THE SUMMER.--ENCAMPMENT AT KOUYUNJIK.--VISITORS.--MODE OF
LIFE.--DEPARTURE FOR THE MOUNTAINS.--AKRA.--ROCK-TABLETS AT
GUNDUK.--DISTRICT OF ZIBARI.--NAMET AGHA.--DISTRICT OF SHIRWAN--OF
BARADOST--OF GHERDI--OF SHEMDINA.--MOUSA BEY.--NESTORIAN
BISHOP.--CONTENT OF MAR HANANISHO.--DIZZA.--AN ALBANIAN
FRIEND.--BASH-KALAH.--IZZET PASHA.--A JEWISH ENCAMPMENT.--HIGH
MOUNTAIN PASS.--MAHMOUDIYAH.--FIRST VIEW OF WAN.
The difficulties and delay in crossing the Tigris, now swollen by the
melting of the mountain snows, induced me to pitch my tents on the mound
of Kouyunjik, and to reside there with all my party, instead of daily
passing to and fro in the rude ferry-boats to the ruins. The small
European community at Mosul was increased in June by the arrival of a
large party of travellers. Two English gentlemen and their wives, who
passed through on their way to Baghdad: the Hon. Mr. Walpole, who has
since published an account of his adventures in the East; the Rev. Mr.
Malan, to whom I am indebted for many beautiful sketches; the Rev. Mr.
Bowen, an English clergyman, on a tour of inspection to the Eastern
churches, with whom I spent many agreeable and profitable hours amongst
the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, and his companion, Mr. Sandresky, were
our visitors, and were most of them my guests.
Our tents were pitched at the northern corner of Kouyunjik. The spring was
now fast passing away; the heat became daily greater; the corn was cut,
and the plains and hills put on their summer clothing of dull parched
yellow. "The pasture is withered, the tender herb faileth, the green herb
is no more."[154] It was the season, too, of the sherghis, or burning
winds from the south, which occasionally sweep over the face of the
country, driving, in their short-lived fury, everything before them. Their
coming was foretold by a sudden fall in the barometer, which rose again as
soon as they had passed.
At Nimroud the excavations had been almost stopped: at Kouyunjik they were
still carried on as actively as my means would permit. I was now occupied
in moving and packing sculptures from both ruins. From Nimroud the
beautiful bas-relief of the king in the arched frame, described in the
previous chapter, the good spirit driving out the evil principle, the
fish-god, the colossal lion from the small temple, and several other
interesting sculptures, were taken to the river-bank, and sent on rafts to
Busrah. At Kouyunjik none of the slabs could be removed entire. I could
only pack in fragments several of the bas-reliefs. The cases were dragged
in carts to the Tigris, unloaded below the piers of the ancient bridge,
and there placed on rafts prepared to receive them.
During the day, when not otherwise occupied, I made drawings of the
bas-reliefs discovered in the subterranean passages. My guests, choosing
some convenient place underground near the parties who were at work,
spread their carpets beneath the crumbling sculptures. We all went below
soon after the sun had risen, and remained there, without again seeking
the open air, until it was far down in the western horizon. The
temperature in the dark tunnels was cool and agreeable, nearly twenty
degrees of Fahrenheit lower than that in the shade above but I found it
unwholesome, the sudden change in going in and out causing intermittent
fever.
After the sun had set we dined outside the tents, and afterwards reclined
on our carpets to enjoy the cool balmy air of an Eastern night. We slept
under the open sky, making our beds in the field.
July had set in, and we were now in "the eye of the summer." My companions
had been unable to resist its heat. One by one we dropped off with fever.
The Doctor, after long suffering, had gone with Mr. Walpole to the cooler
regions of the Kurdish hills, there to wait until the state of the
excavations might enable me to join them. Mr. Cooper, too, had so much
declined in health that I sent him to the convent of Mar Metti, on the
summit of the Gebel Makloub. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam and myself struggled on
the longest, but at length we also gave way. Fortunately our ague attacks
did not coincide. We were prostrate alternate days, and were, therefore,
able to take charge alternately of the works. By the 11th of July I had
sent to Busrah the first collection of sculptures from Kouyunjik, and on
that day, in the middle of the hot stage of fever, and half delirious, I
left Mosul for the mountains.
