Our caravan was a tiny one, and the muleteer, a long-legged Turkoman known as Ahmad Bash Chaush, was accompanied by a youth and a long-haired darvish, both natives of his town. This second was a quiet, cheerful man, short and stoutly built, as are many of the Turkomans, and he was the laughing-stock of many he met, for he had adopted the habit of wearing a Persian felt hat, which excited the ridicule of such of the local population as took him for a Persian at first sight.
We did not go far that day, but pushed along quickly till the village of Baba Murda, the inhabitants of which were encamped miles away in a pleasanter spot. Here upon a knoll we threw the loads, and while the youth took the animals to water, the darvish filled the jars at the spring, and Ahmad, as head-man, and entitled to ease first—though he had walked his twelve miles—sat with me and smoked.
It was hot this summer afternoon in Lower Kurdistan, though the heat was past its greatest, and we were glad to get that side of the loads where a light breeze played, and wait for the mules to be tethered, groomed, and finally given their barley, when the day’s work was done. Then the darvish and the lad joined us, and we shared the pears I had brought, for they would not keep; and these with bread made the evening meal.
One is soon tired and sleepy after the jolting of the mule and the heat and air, and it is not usual to sit up long after sunset The meal finished, we lay down where we were, upon a somewhat stony ground, and waited for the sleep that comes quickly. But the darvish sat upon his heels and commenced in a low voice chanting in monotone, “La allahu ill’allah,” in rising cadence, drawing deep breaths with a groan, till his voice rang out in the still night. His breath shortened, and the curious exhaustion that accompanies these exercises overtook him, and with a groan he sank motionless upon the ground. Then, after a few minutes he recommenced, “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar,” in sharp staccato, accentuating the last syllable of the word “akbar” so that it fell like a hammer-stroke upon the ear. Again till exhaustion he continued, and once more he rose and started the cry upon “Allah.” After this he lay prostrate and slept where he collapsed, and we slept too.
In the manner of caravan travelling it was yet pitch dark when we got under way in the morning, and the sun rose as we arrived at the foot of the ridge and pass, into Bazian—the now evacuated country of the Hamavands.
We struggled slowly and painfully up the long and stony ascent, and from the summit looked back again over Sulaimania—whose position was marked in the valley of Surchina by a white streak up the ridge of the opposite range—the road to Panjwin and Persia.
A turn behind a rock, and we left it all out of sight, and below our feet lay the narrow valley of Bazian, stretching right and left. Opposite it was bounded by the Bazian range, not high, but rising in a sheer cliff of several hundred feet, shutting in the land and giving the place an air of peaceful seclusion in the bright morning light, which changed to a gloomy prospect when the sun, going west, threw the cliff’s shadow across the plain, and its face appeared a frowning wall, under whose lee the Hamavands had encamped, and from their camps watched the passage of caravans—and victims.
Now it was deserted, no smoke curled up quietly in the morning air, no horse neighed, and we had not heard the report of a single rifle since daylight. So, having nothing to apprehend, we picked our way leisurely down the slope, and at the bottom turned to the right along the valley, gradually making our way to the other side towards the pass of Darband-i-Bazian. We passed, as we went along, many a little garden that the Hamavands had left, little neat patches of cultivation on the hill-sides and in the bottom of the valley, which were now bearing fruit, and of which the travellers of another small caravan we had overtaken were busy cutting and carrying away the deserted produce.
About eleven o’clock, when we were well on the way towards Darband-i-Bazian, some alarm was caused by the sight of a small band of horsemen coming from behind us, along our road, and some were for getting their arms ready. But the general run of the passengers shared the opinion that if the approaching riders were Turkish irregular soldiery, there would be nothing to fear, and if they were Hamavands it would be useless to resist, so that our pace did not alter and we proceeded in the jogging way of caravans, apparently unconcerned. Nevertheless the relief was general when the riders were seen to be two irregular Turkish “mule-cavalry” and a handful of shaikhs’ men. These, on coming up with the caravan, proceeded to scrutinise all very carefully, as if in search of someone, and one more officious than the others gave me a fright by holding the bridle of my steed the while he called his comrades, shouting:
“Amma niyya? piaeki bash nabi am kabra.” (“Is this not he? this fellow appears not to be a good man.”)
But my muleteer affirmed so loudly and strenuously that I was a trader, a friend of the Mosul traders, that they raised a laugh at the horseman’s expense; so, changing his tone, he asked for a cigarette, and having obtained it, rode on with the others, and they passed ahead bound for Chemchemal. It is a long stretch from Baba Murda to Darband-i-Bazian, or it seemed so, for it was already noon—we had started at four in the morning—when we veered to the left, where the hills receded in a kind of bay, and crossed a large patch of cultivated land, where we threw the loads to give the beasts a rest.
