We spent all the morning in the bazaar, and returned for lunch, which appeared about noon. In the afternoon, about the time tea was served—for the Persian invented afternoon tea long before Europe—we went to the divan of Lady Adela. The long room this time was crowded to its fullest. Near the mattress of Lady Adela two others had been put, one for Majid Beg, the Pasha’s eldest son, a man of forty-five or thereabouts, and Tahir Beg, both of whom usually called in the afternoon. The former was already there, a stern Kurd, totally unlike his rakish-looking younger brother. A much bigger man, his grave face was much more of an English cast than any other Kurd I ever saw, though an immense number of them have the features and appearance of the Saxon races.

Blue eyes, a fair complexion, short, straight nose, stubbly moustache and square chin, were the facial features one noticed at once; and he sat, hand upon hip, making no remark to anyone, occasionally nodding in reply to something Lady Adela said. All the Jaf chiefs have this characteristic of silence, and will sit for hours sometimes without uttering a syllable. Round the room, squatting against the wall, were all sorts and kinds of Kurds. Natives of Halabja and the district were there; two stray Hamavands, on goodness knows what business, sat there silent and awkward, dark-featured, wild-looking men, who kept their rifles in their hands and their alert eyes ever on the glance this way and that, from sheer force of habit. A black-browed priest from Pava, a village in Persian Kurdistan, three peasants from Sina, and various merchants, went to make up a collection of all sorts of southern Kurds. Every one, even to the shopkeepers and the priest, carried the large Kurdish dagger. Menservants stood about round the door and by their mistress and master, and a stack of guns in the corner represented the property of a number of the assembly. Outside the room in the verandah the overflow pressed their noses against the glass doors and occasionally shouted remarks, often enough in answer to Lady Adela’s comments. Rakish-looking handmaids in flowing robes and turbans set askew, stood about, or brought cigarettes, fanned Lady Adela—for the room and the day were warm—or fetched scissors and tape for the silk cloth she was inspecting. A Jew of the bazaar was displaying to her his wares, taking huge orders for all kinds of stuffs, and squatted before her, making notes in Hebrew on a dirty scrap of paper. The maids advised, criticised, and chose cloth and stuff for themselves, which Lady Adela would promptly refuse, or occasionally grant them, for she treated them remarkably well. The audience made remarks upon the proceedings, often enough chaffing Lady Adela regarding her purchases, when she would retort in quick Kurdish with the best humour, everyone joining in the laugh which not infrequently was against her. A shopkeeper arrived with a bill long overdue, and she endorsed it on the back, making him the owner of a quantity of wheat when the harvest should be in, for she possessed no hard cash, or professed to own none. While she yet measured silk, two riders still in their scarlet riding-boots, rifle on shoulder, stumped in, leading between them a wretched Arab tribesman, clad in the traditional raiment, the single shirt that has gained for the Arab the nickname “Trouserless” from Kurd and Turk. His head was bare, for he had lost his “kefia” and “agal,” and he shrank and shivered as he was thrust forward into the assembly. Never had he seen so wild and fierce-looking a gathering. Even Lady Adela, in her bright garments, her eyes flashing from under a big turban with hanging tassels, set askew, had the barbaric and ferocious Kurdish appearance of the stories, and the sight of so many of these big-boned, armed men cowed the miserable Arab, used only to ragged creatures like himself. Nor was his discomfort at all eased by the laughter that greeted his appearance. His guards, too, seemed to regard the affair as a joke.

Lady Adela asked the cause of this apparition, and the guard, with the air of one who relates a funny story, told how the captive had attempted to rob one of the villages of Shahr-i-Zur. It appeared that for some reason he had gone to Sulaimania with camels, and having become separated from his mates, was attempting to find his way back to the lowlands via the Khaniqin road. He had begged for, and been granted shelter and food at the house of a Kurdish peasant, and was put to sleep in a shed where a donkey was stabled. He had stolen from here a chain, and having no place to conceal it, wound it round his waist under his shirt, and made off in the dusk of the early morning. The peasant, spying his flight, on principle pursued him, when the accelerated pace and the weight of the chain together shook it from its place, and, falling about his ankles, tripped up the unfortunate Arab. The Kurd caught him, and finding nothing handier than the chain, bound his legs with it and left him to stew in the sun, till two of Lady Adela’s riders coming up, he handed over his capture, and he was brought into Halabja, running at the horses’ stirrups.