While necessarily absent, I determined to visit those parts of central
Kurdistan not yet explored by European travellers, to devote some days to
the examination of the ruins and cuneiform inscriptions in and near the
city of Wan, and then to return to Mosul through the unexplored uplands
to the south of the lake of Wan, and by such of the Nestorian valleys as I
had not seen during my former journey in the mountains. I should then
spend the hottest part of the summer in the cool regions of Kurdistan, and
be again at Nineveh by September, when the heats begin to decline.
As few European travellers can brave the perpendicular rays of an Assyrian
sun, we struck our tents late in the afternoon, and got upon our horses at
the foot of the mound of Kouyunjik as the sun went down. With me were
Hormuzd, my old servants, and the faithful Bairakdar. Mr. Cooper was to
join us on the following day, and we were to seek the Doctor and Mr.
Walpole at Akra.
Five hours' ride over the plain brought us to the small Turcoman village
of Bir Hillan (the well of stone), which stands on the south-eastern spur
of the Makloub hills. After two hours' rest we continued our journey, and
crossed this spur before morning dawned. Leaving the Gebel Makloub, we
descended into a broad plain, stretching from it to the first Kurdish
range, and soon found ourselves on the banks of the Ghazir, here a clear
sparkling stream clothed with tall oleanders, now bending under their rosy
blossoms. We sought the shade of some spreading walnut-trees, during the
heat of the day, near the small Kurdish village of Kaimawa.
Here Mr. Cooper joined us, and we were again on our way in the afternoon.
Instead of striking for the mountains by the direct path across the plain
of Navkur, we rode along the foot of a range of low hills, forming its
western boundary, to the large Kurdish village of Bardaresh. Having rested
for a few hours, we descended in the middle of the night into a plain
receiving the drainage of the surrounding highlands, and during the rainy
season almost impassable from mud. Artificial mounds, the remains of
ancient civilisation, but of small size when compared with the great ruins
of Assyria, rise amongst the hovels of the Kurdish peasants.
After we had crossed the parched and burning plain we entered a valley in
the Kurdish hills, watered by a stream called Melik or Gherasin. We had to
climb over much broken ground--rocky ridge and ravine--before reaching the
slope of the mountain covered with the gardens and orchards of Akra. We
tarried for a moment at a cool spring rising in a natural grotto, and
collected into two large basins.
We had no difficulty in finding our European fellow-travellers. The first
Kurd we met pointed towards a well-wooded garden; above its trees peered
their white tents. As we rode into it, however, no one came out to welcome
us. I entered the first tent, and there, stretched on their carpets, in a
state of half-consciousness, the prey to countless flies, lay the Doctor
and Mr. Walpole. It was with difficulty I could rouse them to learn the
history of their fever. The whole party were in the same state; the
servants prostrate like their masters. I lost no time in enforcing a
system of diet, and placing my patients under a course of treatment for
ague, with which long experience had given me some acquaintance.
Some days elapsed before my companions were able to journey. I took
advantage of the delay to visit some bas-reliefs near the neighbouring
village of Gunduk. There are two sculptured tablets in the rocks above
Gunduk. They have been carved at the mouth of a spacious natural cavern,
whose roof is fretted with stalactites, and down whose sides trickles cool
clear water, and hang dank ferns and creeping plants. It is called Guppa
d'Mar Yohanna, or the cure of St. John, and near it is an ancient
Nestorian church dedicated to Saint Audishio. The bas-reliefs are
Assyrian. The upper represents a man slaying a wild goat with a spear. In
the lower, as far as I could distinguish the sculpture, which is high on
the rock and much injured, are two women facing each other, and seated on
stools. Each holds a child above a kind of basin or circular vessel, as if
in the act of baptizing it. Behind the seated female to the left, a figure
bears a third child, and is followed by a woman. On the opposite side is a
group of three persons, apparently sacrificing an animal. There are no
traces of inscriptions on or near the tablets.
On the 17th July my companions were able to move to the higher mountains.