This was where Rich, the East India Company’s gifted resident at Bagdad in the early part of the 19th century, passed, and noticed in passing, that in 1808 there had been a Turkoman village named Derghezeen. There is nothing now but a little cultivation belonging to Bazian village; nor is there any sign of the ruins Rich mentions, and which he opined to be of Sasanian times; though, in view of the fact that this district was upon the borders of a province which in Sasanian times enjoyed great importance (Holwan), and in which there are still many relics of the Persian occupation of that period, there is every probability that Rich was perfectly right in his surmise.
The flanking wall of the valley here broadened greatly in depth from east to west, and became broken into spurs. This affords a passage westwards to get out of Bazian valley, and a long rising approach ends by passing through a neck, not twenty yards wide, whence one emerges as from a door, the hills finishing abruptly at the ridge in which the neck occurs, and which is left, as a wall, by the westwards bound passenger.
From the spot where we now rested to the neck was the danger place in times of peril, for the Hamavands had made this at once the impregnable gate of their secluded country, and the trap for those who would enter it. Upon these hill-sides and behind the rocks and boulders they had waited for their prey, and darted down and out upon the unfortunates; those who had entered the neck from outside and found themselves cut off from retreat, and those who would pass out and found themselves driven into the narrow funnel of the pass and assailed from all sides. Even now, when we could see in the distance the tent of the “bimbashi,” who had pitched it by one of the streams that watered the Hamavand cultivations, we could not stray from the vicinity of our loads, for behind lay the folds of the hills where the Turks had not dared penetrate, and they might yet contain Hamavands.
At this neck of Darband-i-Bazian, Abdurrahman Pasha, one of the old Baba pashas of Sulaimania, made a brave stand in 1805, during the war by which he hoped to make this part of Kurdistan independent. He built a wall across the neck—the ruins of which are visible to-day—and fought there against Kuchuk Sulaiman Pasha of Bagdad, being defeated in the manner related by Rich.
“He placed here a wall and gate and three or four pieces of cannon, two of which were planted on the height in order to fire upon the Turkish camp below; and vain would have been Sulaiman Pasha’s attack on this pass, had not a Koordish chief called Mahommed Bey, a son of Khaled Pasha who was united with the Turks, led a division of the Turkish troops and auxiliary Koords up the mountain, by a pass only known to some Koords, and which had been neglected as impracticable, so that Abdurraham Pasha found his position turned, and his guns on the height pointed against himself. He was then obliged to retreat, and the wall was razed by the Pasha of Bagdad, who afterwards advanced to Sulaimania.”69
It was very hot that noontide, and do what we could, it seemed impossible to get any shade, though we piled the loads high and stretched a cloak over two sticks; so perforce we lay upon the stones sweating. Together we shared a meal of water-melon and bread—the former they had found in a Hamavand cultivation. Then the darvish and the youth had to go far away where the stream ran to attend to their animals, while I was left with the head-man, Ahmad. I had taken a great liking to him, for he was a quiet, respectable man, who minded his own business, and, while showing no distinction between himself and his passengers, assumed no hectoring bearing, as is so often the case with the muleteer and his native passengers. Together we sat and smoked our Kurdish cigarettes of chips, and he asked me, at length, my religion, for he remarked that he had not seen me pray, and supposed I could not therefore be a Musulman.
So, liking the character of my man, I resolved to try the truth upon him, and, quoting the words of a greater than myself, said:
“Thou hast heard that I am of Persia, thou speakest such of the tongue of that land as thou knowest to me; yet though I am of Persia in a measure, I am not Persian, and though I be not Persian, neither am I Kurd, nor Arab, nor Turk.”
“What, then?” he asked.
“Nor yet am I of the tribe of the Nasara (native Christian), for I am of the land they call England, which is in Ferangistan.”
“What! of Constantinople that is,” he replied; “then you are a Turkish subject!”
“No,” I said, “nor yet a Turkish subject. I am a subject of a land far from Turkey.”
“And what God do they worship?”
“That same as the Nasara.”
“Well, well,” he said, with a doubtful cadence, “they are them I see in Bagdad, that wear such garments as the Constantinople Turk affects, but hats of various kinds, so that no man can tell from their headgear of what tribe and religion they may be. Why, then, do you not wear your country’s headgear?”
“Because it pleases me,” I said, “to adopt among these people their garments; for the Persian proverb truly says, ‘He who would not be ashamed among the strangers, let him put upon himself their raiment and their speech,’ and it would become neither me nor my circumstances to travel girt about with the unsightly swathings of a Ferangi, where I can avoid annoyance to myself and others by adopting the habits of the simple among the simple.”
