemed it our duty to go and volunteer “first aid.” The patient, however, was quite content with his own remedies, and not at all anxious to experiment in new-fangled treatment a la Franga. He was plugging the hole himself with a mixture of butter and cow dung which he was poking in with a stick! Probably this dressing possesses some kind of antiseptic qualities; for it is much favoured in the mountains, and somehow does not seem to prevent the wounds healing. But perhaps the cure results not by virtue, but in spite, of the remedy, for with these tough-fibred mountaineers “first intention” will hardly be denied.{134}

CHAPTER VII

AN ORIENTAL VICH IAN VOHR

(THE SHEIKH OF BARZAN)

Let it be recorded for his consolation that he will learn the worst at the outset. If he is not daunted at Akra he may quite fairly count on winning through. The ascent from that town to the top of the pass behind it is as nasty a bit of climbing as any in all Hakkiari, and he who achieves it with credit may pass as a graduated mountaineer. The path is not so nerve-shaking in appearance as some of the dizzy goat-tracks that have to be encountered beyond it; but it is an epitome of every trial which can be ordinarily presented in concrete form. It is steep and rugged and rotten. It traverses slabs of sloping rock, and sheets of slippery scree. Its surface is pitted like honeycomb with holes about twelve inches deep and six or eight inches in diameter; and if any better traps could be devised for tripping unwary pedestrians, or breaking the legs of horses, no doubt they would be provided to make the entanglement complete. Our katarjis admit that it is bad, but regard the badness as incorrigible. “Her nainsell didna mak ta road” (a fact that is quite self-evident), and “if shentlemans{135} are seeking ta Red Gregarach” what better going can they expect?

From the summit of the pass (full three thousand feet above the plain) we descend into a fertile valley, well watered by a mountain rivulet, and feathery with lofty pampas reed; and an equal ascent on the further side brings us to the top of a second range of mountains, from which we can take our first survey of the wild land whither we are bound.

Beneath us lies the Zab valley, a chaos of hummocks and hollows all flung together confusedly like the waves of a choppy sea; and the broad bright ribbon of the river, almost equal in volume to the Tigris, picks out a devious passage through a maze of interlacing bluffs. The opposite side of the chasm is defined by a bold escarpment, scarred by the tracks of winter torrents and buttressed by jagged limestone fins. And above this, along the horizon, tower the great snow peaks of the Hakkiari Oberland—the rigidus Niphates of Horace; the spot where (according to Milton) Satan first planted his feet when he alighted on the new-made world.

An iron-bound untamable fastness—a regular Brigands’ Paradise—it is known as the Ashiret country, that is to say, “the Country of the Clans.” And the inhabitants (to do them justice) are quite ready to exploit its capabilities. Though nominally Turkish subjects they are actually semi-independent; half borderers of the type of Johnny Armstrong, half highlanders of the type of Rob Roy. Here the Sultan’s decrees are worth little without a visible backing of bayonets; and every individual filibuster does that which is right—or more accurately that which is expedient—in his own eyes. Such authority as exists anywhere is for the most part in the hands of the tribal chieftains: and the suzerainty of the Stamboul Government is just about as effective as the suzerainty of the old kings of Scotland on the north side of Stirling Bridge.

There are three degrees of security for a traveller in Asiatic Turkey. There are districts where he is safe: there are districts where a zaptieh can keep him safe: and there{136} are districts where a zaptieh can’t. Our knights-errant brought us down loyally to the village of Biri Kupra, a ramshackle Kurdish hamlet which stands at the foot of the pass. They escorted us on the next morning as far as the banks of the river—but when we reached the ferry their responsibility came to an end. Across they could not follow us. It was the Sheikh of Barzan’s country. And the Hukumet felt some delicacy about parading their officials in his domain. No doubt he would receive them graciously—under favour and without prejudice; but there was no earthly use in pretending that zaptiehs could protect us there.

It is rather an adventure for a native to travel in the Ashiret country. Supposing that he is at all worth robbing, he should sound his way carefully as he goes. But Europeans enjoy more security. The tribesmen have made the discovery that if a European is molested there is almost inevitably a row. His ambassador prods up the Hukumet, and the Hukumet sends an expedition; and “a mort o’ troops” march through the country, and live at free quarters in the villages, and imprison a number of people who are probably not at all to blame. Thus, though the original aggressor is generally the last person to be directly incommoded, he incurs quite a lot of unpopularity for “breeding such a function” in the land. Even the most reckless marauder will think twice before pulling his trigger upon a convoy that is travelling under the protection of a European hat: and thus the wearer of the hat aforesaid finds that every native who is travelling in his direction will tack himself on to his party and “walk under his shadow” as far as their ways coincide.