We all longed for a cooler climate, and we rejoiced as at sunrise we left
our garden. A precipitous and difficult path leads up the mountain. From
the summit of the pass, the eye wanders over the plains of Navkur and
Sheikhan, the broken hill country around Arbil, and the windings of the
Zab and the Ghazir. On the opposite side is a deep valley dividing the
Akra hills from a second and loftier range. Through the valley ran a broad
clear stream, one of the confluents of the Zab, called by the Kurds
Durusho or Bairaisho.[155] We rode along its banks for nearly an hour, and
then struck into a narrow gorge thickly wooded with oak. Another stony and
precipitous pass was between us and the principal district of Zibari.
Descending into the low country we rode by the village of Birikapra, the
residence of Mustafa Agha, the former head of the Zibari tribes. The
present chief, Namet Agha, dwells at Heren, about two miles beyond. He had
lately been at Mosul to receive from the Pasha his cloak of investiture,
and during his visit had been my guest. His abilities and acquirements
were above the ordinary Kurdish standard, which indeed is low enough; for,
as the Arab proverb declares, "Be the Kurd a Kurd or a prophet, he will
still be a bear." He spoke Persian with fluency, and was not ignorant of
Arabic. As he was well acquainted with the geography of Kurdistan, I
learnt from him many interesting particulars relating to the less-known
districts of the mountains.
The chief welcomed me with friendly warmth; and, although forbidden to eat
himself, he did not leave his guests uncared for. The breakfast brought to
us from his harem comprised a variety of sweetmeats and savoury dishes,
which did credit to the skill of the Kurdish ladies.
I was the bearer of a letter to him from the Pasha: no acceptable
communication, however, as it treated of new taxes, a subject very
generally disagreeable, upon tobacco, cotton, and fruit, which the Zibari
Kurds were now called upon for the first time to pay. The salian, too, a
kind of property tax, was raised from twenty-five to sixty thousand
piastres (about 550_l._). The late successful expeditions against the
chiefs of Bohtan and Hakkiari had encouraged the Porte to ask money of the
previously independent tribes under Namet Agha; and although no Turkish
troops had yet entered their mountains, the Kurds deemed it advisable to
comply for the present with the demand rather than run the risk of an
invasion, and a still more dreaded evil, the conscription.
Namet Agha's authority extended over Zibari, Shirwan, Gherdi, Baradost,
and Shemdeena, from Akra to the Persian frontier. These districts are
occupied by different Kurdish tribes, each having its own chief; but they
had then submitted to the Agha of Zibari, and paid their tribute through
him to the governor of Mosul. Namet placed me under the protection of his
cousin, Mullah Agha, who was ordered to escort us to the borders of the
pashalic of Hakkiari, now occupied by the Turkish troops. Our guide was a
tall sinewy mountaineer, dressed in the many-colored loose garments, and
huge red and black turban folded round the high conical felt cap, which
gives a peculiar and ungainly appearance to the inhabitants of central
Kurdistan. He was accompanied by three attendants, and all were on foot,
the precipitous and rocky pathways of the mountains being scarcely
practicable for horses, which are rarely kept but by the chiefs. They
carried their long rifles across their shoulders, and enormous daggers in
their girdles.
We left Heren early on the morning of the 19th, and soon reaching the Zab
rode for two hours along its banks, to a spot where a small raft had been
made ready for us to cross the stream. We had some difficulty in crossing,
and were compelled to pass the night in the small village of Rizan, near
the ferry, as one of the baggage-mules refused to swim the stream, and was
not forced over until near dawn of the following morning.
We now entered the tract which has probably been followed for ages by the
mountain clans in their periodical migrations. Besides the sedentary
population of these districts, there are certain nomade Kurdish tribe
called Kochers, who subsist entirely by their flocks. They are notorious
petty thieves and robbers, and during their annual migrations commit
serious depredations upon the settled inhabitants of the district on their
way, and more especially upon the Christians. As they possess vast flocks
of sheep and herds of cattle, their track has in most places the
appearance of a beaten road, and is, consequently, well-fitted for beasts
of burden.
On the 21st July, crossing a high ridge, we left the district of Zibari,
and entered that of Shirwan, whose chief, Miran Bey, came out to meet us
at the head of his armed retainers. He led us to the large village of
Bersiyah, situated beneath a bold and lofty peak called Piran. Most of the
villages in these mountains have small mud forts, with either four or six
towers,--the places of refuge and defence of the numerous petty chiefs
during their frequent broils and blood-feuds. We met a few Jewish families
who wander from village to village. The men are pedlars and goldsmiths,
and are not unwelcome guests, even in the intolerant families of the
Kurds, as they make and refashion the ornaments of the ladies.