The chain, retained as an evidence of his guilt, they had hung around his neck; and as he fell upon the floor weeping and trying to crawl to the feet of Lady Adela to kiss them, the company failed to maintain their seriousness, even the stolid Majid Beg joining in the general laugh.

An interrogation of the culprit should now have taken place, but no one appeared to know Arabic, except the one word “Uskut” (“Be quiet”), which was used, and not without need, for the fellow’s wails and weeping filled the room.

The only remark Lady Adela felt called upon to make was one against her own people, and which was received in good enough part:

“What shall be the fate of him who would steal from a Kurd? Are not the Kurds supposed to be the worst robbers on earth? Take him away and loose him.”

As they hauled him to his feet and dragged him from the room, his wailing redoubled, for he must have thought he was going to execution instead of to liberty.

As he went out, Tahir Beg was announced, and everybody got up on his feet while he entered, slowly followed by a string of people, who found places somehow among the throng. Tahir Beg himself picked his way among them and took a seat upon the mattress near by, urbanely inviting me to a seat beside him, when he commenced a conversation about the merits of French and Persian.

After his arrival the divan did not last long. First Majid Beg left, then Lady Adela, rising, retired to an inner room, and the company was dismissed. Tahir Beg asked me to come to his evening reception upon the roof, which took place every night. Returning to my room, I found a caller in the person of a clerk or scribe of Tahir Beg, who was smoking one of my cigarettes and gazing out of the window. Like most of the inhabitants of this queer household he was a Persian subject, native of Sina, but wore the long Jaf dress and zouave jacket. He, however, refused to part with the Sina head-dress, and still wore the low skull-cap surrounded by fringed silk handkerchiefs. He had several matters to discuss. First to recommend a man who had applied for the post of personal servant to me—him I arranged to see in the morning; next, to ask me the right price of a Browning pistol, which he had purchased for seven liras; and lastly, to know if I possessed any books in Persian. I had an old torn copy of Saadi, and this I gave him, and he sat there reading it indifferently and going into rhapsodies over verses he barely understood, but whose sonorous syllables and broad vowels appealed to the Kurdish ear. It must also be remarked that among the more cultivated Kurds of the south it has always been the fashion to affect a passion for Persian, which is the reason of so many of the Kurdish poets writing almost solely in that language, and neglecting their own language, which lends itself to poetry of the ballad type very excellently.

This young man, Hasan by name, had, I heard afterwards, the reputation of being the “blood” of the place, and a rhymester, doubtless in imitation of his accomplished master, whose verses it was his duty to write down at dictation. He had, it appeared, killed someone in a fight at Sina, and had fled to Halabja for Lady Adela’s protection till the affair could be settled. He had then fallen in love with a maid of his patroness, by name Piruza, a pert girl of Sauj Bulaq, of the Mukri—also a Persian Kurd. I had the pleasure later of witnessing their somewhat hoydenish flirtations. This is one of the most remarkable features of Kurdish life. Among other Muhammadan nations, whose women are strictly secluded, marriages can only be matters of arrangement by third parties; but among the Kurds, where the women are practically as free as in any European country—except that they do not go to the bazaar—free intercourse between the sexes is the rule, and the result is a large number of love marriages, which is all for the good of a race so simple in habits and life.

Hasan attempted to fix upon me the profession of doctor, for someone had already hinted that a man and a Persian who had seen Europe and possessed a large trunk, evidently hailing from far lands, must be a doctor. With considerable skill he led the conversation round to medicine and illnesses, and involved me in a long discourse about them, and finding my opinions apparently sound, left me, to confirm the rumour.