“Well, thou art come a long journey, doubtless, and sigh for your native mountains. Have they great hills and deserts there?”
“No,” I replied; “it is a land of little hills and little valleys, of no seclusion, of no peace and no rest, of incessant hurryings; in contravention of the word of Quran, that says, ‘All haste is of Satan, and patience of God.’ We are conveyed by rushing chains of carriages that run upon iron bars, that travel a day’s march in an hour.”
“‘Haste is of Satan,’ O true speaker,” he replied; “it is a pity that you were not a Musulman, but each to his own faith, and the Nasara is of the people of the book and not damned; but tell me, have they there no muleteers and no caravans?”
“No, indeed, for where such carriages exist, what need for a muleteer?”
“What a land this, with never a caravan to traverse the country! Have you Kurds? and do they not rob these trains of carriages?”
“No, there are no Kurds, nor Arabs, nor Turks, nor are any of these tongues understood there.”
“La allahu ill’allah!” he exclaimed, “what a land! and yet God made all men, brother, and all countries, in which are ever good and bad, and I trust that thou art of the better. What matter if man be Christian or Islam. Can he not follow the laws of his own prophet, and the ordinances of God? And thou, too, art a stranger, far from thy people, and it behoves both Turkoman and Kurd to treat such an one as his own brother.”
With that he stretched himself in the four or five inches of shade that the boxes now cast, and composed himself for sleep; and I did likewise, my head in shadow and my body burning and sweating in the fierce sun.
Our rest was not for long. Half an hour afterwards we rose and loaded the mules, and once more set out. As the rocks drew closer on each side of the road the heat became intense. There was no wind, and we unwound the handkerchiefs that enveloped our heads, and tried to make miniature canopies of them, with little effect. It took us an hour to get over the stony track to the neck, the exit from which is not more than a few yards wide, a break in an otherwise uninterrupted line of hills that shows an almost perpendicular face to the outside world, a rampart—almost the last—of Kurdistan, to the west. Outside the Darband the ground fell away, and the plain of Chemchemal lay before us, no plain at all in reality. It is, so to speak, a long and broad valley filled with rolling hills intersected by deep ravines, but whose summits are so exactly of the same height that the country looks from afar but a flat plain.
Ahmad Bash Chaush had resolved to leave Chemchemal, and striking farther north take a more difficult but nearer route through the hills, stopping during the night, or what should remain of it, at a village he knew of. Our caravan was now a considerable one, for we had joined with two small parties, with a mixture of queer muleteers. There were three Arabs, men of the low country about Kifri, some Turkomans, a Shuan Kurd or two, and a Persian from Teheran, looking very out of place in his globe hat and short skirts among these men of turbans and long garments.
In company with these we jogged along, our faces to the now declining sun. Chemchemal was hidden behind the ridge formed by the ever-rolling hummocks and hills of the plain. From various spots great pillars of smoke arose; for the grass, dried with the summer heat, was burning furiously, and at night would shine like great beacons. A few miles further we saw Chemchemal—it was just sunset.
The little town lay in a great hollow, and above stands the mount, an artificial eminence similar in shape to the mounts seen at Erbil and other places once occupied by the Assyrians. The tents of the Turks were pitched around the foot of the mount, and made a gleaming white spot in the dusky scene.
Here, while yet Chemchemal lay indistinct, we left the road and the bulk of the caravan and proceeded in the gathering darkness, our way lit by a roaring furnace of flame that rushed up from a gully as from out of a volcano. Beyond Chemchemal lies the last range of hills westward on the Kirkuk road. This last is approached by a gradual slope—formed by innumerable little hills of rounded shape over and about which the track winds. The village to which we were bound lay well up in the eastern face of this range, and now our difficulties commenced, for the track started forking and branching, leading to the various villages of the Shuan Kurds hereabout. At eight o’clock we separated in the darkness from a large number of our companions, but, relying upon the local knowledge of one of the Arabs, who said he knew the road well, did not attempt to follow them. We had passed no water since leaving Bazian, and all were getting thirsty, but Jum’a, the Arab, promised us to be at the village in an hour or two. He had missed the right track, though, and we commenced to wander among these low hills, a cloud of dust accompanying us, and rendering our thirst considerably worse. From the dark ahead a shout arose that we had come to water, and we sent the youth on quickly to get our jar filled. A moment later we ourselves arrived there, to find that the mules had made a rush for the tiny stream and had hopelessly befouled it before a single one of us could get a drink. And now we knew that we were lost, for there is no spring on the road we had expected to travel, besides which this track was heading in a wrong direction. The Arab, however, persisted that he knew the way, and a lively discussion ensued as to whether we should throw the loads there, where there was at least a drop of water, or push forward. The fear of being attacked in the night by Kurds overcame the greater part of the company, and in deference to them we once more got under way, heading for what we thought to be the right direction. We were gradually rising, and the curious effect of a dry climate and no breeze was well illustrated here. We would descend into a hollow to a temperature that made us sweat, and a moment after, rising again, come to the cool of the night, which struck chill.