On one of the many towering peaks, is the large village of Khan-i-resh,
with its orchards and gardens, the residence of the chief of the district
of Baradost. We reached it by a very rapid ascent in an hour and a
half.[156]
We were received by the Mir, Fezullah Bey,[157] in a spacious chamber,
supported by wooden pillars, and completely open on the side facing the
valley, over which it commanded an extensive and beautiful prospect.
Though quite restive under the Turkish control, he received Mullah Agha
with civility, and read the letters of introduction from Namet Agha, of
which I was the bearer. Like most of the mountain chiefs, he spoke
Persian, the language used in Kurdistan for all written communications,
and in books, except the Koran and a few pious works, which are in
Arabic. The Kurdish dialects are mere corruptions of the Persian, and are
not, with rare exceptions, employed in writing.
The Mir pressed me to pass the night with him as his guest; but after
partaking of his breakfast, I continued my journey, and reached, by
sunset, the small turreted stronghold of Beygishni.
The next morning we crossed one of the shoulders of the lofty peak of
Ser-i-Resh, into the valley of Chappata. We were met on the way by a party
of Nestorians, who had come out to see me, headed by the brother of the
Bishop of Gherdi. He walked by me as far as Zernin, the castle of the
Kurdish chief, and then left a relation to guide us to the dwelling of the
Bishop of Shemesdin or Shemdeena. As usual, he complained of bitter
oppression and injustice from the Kurdish Mirs, who had lately driven a
large part of the Christian population across the frontiers into Persia.
After enjoying the hospitality of Iahya Bey, the Mir of Gherdi, at the
village of Rua, we left the naked hills which skirt the Assyrian plains,
and entered the wooded districts of Kurdistan. On the following day we
journeyed through a valley thick with walnuts and other large trees, and
followed the windings of a stream, called by the Kurds Shambo, one of the
principal confluents of the Zab. We crossed it, backwards and forwards, by
wicker suspension bridges, until we ascended, through a forest of orchards
watered by innumerable streamlets, to Nera, the village of Mousa Bey, the
chief of Shemdina. We pitched our tents near some springs on an open lawn,
and waited the return of an aged servant who had been disturbed by the
noise of our caravan, and had undertaken to announce our arrival to his
master.
We had evidently to deal with a man of civilisation and luxury, for the
old Kurd shortly returned followed by numerous attendants, bearing
sherbets and various Persian delicacies, in china bowls. Mousa Bey himself
came to us in the afternoon, and his manners and conversation confirmed
the impression that his breakfast had produced. Intercourse with Persia,
beyond whose frontiers his own tribe sometimes wandered, had taught him
the manners and language of his neighbours. He told me that he was
descended from one of the most ancient of Kurdish families, whose records
for many hundred years still exist; and he boasted that Sheikh Tahar, the
great saint, had deemed him the only chief worthy, from his independence
of the infidel government of the Sultan, to receive so holy a personage as
himself after the downfall of Beder Khan Bey. This Sheikh Tahar, who as
the main instigator of many atrocious massacres of the Christians, and
especially of the Nestorians, ought to have been pursued into the
uttermost parts of the mountains by the Turkish troops, and hanged as a
public example, was now suffering from fever. He sent to me for medicine;
but as his sanctity would not permit him to see, face to face, an
unbelieving Frank, and as he wished to have a remedy without going through
the usual form of an interview with the Doctor, I declined giving him any
help in the matter.
Mousa Bey was at this time almost the only chief in Kurdistan who had not
yet made a formal submission to the Turkish government. His territories
were, therefore, a place of refuge for those fugitives who, less fortunate
than himself, had been driven from their strongholds by the arms or
intrigues of the Porte. He bewailed the discords which severed the tribes,
and made them an easy prey to the Osmanli. The Turks, wise in their
generation, have pursued their usual policy successfully in Kurdistan;
the dissensions of the chiefs have been fomented, and, thus divided, they
have fallen one by one victims to treachery or to force.
