Armenians, and many of the friends of the Armenians, seem unable to understand this side of the question. They cried out in horror at the steps (certainly sufficiently grim{245} ones) which the Turk took to preserve his threatened rule: and not without full cause; for the steps referred to were the Armenian massacres. Still, the fact is that if you, being in the same field with a bull, choose to wave a red handkerchief, it really is no use to explain that any animal of ordinary intelligence ought to have known that you only wanted to blow your own nose; and that anyhow the creature’s prejudice against red is very unreasonable! The Turk thinks he has a right to rule; but the only methods he knows are those which did not shock the conscience of anybody in the seventeenth century, but do shock the European conscience now; and hence his verdict was, “The way to get rid of the Armenian question is to get rid of the Armenians.”

This was how matters stood between the parties in the period 1904-1910 when the writer was resident in Van. At that time the reforming or revolutionary party among the Armenians was known by the generic name of the “Fedais;”[121] and was divided internally into two parties, the “Armeni” who were more or less moderate in their views and methods, and the “Tashnak”[122] society, which advocated open violence.

The line which the Tashnak brotherhood followed was simply this:—to provoke open massacre by deeds that they knew must infuriate the Turk; in the hope that if only the massacre was horrible enough, European intervention would follow. There are perhaps two things that may be said in excuse for this appalling line of action. First, that the Tashnakists did expose themselves pretty freely to those perils which they were deliberately drawing down on their unfortunate fellow countrymen; and second, that they had seen success follow the adoption of very similar methods in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria. The headquarters{246} of their organization were in the Caucasus, that sink of all that is disorderly in the Russian Empire; but they had their local leaders in Turkey, and Van was one of their most important centres. Their object was the creation of an independent or autonomous Armenia; and they worked on parallel, but by no means on friendly, lines with the “Young Turk” Party.

As to their methods, Armenian sympathizers were expected to support them voluntarily; but blackmail and terrorism were also used freely—particularly on the wealthier merchants, who (having something to lose) were not merely blind opponents of the Turkish régime. Thus in one case a merchant was captured, and simply given the choice between paying £100 to the cause, or forfeiting his ears; when he offered £50, he was told that in that case only one ear would be taken. Under that pressure he paid, and was released; with the warning that immediate death would follow any attempt to obtain redress from the Government.

In like fashion, the Bishop of Akhtamar, near Van, was deliberately murdered; either for not supporting the movement with church funds, or—as some said—for not exerting himself sufficiently to obtain redress from the Government for his oppressed flock.

Sometimes, however, they did execute a sort of irregular justice. One notorious Kurdish oppressor at least was found shot; and information was sent to the Government that this was the justice administered by the Tashnakist organization for what that man had done, and that therefore if any of the dead man’s immediate rayats were charged with it, the Government officials would hear more of the matter. Had they confined themselves, under the existing circumstances, to this twentieth-century version of the Vehm-gericht, it would not have been difficult to sympathize with them.

Their local organization consisted of a small “inner ring,” which had not more than a dozen members at most. Next to them came perhaps 600 “sworn soldiers,” who were well armed with Mauser pistols, and had each of them taken{247} an oath to fight to the death under the orders of the “ring,” and never to surrender under any circumstances. Beyond these again were “adherents” in indefinite number (perhaps 3000 in all), for whom guns had been smuggled in, and stored in secret arsenals; with the idea that this force could be called to arms if ever an opportunity of open rebellion arrived. If the massacre they courted should begin, these arms could of course be of use for defensive purposes.

The guns were a “scratch lot;” the best being Mausers, but the majority Russian military rifles. It would seem that discipline in the Caucasus was benevolently slack, and that very few questions were asked if a soldier sold his rifle for vodka. They had also a good supply of bombs, the material for which was transported from the Caucasus, and made up locally by a chemist of the band.

In the summer of 1905, the Fedais at large attempted what might be called a guerrilla war on a fairly large scale in the district of Mush, to the west of Lake Van. They said they were interfering to protect the peasants from the troops. The troops said that they had been marched down to protect the peasants from the brigands. And the unfortunate peasants heartily wished both parties away! In any case, there were some 300 Tashnakists wandering in the land, having arrived in small parties from Russia; and they were levying open war on the Government, which had to reinforce the local garrison by some 6000 men to deal with the annoyance, and then failed to catch them. One may have one’s own opinion of the cause and methods of the Fedais; but it must be admitted that their claim that Armenians proved themselves to be as good fighting men individually as any Turk was well substantiated.

In one case, a party of some twenty of these desperadoes were fairly caught by 700 Government troops, regular and irregular, upon an isolated and waterless hill. It did seem that these men were cornered, for there was not cover for a rat to escape by, and no man can fight against thirst. However, the Armenians did not wait for the next day’s attack, but came down that moonless night, provided with{248} the weapons they had—rifles, bombs, and electric torches. Obviously, they had a leader with a head on his shoulders, for their plans were regularly laid. They advanced in couples; and as soon as a challenge was heard Armenian A threw the flashlight from his electric torch on to the sentry, and Armenian B threw the bomb at him and annihilated him. The explosion roused the camp; but the band of Fedais rushed straight on, flashing their lights and throwing their bombs at anything that came in their way. Naturally, half trained troops were not going to face Sheitan himself in this style. They broke; and the band went through without the loss of a man, thanks to an ingenious combination of the tactics of Gideon with those of the modern anarchist.

On another occasion the result was not quite so successful, though the revolutionaries secured a full price for every man they lost.