We stumbled along thus for two or three hours, too tired to say much, the monotony of the dark night varied only by the falling of a mule, or the refusal of a donkey to proceed, till a volley of shots rang out, the bullets whizzing over our heads to the accompaniment of an inferno of barking from watchdogs. We stopped behind a protected hump and shouted to our assailants to desist. These to satisfy themselves of our harmlessness came running down from their village, and finding us what we affirmed—harmless travellers—put us on our way. But we must have missed in the darkness again, for we dragged on hour by hour, always rising gradually and never getting out of, or above, the knolls and hummocks. We seemed to wind round and round these interminable little hills. We had reached that stage where to sit on a mule is almost fatal, for one falls asleep—and off the beast. Most of us had walked some distance, and in the dark stumbled along tired and disgusted. We could see that it wanted but a few hours to morning, and yet, with the hope that pushes a man to foolishness, we went ahead. At last, however, we came to a point where the road definitely turned south—we wanted to go north—and there men and mules alike gave in. The beasts fell about, refusing a sharp, stony rise before us, and, disgusted with everything, we let them lie, loosening and casting off their loads where they stood or fell. The youth was parched, his tongue so swollen that he could not speak, but only grunted, and he, as well as Ahmad Bash Chaush, had been walking some fourteen hours without resting. Not stopping to arrange the loads or collect the nosebags and small gear that lay about, we fell upon the stones of the road, and, from the time we had stopped, during the process of throwing the loads and tying the animals to them, no one had spoken a word—though the process usually demands a great deal of talking.
I suppose we slept for a couple of hours or so, when the cold woke us. I was shivering, and chilled through. A morning breeze had risen and blew from the hills above, lowering the temperature by many degrees in a few seconds. The false dawn was just showing in the east, and, with the unthinking simplicity of the land, we sat up and smoked cigarettes in the hope of getting warm. Far away, on the other side of the plain under Bazian, we could see the big grass-fires still blazing, and sighed not a little for some of their warmth. The silence of the early morning was broken only by the swish of the wind through the dry grass, and an occasional rifle shot told of vigilant Kurds in their villages.
With the first light we began to load our animals, and the Arab who was responsible for all the trouble was made to go to the top of the hill where the breeze blew strongest and spy the village up on the side of the range, which he succeeded in descrying at no great distance away. So we struck across the foothills, and after an hour reached the place, which looked pretty enough in the cool bright morning, for a thick clump of fig-trees and a large willow grove, with several streams and many green and grassy patches, made it look a desirable spot for a halt. We found the bulk of the caravan already encamped here, and had but little room to dispose of ourselves in a place where shade should cover us when the sun rose higher. As we approached, the villagers, some of whom were working at the fig-garden, greeted us with the laconic Kurdish salutation, “Ma nabi!” (“May you not be tired”), and one or two ran off to get us a skin of “du,” and some barley for the mules.
Under a willow-tree we threw the loads, and arranged them in a wall to keep off the fast warming sun-rays, and having entrusted them to the care of a traveller near by, they took the mules away to water, while Ahmad Bash Chaush and myself retired to a tiny spring of clear cold water and indulged in a good wash—the first since Sulaimania—and filled our water-pots.
From the grove there was a fine view of the borders of Kurdistan, for we were high enough to see the hills behind Bazian, and the greater mountains behind them. Pir-i-Muguran, or Omar Gudroon, as it is called by Rich, the great rock of Sulaimania, stood up like a sentinel of the mounted army—on its outskirts, with the outlines of Aoraman just visible on one side, and the Kandil Dagh over Ravanduz and Keui Sanjaq on the other side. Immediately below us the plain of Chemchemal, like a sea of lumpy billows, stretched away to Bazian, the break in the range at Darband giving a glimpse of the hills on the other side of the valley of evil fame.
During the morning a cousin of the Shuan chief to whom this plain belonged came in, a gaudy young Kurd, rich in striped silks and scarlet riding-boots, a good rifle over his shoulder, and a Mauser pistol in his belt, and having said a word or two to all, a question as to destination and journey, he departed again, followed by three or four men.
