ZÂKHÔ TO DIYÂRBEKR
_May 10--June 4_
The Babylonians, and after them the Nestorians and the Moslems, held
that the Ark of Noah, when the waters subsided, grounded not upon the
mountain of Ararat, but upon Jûdî Dâgh. To that school of thought I also
belong, for I have made the pilgrimage and seen what I have seen. The
snows that gleamed upon us from under the skirts of the thunderstorm
when we camped at Zâkhô were the springtime wreaths of Jebel Jûdî, and
resisting all other claims, we turned our faces towards them on the
following day. Selîm, the muleteer, gloried in this decision. He was a
native of the hills above Killiz, and like all mountain people his
spirits rose with the rising ground. Above Zâkhô the Khâbûr is spanned
by a masonry bridge of four arches (Fig. 181), but when we came to
Durnakh, we found the Ḥeizil Sû innocent of bridge or ferry-boat. The
river, which is the principal affluent of the Khâbûr, ran deep and swift
by reason of the melting snows. In midstream its waters touched the top
of my riding-boots and buffeted my mare, so that I thought she would
certainly fall; indeed she would have fallen but for two of the
inhabitants of Durnakh who, with garments rolled round their waists,
held bravely up her chin. Another pair was attached to each of the
baggage animals, the muleteers joined in the sport, and we reached the
further side without loss. Four hours and a half from Zâkhô we passed by
Tell Kobbîn, an ancient mound with a village of the same name a little
further to the north,[175] and in two hours more we entered the
foothills and lunched in an oak grove near the village of Gerik. Our
path led us over rising meadows to Geurmuk and Dadar, and so into the
mouth of a gorge where Ḥasanah nestles under rocky peaks. The clouds
gathered over the mountains and thunder came booming through the gorge
as we pitched our tents by the edge of the stream, nine hours from
Zâkhô. Ḥasanah is a Christian village inhabited partly by Nestorians and
partly by the converts of American missionaries. The pastor of the
Protestant Nestorians, if I may so call him (when I asked him what was
his persuasion, he replied that he was Prôt), came at once to offer his
respects, coupled with a bunch of pink roses from his garden, and I,
being much attracted by his sturdy figure and simple open countenance,
asked him to guide me next day through the hills. Over and above his
personal charms, Kas Mattai had the advantage of a knowledge of Arabic.
He spoke besides Kurdish and Syriac, but his native tongue was Fellâḥî
(the Peasant Language), which is no other than Assyrian. His brother
Shim’ûn, who accompanied us on all our expeditions (he climbed the rocks
like a cat or a Grindelwalder), had nothing but Fellâḥî and Kurdish and
a cheerful face, but with one or the other, or all three, he made his
way deep into my affections before we parted. We walked up the narrow
valley, where flowers and flowering shrubs nodded over the path in an
almost incredible luxuriance, and climbed the steep wooded hill-side to
a point where the rock had been smoothed to receive the image of an
Assyrian king, though none had been carved upon it. Above it rose a
precipitous crag clothed on one side with hanging woods through which
zigzagged a very ancient path, lost at times among fallen rocks and
trees, while at times its embankment of stones was still clearly to be
traced. On the summit of the crag were vestiges of a small fortress. The
walls were indicated by heaps of unsquared stones, many of which had
fallen down the hill, where they lay thickly strewn; the evidence
afforded by them, and by the carefully constructed path, made it certain
that we were standing upon the site of some watch-tower that had guarded
the Ḥasanah gorge. On the opposite side rises a second crag whereon,
said
[Illustration: FIG. 182.--ḤASANAH, ASSYRIAN RELIEF.]
[Illustration: FIG. 183.--SHAKH, ASSYRIAN RELIEF.]
[Illustration: FIG. 184.--NOAH’S ARK.]
Kas Mattai, are ruins of the same description. That the valley was held
by the Assyrians there can be no doubt, for it is signed with their
name. Below and to the west of the crag to which we had climbed there is
another smoothed niche in the rock (Fig. 182), and here the work has
been completed and the niche is carved with the figure of an Assyrian
king, wearing a long fringed robe and carrying a sceptre.[176] At a
later age, the mountains had been occupied by Christians. Kas Mattai
showed me at the foot of the crag a few vaulted chambers which he
declared to be the ruins of a Nestorian monastery, and walking westward
for an hour or more along the wooded ridges, we came to a second and
larger monastic ruin, with a garden of fruit-trees about it, and groves
of tall blue irises which had escaped from the cemetery of the monks and
wandered over the hill-side.
