THE LAKE OF WAN.--AKHLAT.-TATAR TOMBS.--ANCIENT REMAINS.--A
DERVISH.--A FRIEND.--THE MUDIR.--ARMENIAN REMAINS.--AN ARMENIAN
CONVENT AND BISHOP.--JOURNEY TO BITLIS.--NIMROUD
DAGH.--BITLIS.--JOURNEY TO KHERZAN.--YEZIDI VILLAGE.
The first view the traveller obtains of the Lake of Wan, on descending
towards it from the hills above Akhlat, is singularly beautiful. This
great inland sea, of the deepest blue, is bounded to the east by ranges of
serrated snow-capped mountains, peering one above the other, and springing
here and there into the highest peaks of Tiyari and Kurdistan; beneath
them lies the sacred island of Akhtamar, just visible in the distance,
like a dark shadow on the water. At the further end rises the one sublime
cone of the Subhan, and along the lower part of the eastern shores
stretches the Nimroud Dagh, varied in shape, and rich in local traditions.
At our feet, as we drew nigh to the lake, were the gardens of the ancient
city of Akhlat, leaning minarets and pointed Mausoleums peeping above the
trees. We rode through vast burying-grounds, a perfect forest of upright
stones seven or eight feet high of the richest red colour, most delicately
and tastefully carved with arabesque ornaments and inscriptions in the
massive character of the early Mussulman age. In the midst of them rose
here and there a conical _turbeh_[3] of beautiful shape, covered with
exquisite tracery. The monuments of the dead still stand, and have become
the monuments of a city, itself long crumbled into dust. Amidst orchards
and gardens are scattered here and there low houses rudely built out of
the remains of the earlier habitations, and fragments of cornice and
sculpture are piled up into the walls around the cultivated plots.
Beyond the turbeh, said to be that of Sultan Baiandour through a deep
ravine such as I have already described, runs a brawling stream, crossed
by an old bridge; orchards and gardens make the bottom of the narrow
valley, and the cultivated ledges as seen from above, a bed of foliage.
The lofty perpendicular rocks rising on both sides are literally
honeycombed with entrances to artificial caves, ancient tombs, or
dwelling-places. On a high isolated mass of sandstone stand the walls and
towers of a castle, the remains of the ancient city of Khelath, celebrated
in Armenian history, and one of the seats of Armenian power. I ascended to
the crumbling ruins, and examined the excavations in the rocks. The latter
are now used as habitations, and as stables for herds and flocks.
Many of the tombs are approached by flights of steps, also cut in the
rock. An entrance, generally square, unless subsequently widened, and
either perfectly plain or decorated with a simple cornice, opens into a
spacious chamber, which frequently leads into others on the same level, or
by narrow flights of steps into upper rooms. There are no traces of the
means by which these entrances were closed: they probably were so by
stones, turning on rude hinges, or rolling on rollers.
Leaving the valley and winding through a forest of fruit trees, here and
there interspersed with a few primitive dwellings, I came to the old
Turkish castle, standing on the very edge of the lake. It is a pure
Ottoman edifice, less ancient than the turbehs, or the old walls towering
above the ravine. Inscriptions over the gateways state that it was partly
built by Sultan Selim, and partly by Sultan Suleiman, and over the
northern entrance occurs the date of 975 of the Hejira. In the fort there
dwelt, until very recently, a notorious Kurdish freebooter, of the name of
Mehemet Bey, who, secure in this stronghold, ravaged the surrounding
country, and sorely vexed its Christian inhabitants. He fled on the
approach of the Turkish troops, after their successful expedition against
Nur-Ullah Bey, and is supposed to be wandering in the mountains of
southern Kurdistan.
The ancient city of Khelath was the capital of the Armenian province of
Peznouni. It came under the Mohammedan power as early as the ninth
century, but was conquered by the Greeks of the Lower Empire at the end of
the tenth. The Seljuks took it from them, and it then again became a
Mussulman principality. It was long a place of contention for the early
Arab and Tartar conquerors. Shah Armen[4] reduced it towards the end of
the twelfth century. It was besieged, without result, by the celebrated
Saleh-ed-din, and was finally captured by his nephew, the son of Melek
Adel, in A. D. 1207.
The sun was setting as I returned to the tents. The whole scene was
lighted up with its golden tints, and Claude never composed a subject more
beautiful than was here furnished by nature herself. I was seated outside
my tent gazing listlessly on the scene, when I was roused by a
well-remembered cry, but one which I had not heard for years. I turned
about and saw standing before me a Persian Dervish, clothed in the
fawn-colored gazelle skin, and wearing the conical red cap, edged with
fur, and embroidered in black braid with verses from the Koran and
invocations to Ali, the patron of his sect. He was no less surprised than
I had been at his greeting, when I gave him the answer peculiar to men of
his order. He was my devoted friend and servant from that moment, and sent
his boy to fetch a dish of pears, for which he actually refused a present
ten times their value.