We rose early on the following day, and left Nera long before the
population was stirring, by a very steep pathway, winding over the face of
a precipice, and completely overhanging the village. Reaching the top of
the pass we came upon a natural carpet of Alpine flowers of every hue,
spread over the eastern declivity of the mountain. Leaving the caravan to
proceed to our night's resting-place, I turned down the valley with my
companions to visit the bishop of Shemisden at his convent[158] of Mar
Hananisho.
A ride of three quarters of an hour brought us to the episcopal
residence.[159] Mar Isho, the bishop, met me at some distance from it. He
was shabbily dressed, and not of prepossessing appearance; but he appeared
to be good-natured, and to have a fair stock of common sense. After we had
exchanged the common salutations, seated on a bank of wild thyme, he led
the way to the porch of the church. Ragged carpets and felts had been
spread in the dark vestibule, in the midst of sacks of corn, bourghoul,
and other provisions for the bishop's establishment. Various rude
agricultural instruments, and spinning wheels, almost filled up the rest
of the room; for these primitive Christians rely on the sanctity of their
places of worship for the protection of their temporal stores. The title
of the bishop is "Metropolitan of Roustak," a name of which I could not
learn the origin. His jurisdiction extends over many Nestorian villages
chiefly in the valley of Shemisden. Half of this district is within the
Persian territories, and from the convent we could see the frontier
dominions of the Shah. It is in the high road of the periodical migrations
of the great tribe of Herki, who pass like a locust-cloud twice a year
over the settlements of the unfortunate Christians, driving before them
the flocks, spoiling the granaries, and carrying away even the miserable
furniture of the hovels. It is in vain that the sufferers carry their
complaints to their Kurdish master; _he_ takes from them double the lawful
taxes and tithes. The Turkish government has in this part of the mountains
no power, if it had the inclination, to protect its Christian subjects.
After we had partaken of the frugal breakfast of milk, honey, and fruit
prepared for us by the bishop, we turned again into the high road to
Bash-Kalah. We had another pass to cross before descending into the valley
of Harouna, where our caravan had encamped for the night. On the mountain
top were several Nestorian families crouching, half naked, for shelter
beneath a projecting rock. They seized the bridles of our horses as we
rode by, beseeching us to help them to recover their little property,
which, but a few hours before, had been swept away by a party of Herki
Kurds. I could do nothing for these poor people, who seemed in the last
stage of misery.
From the summit of the pass we looked down into two deep and well-wooded
valleys, hemmed in by mountains of singularly picturesque form. We
descended into the more northern valley, and passing the miserable
Nestorian hamlet of Sourasor, and the ruined church and deserted Christian
village of Tellana, reached our tents about sunset. They were pitched near
Harouna, whose Nestorian inhabitants were too poor to furnish us with
even the common coarse black bread of barley.
We had now quitted the semi-independent Kurdish valleys, and had entered
the newly created province of Hakkiari, governed by a Pasha, who resides
at Bash-Kalah. The adjacent plain of Ghaour is, however, exposed to the
depredations of the Herki Kurds, who, when pursued by the Turkish troops,
seek a secure retreat in their rocky fastnesses, beyond the limits of the
pashalic.
The district contains many villages, inhabited by a hardy and industrious
race of Nestorian Christians. The American missionaries of Ooroomiyah have
crossed the frontier since my visit, and have, I am informed, opened
schools in them with encouraging prospects of success. Ghaour is a
Nestorian bishopric.
A ride of six hours and a-half brought us to the large village of Dizza,
the chief place of the district, and the residence of a Turkish Mudir, or
petty governor. This office was filled by one Adel Bey, with whom I found
my old friend Ismail Agha of Tepelin, who had shown me hospitality three
years before in the ruined castle of Amadiyah.[160] He was now in command
of the Albanian troops forming part of the garrison. A change had come
over him since we last met. The jacket and arms which had once glittered
with gold, were now greasy and dull. His face was as worn as his garments.
After a cordial greeting he made me a long speech on his fortunes, and on
that of Albanian irregulars in general. "Ah! Bey," said he, "the power and
wealth of the Osmanlis is at an end. The Sultan has no longer any
authority. The accursed Tanzimat (Reform) has been the ruin of all good
men. Why, see Bey, I am obliged to live upon my pay; I cannot eat from
the treasury, nor can I squeeze a piastre--what do I say, a piastre? not a
miserable half-starved fowl, out of the villagers, even though they be
Christians. Forsooth they must talk to me about reform, and ask for money!