We ourselves in the present instance had no cause for any disquietude; for the Sheikh of Barzan is not only one of the most powerful but one of the most respectable of the mountain chieftains, and is pleased to regard all Englishmen as his particular friends.

The Zab, at the point where we struck it, is a broad, deep, rapid, river; and fording is out of the question either for man or beast. The Sheikh usually maintains a horse{137} ferry, of the type we used on the Euphrates; but this was temporally hors de combat, being reported to have sprung a leak. We found it beached on the further shore, and it certainly seemed to us that a little human ingenuity and two or three gallons of tar were all that it needed to make it seaworthy; but all parties seemed quite content to put up for a time with the keleg—a little wattle hurdle buoyed up on four inflated skins.

The keleg could only carry two passengers at a time, or alternatively a very small cargo; and the beasts had all to be unloaded, and induced (most reluctantly) to swim. Thus it took a long time to transport us; but presently we were all loaded up again and proceeded about an hour’s march up a little lateral valley, till we reached the village of Barzan at the foot of the great flanking hill.

Barzan is rather larger than an average Kurdish village, but boasts no distinguishing feature to suggest its importance in the land. Most of even the less powerful chiefs are housed in defensible “castles”; but the Sheikh of Barzan “dwells among his own people,” and his palace is just an agglomeration of several ordinary houses joined in one. It possesses no outer door at all (or none that we have ever discovered), and we entered it by the simple process of stepping on to the roof, and walking across to the summer reception room, a rude belvedere on the farther side. The Sheikh, it appeared, was absent. He had gone on a visit to Amadia, and was expected back the day after to-morrow; but as we were journeying westward we should certainly meet him next day. Meanwhile we were made warmly welcome by his old major-domo the Imaum[81] (an old friend of some of our party), by his young mollah or domestic chaplain, and by several truculent-looking duinhewassels who formed part of his regular following.

We could not, of course, be allowed to pass by the house without eating; but we specially begged of our hosts that (as we were anxious to push forward) they would only give{138} us such food as they could quickly and easily prepare. And we hold it a genuine proof of their friendliness that they actually did as we asked them, bringing eggs, bread, honey, and tea. A big man, who wishes to do you honour formally, would consent to no such curtailment. He would probably keep you waiting for hours while he killed and dressed a sheep.

When we arose to depart the imaum and mollah went with us to a certain tree beyond the village in order to “pour us on our road.” All important houses in these parts have some recognized point on the approach to them, whither the owner proceeds to welcome and dismiss his guests. It is recorded that on one occasion only (in order to meet the British Consul) the Sheikh rode out in person as far as this statutory tree.

Our hosts had provided us with an armed escort—a “Boy of the Belt” in a red turban, indicating that he belonged to the Sheikh’s personal body-guard. And under his guidance we proceeded for a day and a half up the valley, a journey somewhat comparable to the progress of a beetle across the ridges and furrows of a ploughed field. The hills are too stony for cultivation; but here and there a fan of good soil has spread itself out from the mouth of one of the gullies, and has been terraced into grain plots by the inhabitants of the village hard by. These villages (judged by local standards) may be called fairly prosperous-looking, for the Sheikh is a merciful over-lord: but the “roads” are consistently villainous; the “Far Cry” was an asset at Lochow!

In our eyes the first of these symptoms is the one to determine our sympathies. We can forgive much in this country to a chieftain who does (as a rule) honestly exert himself to keep order; who has realized that it pays him better to protect his vassals than to oppress them; and who can be trusted to administer some sort of “Jeddart Justice” in fairly equable fashion to Kurd and Christian alike. But by Turkish officials generally we fear he is less appreciated. The Old Turks hate him with an A because he is Able, and the Young because he is Autocratic: and we cannot pretend{139} to deny that he is sometimes “a bit of a handful,” and that his methods of administration are rather ingenuously Draconian.