Whilst we were seated chatting in the soft moonlight, Hormuzd was suddenly
embraced by a young man resplendent with silk and gold embroidery and
armed to the teeth. He was a chief from the district of Mosul, and well
known to us. Hearing of our arrival he had hastened from his village at
some distance to welcome us, and to endeavour to persuade me to move the
encampment and partake of his hospitality. Failing of course, in
prevailing upon me to change my quarters for the night, he sent his
servant to his wife, who was a lady of Mosul, and formerly a friend of my
companion's, for a sheep. We found ourselves thus unexpectedly amongst
friends. Our circle was further increased by Christians and Mussulmans of
Akhlat, and the night was far spent before we retired to rest.
In the morning, soon after sunrise, I renewed my wanderings amongst the
ruins, first calling upon the Mudir, or governor, who received me seated
under his own fig-tree. He was an old greybeard, a native of the place,
and of a straightforward, honest bearing. I had to listen to the usual
complaints of poverty and over-taxation, although, after all, the village,
with its extensive gardens, only contributed yearly ten purses, or less
than forty-five pounds, to the public revenue. This sum seems small
enough, but without trade, and distant from any high road, there was not
a para of ready money, according to the Mudir, in the place.
From the Mudir's house I rode to the more ancient part of the city and to
the rock-tombs. I entered many of these; and found all of them to be of
the same character, though varying in size. Amongst them there are
galleries and passages in the cliffs without apparent use, and flights of
steps, cut out of the rock, which seem to lead nowhere. I searched and
inquired in vain for inscriptions and remains of sculpture, and yet the
place is of undoubted antiquity, and in the immediate vicinity of
cotemporary sites where cuneiform inscriptions do exist.
During my wanderings I entered an Armenian church and convent standing on
a ledge of rock overhanging the stream, about four miles up the southern
ravine. The convent was tenanted by a bishop and two priests. They dwelt
in a small low room, scarcely lighted by a hole carefully blocked up with
a sheet of oiled paper to shut out the cold; dark, musty, and damp, a very
parish clerk in England would have shuddered at the sight of such a
residence. Their bed, a carpet worn to threads, spread on the rotten
boards; their diet, the coarsest sandy bread and a little sour curds, with
beans and mangy meat for a jubilee. A miserable old woman sat in a kind of
vault under the staircase preparing their food, and passing her days in
pushing to and fro with her skinny hands the goat's skin containing the
milk to be shaken into butter. She was the housekeeper and handmaiden of
the episcopal establishment. The church was somewhat higher, though even
darker than the dwelling-room, and was partly used to store a heap of
mouldy corn and some primitive agricultural implements. The whole was well
and strongly built, and had the evident marks of antiquity. The bishop
showed me a rude cross carved on a rock outside the convent, which, he
declared, had been cut by one of the disciples of the Saviour himself. It
is, at any rate, considered a relic of very great sanctity, and is an
object of pilgrimage for the surrounding Christian population.
On my return to our encampment the tents were struck, and the caravan had
already begun its march. Time would not permit me to delay, and with a
deep longing to linger on this favored spot, I slowly followed the road
leading along the margin of the lake to Bitlis. I have seldom seen a
fairer scene, one richer in natural beauties. The artist and the lover of
nature may equally find at Akhlat objects of study and delight. The
architect, or the traveller, interested in the history of that graceful
and highly original branch of art, which attained its full perfection
under the Arab rulers of Egypt and Spain, should extend his journey to the
remains of ancient Armenian cities, far from high roads and mostly
unexplored. He would then trace how that architecture, deriving its name
from Byzantium, had taken the same development in the East as it did in
the West, and how its subsequent combination with the elaborate
decoration, the varied outline, and tasteful coloring of Persia had
produced the style termed Saracenic, Arabic, and Moresque. He would
discover almost daily, details, ornaments, and forms, recalling to his
mind the various orders of architecture, which, at an early period,
succeeded to each other in Western Europe and in England; modifications of
style for which we are mainly indebted to the East during its close union
with the West by the bond of Christianity. The Crusaders, too, brought
back into Christendom, on their return from Asia, a taste for that rich
and harmonious union of color and architecture which had already been so
successfully introduced by the Arabs into the countries they had
conquered.