We had bought a great handkerchief full of fresh figs, like small green pears in appearance, for a kran, and having soaked a little of our bread—for it was as hard as an iron plate—we all sat round and made a great meal, and then, our troubles and labour over for the time being, sprawled about, to rest till the afternoon, when we must once more take to the road.
Upon a knoll above, under a canopy of leaves, sat three Kurds, whose sharp eyes saw everyone approaching, and now and then a hoarse cry of “Karvani, oh, Karvani,” would come down, and a muleteer would run out to collect his mules nearer home, for they were grazing on the hill-side.
Once they shouted to all to bring their mules into camp, and a rush ensued, followed by an invasion of trotting mules kicking up clouds of dust. And the reason we saw a little while after, for down below a great army of men and beasts filed slowly across the plain, like a string of ants—Kurds shifting their camp—and a band of thirty or forty horsemen rode by the grove-men from over the Rania side, Pishdir and Bilbas, in the short velvet coats and rakish turbans of those people, as wild a lot as any might wish to meet.
Soon after noon a move was made to leave again, and, as is so often the case, when one beast had been loaded everyone else displayed the utmost activity in the hope of being away first. Half the caravan and more, having got ready, left, but took a path along the hill-side, which would lead them through a break in the range later. We, however, with a few others, made a line straight for the hills, and were soon among them, passing through some fine valleys where plentiful streams ran swift and strong. In one of these a camel caravan was camped, the camel-men being at first invisible, till feet were seen protruding from between pairs of bales arched over with a cloth, forming a kennel in which the Arab camel-men retired during the day. These caravans travel very slowly and by short stages, and stop whereever there is thorn for the camels, never putting up at a village. They are thus always met with in deserted places, and, as the Arabs are unpopular with the Kurds, and vice versa, one of the former may pass from Bagdad to Kirkuk and Sulaimania without ever seeing a Kurd at close quarters, or ever exchanging a word with him.
The range, as seen from the Bazian, where it forms a high sky-line, appears to be but a single ridge of hills, but it took us five hours to get clear of it. The track was ever on an up-grade; one ascended through valleys and over ridges to the very top, where there was a fine view. Looking back, Kurdistan and its mountains stood up high; and forward, the vast Tigris plain stretched away, unbroken, except for the low ranges towards Altun Keupri, and the single mountain that stands up due west of Kirkuk, which we could see yellow in the afternoon sun, at a great distance.
Around us the hills of the range, a wonderful red and yellow, earth and stones twisted into queer shapes, stretched away on either side, and below; and after half an hour of level mountain-top, we began the descent. Darkness overtook while yet we were in the mountain, and as there was no moon, the going was retarded, for the shadows of the hills made the darkness yet more sombre.
Our caravan was now very small, as many of the others had taken other tracks through the hills, and we pushed forward as fast as possible to get into Kirkuk before midnight, when the gate would be closed against passengers, and a long detour would have to be made to get into the town by another entrance. All the way across the plain we were descending, by steps in the plain formed of rocky outcrop, very bad going for the mules, and as we approached the town it grew warmer and warmer.
About midnight, having been ten hours on the march, we passed the gate, and turned into the long street of Kirkuk, a full mile from end to end. I had a letter to one Salim, a Mosul Christian, and to his business caravanserai we proceeded. Our way took us through the silent-domed bazaars, and by the light of a single lamp we picked our way under the sombre vaults of the bazaar till we came to the door of the serai, our blows upon whose door resounded through the whole place.
A sleepy guardian opened to us, and after Ahmad Bash Chaush had announced who we were, we had permission to pass in. In the dark I could not see what kind of a place it was, except that it was an ordinary business caravanserai, but without any cloisters round it, on the ground floor. Instead there was an upper storey, the rooms of which stood back from the level of the wall, making a verandah all round the serai-yard.
There came from above a small man in the slack garments of night, a handkerchief about his head. He introduced himself as Khaja Salim, and hearing that I was recommended to him, showed me a bench on the upper floor where I might sleep, and where, without further talk, I soon lay upon the hard boards in sound slumber.