In the high oak woods I forgot for a few hours the stifling heat which
had weighed upon us ever since we had left Môṣul. Each morning we had
promised one another a cooler air as we neared the mountains; each
evening the thermometer placed in the shade of my tent registered from
88° to 93° Fahrenheit. The heavy air was like an enveloping garment
which it was impossible to cast off, and as I walked through the woods I
was overmastered by a desire for the snow patches that lay upon the
peaks--for one day of sharp mountain air and of freedom from the lowland
plague of flies. Sefînet Nebî Nûh, the ship of the Prophet Noah, was
there to serve as an excuse.
Accordingly we set out from camp at four o’clock on the following
morning. Kas Mattai and Shim’ûn in their felt sandals, raishîkî, a
proper footgear for the mountaineer, Selîm, whom Providence had marked
out for the expedition, ’Abdu’l Mejîd, a zaptieh from Zâkhô, who had
been ordained as pointedly to walk upon flat ground, and the donkey. “As
for that donkey,” said Fattûḥ, “if he stays two days in the camp eating
grass, Selîm will not be able to remain upon his back.” He was Selîm’s
mount, and Selîm, who knew his mind better than any other among us, was
persuaded that he would enjoy the trip. The donkey therefore carried
the lunch. We climbed for two hours and a half through oak woods and
along the upper slopes of the hills under a precipitous crest. But this
was not what I had come out to see, and as soon as I perceived a couloir
in the rocks, I made straight for it and in a few moments stepped out
upon an alp. There lay the snow wreaths; globularia nudicaulis carpeted
the ground with blue, yellow ranunculus gilded the damp hollows, and
pale-blue squills pushed up their heads between the stones and shivered
in the keen wind. Selîm had followed me up the couloir.
“The hills are good,” said he, gathering up a handful of snow, “but I do
not think that the donkey will come up here, nor yet ’Abdu’l Mejîd.”
We returned reluctantly to the path and walked on for another half-hour
till Kas Mattai announced that the Ark of Noah was immediately above us.
Among asphodel and forget-me-nots we left the zaptieh and the donkey;
Selîm shouldered the lunch-bags, and we climbed the steep slopes for
another half-hour. And so we came to Noah’s Ark, which had run aground
in a bed of scarlet tulips (Fig. 184).
There was once a famous Nestorian monastery, the Cloister of the Ark,
upon the summit of Mount Jûdî, but it was destroyed by lightning in the
year of Christ 766.[177] Upon its ruins, said Kas Mattai, the Moslems
had erected a shrine, and this too has fallen; but Christian, Moslem and
Jew still visit the mount upon a certain day in the summer and offer
their oblations to the Prophet Noah. That which they actually see is a
number of roofless chambers upon the extreme summit of the hill. They
are roughly built of unsquared stones, piled together without mortar,
and from wall to wall are laid tree-trunks and boughs, so disposed that
they may support a roofing of cloths, which is thrown over them at the
time of the annual festival. To the east of these buildings there is an
open court enclosed by a low stone wall. The walls both of the chambers
and of the court are all, as I should judge, constructions of a recent
date, and they are certainly Mohammadan, since one of the chambers
contains a miḥrâb niche to the south, and in the enclosing wall of the
court there is a similar rough niche. Further to the west lie the ruins
of a detached chamber built of very large stones, and perhaps of an
earlier date. Beneath the upper rocks upon which these edifices stand,
there is a tank fed by the winter snows which had not entirely
disappeared from the mountain-top. Still further down, upon a small
plateau, are scattered fragments of a different architecture, carefully
built walls, stone doorposts, and lintels showing above the level of the
soil. Here, I make little doubt, was the site of the Nestorian
monastery.