Eighteen Fedais, their work done, were endeavouring to leave the country, but were forced by sheer hunger to halt near a friendly village, while food was provided for them. Somehow, the fact of their presence leaked out, and the Kurds of the neighbourhood gathered to the prey. The men took refuge in three small caves that stood side by side, serving, as is often the case, for sheepfolds. These were hollowed artifically in loose conglomerate rock, their roof being formed by a comparatively thin shelf of projecting limestone. The Fedais put their bombs in readiness at the cave mouths; these forming their sole weapon: though the fact that they were carrying some £6000 in gold on their persons made them a prize worth winning. One party of Kurds occupied the top of the shelf of rock, while the main body prepared for a frontal attack. As these rushed up the slope, an Armenian in the central cave took up a bomb from the heap that lay ready, and hurled it at the enemy. His aim was not too good, however, for the missile hit the edge of the rock and exploded; the concussion naturally detonating the whole magazine. Of course the six Armenians in that cave were never seen again; though the writer was shown some of the coins that were then in their waist-belts, and which had in several cases been blown{249} clean into the rock, looking as if they had been battered with a hammer on an anvil. If the garrison perished, however, their cave was turned for the moment into a great cannon. Every Kurd in the path of the explosion was killed; and the roof of the cavern, with all the men on it, disappeared into space. Thirty-five Kurds missing altogether, besides a number wounded, was fair recompense for the loss of six men. The assailants had no wish to face the two remaining caves after the reception they got from the first one, and the rest of the party effected their retreat safely.

Nature aided the Tashnakists, by giving them practically inexpugnable strongholds in the land, with ready exits into Persian territory. The great crater of Nimrud, some six miles across, was one of their refuges; and this is paved for much of its area with a maze of corrugated lava whence no man who knows the runs can be dislodged. Here are also hot springs, just of a temperature to sit in comfortably, in which some of these fellows actually lived for weeks during an Armenian winter, with the thermometer far below zero. They had rigged up an ingenious arrangement, so that they could lie in the water and sleep with their heads above the surface.

Their strangest stronghold, however, was the giant lavaflow of Tendurek. Here either the lava has streamed from great horizontal fissures, or possibly the whole mountain has been blown away by the discharge of an accumulation of energy. Whatever the cause, an area some twenty miles square has been covered with a sea of black lava; which has split and fissured in every direction as it cooled, and now resembles nothing so much as a gigantic black glacier. It is a place where any number of men, and any amount of stores, could lie perdu for as long as they wished; for there is an abundant supply of water in the crevasses. One edge of the field is admittedly in Persian territory, and so cannot be policed, even if it were a simple matter to put a cordon round such a place. All the guns of the empire might bombard the stronghold to the crack of doom without inconveniencing its occupants, except by an occasional{250} lucky shot; and the garrison could issue from it at any point to cut up any isolated post. It is an absolutely ideal guerrilla stronghold; for men can move from end to end of it unseen, while every movement of the besieger is conspicuous to them on the bare downs that surround it.

Of course, the game was a superb one for the Tashnakists, or for anyone who enjoys gambling against heavy odds with death as the penalty. For the unhappy Armenian rayats, who wanted to be let alone and given a chance to make a living, it was a different story. The revolutionaries wanted to do them good, no doubt; but few folk really like being done good to. And to like the peculiar Tashnakist method of getting them massacred for the assumed benefit of posterity was impossible for human nature. “We used to have one set of masters, and Allah knows that they were hard enough,” was the moan they made; “now we have two, and Allah alone knows which is the harder.” The revolutionaries came down on them, and demanded, at the mouth of a pistol, supplies to enable them to fight against the Government. Then they withdrew, and the Government came down on the poor rayats in their turn (or in some cases turned the Kurdish irregulars loose upon them), for their crime in “resetting” avowed rebels against the State. How many deaths took place in the summer of 1905 in the Mush district was never known; but the estimates of those who were in a position to know put the numbers at about 5000.

One party of the Fedais, in the course of their retreat to Persian territory entered the city of Van, where their proceedings gave a good instance in petto, of their whole modus operandi.

Entering the “garden city” by night, they encountered one of the police patrols; and a skirmish resulted, in which a policeman was shot. Of course the troops were called out, and the house in which the rebels had been received was attacked and burnt, after another and sharper skirmish. Still they effected their retreat from it, and were lost to sight for a moment in the walled gardens of the town.

The Vali had now to choose. Should he order a strict{251} search for those who were in open war against the Government and had thus outraged his authority? It was in his power to do so, and catch and destroy this band of a dozen men; but it was not in his power to hold the troops if the search, with its attendant street-fighting, once began; and the act spelt massacre for an unknown number of peaceful Armenians. On the other hand, could he allow those rebels to retire uninjured? What would his master the Sultan say to him if he did? And would the troops, one of whose comrades had been “murdered by these Armenian dogs,” obey him if he gave such an order? For twenty-four hours the scales wavered, every foreign house and Consulate being packed with terrified Armenian refugees. While in the Turkish quarter of the town the panic was hardly less, though less conspicuous; for to them every Armenian was a Fedai, and every Fedai had his pockets full of bombs.