Having dined, I found my way in the dark to beyond Tahir Beg’s portico, and found three benches arranged so as to make three sides of a square upon the roof. Upon the middle one Tahir Beg sat, silent as usual, and upon the others an equally silent company of merchants, a couple of priests, and two Turks in uniform. I was given a place by the host, and wrapping myself in my camel-hair cloak, gathered my feet under me, and added my silence to that of the others after I had received the greetings of the company and returned them one by one.

After some time a Turk who was opposite me, addressed me in his own language, asking if I had been to Constantinople, and receiving an affirmative reply, began to question me as to where I had stayed and how I had liked it. I was forced to say I had lived in Stamboul, for I feared that if I said that I had been in Pera he might wonder, and justly, what a Persian was doing in that exclusively European quarter. Fortunately my excursions to Stamboul had been frequent, and I knew it well, and he, thinking he had found in me a sympathiser, launched out upon an eulogium of that city, and cursed the fate that exiled him to the farthest corner of Kurdistan. He spoke disparagingly of Halabja at last, led to it by his comparisons of Turkey and Kurdistan, and immediately Tahir Beg awoke from his silence, and in a curt sentence asked why he had not stayed in Constantinople, which would have conduced to everybody’s comfort. Finding the atmosphere hostile, the official—a bimbashi unattached—took his leave without further conversation.

Tahir Beg then began to ask me about various places, and drifted into a political conversation, in which he discussed the Balkan and Cretan questions, showing himself remarkably well informed, indeed far more au courant with the subject than myself, who took little interest in such things. However, I could give him information upon points nearer home, upon the northern frontier, where the Turks were encroaching upon Persian territory. Great interest was evinced by all those present in the current political events, and, like most Kurds, they showed themselves more in sympathy with the Royalists than with the Popularists, whom they regarded as a number of mischievous busybodies without any talent for ruling their fellows, an opinion very true to a great extent. The feeling against the Turkish Parliament was strong enough too, for Sultan Abdul Hamid had always regarded the Kurds more mildly than his predecessors, and had done his best to bring them into touch with the semi-civilisation of Constantinople, without capturing their chiefs by treachery or imposing undue taxes. Was it not also Sultan Abdul Hamid who had given to the northern Kurds arms and ammunition, and a uniform, and called them Hamidie Cavalry, and let them loose to loot and raid where they pleased?

The system of government by representation is repugnant to the Kurd, whose rule has always been by hereditary chiefs, in whom the ruling instinct is born, and who are undoubtedly the fittest of their race and tribe to be at its head. And if the Kurdish nomad is reckoned unfit and not sufficiently intelligent to know what is best for him, what then of the Turkish peasant, an oaf of the understanding of a cow, and as inferior to the Kurdish peasant in wits as the sloth is to the horse. Thus these Kurds argued, and argued truly, making yet a very good case for despotic government in Eastern Asiatic Turkey and Kurdistan.

While we were drinking coffee out of little Turkish cups, someone started the question of where Lady Adela would go for the summer months. There was some difficulty this year about it, for the Pasha had been kept in Sulaimania by Government affairs, and still remained there, so the necessary arrangements for moving the great household were as yet unmade.

Lady Adela generally went to a hill village in the Aoraman Mountain, or to a little place called Merivan, in Persian territory. Tahir Beg usually followed, or went to his town of Panjwin, three days’ journey from Halabja, where a great gathering of Jaf chiefs and tribes took place each year, a sort of summer conference; and the other Kurdish leaders came in numbers to spend a short time there, to hear what passed, and to keep up friendly relations with the Jafs. From Sina a large number of “Begzada,” or aristocrats, came to see Tahir Beg and talk Persian poetry; and more serious chiefs from Persian Kurdistan came too, but not to Tahir Beg, for their business was with the powerful Mahmud Pasha, who had come with the tribe to Panjwin by June.