The prospect from the ziyârah was as wild, as rugged and as splendid as
the heart could desire, and desolate beyond measure. The ridge of Jûdî
Dâgh sinks down to the north on to a rolling upland which for many miles
offers ideal dwelling-places for a hardy mountain folk. There were but
four villages to be seen upon it. The largest of these was Shandokh, the
home of a family of Kurdish âghâs whose predatory habits account for the
scantiness of the population. To the east of it lay Heshtân, which is in
Arabic Thamânîn (the Eighty), so called because the eighty persons who
were saved from the Deluge founded there the first village of the
regenerated world when they descended from Jebel Jûdî.[178] Further to
the north an endless welter of mountains stretched between us and Lake
Vân. They rose, towards the east, into snowy ranges, and very far to the
south-east we could see the highest snow-peaks of Tiyârî, where the
Nestorians, grouped under a tribal system, defend their faith with their
lives against the Kurdish tribes--a hereditary warfare, marked with
prodigies of valour on the part of the Christians, and with such success
as the matchlock may attain over the Martini rifle.
Because the light air breathed sharply off the snows, and because the
vista of mountains was a feast to the eye, we lay for several hours in
the sanctuary of the Prophet Noah. There can be no manner of doubt that
I ought to have completed the pilgrimage by visiting his grave, but it
lay far down upon the southern slopes of Jûdî Dâgh, and I was making
holiday upon the hill-tops; therefore when we turned homewards, we bade
Shim’ûn conduct the donkey and ’Abdu’l Mejîd to Ḥasanah and ourselves
kept to the crest of the ridge. Half-an-hour from the summit we met some
Kurdish shepherds near a small heap of ruins, concerning which they
related the following history: Once upon a time there was a holy man who
took a vow of pilgrimage to the ship of Noah, and for a month he
journeyed over hill and vale until he reached the spot on which we
stood. And there he met the Evil One, who asked him whence he came and
whither he was going. The holy man explained that he was bent on a
pilgrimage to the ship of Noah. “You have still,” said the Devil, “a
month’s journey before you.” Thereat the pilgrim, being old and weary,
lost heart, and since he could not return with his vow unfulfilled, he
built himself a hut and ended his days within sight of the goal, if his
eyes had not been too worn to see. The presence of the shepherds upon
Mount Jûdî was not to be attributed to any pious purpose. They had come
up from the villages below to escape from the sheep tax which was about
to be levied for the second time within a twelvemonth, once for last
year’s arrears, and once for this year’s dues. Their lawless flocks
skipped among the boulders and the snow-wreaths as light-heartedly as
the wild goat, which no government can assess, but the owners lived in
anxiety, and when, half-an-hour further, we encountered a second
company, they took us for soldiers and greeted us with rifle shots. Kas
Mattai grasped the situation and shouted a justification of our
existence, which was not received without hesitation. I was standing,
when the shots began, in the middle of a _névé_, and thinking that I
must offer a fine mark, I stepped off the snow and sat down upon a grey
rock to await developments. But as soon as we had made it clear that we
were simple people with no official position, we were allowed to pass.
“It was well,” observed Kas Mattai, as we clambered down the crags,
“that ’Abdu’l Mejîd was not with us. They would have killed him.”
At the foot of the rocks we sat down to rest beside a bubbling spring.
“Have you suffered at the hand of the government?” I asked my guide.
“We suffer from the Kurds,” he replied, “and there is no one to protect
us but God. Effendim, the âghâwât from Shandokh come over the pass and
claim hospitality from us. We are poor men--in all Ḥasanah there is not
one who is ignorant of hunger; how shall we feed the âghâwât, and their
mares, and the followers they bring with them? And how shall we refuse
when they are armed with rifles?”
“Have you no arms?” said I.
“We have no money to buy rifles,” he answered; “and if we bought them,
the Kurds would take them from us. And when we have killed our last
sheep that we may entertain them, they seize upon all we possess before
they leave us.”
“Oh Merciful!” ejaculated Selîm.
“Sir,” said Kas Mattai, “last year they took my bed, and that which was
too worthless to carry away they broke and threw upon the fire. But if
we resisted they would burn the village.”
We ran down through the oak woods and got into camp at four in the
afternoon.