The twelve Tashnakists themselves were probably the only people unconcerned; for they had won their game, though they might have to pay the forfeit of their lives, a thing that they had deliberately risked throughout. If they were allowed to withdraw, they had at least flaunted the Government in its provincial capital, and dictated terms to it there. If the attack was made, they could die fighting, and had secured the great “massacre advertisement,” for which they had been playing throughout. The fact is that an opponent who is reckless of his own life is very awkward to deal with! All honour is certainly due to the Vali (that same Tahir Pasha whom we knew in Mosul later), for he decided that, come what might, he would not order the massacre of those whom he was there to protect. He was able to induce the military commandant to withdraw the troops to barracks, and allow the Tashnakists to effect their retreat. He risked his career to save his subjects from their own friends.

Peace ruled in Van for a year or two after this incident; but the importation of rifles and other revolutionary material continued, and considerable arsenals were accumulated: the Kurds on the frontier being glad enough to earn good{252} pay by asking no questions as to the nature of the loads that passed through their territory. Government was vaguely aware of what was going on, and was uneasy; particularly as an oppressive Vali (successor of the shrewd old Tahir) was actually murdered by the Fedais. As this event took place in Russian territory, when the man was on a journey to Constantinople, no local disturbance was caused by it.

The acting Vali who took his place, one Ali Riza, was quietly at work in his house one night in February 1908, when he was informed that an Armenian insisted on seeing him on some important business, which he would disclose to no underling. After some demur he was admitted, and came to the point at once. “See here, Vali Pasha. My name is David; and I am come to tell you that I am one of the ‘inner ring’ of the Tashnakist society. For reasons of my own, I mean to disclose everything that I know to the Government. Give me a band of men now, and I will take them this very night to the house where the rest of the ‘ring’ are to assemble; and to-morrow, I will show you the depôts of rifles and cartridges.”

The motive for this act of exceptionally black treachery was, of course, some quarrel with his comrades. Several versions of this, all coherent enough, but all contradictory, circulated in the town during the next few days; the most probable being the obvious one that he and his chief (the man was second in command of the Van organization) had both fallen in love with the same girl. Most agreed, however, that David had somehow become aware that sentence of death had been passed on him by “the circle”; and hence had declared, “then I will at least have my revenge beforehand.”

Will it be believed that the Vali was either too fearful, or too stupid, to rise to this opportunity? He gave orders to keep the man in custody till next day, saying, “then he shall show us the depôts; and if his story is true about the guns, we can proceed to arrest the brigands themselves.” All suggestions that the guns could not be removed without some delay, but that the brigands would certainly not continue in that night’s meeting-place after the discoveries{253} had begun, were unavailing; and nothing was done that night. Next day the man redeemed his pledge, and there was rare excitement in Van. Rifles by the hundred were unearthed from various places; and one realized, in watching the searchers, how admirably a mud house lends itself to the making of a cache. The earth of Van sets into excellent sun-dried brick (in fact Urartian forts built of it in 800 B.C., remain to this day), and house walls of this material are usually about three feet thick. A hollow large enough to contain a score of rifles can easily be excavated in the middle third of the thickness, and the place built up again. Once let the fresh mud plaster have time to dry, and what tapping or sounding will reveal the hollow that exists behind it? Rifles to the number of nearly 500, half a million cartridges, and some three hundred packets of dynamite, were the spoil of that day.[123]

One must own that the search was conducted as courteously as might be. A large proportion of the cartridges were found in a recess of the wall in the sanctuary of one specially prominent church; but every care was taken not to disturb the adornments of the altar, though irreverent conduct would not have been without excuse just then. Similarly, a young woman found alone in one of the houses that the searchers entered, was not only not molested, but was even allowed to exhaust a most copious vocabulary of abuse on the head of the informer. It was strange to see the Turkish soldiers knocking civilly at doors which could have been sent in by a blow from the butt of a rifle.

The Tashnakists did not part with these cherished treasures without at least a snap. The carts taking the plunder to the citadel were attacked in the street as they left the Armenian quarter; and a very pretty skirmish followed. The combatants took cover in the houses on opposite sides of the road, and fired at one another thence, while the prize of victory lay on the ground between them. With real politeness to the foreigner they selected a battle-ground{254} under the very windows of the British Consulate, so that that official and his guests enjoyed a most interesting view of the proceedings. As a matter of fact, however, it was not courtesy that dictated the choice, but the desire of the Fedais to have their right flank covered by the Consulate garden, which was necessarily neutral ground. The skirmish lasted for about an hour, during which time about twenty-five men (if you count every scratch) were killed or wounded; and the battle was finally brought to a close by a bullet striking the heap of dynamite that lay exposed in the road. Nobody knew whether this was accident or design; but naturally the blow detonated all that was there, and a magnificent explosion resulted. However, with its usual freakishness, the explosive only excavated a huge pit in the roadway, and did no other harm; not even injuring the overturned cart that lay by it!

Of course the Tashnakists vowed vengeance on David, who was made a sort of hero by the Turks, and granted a liberal pension; perhaps with the feeling that he was not likely to draw it for long. Various Mussulman officials declared openly that if he should be attacked, they would exact a hundred lives for his; and it is believed that the principal Tashnakists, hearing of this, ordered that no step should be taken against him. However, they were unable to control their followers; and after an interval of about six weeks, David was shot down in the street by a lad named Tirlamazian, and died a few days later. The assassin escaped for a time.