Our road skirted the foot of the Nimroud Dagh, which stretches from Akhlat
to the southern extremity of the lake. We crossed several dykes of lava
and scoria, and wide mud-torrents now dry, the outpourings of a volcano
long since extinct. Our road gradually led away from the lake. With Cawal
Yusuf and my companions I left the caravan far behind. The night came on,
and we were shrouded in darkness. We sought in vain for the village which
was to afford us a resting-place, and soon lost our uncertain track. The
Cawal took the opportunity of relating tales collected during former
journeys on this spot, of robber Kurds and murdered travellers, which did
not tend to remove the anxiety felt by some of my party. At length, after
wandering to and fro for above an hour, we heard the distant jingle of the
caravan bells. We rode in the direction of the welcome sound, and soon
found ourselves at the Armenian village of Keswak, standing in a small
bay, and sheltered by a rocky promontory jutting boldly into the lake.
Next morning we rode along the margin of the lake, still crossing the
spurs of the Nimroud Dagh, furrowed by numerous streams of lava and mud.
In one of the deep gulleys, opening from the mountain to the water's edge,
are a number of isolated masses of sandstone, worn into fantastic shapes
by the winter torrents, which sweep down from the hills. The people of the
country call them "the Camels of Nimrod." Tradition says that the
rebellious patriarch, endeavoring to build an inaccessible castle, strong
enough to defy both God and man, the Almighty, to punish his arrogance,
turned the workmen, as they were working, into stone. The rocks on the
border of the lake are the camels, who, with their burdens, were
petrified into a perpetual memorial of the Divine vengeance. The
unfinished walls of the castle are still to be seen on the top of the
mountain; and the surrounding country, the seat of a primeaeval race,
abounds in similar traditions.
We left the southern end of the lake, near the Armenian village of Tadwan,
once a place of some importance, and soon entered a rugged ravine, worn by
the mountain rills, collected into a large stream. This was one of the
many head-waters of the Tigris. It was flowing tumultuously to our own
bourne, and, as we gazed upon the troubled waters, they seemed to carry us
nearer to our journey's end. The ravine was at first wild and rocky;
cultivated spots next appeared, scattered in the dry bed of the torrent;
then a few gigantic trees; gardens and orchards followed, and at length
the narrow valley opened on the long, straggling town of Bitlis. The
governor had here provided quarters for us in a large house belonging to
an Armenian, who had been tailor to Beder Khan Bey.
My party was now, for the first time during the journey, visited with that
curse of Eastern travel, fever and ague. The doctor was prostrate, and
having then no experience of the malady, at once had dreams of typhus and
malignant fever. A day's rest was necessary, and our jaded horses needed
it as well as we, for there were bad mountain roads and long marches
before us. I had a further object in remaining:--this was, to obtain
indemnity for the robbery committed on some relations of Cawal Yusuf two
years before. The official order of Reshid Pasha, and the governor's
intervention, speedily effected the desired arrangement.
The governor ordered cawasses to accompany me through the town. I had been
told that ancient inscriptions existed in the castle, or on the rock, but
I searched in vain for them: those pointed out to me were early
Mohammedan. Bitlis contains many picturesque remains of mosques, baths,
and bridges, and was once a place of considerable size and importance. It
is built in the very bottom of a deep valley, and on the sides of ravines,
worn by small tributaries of the Tigris. The export trade is chiefly
supplied by the produce of the mountains; galls, honey, wax, wool, and
carpets and stuffs, woven and dyed in the tents. The dyes of Kurdistan,
and particularly those from the districts around Bitlis, Sert, and
Jezireh, are celebrated for their brilliancy. They are made from herbs
gathered in the mountains, and from indigo, yellow berries, and other
materials, imported into the country. The carpets are of a rich soft
texture, the patterns displaying considerable elegance and taste: they are
much esteemed in Turkey. There was a fair show of Manchester goods and
coarse English cutlery in the shops. The sale of arms, once extensively
carried on, had been prohibited.
Having examined the town, I visited the Armenian bishop, who dwells in a
large convent in one of the ravines branching off from the main valley. On
my way I passed several hot springs, some gurgling up in the very bed of
the torrent. The bishop was maudlin, old, and decrepit; he cried over his
own personal woes, and over those of his community, abused the Turks, and
the American missionaries, whispering confidentially in my ear as if the
Kurds were at his door. He insisted in the most endearing terms, and
occasionally throwing his arms round my neck, that I should drink a couple
of glasses of fiery raki, although it was still early morning, pledging me
himself in each glass. He showed me his church, an ancient building, well
hung with miserable daubs of saints and miracles.
There are three roads from Bitlis to Jezireh; two over the mountains
through Sert, generally frequented by caravans, but very difficult and
precipitous; a third more circuitous, and winding through the valleys of
the eastern branch of the Tigris. I chose the last, as it enabled me to
visit the Yezidi villages of the district of Kherzan. We left Bitlis on
the 20th.