“God prolong your existence!” cried Fattûḥ. “Have you seen the ship of
the Prophet Noah?”
“Oh Fattûḥ,” I replied, “prepare the tea. I have seen the ship of the
Prophet Noah.” So it is that I subscribe in this matter to the wisdom of
the Kurân: “And immediately the water abated and the decree was
fulfilled and the Ark rested upon the mountain of Jûdî.”
Next morning the camp was sent straight to Jezîreh, which it reached
after a six-hours’ march, but I, with Shim’ûn as guide, followed the
line of the hills. We rode for two hours through the oak woods, and then
crossed a gorge wherein lies the Moslem village of Evler. The
incomparable beauty of these valleys passes belief. Evler was buried in
a profusion of pomegranate and walnut, fig, almond and mulberry trees;
the vines were wreathed from tree to tree, the ground beneath was deep
in corn, and the banks of the stream aglow with oleander. An hour
further we reached the Nestorian village of Shakh, where a ruined castle
protects the entrance of the gorge. The walls climb up the hillside
towards a citadel placed upon a high peak; above the village two deep
valleys run up into the mountains, and each has been walled across, so
that Shakh was guarded from attack on every side. I should judge these
fortifications to be Kurdish, but there are traces of an older
civilization on the rocks above them (Fig. 183). Of the four Assyrian
reliefs that are reported to exist, I saw only three, the fourth being
cut upon the face of the cliff and unapproachable except with ropes.
Each of the three niches which I was shown (after an hour’s climb in the
hottest part of the day) contained a single figure, like that of
Ḥasanah; each had been covered with cuneiform inscriptions, but in two
cases both the figure and the inscriptions had all but weathered away.
We left Shakh at midday, stopped for half-an-hour to lunch by the
stream, and reached Jezîret ibn ’Umar at four o’clock. The camp was
pitched upon a high bank overhanging the Tigris, but the bridge of boats
which should have connected us with the town was broken, and I crossed
by a ferry on the following day.
Jezîret ibn ’Umar is built upon an island formed by the Tigris and a
small loop canal. It is called after a certain Ḥassan ibn ’Umar of the
tribe of Taghlib, who lived in the ninth century.[179] Upon the river’s
edge stands a much-ruined
[Illustration: FIG. 185.--JEZÎRET IBN ’UMAR, GATE OF FORTRESS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 186.--JEZÎRET IBN ’UMAR, BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 187.--JEZÎRET IBN ’UMAR, FOUNTAIN OF MOSQUE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 188.--JEZÎRET IBN ’UMAR, RELIEFS ON BRIDGE.]
castle of which the masonry is mostly of alternate bands of black basalt
and white limestone. Over one of the doors are carved a couple of rudely
executed lions (Fig. 185). The town walls still exist in part and belong
to the same date as the castle; so too does the fragment of a masonry
bridge which spanned the Tigris about half-an-hour’s ride below the town
(Fig. 186). On our way to it we forded the moat which was at that time
quite shallow. One of the bridge piers is decorated with a key pattern
of black and white stone, and with some curious reliefs representing the
signs of the zodiac, of which the work is similar in character to that
of the lions upon the castle gate (Fig. 188). Each relief bears an
inscription in Arabic naming the zodiacal sign which it depicts.[180] As
we came back through the town we stopped at the principal mosque, which
has a pair of fine bronze doors, with bronze knockers worked in a design
of intertwined dragons. A small dome, set upon columns that may have
been taken from an earlier building, covers the fountain in the
courtyard (Fig. 187).[181] Jezîret ibn ’Umar has a bad reputation for
the fever which is bred in its marshy moat; moreover it was stifling
hot. I hurried through a cursory sight-seeing and ferried back to the
opposite bank, where I found the baggage animals loaded and ready to
start. Having followed the Tigris bank for half-an-hour, I left the
caravan to pursue its way to Finik and turned up the valley of the Risür
Chai. In less than two hours from Jezîreh we came to a ruined Kurdish
fort, standing on either side of the stream and blocking effectually the
passage of the gorge; and carved upon the rocks of the left bank there
is a more ancient guardian of the pass, a warrior armed, and mounted
upon a bounding horse (Fig. 189). His companion, who went on foot, has
fallen into the stream, and I know no other record of him than Layard’s
woodcut.[182] The figure of the horseman is much defaced by time. The
winter rains have worn thin his armour, the spring floods have
undermined the rock on which he stands, but shadowy though his image may
be, it marks the triumph of a European civilization, and its prototypes
are to be sought not among the bearded divinities and winged monsters of
Assyria, but in the work of Western sculptors. The Parthian, who was the
bitter enemy of the Roman empire, carved it upon the rocks of Ḳaṣr
Ghellî, and bore witness with his own hand to the overmastery of Roman
culture.