The Turks kept their word: for something over 100 Armenians (mostly honest shopkeepers returning from the market) were butchered at once by the “black-heads” (kara-bashlar, the low class civilian population).[124] Again it appeared that the troops, assisted by the Mussulman populace, would break into the Armenian quarters of the town, and that a most hideous massacre would follow. Both sides stood to arms, and for a matter of five weeks the tension was very great; hardly any Armenians venturing{255} to leave their quarters. On the other hand, the Turks had just as much fear of entering there, for the position was eminently defensible. The houses of the garden city were too solidly built to be much damaged by field artillery (which was all that was available); and standing as they do for the most part in large gardens surrounded by mud walls, there was a distinct possibility that the troops (if they entered the quarter at all) might be very seriously entangled in them. Further, all the Turkish and Kurdish forces had a very lively respect for the prowess of the Tashnakists, and an exaggerated idea of their numbers.

So the position continued; an anomaly that surely would be possible only in Turkey. A force of armed rebels standing at bay in one ward of the scattered town, and defying the Government in the other. While all the time (for men must eat and Armenians must trade) business was conducted pretty much as usual in the market of Hach Poghan, which stood conveniently on neutral ground at the edge of the two districts. The foreign Consuls, by the way, had insisted that food should not be cut off from the Armenian quarter, on proper payment for it!

Even in Turkey such a position could not continue indefinitely. As soon as a sufficient body of troops, regular and irregular, had been accumulated, and resistance was manifestly hopeless, the Armenian quarter was formally occupied, and regular search made for arms and revolutionaries. Many of the former were found and confiscated; and the twelve members of the “ring” endeavoured to effect their escape from the town. But this they now found impossible. After some searching, their place of concealment was disclosed; and they were marked to ground in one of the kerezes or subterranean channels that bring water from the mountains to the town.

These kerezes are made by sinking pits at intervals of about fifty yards, to a depth of about thirty feet, and tunnelling from one to the other. Many of them date back to the Urartian period of history. In this case, the troops were able to ascertain that the objects of their search were probably in a certain length of channel; but it was{256} difficult to devise any means of making sure, or of getting them out. One soldier, however, volunteered to be lowered down alone to investigate; a plucky act, for it entailed something like a descent into the den of wolves at bay. Down he went; and discovered that they had selected exactly the right one of the series of pits, for he was lowered into the very midst of the gang of Fedais. They seized him, of course, and were about to kill him, when he got his word in first. “Look here, you can kill me of course, but what good will it do you? When I do not come out, my officer will know that you are here, and you can just be smoked out like jackals. Your game is up, and you had better surrender to me.”

Well, the position was hopeless; and possibly eight and forty hours in a dark drain, sitting cramped together with your feet in cold water, and the prospect of slow suffocation to follow, has a damping effect on the courage of the bravest. Anyhow, these twelve men, maugre their vow never to surrender under any circumstances, did surrender to the one; and the soldier had the well-earned satisfaction of sending each of the party up in turn, in the bight of a rope, to where his comrades were waiting for them above ground. They were taken to the town prison, of course, and confined there.

Grim tales are told of torture in such places, when it is needful to extract information from the prisoner; and deprival of sleep and hammering the finger-ends are the reported methods. Still, nothing of the kind was inflicted on these men (save that one of them, the lad Tirlamazian, was flogged), though it was of course known that they had a good deal of important information to give. During their stay in Van jail, they had nothing worse than most uncomfortable detention to complain of; though confinement in a foul cell, swarming with vermin, may become a very fair imitation of torture after a few hours, particularly if the prisoner is chained so that he cannot scratch!

Orders were sent, we believe, for the forwarding of at least the chief of the Tashnakists, Aram, to Constantinople, under strong guard. Once in the clutches of Abdul Hamid{257} his fate would have been a grim one indeed. But before the decree was executed, a marvellous transformation took place. This was nothing less than the Turkish Revolution of 1908, with its consequent amnesty for all political offences. All proceedings were dropped, and the prisoners emerged to be greeted as national heroes after their confinement.

Very soon, however, the real problem of the relations of the Armenian and Ottoman began to come up again in a slightly different form.

The Young Turk ideal was an Ottoman Empire; with equal rights no doubt for all who were content to become Ottomans, but Ottomanization for all. The Tashnakists (who kept up their organization, observing, in answer to all protests, that it was as necessary for them as was that of the Committee of Union and Progress for others) were Armenians first and foremost; and further were anxious to set about the immediate realization of a programme that was wildly Radical, not to say Socialistic, in its objects. Confiscation of all landed property; disendowment and disestablishment of the Church;[125] universal suffrage (which was to include female suffrage by the way), and the abolition of all religious teaching in schools, were some of the planks of their “platform.” All authority, save that of the nation, was disowned; even a parent was not to exercise any power over his son. In fact all the reforms that even a Socialist admits must come in gradually in the West, were to be administered en bloc to an astonished East.

Even a schoolmaster’s authority was declared anathema according to the modern dogmas, and attempts were made to act on this hopeful doctrine. Thus, a certain missionary in the town forbade his Armenian pupils to smuggle revolvers,{258} and other contraband dear to the heart of every boy, into the school premises. Having reason to suspect that the command had been disobeyed, he began a search in the boys’ boxes; but while in the stooping attitude necessary for the purpose, he was vehemently assaulted a posteriori with hat-pins by his pupils, and was solemnly forbidden by the Tashnakists either to cane or to expel those guilty of this lèse-majesté. The first punishment was derogatory to the dignity of the young rascals as free-born Armenian citizens; the second deprived them of their natural Right to a good education. Further, it was solemnly argued, “if we do not send our boys to your school what will become of you? The funds have been subscribed by the friends of Armenia for our teaching, not for your livelihood.” To manage a school under these conditions was obviously difficult; and to quote John Dryden, “the sons of Belial had a glorious time.” But at last the absurdity of the impasse forced even the Tashnakists to be a little more reasonable.