By the time this discussion was finished, and no one the least bit more enlightened than before, it was late, and Tahir Beg rose, and by departing broke up the party, which dispersed.

Next morning Lady Adela sent for me to read some Persian to her. I found her busy with correspondence, and she handed me several letters to read to her, and at her dictation I took down several replies, correcting her Persian where it departed from the proper idiom. While thus engaged, one, Amin Effendi, was announced, and followed close upon the heels of the servant. He was a curious man to look at, for he had not the Kurdish appearance at all. A tall, broad man with a huge face, little blinking blue eyes of the colour one sees in north Germany, pale straw-coloured hair, a long, prominent, bony nose, and a smirk that apparently he could not banish from his wide mouth.

He was well-dressed, and carried in his hand a little roll of paper, as if to indicate his superior position. With considerable assurance he came in and took a seat upon one of the large leather trunks ranged round the room. Lady Adela, to whom he was evidently some kind of dependent, asked him what he wanted; and he replied, that hearing of my presence he had called now, hoping to meet me. He had heard, he said, that I had been to Europe, and could speak French and English, and was moreover a doctor, and could take photographs. All these qualifications and achievements he dwelt upon, implying untold congratulations upon their possession, his servile smirk never leaving him. Lady Adela ordered him to speak French with me, and he, to my surprise, addressed me in that language, which he had some difficulty in speaking, continually inserting Kurdish words in the conversation. He told me he had known it well once, and it appeared certainly that it was more a case of having forgotten than ignorance. But what forced itself upon the attention was the remarkable accent with which he spoke French, for had we been in Europe, he would have announced by his pronunciation a German nationality. One did not expect that of a Kurd speaking French, and I naturally asked him where he learned it, and received an evasive reply. In answer to my question as to his trade and occupation, he informed me with some pride that he was Lady Adela’s doctor, and wanted to know where I had graduated for the profession. I disclaimed any knowledge of surgery, and told him that whoever might be responsible for the rumour of my qualities as a physician, it was not myself, at which he appeared somewhat relieved, and told Lady Adela what I had said, while I followed it up with strong confirmation. Soon after, he took his leave and I mine.

So much curiosity had the man aroused in me that I went to my new friend, Mansur the Christian, to ask who was this Amin Effendi—the very name was not Kurdish.

“That creature!” he exclaimed, with a snort of disgust, “may the curse of Iscariot be upon him!” and then, hastily remembering he spoke to a Musulman, fell to a sudden silence.

“Well,” I said, “why?”

“As you can see,” he replied, “he is no Kurd. He is by birth a German of Constantinople whose father sold pills, but who was forced to leave the city owing to some crime he committed. He had two sons, this Amin Effendi and another. These came to Bagdad, and there did that which was wrong, and had to fly. Fate brought them this way to Halabja, when finding themselves upon the borders of Kurdistan, they feared to go forward, and having no means of going back, threw themselves upon the mercy of the Qazi, and turned Musulman. Uthman Pasha protected this one, and the other one went to the patronage of Shaikh Ali of Tavila, where he now is. They took the names Amin Effendi and Ali Effendi, and are both renowned for the meanness of their nature, their petty intrigues, and their ignorance and idleness. This Amin Effendi professes to be a doctor, but whatever a man or woman may submit to him for cure he has but one remedy, to sell them at a high price the Epsom salts he buys in the bazaar from the Jews. So none go to him, and he lives by the bounty of Lady Adela, who sometimes gives him a suit of clothes and allows him to pretend that he is her doctor.”

“He has heard, by the way, that you are a doctor; and as you have been to Europe he will think that you are accomplished, and will use every means in his power to discomfit you, so I warn you to be on your guard against him.”