In the morning I had my effects brought up and disposed in an empty room, and proceeded to the coffee-house for a cup of tea. Here I met Salim, and joined him in a cup of hot sweetened milk, which it is the custom to take early in the morning in these parts. I returned with him to his office, a little room, where he—more advanced than his co-religionists in Sulaimania—sat upon a chair behind a table. I did not care for the looks of the man. He was a tiny fellow, rather fat and pale, and with a very sharp and shifty look. However, he was polite enough and welcomed me to Kirkuk, asking my nationality. I told him I was English, and he made no remark, except to ask if I had met his neighbours in the caravanserai. As I had not, he took me round to half a dozen rooms like his own, each of which harboured a pair of Mosul merchants. Unlike the Mosuliots of Sulaimania, who were an exceptionally pleasing set of men, the looks of none of these were reassuring, nor was my further experience of them conducive to a better opinion. One of them in particular, a youth who wore European clothes, collar and cuffs complete, was unusually unpleasant in appearance. His eyes were those of the habitual drunkard, and his sloppy mouth and greasy face were quite repellent. This was the son of a very rich merchant of Mosul.
Salim’s lack of curiosity was no feature of the behaviour of these men. They pestered me with questions, and were loth to believe me English, taking me for a Persian; for I had to speak to Salim in Kurdish, and as I had not the appearance of a Kurd (I was now wearing a short coat, European trousers, and a fez), they opined I must be a Persian. However, on being told that they might please themselves as to what they believed, they put me a question or two from the New Testament, and receiving satisfactory replies, became convinced that at any rate I was a Christian, and dubbed me “Saun Effendi.”
They pressed me to stay, and Salim told me that he would not permit me to make any arrangements for dinner while I was there, that I must share with the rest of them, and fend for myself during the day. He promised meanwhile to try and find me mules in the Bagdad caravan, which would leave a few days hence.
So, having nothing to do, I bethought me of that resort of the idle, the bazaar, and took a stroll there, refreshing my memories of the place, where I had stayed sixteen days four months before.
It was extremely hot here. The end of August in Kirkuk is probably as hot as in any town of Mesopotamia, and, fresh from the hills of Kurdistan, great drowsiness overtook me, and hardly was I back in my room than I lay and slept—till sunset, being awakened by Salim, who, thinking I must be ill, came in to see what was the matter.
We went and sat in the verandah outside, where Salim’s brother was cooking a meal, and Salim himself having divested himself of his business garments—the long striped tunic, Aleppo gold-threaded belt and fez—donned loose clothing, and enveloped his head in a handkerchief.
For a time he rummaged about in his room, and at last came forth with two little glasses and a bottle wrapped in wet rags, to keep the contents cool—and I perceived that I had met a drinker. The drink was araq, a fiery spirit flavoured with aniseed and aromatic gum, and he insisted on my joining him in three or four glasses of the stuff, followed by morsels of sweet water-melon, which is taken to remove the unpleasant aftertaste from the mouth, and quench the thirst the spirit generates.
As it grew darker, we repaired to the roof, where benches were set about. The sun had just set, and from the roof one could see over Kirkuk, with its flat roofs, to the great desert westwards, where the gold of the setting sun was blotted by the shape of the big mountain, standing lonely and unsupported by foothills or rising slope, in the west.
How little did these lineal descendants of the Assyrians know that the very prospect they looked over, the town in which they lived, had been founded by their ancestors, and the mount under which the caravanserai lay, called “Qala debeit Seluk”—“The fortress of the Seleucids.”
There was but little time to enjoy the prospect, for the sun having set, it grew dark almost immediately, and the chatter of the Christians and their invitation to drink prevented any attempt at a stroll in the cool breeze. Every one of them was provided with a little bottle of the araq, and by the bench of each was a pail of water in which they kept their bottles cool.
I created, I fear, a bad impression by refusing to drink with them, and finding their conversation of very little interest, relapsed into silence, at which they were not a little surprised, for the spirit moving them, they grew extraordinarily loquacious, and failed to understand why their merriment was not shared by me. Salim besought me to join them, for, he said, “It creates a bad impression upon your hosts to refuse their drink, for which we live, counting it our only pleasure in a wretched life. Besides, what kind of an Englishman will it be that does not drink, and drink level with the rest?”
I replied that it was no longer considered an accomplishment and sign of good breeding to drink another man under the table, and that popular opinion condemned the practice, and therefore I could not join them; neither could my stomach, unused to alcohol for so long, endure the spirit. Yet he did not desist, and at last, at the risk of seriously offending him, I told him that if the presence of a stranger and a guest who did not drink was repugnant to him and his companions, I would not force my company upon them, at which he became very apologetic and left me in peace, and the dinner arriving just then—many dishes of pilau and baked meats—the discussion closed, and we drew round a table they set, and dipped our fingers into some particularly savoury dishes. Here, again, I was unpopular, for having been used for a long time to eat little more than dry bread and fruit, a diet I found sufficient in every way, I could not eat much of these dishes, and made a meal from the bread that accompanied them, much to the disgust of my hosts, who, like all these sedentary Christians, put away enormous quantities. Unpopularity, however, among such people is of no disadvantage, for it permitted me to say I was tired, and retired to my bench, where I lay smoking and looking up at the stars, thinking, while I listened to the rising voices of the Christians, who were growing more noisy as the drink got into them, of the contrast between them and the Musulman; and rather wishing I had continued as a Musulman, among whom I made and kept good friends, and lived in the reasonable manner possible among people the preservation of whose self-respect was at least a factor in their character.