“We work for those who come a hundred and fifty years hence,” said Aram proudly to the Vali.

“Leave that to Allah,” said the more practically minded Turk, “and help us Turks to work for to-morrow.”

“Well you see, I do not believe in Allah,” said the Armenian; who, like most of these Fedais, had been so highly educated that it was impossible for him to believe that any power could have made so supreme a chef d’œuvre as his magnificent self.

“What? Won’t He recognize your importance?” said the Turk shrewdly; after which it was not wonderful that they did not part on too friendly a footing.

However, the Tashnakists soon found that the attachment of their countrymen to the old church that had kept their nation alive through the centuries, was so strong that some outward deference must be paid to it. Therefore, on the principle that it is well to do thoroughly that which you have to do, Aram became a Sunday-school teacher! The spectacle of this atheistic revolutionary (who had deliberately planned, and executed, murders by the dozen; and was{259} indirectly responsible for heaven alone knew how much bloodshed besides), solemnly teaching little girls their Catechism, was at least striking, if not particularly edifying.

Time went on; and gradually, the utter failure of the effort of the “Young Turks” to effect the regeneration of their country became manifest. The handicap against them was cruelly heavy. They were themselves without experience in working that great crazy combination of makeshifts which men call the Ottoman Government. Yet kept going it must be; and the only men who had the requisite knowledge were just that clique of unspeakably corrupt officials whom it would have been the first duty of any good Government to clear away. Further, while the great mass of the subjects of the Sultan, of whatever creed; are easily governed folk enough, and obey any order that the Hukumet gives, within certain limits; yet everywhere in each one of the varied nations there was a small, noisy and irreconcilable minority—sets of men who could work neither with the Government nor with one another.

There was the blind, fanatical opposition of the mollahs, and those Mussulmans whom they influenced. There were the self-styled leaders of each separate Christian nation; who usually misrepresented the inarticulate rayats most woefully, and were clamouring for the immediate introduction of “reforms,” that would have provoked a conservative reaction in France or America. And, moreover, there were very many others of the type that prefers troubled waters, because they are the best to fish in. Further, the Young Turks were themselves theorizers, and theory ridden. Ottomans and secularists, who wished to Ottomanize every one and to disregard religion; and did not realize how much the twin principles of religion and nationality went for in the land they wished to govern.

Thus they brought upon themselves a needless Albanian revolt, and saw much of their prestige vanish in it. They outraged the prejudices of every conservative Mussulman by their open disregard of such an institution as Ramazan. They offended the very Christians whom they were trying to benefit, by the proposal to remove all the distinctive{260} privileges of each millet, and make them all Ottoman subjects and citizens alike. The effect was to make them all as wrathful as the thief who found that he was not to be honoured with a higher gallows than his companions.

Had time been given them, and had the army continued to back them, things might have gone well; for no European proverb holds in Turkey, and there it is not the case that “you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.” Bayonets enough make a very comfortable seat for the Government, or seem to do so. Still, time was not given; and two disastrous wars have not left much of the prestige that is the breath of life to an Oriental Government.

The Turk has the misfortune to be an anachronism in power. His present methods were those of every European Government some five hundred years ago; but European consciences have developed in the interval, and his has not. Modern civilization, though willing enough to shut its eyes to a good deal that is ugly, cannot avoid seeing what the Turk does. He happens to occupy lands which must attract the religious and antiquarian interest of the world, and which are the nearest unexploited field for European capital besides. He is then, and must be, in the limelight. Still, you cannot do in the limelight what sentiment will allow you to do in the dark; and the trouble is, that the Turk knows no other way of doing his business than the habits he learnt when everything was dark. You can give an old dog a new collar, but you cannot teach him new tricks; and even calling the Government of Turkey “constitutional,” has not altered its methods. Bribery is more costly now than under the old regime, in that you have to insure against risk; but it is not less prevalent: and the Turk has been given an excellent additional reason for disregarding the advice of foreign Consuls; for what locus standi have they in a Civilized and Constitutional country like the Ottoman Empire? These facts appear to a European resident to be the two principal results of the “new régime” after five years. What can Dame Europe say or do to the grim old mastiff, who can still bite enough to make her very nervous about handling him, and who{261} says “What my enemies have left me of the kennel is mine; and while it remains mine I will manage it as I like.”

{262}

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAND OF PRESTER JOHN

(QUDSHANIS)

It sounds a staggering statement to make, but it is nevertheless the truth, that all these stories told by the Italian poet as legends current in his day, are literally the fact in all essentials (or were so until very lately), with the Patriarch of the Nestorians in Kurdistan. He is the “Bishop-Prince” of a mountain kingdom of Christians; subject to the Sultan of course, but still a recognized ruler, and ruler by virtue of his Episcopal rank. Even the mountains over which the hippogrif bore Astolpho were hardly more inaccessible than those which girdle the village of Qudshanis; while a very good imitation of the harpies that tormented Prester John are found in the Kurds that ravage the land. English visitors are there too, as members of what is known as the “Archbishop’s Assyrian Mission;”[126] though they, alas, have no magic horn with which to drive away the harpies of to-day.{263}

If, however, the old magical power has gone, some prestige attaches to the name of the English still; for villages where they reside are not raided when all others suffer, for fear that some evil may thereafter befall the thief. The writer once spent a night in a little village of Nestorians in this immediate district, called Shwawutha; a village whose little rock-built church is shown in one of our illustrations. Hospitality was given him there, as a matter of course; but in the middle of the night he was roused by a Dutch concert of the most pronounced description. Men shouted, women screamed, cattle bellowed, and sheep bleated; while a shot or so told that something warlike was afoot. And soon folk came rushing in to tell him that the Kurds had descended on the village, and were engaged at that moment in turning it inside out.