This surprising account I heard with interest and also with some little feeling of apprehension, which, however, left me when I thought how long the individual had been here, and how he must have completely forgotten Europe. Nevertheless, there were certain things he might easily have made the subject of awkward enquiries had he been so disposed. For instance, my box had upon it in large letters, E.B.S., quite a sufficiently remarkable fact for one who knew European characters, and me as Ghulam Husain. Hitherto the initials had raised no comment, for I had ever since Diarbekr kept the trunk in a canvas bag, which made it appear—en route—like a bale of goods; but here, to get at something, I had taken it out, and there it stood, an obviously London trunk—obviously English.

How truly Mansur had spoken of his mean spirit was proved that very evening. I had eaten my dinner, and was quietly smoking, when a tap came upon the door. Now a Kurd does not know what it is to knock at one’s portal—he either throws it open, or shouts from the other side; and so I knew it must be Amin Effendi. I unlatched the door, and he came in with the air of one who comes surreptitiously upon some errand of importance. As he entered he glanced over his shoulder, and disregarding my invitation to the carpet, sat upon the box, his abba covering it effectually. He began to speak in French, the peculiar nature of which would have rendered intercourse difficult had I not known Kurdish and been able to discount his German accent.

“Che voulez,” he commenced, “un ... un ... wurd, petit, peu de nitrate d’argent pour des darman ... medecang, c’est très nécessaire.”

This I understood to be a request for nitrate of silver for medical purposes, but I speedily assured him that I had none, and he as quickly passed over what had evidently been an excuse for coming. Drawing his cloak close about him, he leant forward to where I sat upon my carpet, and lowering his voice, in halting phrases told me the subject of what I put down here.

“You are, sir, a civilised man; I too am a civilised man, for I was not always thus;—my father was a distinguished doctor in Constantinople, and I was his eldest son, educated in the best schools and colleges. It was ill-fortune that sent me to the East, and an execrable stroke of bad luck that landed me here among the savages of Kurdistan. It is now thirteen years that I languish here, and I have lost the power, did I possess the means, to go back to Europe, which I have forgotten, and whose customs and language I only remember as one remembers a beautiful dream. Ah, sir, what folly induced you to leave civilisation and comfort and trust yourself among these cut-throats, these brigands?”

“Why,” I said, “my country lies much farther yet, this is but a stage upon the way, and I am well content to stay awhile where I find kindness, as I do from those whom you call barbarians.”

“Have a care,” he whispered, “you know not the depths of duplicity and insincerity in which the life of this place is sunk. Even now those who smile upon your face, frown at your back and seek to destroy you, and it is for that that I am come to warn you. There is a rumour, spread by I know not whom, that you are a Persian of the revolutionary party, seeking to spy out the land here, and disaffect the chiefs against the Turks. And with such they have a short way here. There was last year a foreigner who came from Sina, and he told us all he came to collect the ancient dialect of Aoraman. He was, he said, a Dane, but I tried him, and he could not speak German. But not desiring to be a party to his discomfiture, I warned him that he was upon dangerous ground, and that I knew him for a Russian, for he had books in that language in his possession, and I saw maps in his tent; for he was very friendly, and invited me to sit with him. So I warned him, but he persisted in his assertion of innocence. Well, one morning he was looking at a distant hill through a pair of field-glasses, and I was struck by their strange appearance, and taking an opportunity to examine them found a small camera concealed within. At this time Tahir Beg began to be suspicious, for he more than any of the chiefs resents the appearance, nay the very name, of a Ferangi, and he communicated with Uthman and Mahmud pashas. These each gave the traveller a note which he might show to the head-men as he passed their villages. It permitted him to stay half an hour in any spot, but upon the thirty-first minute he was to be shot. In one day he was out of our lands and far away. Now, I would not draw any comparison between yourself and that spy, for I am convinced of your bona fides; but Tahir Beg has suspected you, and has advised Lady Adela to keep a watch upon you. There is a feeling against you, and I warn you that the consideration would not be granted you that was accorded to the Russian, for you are but a Persian, and a bullet would settle all affairs simply and quickly. This morning Tahir Beg was for having you examined and shot; but I, knowing your excellence, and weeping inwardly for you, pleaded and gave my own guarantee that you were but what you professed to be, a perfectly innocuous person. Till at last I so prevailed that he relinquished the subject; but if you will take my advice you will not extend your stay.