As recently as in 1909 he was at open war with the Government, and in this particular quarrel he was not very greatly to blame. The chief sinners were Sabonji Pasha and some of the corrupt gang who were running the administration at Mosul. They coveted some of the Sheikh’s villages, and the Sheikh refused to part.[82] Accordingly they trumped up a charge that he was conspiring against the Hukumet; a charge which could readily be made plausible, for there is not a chief in the province but lets his tongue loose against the Government at times. The true test of serious disaffection, however, is the courting of Russian assistance; and the prominent Russophiles hereabouts are the Sheikh’s particular bêtes noirs.

At any rate the charge won credence. The Sheikh’s friends were arrested and imprisoned. An army was marched into his territory; his villages were seized and occupied, and his wives carried off to Mosul. The Sheikh himself for some months was a homeless fugitive in the mountains; and it was then that he reaped the fruit of his good treatment of his villagers, for not a man, Christian or Moslem, ever dreamt of betraying him to his foes. Then, too, we first made his acquaintance, disguised in mean raiment and attended by a single follower, lurking in some of the Christian villages just beyond the limits of his domain.

But the scoring was not all on one side. Vich Ian Vohr boasted that the race of Ivor would seldom take the field with fewer than five hundred claymores; and the Sheikh of Barzan can muster certainly five thousand, and possibly twice that force. These levies were no more discommoded by the destruction of their “base of operations” than a swarm of the local red hornets whose nest has been demolished by a stone. Three of the seven regiments mobilized against them were captured en bloc among the crags,{140} with arms, ammunition, and artillery; and no commensurate losses were ever inflicted on the mountaineers.[83] Mosul was denuded of troops in order to maintain the struggle and the inhabitants were in a frenzy of terror lest the ubiquitous highlanders should swoop on the defenceless town. But that the Sheikh shrank from a step which would be bound to make the breach irreparable, it is indeed highly probable that these would have proved no empty fears. He is said to have declared roundly that if matters went much farther he intended to capture the place and make it over to the British Vice-Consul! That gentleman was by no means desirous of receiving so inconvenient a gift!

A peace was concluded at last; and the Sheikh was pleased to attribute it very largely to the friendly offices of the British; though really the principal factor was the intervention of a level-headed Vali at Mosul.[84] We did little more than insist that the Sheikh’s wives ought to be set at liberty and treated with fitting distinction; and that, when the “conspiracy” of which he was accused had been officially admitted to be non-existent, there was no longer any valid reason for keeping the “conspirators” in jail. But the Sheikh is “easy with them that have shown themselves easy with him,” and those who take the trouble to “‘gree wi’ Rob” are usually gainers on the deal.

We traversed one of the battlefields in the course of our journey westward: a crater-like hollow in the wilderness, environed by steep stony hills. Here one of the Government regiments encountered the Sheikh and his army; for the{141} Sheikh was present in person, though he left the actual conduct of operations to a certain Abd-’l-Kadr who acted as his “chief of the host.” It was the first regular pitched battle, and the tribesmen were somewhat awed at the prospect of engaging the Hukumet; for which cause, in order to inspirit them, the Sheikh himself fired the first shot. In Kurdistan the firing of a gun constitutes an appeal for assistance; and the Sheikh, with fine dramatic instinct, fired his gun straight towards heaven, appealing to Allah Himself. The event of the day—the capture of the entire regiment, with three pieces of mountain artillery—was thus a prodigious enhancement of his Holiness’s[85] personal prestige. Not only had he scored a valuable point in his secular and temporal capacity, but he was held to have signally vindicated his spiritual pre-eminence as well.

The Sheikh, in the eyes of his followers, is not merely a great tribal chieftain. They believe in his hereditary sanctity: and his clansmen are also his devotees. This fact is strikingly exemplified by an incident which had occurred a little earlier, and which was related to us by Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Christians, who himself inspires equal veneration among his own adherents.[86] A column in pursuit of the Sheikh caught a small boy who had dropped behind the party, and demanded of him with menaces which way the fugitives had gone. But the child was as staunch as steel. “By the Holy Name of the Sheikh I will not tell!” he answered. And that was all they could get out of him either by coaxing or threats. The Turkish Captain was fortunately a kind-hearted fellow, and did not ill-use his small captive; but he did not omit, in releasing him, to draw a moral from his pluck. “We shall not make much of this war,” he observed, with a smile to his officers. “You can judge from this example with what sort of folk we have to deal. This child is in my power utterly. None would call me to account if I killed him. And yet, knowing this, he defies me; and swears by his Sheikh as by a god!{142}”

It was on the evening of the second day after we had quitted Barzan that we drew near to the hamlet of Suryi, planted in the re-entering angle formed by the confluence of the Oramar river with the Zab. It is a mean little place, consisting of some twenty cabins which spill themselves down the face of a steep brae a little way back from the river; and at the top of the bank stands the castle of the village Agha—a rudely built fortified residence like a second-rate border peel tower. It was here that we looked to meet the Sheikh, for it is a recognized halting-point between Amadia and Barzan; and, crossing the Oramar river, we bent our way towards the tower.