Sure enough, when he emerged in somewhat sketchy toilet, he found himself in the midst of some five and twenty well armed ruffians. Most of them were gathered on the threshing-floors, and threatening the villagers with their rifles; while the rest were coolly rounding up the sheep for the purpose of driving them away. Deponent had some talk with their leader, carefully introducing himself as an Englishman, and laying stress on the fact that he was going down from that village to the seat of government, to interview the Vali and the British Consul. And presently the robber excused himself for a moment and gave an order in Kurdish, which was not understood by his interlocutor, but which resulted in his men allowing the sheep to remain in their folds. He then turned round and explained with all politeness that he and his young men were on a peaceful journey, and desired to be the guests of the village for the rest of that night. Would the Effendi use his influence with the headman to get him to extend hospitality to them? He tactfully ignored the fact that you do not usually occupy a village with an armed force at two in the morning as a preliminary to asking to be received as a guest!

The Effendi told the headman that he had better let it go at that, lest worse should befall him; for naturally he{264} had no means whatever of controlling these fellows if they should break loose. A meal was hurriedly prepared for all the gang, and he sat with their chief till unholy hours that night, or morning, exchanging yarns. Eventually he had the satisfaction of seeing the marauders depart at daybreak. No harm had been done to the place; though had it not been for the “accident” of the presence of an Englishman, there would have been a different tale to tell.

The village of Qudshanis, which is the residence of the Nestorian or Assyrian Patriarch, “Mar Shimun,” and the headquarters of his Church, has a marvellous situation. It lies on a sloping “alp” of rugged pasture, between two mountain torrents which spring from the towering snow-fields to the west of it; and which descend in gradually deepening gorges, enclosing the tongue-shaped plateau on which the village stands. They meet beneath the point of the tongue at the base of a lofty wedge of rock; and thence the united stream flows on, joined by others on its way, till it falls into the Zab some two hours below the village. Nestorian tradition regards the Zab as the Pison, one of the four rivers of Paradise; and the Patriarch will occasionally date his official letters “from my cell on the River of the Garden of Eden.”

The official title of the Church, whose principal bishop resides in this romantic, but singularly inaccessible, spot is “the Church of the East.” This title was given to it originally by those whom we call “the Eastern Christians,” viz. those of Constantinople and Antioch; and by it they meant the Church to the east of them, beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire, in what was then the kingdom of the Sassanid Persians. In the days of its greatness, this communion extended itself marvellously, in just those countries where Christianity finds it hardest to establish a footing now. In the year 1300 its bishops were distributed from Damascus to Pekin, and from Tartary to Malabar. The “Syrian Christians” of the latter land, though they now own a different jurisdiction, still remain as a memorial of its missionary zeal in the fifth century; and the Singan monument in the very heart of China tells of the presence{265} of this “pacific, philosophical, and excellent religion” there also, and commemorates the names of sundry of its bishops and clergy. Nay, the historic Prester John (for he was an historical figure strange to say) was of this Church. A dynasty of Tartar princes of the eleventh century were Christians; and the name of their founder, Ung Khan, readily became Yukhanan, which is John, in Syriac-speaking mouths. Whether he ever was, as a matter of fact, an ordained presbyter is more questionable.

Massacre (particularly the tremendous massacres of Tamerlane about the year 1400), oppression, and the proselytism of better protected and educated bodies, have reduced this Church now to a few wild tribes of mountaineers living in a most inaccessible country; and to a fringe of rayat villages, many of whom are little better than serfs to the Kurds near whom they live. Yet the Church still exists, guarding its independence and its ancient rites, and boasting with legitimate pride that it, alone of all peoples, still uses in daily life the language that our Lord spoke on earth. Whether the dialects of vernacular Syriac that are here in use would have been intelligible in Palestine in the first century of this era, may be doubted; but the statement is so far true, that the language is unquestionably a variant of the Aramaic referred to.

As this Church is a survival of so much that is ancient and that has passed away from other lands, it is appropriate that here alone in all the world, the “temporal power of the Church” should still survive. It is little more than a shadow now, but not a dead thing yet. Mar Shimun holds the village of Qudshanis, and the lands that belong to it, by grant from the Sultan; and until lately every inhabitant of the place was in the happy condition of paying neither rent, rates, nor taxes to anyone. Unfortunately the grant was a merely verbal one, made in the days when you did not ask your king to sign papers from fear that he would “play the Jew” and go back from his given word, and when the evidence of the “grey-beards” of a place was enough to prove a fact. Now there is a new rule in the land, the rule of forms and pens and ink and paper;{266} and this new régime has not recognized the old right. A harmless and picturesque survival has gone; taken away in the interests of civilization and uniformity, by the same people who were so desirous of substituting a Parisian boulevard for the Roman walls of Constantinople, and for the same reason.