About five miles from Bitlis the road is carried by a tunnel, about twenty
feet in length, through a mass of calcareous rock, projecting like a huge
rib from the mountain's side. The mineral stream, which in the lapse of
ages has formed this deposit, is still at work, projecting great
stalactites from its sides, and threatening to close ere long the tunnel
itself. There is no inscription to record by whom and at what period this
passage was cut.
We continued during the following day in the same ravine, crossing by
ancient bridges the stream, which was gradually gathering strength as it
advanced towards the low country. About noon we passed a large Kurdish
village, called Goeena, belonging to Sheikh Kassim, one of those religious
fanatics who are the curse of Kurdistan. He was notorious for his hatred
of the Yezidis, on whose districts he had committed numerous depredations,
murdering those who came within his reach. His last expedition had not
proved successful; he was repulsed, with the loss of many of his
followers. We encamped in the afternoon on the bank of the torrent, near a
cluster of Kurdish tents, concealed from view by the brushwood and high
reeds. The owners were poor but hospitable, bringing us a lamb, yahgourt,
and milk. Late in the evening a party of horsemen rode to our encampment.
They were a young Kurdish chief, with his retainers, carrying off a girl
with whom he had fallen in love,--not an uncommon occurrence in Kurdistan.
They dismounted, eat bread, and then hastened on their journey to escape
pursuit.
Starting next morning soon after dawn we rode for two hours along the
banks of the stream, and then, turning from the valley, entered a country
of low undulating hills. We halted for a few minutes in the village of
Omais-el-Koran, belonging to one of the innumerable saints of the Kurdish
mountains. The Sheikh himself was on his terrace superintending the repair
of his house, gratuitously undertaken by the neighbouring villagers, who
came eagerly to engage in a good and pious work. Leaving a small plain, we
ascended a low range of hills by a precipitous pathway, and halted on the
summit at a Kurdish village named Khokhi. It was filled with Bashi-Bozuks,
or irregular troops, collecting the revenue, and there was such a general
confusion, quarrelling of men and screaming of women, that we could
scarcely get bread to eat. Yet the officer assured me that the whole sum
to be raised amounted to no more than seventy piastres (about thirteen
shillings.) The poverty of the village must indeed have been extreme, or
the bad will of the inhabitants outrageous.
It was evening before we descended into the plain country of the district
of Kherzan. The Yezidi village of Hamki had been visible for some time
from the heights, and we turned towards it. As the sun was fast sinking,
the peasants were leaving the threshing-floor, and gathering together
their implements of husbandry. They saw the large company of horsemen
drawing nigh, and took us for irregular troops,--the terror of an Eastern
village. Cawal Yusuf, concealing all but his eyes with the Arab kefieh,
which he then wore, rode into the midst of them, and demanded in a
peremptory voice provisions and quarters for the night. The poor creatures
huddled together, unwilling to grant, yet fearing to refuse. The Cawal,
having enjoyed their alarm for a moment, threw his kerchief from his face,
exclaiming, "O evil ones, will you refuse bread to your priest, and turn
him hungry from your door?" There was surely then no unwillingness to
receive us. Casting aside their shovels and forks, the men threw
themselves upon the Cawal, each struggling to kiss his hand. The news
spread rapidly, and the rejoicing was so great that the village was alive
with merriment and feasting.
Yusuf was soon seated in the midst of a circle of the elders. He told his
whole history, with such details and illustrations as an Eastern alone can
introduce, to bring every fact vividly before his listeners. Nothing was
omitted: his arrival at Constantinople, his reception by me, his
introduction to the ambassador, his interview with the great ministers of
state, the firman of future protection for the Yezidis, prospects of peace
and happiness for the tribe, our departure from the capital, the nature of
steamboats, the tossing of the waves, the pains of sea-sickness, and our
journey to Kherzan. Not the smallest particular was forgotten; and, when
he had finished, it was my turn to be the object of unbounded welcomes and
salutations.
As the Cawal sat on the ground, with his noble features and flowing robes,
surrounded by the elders of the village, eager listeners to every word
which dropped from their priest, and looking towards him with looks of
profound veneration, the picture brought vividly to my mind many scenes
described in the sacred volumes. Let the painter who would throw off the
conventionalities of the age, who would feel as well as portray the
incidents of Holy Writ, wander in the East, and mix, not as the ordinary
traveller, but as a student of men and of nature, with its people. He
will daily meet with customs which he will otherwise be at a loss to
understand, and be brought face to face with those who have retained with
little change the manners, language, and dress of a patriarchal race.