It was about five o’clock in the evening that we reached the first house in the village, and the crowd of men and horses which was grouped around the castle was a proof that the Sheikh, “with his tail on,” had already arrived from Amadia. News of our approach had preceded us; and we were met by an embassage from his Holiness bearing an invitation (or should we say “command” under the circumstances?) to partake of his hospitality for the night. We dismounted at the castle door amid a throng of wild retainers, and at the top of the rude stone staircase we were greeted by the Sheikh in person; who led us into the “belai”[87] (or belvedere), which served him as his temporary audience hall, and motioned us to seats on a mattress spread immediately opposite his own.

It was a prodigious condescension from so great a man that he should have come to the stair head to meet us. Most great chiefs will contrive to be absent from the room when European guests are admitted, that they may not have to rise to receive them, and so seem to admit inferiority. But presently the Sheikh vouchsafed us a still greater honour—one that perfectly staggered his followers—by even condescending to sup with us. To think that a man of his holiness should actually eat with two giaours!

Abdul Selim, Sheikh of Barzan, is quite a young man of{143} about twenty-eight years of age. Like most mountaineers he is of medium height, with a slight and active figure and a grave but pleasant face. He was dressed in a white fez and turban, white shirt and trousers, a black gown trimmed with red, and a green cloak over all. His retinue consisted of between thirty and forty retainers—“Boys of the Belt,” distinguished by their red turbans, and positively festooned with bandoliers. Many of these fellows must have been carrying quite two hundred rounds of ball cartridge, and their rifles—Sniders and Martinis—were piled around the walls of the belai. All showed most obsequious deference towards their young chieftain; and it may give some adequate conception of the reverence which they entertain for him to record the fact that he himself, in his own proper person, is a ziaret or place of pilgrimage “within the meaning of the Act.” By his own immediate followers his commands are obeyed instantly and without question; and we have not the least doubt that had he ordered us to be shot, instead of entertaining us graciously, the sentence would have been executed unhesitatingly, Europeans though we were.

An instructive example of their diligence occurred shortly after our visit. A long-standing feud between the Christians of Tkhuma and some of their Kurdish neighbours had recently blazed into activity; and the latter, rather unsportingly, were endeavouring to persuade their co-religionists to join them in a jehad or “holy war.” A jehad is an ugly business: and we were much relieved when the Sheikh of Barzan interfered strongly to quash it; refusing himself to sanction it, and prohibiting his vassals from joining in. He was moved to this action, we verily believe, partly by a wish to oblige us, and partly by his own prejudices in favour of law and order; for he had no particular cause to show favour to the Tkhuma maliks, since they had refused to shelter him when he was a fugitive in the war.

Deprived of the Sheikh’s countenance the jehad proved a rather damp squib. But for a moment it seemed just possible that some of his vassals would break out in spite of him. And scenting insubordination in a certain Tettu Agha, who{144} was about the biggest recalcitrant, the Sheikh dispatched one of his henchmen in order to emphasize his commands. The envoy entered the Agha’s castle and was duly received in audience. He delivered his chieftain’s message, but the Agha proved sullen and obstinate. He reiterated his remonstrances, but the Agha refused to give way.

“The Sheikh’s word must not be broken,” concluded the plenipotentiary. “The Sheikh has sent me to you to tell you to stop at home.”

“And what do I care if he has?” retorted the Agha mutinously. “Let the Sheikh send his orders to others. I don’t intend to obey.”

The Sheikh’s man sprang to his feet, and flung himself upon the rebel. A minute later he burst from the room, brandishing a dripping dagger, and leaving Tettu Agha dead on his own dais.

“The Sheikh’s word shall not be broken,” he proclaimed.

This incident was generally regarded as going a little far perhaps; but no one thought of protesting. The lamented Tettu had never been exactly popular; and what else could he expect, anyway, if he “wadna do what M’Callum More bade”?