One other feature of the old rights remains—besides the fact that the peacock, the bird of royalty, still walks the patriarchal terrace.[127] The wild Christian tribes of Hakkiari, whither no Government of any sort has ever extended, still pay tribute to their Patriarch for transmission to the Sultan; and not taxes through the tax-collector, like the rest. This, again, is based on custom only, and if it were challenged (as it will be ere long), the tribes could show no document acknowledging their right; for it simply arose from the fact that the Ottoman Government was not disposed, or able, to enforce their government practically in this wild district. It was easier to give the Patriarch, whom the tribesmen did reverence, a few decorations and a small salary, and to set him to collect such tribute as he could get the tribesmen to pay. It was an acknowledgment of jurisdiction that could be made more effective if ever the opportunity should offer.

Westerns, accustomed to correct Western notions of managing Church and State, hear with a shock that the patriarchate of this ancient church is hereditary in one family; as indeed is the case also with almost all its bishoprics. Bishops do not marry (though other clergy are free to do so at their will), so the office cannot go from father to son. It does go, however, from uncle to nephew, and so keeps in the “Episcopal house”.

It is a strange custom; yet it is not so long since it prevailed in at least one part of Europe; for fifty years ago it was the established order of things in Montenegro. We believe that it was the father of the present King Nicholas who first refused to be consecrated bishop, and to refrain{267} from marriage, when he acceded to the hereditary chieftainship of the “Black Mountain;” though all his predecessors had done so before him. If the custom went on so long in Europe, one need not wonder overmuch if it still prevails under similar circumstances in a remoter land.

The fact is, that among Christians who are still in the wild tribal stage of evolution, the Episcopate is much too important a thing in the tribe to be allowed out of the House of the Chief. Further, the idea of hereditary high priesthood, or family sanctity at any rate, is thoroughly congruous to Oriental thought. Among the Kurds, Sheikhship, which is hereditary religious chieftainship, is a common thing enough; and the Aaronic high-priesthood is at least a respectable precedent to refer to! Perhaps the Patriarch’s own statement of the case, as made to the writer, gives as good a defence for the custom as can be made. “Of course, we know that this Natar-cursiya system” (the Syriac name for the habit) “is as thoroughly against primitive practice and our own canons as a thing can well be. Tell me though, you who know our people and circumstances, what other way is open to us? Free election by our wild tribesmen? That means a free fight every vacancy. Nomination by the Turkish Government? If we were lucky, we might get some feeble old monk, who had done no harm to anyone, and never would do any good. We should be much more likely, however, to get some supple blackguard, who asked for a bishopric as his pay for some dirty job done for a Turkish Vali. So we have dropped into this hereditary system; and we think that we have as good a chance of a good bishop as others have of a good king.” Really the writer had no reply to make; and could only feel thankful that his Holiness had not the knowledge that would have enabled him to continue, “and you know, however uncanonical and unprimitive it is, it cannot well be more so than nomination by a lay Prime Minister. You maintain that custom because it works fairly well. So do we.”

One result of an hereditary Episcopate is that the bishop is often absurdly young in years. The present holder of the Patriarchate is of the mature age of twenty-three, and{268} is in the ninth year of his consecration! That a lad of that age (though admittedly maturity comes quickly in the East) should take himself very seriously as an Archbishop, is too much to be expected. Still he does take himself very seriously as the responsible Head of his nation; as the one to whom all have the right to turn in their need, and who is bound to help them to the limits of his power. Long ago, a poet in this land sketched what an ideal king should be; and the main feature of his portrait was that such an one should “preserve the souls of the poor,” “delivering the poor when he crieth” and counting “their blood dear in his sight.” That is still the ideal of kingship in this land; and this lad (to his credit be it said) has loyally endeavoured to live up to it. It would have been easy for Mar Shimun to make comfortable terms for his House and himself, had he been content to leave his people to look after their own interests. On the contrary, he has habitually sacrificed his own ease and comfort; and has run serious risks again and again, in order that he may try to protect “the sheep whom God has committed to him” either from Kurdish raider, or from the worse oppression of the Ottoman minor official. The Eastern ruler who rules for his people is a rare phenomenon and a high character.

An instance or two of the sort of work this young man has to do, and the spirit in which he undertakes it, will give some idea of the conditions of his life. The writer has known a case, where an important mountain chief brought up an unworthy candidate for priest’s orders, only a few weeks after the lad had himself been consecrated as Patriarch. The request was met with the silence which in the East means refusal. It was repeated more urgently, to be met again by a quiet but decided negative.

“But the man is your own cousin my Lord!” said the astonished chief; “how can you refuse this to him?”

“Malik” (i.e., “chief”) came the answer, delivered without either swagger or fear, “the whole millet is equally ‘the cousin’ of its Patriarch.”

On another occasion, he had to undertake a piece of work most eminently episcopal in character, but hardly usual in{269} the West, viz. the reconciliation of a feud between a Kurdish and a Christian tribe.

Preliminaries were arranged by him between the two chiefs; and it was finally agreed that twenty “leading men” from each sept should meet with Mar Shimun in a certain valley, where the last points could be settled at a personal interview, and peace formally made. The Patriarch was prepared, of course, for the fact that every delegate came fully armed; but he had not quite expected that each one of the forty should think it needful for his dignity to come like Vich Ian Vohr, “with his tail on,” accompanied that is by four or five followers, all also armed! Further, each side (as was discovered later) had provided an ambush in a convenient place, so as not to be taken unawares in the event of treachery on the part of the other.