The Albanian's occupation is gone. Even Tafil-Bousi (a celebrated Albanian
condottiere) smokes his pipe, and becomes fat like a Turk. It is the will
of God. I have forsworn raki, I believe in the Koran, and I keep Ramazan."
The night was exceedingly cold. The change from the heat of the plains to
the cool nights of the mountains had made havoc amongst our party. Nearly
all our servants were laid up with fever, as well as the Doctor and Mr.
Walpole, who had rarely been free from its attacks during the journey. I
could not, however, delay, and on the following morning our sickly caravan
was again toiling over the hills. We had now entered the Armenian
districts. The Christian inhabitants of Dizza are of that race and faith.
We encamped for the night at the Kurdish village of Perauniss.
Next day we forded a branch of the Zab, and entered the valley of this
great confluent of the Tigris, its principal source being but a few miles
to the north of us, near the frontiers of Persia. The land is so heavy,
that the rude plough of the country requires frequently as many as eight
pairs of oxen. The Armenian ploughmen sit on the yokes, and whilst guiding
or urging the beasts with a long iron-pointed goad, chant a monotonous
ditty to which the animals appear so well accustomed, that when the driver
ceases from his dirge, they also stop from their labors.
A dell near our path was pointed out to me as the spot where the
unfortunate traveller Schulz was murdered by Nur Ullah Bey, the Kurdish
chief of Hakkiari. Turning up a narrow valley towards the high mountains,
we suddenly came in sight of the castle of Bash-Kalah, one of the ancient
strongholds of Kurdistan. Its position is remarkably picturesque. It
stands on a lofty rock, jutting out from the mountains which rise in a
perpendicular wall behind it. At the foot are grouped the houses of a
village. I found Izzet Pasha encamped at a considerable elevation in the
rocky ravine[161], which we reached, guided by cawasses carrying huge
glass lanterns, by a very precipitous and difficult track. I remained with
him until the night was far advanced, and then returned to our encampment.
He informed me that there was a direct road from Bash-Kalah to Mosul of
forty hours, through Beit-Shebbet, Daoudiyah, and Dohuk, which, with very
little labor and expense, could be made practicable for guns.
Bash-Kalah was formerly the dwelling-place of Nur Ullah Bey, a Kurdish
chief well-known for his rapacious and blood-thirsty character, and as the
murderer of Schulz. He joined Beder Khan Bey in the great massacres of the
Nestorians, and for many years sorely vexed those Christians who were
within his rule. After a long resistance to the troops of the Sultan, he
was captured about two years before my visit, and banished for life to the
island of Candia.
My companions and servants being much in want of rest, I stopped a day at
Bash-Kalah. On resuming our journey we took a direct though difficult
track to Wan only open in the middle of summer. Following a small stream,
we entered a ravine leading into the very heart of the mountains. Three
hours' ride, always rapidly ascending along the banks of the rivulet,
brought us to a large encampment. The features of the women and of the
men, who came out of their tents as we rode up, as well as the tongue in
which they addressed one another, showed at once that they were not Kurds.
They were Jews, shepherds and wanderers, of the stock, may be, of those
who, with their high priest, Hyrcanus, were carried away captive from
Jerusalem by Tigranes in the second century of our era, and placed in the
city and neighbourhood of Wan. Their descendants, two hundred years after,
were already so numerous that Shapour (Sapores) II. destroyed no less than
10,000 families in Wan alone.
We encamped near the Jewish nomades, and I visited their tents, but could
learn nothing of their history. They fed their flocks, as their fathers
had done before them, in these hills, and paid taxes to the governor of
Bash-Kalah.
We had now reached the higher regions of Kurdistan.[162] Next morning we
soon left the narrow flowery valley and the brawling stream, and entered
an undulating upland covered with deep snow, considerably more than ten
thousand feet above the level of the sea. On all sides of us were towering
peaks, and to the west a perfect sea of mountains, including the lofty
ranges of Hakkiari and Bohtan. Far away to the north was the azure basin
of Lake Wan, and beyond it rose the solitary white cone of the Subhan
Dagh.