“Ah, sir, you know the old German proverb, ‘The mountain looks fine from afar, but how disappointing when under it.’ Such is but too true of this place. From afar, where the traveller talks of the hospitality of Lady Adela, the great houses, the gardens, the bazaar of Halabja, he forgets the savageness, the incredible treachery and insecurity which makes life here a tremulous fear. Ah, these people, they but seek to squeeze out of a man what he has, and then kill him. Think not that they will give you anything here, nor treat you kindly except you pay for it tenfold. Take my advice, my friend, flee from this nest of scorpions before yet they sting you to death, quit this town of hungry vultures while the flesh remains upon your bones and before it grows on theirs. Look at me, what do I possess? I walk about in these wretched clothes seeking only to protect even them from the rapacious appetite of some predatory Kurd.”

“Yet,” I said, “it seems to me that since the day you arrived from Bagdad, a fugitive, possessing less even than this, you were worse off then than now, when by the Pasha’s beneficence you possess house, clothes, wife, children, and the wherewithal to keep them all.”

“Ah, you do not understand,” he protested feebly, and was silent for a while. Then once again he took up his tale of alarm and warning, but I had had enough, and to get rid of him began to ridicule him for a European turned Musulman, and to ask him where the sect of the Sunnis was a whit better than us of the Shi’a—questions he funked—and departed.

It had not sufficed to alarm me, all this rigmarole, but I was made aware of the existence of a mean and cowardly enemy at Halabja, whose favourite weapon was obviously slander. Fortunately this was that Kurdistan where it is the habit to shout one’s affairs upon the house-tops and bill-sides, and slander has a short life, usually terminated by an unexpected bullet.

So, upon the house-top system I resolved to go straight to Tahir Beg, pretend a high and mighty resentment of such treatment of a guest, and bid him an abrupt farewell. By this means I should be able to tell exactly by his manner what his thoughts were. If he suspected me, he would raise no objection to my departure.

So, groping my way along the dark verandah, I found him upon his roof among the usual cronies, and took my place upon his right among the silent throng. After some time he asked whether I had made any arrangement for staying here awhile, as he was very anxious to study French with me. I put on a resentful air, and answered that I was leaving Halabja in a very few days; and in reply to his question why, told him that a guest was not accustomed to receive night messengers of evil, speaking evil of his host, and that if the ancient Kurdish law of hospitality were to be thus violated I had better leave at once. At this the company pricked up their ears, and at the mention of Kurdish hospitality a black look crossed their faces, and a murmur went around, partly of astonishment at my audacity, and partly of censure and resentment at such a statement in the Jaf house. It also roused Tahir Beg, and he not unnaturally demanded immediate explanation of such statements, whereupon I frankly told him all that had occurred.

To my surprise the company showed considerable amusement, and even Tahir Beg himself nearly smiled; but before he could offer any reply, old Sayyid of Barzinjan, a privileged elder, said: “Dost thou not know this foolish creature Amin Effendi, nor know that this is what he does for every stranger here, thereby ruining our name and alarming our guests. Take no notice. He is a mean man among the meanest, and being an incompetent fool, naturally fears that you, whom he knows only as a doctor, will cut the ground from under his feet, and gain his dismissal. Wait till to-morrow, go to see Lady Adela, but do not mention the affair to her.”

Tahir Beg, making no assertion contrary to this, added that I must take no notice of the creature—a renegade, the meanest of the mean, a deceitful and little-minded individual who could only disgrace those who supported him. He then, as if to make up for the resentment I had felt, devoted himself to a long and cordial conversation upon various subjects, and showing me such attention that it was clear from the behaviour of the company when I left that Amin Effendi’s attempt to get rid of me had but improved my position, with Tahir Beg at any rate.