Walking with naked lights in a powder magazine was a safe business compared to that conference; and the Patriarch, having got his parties in two villages, divided by a stream, spent most of the day going to and fro between them, arranging the final details. All was settled at last; and “Now,” said the Patriarch, “leave your guns here in the shade, and come down to the stream and shake hands.”

They came as ordered, without their guns. But it was observed that every man of the forty came down with his right hand on the hilt of his dagger; and when he had to take it away in order to grasp the hand of his opposite number, he put his left hand there instead! However, all passed off well; though the Armenian servant who handed round the coffee that formed the ceremonial hospitality which all had to share, trembled so violently that he upset the cups! For a moment it was a question whether this would be taken as a joke or a bad omen. Then luckily somebody laughed; and a general guffaw saved the situation.

When all were talking in friendly wise, and chaffing one another over the episodes of the feud, it was discovered that each party had brought down its local lunatic to provide amusement for them during the hours of waiting. Some one with a sporting soul suggested forming a ring,{270} and putting up a cock-fight between these two unfortunates. Mar Shimun did his best to dissuade them; having a well-grounded fear that if the two came to blows, each man of the forty would take sides with his own idiot, and that the whole feud would be re-opened with a particularly sanguinary fight. However, to his relief, though to the disappointment of others, the lunatics showed themselves possessed of more sense than any of their companions. Each was provided with a thick stick, and told that the other had insulted all his ancestry; but they fell to talk before proceeding to “lay on load;” and got on together so well that they spent the rest of that day in friendly converse. When they finally parted, each declared that the other was the most sensible man and the best company that he had met in all his life.

In all his work, both spiritual and political, Mar Shimun has had two helpers, one of whom is with him still. This is his sister Surma, “Lady Surma of the house of Mar Shimun;” a singularly cultivated and high-minded woman. She has been thoroughly well educated (e.g. she speaks English well, and is well read in such authors as Scott, Stevenson and C. M. Yonge, besides English devotional theology), she yet remains a thorough Oriental, and a devoted member of her own Church. She is a recognized authority in all the rites and services,[128] and the trusted adviser of her brother (whose senior she is by a couple of years) in all the work of his office. Lady Surma is a professed nun (rabbanta) of the Nestorian Church; but this does not imply a cloistered life, for monasticism in this land has developed in a very peculiar fashion. The monasteries and nunneries have practically all perished, though their endowments (or some of them) are still recognized as Church property; but monks and nuns—rabbans and rabbantas, still continue. Those who feel the “call to the religious life” follow it in their own families; living unmarried, abstaining from meat, and devoting themselves{271} to good works and the services of the church. They maintain themselves by their own labour, and (with the exceptions mentioned) follow no special rule. If they marry, for instance, they have departed from a high purpose, but have broken no solemn vow. Rather strangely, the system has thus fallen back to something very like what “the virginal life” was in the early days of the Church, before monastic rules were formulated. This has come about without the knowledge or intent of its present professors; but the parallel with the conditions of e.g. third century Africa is amazingly close.[129]

As bishop, Mar Shimun is of course a rabban also, and as such eats no meat. This, however, implies no great hardship in Qudshanis, where indeed the visitor may be recommended to consult his own comfort by following the same rule; for meat is both hard to come by and seldom good to eat.[130] The course of generations, however, has evolved quite a number of good vegetarian recipes, not indeed for the patriarchal table, for there is none, but for the patriarchal tray!

Mar Shimun’s other counsellor was an Englishman of most exceptional character; the late Doctor William Browne, of the “Archbishop’s Mission;” who for twenty-five years lived in this remote village as adviser and friend of this Church, and of two successive Patriarchs in it. In spirit a devoted fifth-century hermit, who somehow was born in nineteenth-century England, he applied himself whole-heartedly to the care of the Nestorian Church and its members, as their teacher, healer, and at times rebuker. He lived their life with them, and now sleeps in their midst. Many of the memories of one of the most picturesque and{272} romantic of modern lives were lost irrevocably at his accidental death in 1910; but one or two which the writer received from him are worth inserting, as throwing light both on the conditions under which he lived, and on the character of the man himself.

In January and February of the year 1900, the news of the “Black Week” in South Africa in the previous December filtered slowly through the glens of Kurdistan. Mr. Browne (as he then was) was in his room in the village of Qudshanis, when two visitors were announced; deacons of the Church both, and good friends of their host. In they came, appearing fully armed and equipped for a journey.

“Peace be to you, deacons,” said the Englishman, “Are you going on a journey at this season?”

“Upon you be peace Rabbi,” came the answer; “Could you tell us the way to South Africa?”

“To South Africa? Why on earth do you want to go there?”

“Well, Rabbi, we owe a good deal to you English; it seems from what we hear that you fellows don’t understand fighting behind rocks. Now we do know that here in Hakkiari if we know nothing else, and we thought we ought to go and help.”

They would certainly have been a picturesque reinforcement for Lord Roberts; but it came out on inquiry that there really was no way of getting to Africa without crossing the ocean, a prospect far more dreadful than battling with any number of Boers; and so the volunteers returned regretfully to their homes.

The “debt which they owed to the English,” by the way, was principally the service rendered to their nation by Stratford Canning in 1847; when he insisted on the restoration of the children stolen as slaves by the Kurds under Bedr Khan Beg, the Mira of Bohtan, who perpetrated a fearful massacre of these mountaineers in that year. The return of those who had been given up as dead (and who were brought back in some cases from Aleppo and Smyrna) made a deep impression on the people, and has never been forgotten since.{273}