As the night drew on these creatures began to get drunk, and shouted dirges and ditties in monotonous Arabic, hiccupping and breaking into screams of laughter, an inane and futile gathering of sots. The night was made hideous by their clatter, and, as no one slept till drink overcame him on the ground or couch, it was late before I could sleep, and the last sound I heard was of violent vomiting over the roof edge into the courtyard.
I had caught a cold in the head, a very bad one, too, and in the morning I woke with a strong fever, and crawled to my room out of the sunlight and lay down on my bed, a piece of thin carpet on the bricks. Here I lay all day burning in the heat of both fever and climate. Kirkuk is a place where temperatures at this time of the year are over one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and that little room, which had no outlet to the air except the door, just stored up the heat reflected from the walls of the caravanserai, and never felt the breeze to cool it.
About sunset the fever left me, and Salim appeared, to ask why I had not come out during the day. He quite refused to believe that there was anything the matter with me, thinking my conduct but a continuation of that of the previous evening. But I induced him to leave me alone at last, and he went away to his araq in dudgeon, and I dozed again.
So for three days I kept in the room, creeping to the bazaar once a day to buy a piece of bread and some water-melon. The Christians, convinced that I was an unsociable fellow, shunned me, for which I was rather thankful than otherwise, and devoted their time after sunset to that form of amusement which appeared to be their only resource.
The fourth day, the cold and fever were a good deal better, and I bethought me of the coffee-house where they sold warm milk, entered in there, and ordered my drink. This I consumed and paid for, when one came forward with coffee, and would have poured out some of the bitter stuff for me. When I refused he looked astonished, and retired to where the owner of the place was making the nasty beverage, holding a conversation with him, of which, to judge by the glances they cast in my direction, I must be the subject. The owner himself now came forward with coffee and poured out for me, and I again refused, at which he grew wroth.
“Who are you,” he exclaimed, “that comes into a coffee-house and refuses what it serves to its customers? Either take your coffee or go.”
“Why,” I replied, “I drank your milk, and paid for it, must I drink coffee as well? By what right or custom do you force your coffee down your customers’ throats?”
“By the right of the owner of the coffee-house; the milk-seller is nothing to do with the coffee-house, and his customers have no right to sit in the coffee-house. Now that you have done so, you must have the coffee and pay for it.”
“Never!” I replied, feeble and excessively angry; “pour your coffee in the gutters, where the filth were well left. You trap strangers in your shop by allowing them to be attracted by one of another trade, and then force them by harsh words and the bestial manners of the Turk to buy your wares.”
The coffee-seller had poured out a cup of coffee and held it still towards me. With an exclamation of disgust at my stubbornness he thrust it at me, and in the annoyance of the moment I took it and flung the contents in his face and walked out of the shop, to the astonishment of several Turkish officers, who had been close by and listened to what was going on. One of these, an elderly man in the uniform of a “yuzbashi,” followed me out and caught me by the arm as he left.
“Brother, brother,” he said, “wherefore this unseemly rage, this insult of the Turk? True, you are a stranger and apparently sick, to judge by your looks, but that is the way to start blood-feuds and rebellions. You have my sympathy, but I deprecate your haste. But you must come to my house and rest awhile, for you are feeble,”—and in truth I was, for I was stumbling at every step and fits of giddiness took and held me, rolling me up against walls and corners, where I had to lean till my head cleared.
The old man lived in a little house by the mosque of Kirkuk, a mean mud and stone building, and had his wife spread a carpet on the shady side of the yard. Here we sat down, and he called for tea and proceeded to ask me those leading questions I was so used to hearing.
I could see that he did not believe that I was English, and interpreted my statement to mean that I was a British subject. Hearing that I was going to Bagdad, he told me that there were no caravans going for a long time yet, and I should have to stay in Kirkuk for many days if I intended to go with the caravan. I had no intention of doing this, however, and told him so, when he proposed a very practical scheme, that I should go to Altun Keupri and thence by kalak, or raft, to Bagdad. This sounded excellent, and at least afforded an opportunity of getting away from Kirkuk, the climate of which is abominable.