Descending rapidly, and passing, near the foot of the mountain, one or two
miserable, half-deserted Kurdish hamlets, we entered a long narrow ravine,
shut in by perpendicular cliffs of sandstone and conglomerate. This outlet
of the mountain streams opens into the valley of Mahmoudiyah, in the
centre of which rises an isolated rock crowned by the picturesque castle
of Kosh-Ab.
We pitched our tents on a green lawn, near the bank of the foaming stream
which sweeps round the foot of the castellated rock. Soon after our
arrival a Kurdish Bey, of venerable appearance, a descendant of the
hereditary chiefs of Mahmoudiyah, called upon me. He had once been the
owner of the castle, but it had been wrested from him by two brothers,
named Khan Murad and Khan Abdal, mere mountain robbers. In this stronghold
the brothers long defied the Turkish government, levying black-mail upon
such caravans as ventured to pass through their territories, and
oppressing with fines and forced conversions their Christian subjects. It
was but the year before our visit that they had yielded to the troops sent
against them, and had been sent into banishment, with the rest of the
rebel chiefs, to Candia.
With the Kurdish Bey came one Ahmed Agha, a chief of the large border
tribe of Mogri, an intelligent man, who conversed freely on the state of
the country, and gave me some interesting information regarding the
frontiers. The fear of the conscription has driven many families into
Persia, and into the more independent districts of Kurdistan. On the
whole, the wandering tribes are becoming less formidable to the Porte than
they formerly were.
To the east of the district of Mahmoudiyah, and in that of Karasou, are
many Yezidi villages and a considerable Jewish population.[163] Both races
are much oppressed by the Kurdish chiefs, who take their property, and
even their lives, with perfect indifference, "the Cadis," as Ahmed Agha
informed me, "having given _fetwahs_ (decrees) that both were lawful to
the true believer."
We rose early next morning, and went up to the castle. It is falling into
ruins, though its towers still rise boldly from the edge of the precipice,
overhanging at a giddy height the valley below. In them, open to the cool
breezes of the mountain, are the dwelling-rooms of the old Kurdish chiefs,
adorned with tasteful lattice-work, and with the painted panellings and
gilded cornices of Persia. They are now tenanted by the Turkish troops,
whose bright arms and highly-polished kitchen utensils hang on the gaudy
walls. After drinking coffee and smoking pipes with the captain of the
guard, we walked down the narrow pathway leading to the valley, and,
mounting our horses, joined the caravan, which had preceded us on the road
to Wan.
On the following morning we crossed this valley to Nourtchouk, at the
outskirts of which I was met by the priest at the head of the inhabitants.
A range of low hills now separated us from the plain and lake of Wan. We
soon reached their crest, and a landscape of surpassing beauty was before
us. At our feet, intensely blue and sparkling in the rays of the sun, was
the inland sea, with the sublime peak of the Subhan Dagh, mirrored in its
transparent waters. The city, with its castle-crowned rock and its
embattled walls and towers, lay embowered in orchards and gardens. To our
right a rugged snow-capped mountain opened midway into an amphitheatre, in
which, amidst lofty trees, stood the Armenian convent of Yedi Klissia (the
seven churches). To the west of the lake was the Nimroud Dagh, and the
highlands nourishing the sources of the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The
hills forming the foreground of our picture were carpeted with the
brightest flowers, over which wandered the flocks, whilst the gaily
dressed shepherds gathered around us as we halted to contemplate the
enchanting scene.
We now descended rapidly towards Wan, and as we issued into the plain, a
party of horsemen galloped towards us. I soon recognised amongst them my
friend Mr. Bowen; with him were the Cawass-Bashi and a troop of irregular
cavalry, sent out by the Pasha to escort me into the city. Nor did the
governor's kindness end with this display of welcome. After winding for
nearly an hour through orchards and gardens, whose trees were bending
under the weight of fruit, and then through the narrow and crowded
streets, we were led to his serai or palace, which, such as it was, had
been made ready for our use, and where his treasurer was waiting to
receive us. Notwithstanding the fast, an abundant breakfast of various
meats and sweet messes, cooked after the Turkish fashion, had been
prepared for us, and we soon found repose upon a spacious divan,
surrounded by all the luxuries of Eastern life.
[Illustration: Kurds of Wan.]