He, however, pressed me to stay with him for a few days till I should be stronger, but the idea of quitting the uncongenial air of Kirkuk was too good to be abandoned, even for a day or two more than necessary.
So I took my leave of him and went to a caravanserai near the western gate and river-bed, where the Altun Keupri and Keui Sanjaq muleteers gathered. Here I found one, Umar, willing to take me to Altun Keupri for two mejidies—a high rate, but one at which I was not disposed to cavil, for I wanted to go. He promised to leave in two days, and having paid him a mejidie in advance, I came back to my room feeling more pleased with life than I had done for several days.
Salim I informed of my pending departure, and he begged me to dine with them that evening, calling in his neighbours to help his cause. So I consented, as these were probably the last two evenings in Kirkuk, though I made it a condition which was near to severing our friendship once for all, that I should not be pressed to drink. They at last agreed, though, and we parted on better terms than had existed since my arrival.
Next morning I was going out of the serai to the bazaar, when to my astonishment and dismay I heard someone calling “Ghulam Husain” from right opposite the caravanserai door, and turning, saw sitting in a saddler’s shop Sayyid Nuri, the youth, son of Shaikh Ahmad, who had annoyed me so in Sulaimania.
I trembled lest one of the Christians should see me with him, or hear him talking to me, for he spoke in a loud voice, and called me by name at every second sentence.
His style of conversation was as ever, a string of questions, and his first was as to why I had changed my style of clothing. I was now, as previously mentioned, wearing a European suit of clothes and a fez unadorned by any handkerchief. Needless to say, my dress included no collar or cuffs, and I still wore the locally made shoes, and carried an abba or camel-hair cloak. I explained to Sayyid Nuri that I was bound for Bagdad, and answered as shortly as possible in order to get away with all expedition. He asked me where I was staying, and I replied, “In a caravanserai near,” for I did not mention that I lived in the place from whose portals he had seen me emerge, lest he should call there, and calling, ask for Ghulam Husain, when my friends the Christians would curse me for a traitor and an enemy in their midst, and I should lose caste with the Musulman for consorting with such people.
Fortunately no one emerged from the caravanserai while we sat in the saddler’s shop, and I managed to get away to the bazaar, where I had been going. I had not expected to meet Sayyid Nuri, for I had thought him to be in Chemchemal with his father, but apparently being unable to rest so near to Kirkuk without being in it, every few days he undertook the arduous journey between the two places for the pleasure of lounging in the bazaar.
I met him again, but hurried by with scarcely a word, leaving him astonished at my haste, and somewhat hurt or offended. Most of that last day I spent with the old Turkish yuzbashi who had befriended me the previous day; and, as I had promised, I dined with the Christians, enduring once the sight of their transition from staid merchants to boisterous idiots, and through all the stages of drivelling till they lay quiet.
Next morning I was occupied with getting my few things together, and purchasing some bread for the road. The journey was not a long one, but the one stage in which it was done was very weary, and is usually reckoned at ten to twelve hours, if one does not stop nor dismount.
The muleteer came after me at mid-day, and I bade farewell to the Christians who gathered in Salim’s office and bade me good-bye with great cordiality. Our starting-point was a long way from the caravanserai, and we had to hire porters to take my baggage to a large ruinous place at the extreme western edge of the town, where a large caravan of donkeys was loading for Altun Keupri. As usual, a number of travellers were not ready, so I sat in an archway in the portico of the serai and got into conversation with a long Mukri Kurd, very like my own Hama I had left behind, who was exercised as to how he should bind his head with a piece of twine. On being asked the reason for this strange anxiety, he said that he had missed the road from Keui Sanjaq to Kirkuk, two days before, and getting among the hills, had been attacked by Hamavands, and thrown off his donkey down a ravine, hitting his head. He now bound it together to keep the pieces of his skull in contact till they should stick again, but as he felt his head aching in all kinds of places he was seeking advice as to how to make one piece of twine bind all the aching spots together. In the middle of the confusion of loading, a couple of Turkish mule-mounted soldiers pushed their way into the place, upsetting donkeys, bursting loads, and creating damage and confusion generally. They then found some five mules in the stable somewhere, and proceeded to drive them out of the caravanserai, ignoring the heaving mass of donkeys, loads and men they had just thrown into turmoil. The mules, urged by the points of the soldiers’ hangers, came trotting forward, mixed up in the rack and riot, and a fight followed between our caravan and the soldiers, who persisted in trying to force their way through. All the people around seemed to be joining in the fight, and the situation was only saved by a stampede of donkeys into the street, leaving a free passage for the mules and soldiers, who got away, somewhat the worse for wear, to meet a yuzbashi outside who cursed and swore at the delay.