We cut across the hills back to the Tigris, and rode by a memorably
inadequate path--equally memorable for the profusion of oleanders
through which it ran--up the bank to Finik. The high ground on either
side of the valley falls sharply to the water, and the river bursts here
through the last barrier of mountain which divides it from the
Mesopotamian plain. Finik has been from all time the key of the ravine.
Before we reached the side-gorge in which the village lies, we passed a
great enclosure of ruined walls and towers, and below it, among the
ricefields that occupy a cape jutting into the stream, there are remains
of similar fortifications. Beyond the gorge of Finik we rode under a
crag which is crowned by the most commanding of the many castles, and
less imposing fortress ruins are clustered about its foot. We made our
way through groves of pomegranate down to the camp, pitched in clover
pastures by the river. A ferry-boat was drawn up upon the bank, and with
its help we designed to convey ourselves next morning to the further
side, but the boat was ancient and the stream swift, and I suspected
that the passage would be a long business. Therefore I left Fattûḥ to
cope with the ferrymen and went up, while he did
[Illustration: FIG. 189.--PARTHIAN RELIEF, ḲAṢR GHELLÎ.]
[Illustration: FIG. 190.--PARTHIAN RELIEF, FINIK.]
[Illustration: FIG. 191.--THE HILLS OF FINIK.]
so, to the village. A tumbling stream and masses of oleander fill the
gorge; the greater part of the inhabitants of Finik are lodged in caves,
preserving, no doubt, the customs of their remotest ancestors whose
rock-cut dwellings they have inherited.[183] We climbed up to the castle
by a winding path and entered it on the side furthest from the Tigris,
the face of the hill turned towards the river being a precipitous rock.
The castle wall is partly of masonry and partly of the natural rock, and
the gate is tunnelled through the cliff and flanked by small rock-cut
chambers. Within the enclosure there are a number of underground
chambers, and on the highest peak the rooms are rock-hewn and vaulted
with masonry. How old the rock cutting may be I cannot tell; the masonry
is not very ancient, some of it may be modern, while none could safely
be dated earlier than the Middle Ages. But the position overhanging the
Tigris is superb, and it is difficult to think that the Phœnice which
Sapor overthrew stood on any other crag. The rolling plateau of the Ṭûr
’Abdîn stretched away to the south-west, and since I observed that the
ferrying of my caravan was taking as long a time as I had anticipated, I
sat down and made a comfortable survey of the country we were about to
traverse. We returned to the village by the way we had come (there is no
other) and climbed the rocks on the opposite side of the valley, where
Layard found a much-effaced Parthian relief. It depicts the figures of a
man and a woman, clad in short tunics which hang in heavy folds over
loosely-fitting trousers (Fig. 190). Above the man’s head are traces of
an inscription which even in Layard’s day was indecipherable. Our guide
hurried back to the village while I was examining the tablet, and when
we came down we found him spreading a meal of omelets and bread and
bowls of irân (a most delectable drink made of sour curds beaten up in
water) under the shade of some mulberry-trees--a welcome sight to those
who have breakfasted early and climbed over many rocks. A less pleasing
surprise awaited us when we reached the Tigris; not half the horses had
crossed, and the ferry-boat was engaged in intricate and lengthy
manœuvres on the opposite side. There was nothing to be done but to wait
for its return, and I lay down among the clover under a hawthorn-bush.
It was here that we were to bid a final farewell to the Greeks who had
accompanied us from the outset of the journey (Fig. 191). “When they had
arrived at a spot where the Tigris was quite impassable from its depth
and width, and where there was no passage along its banks, as the
Carduchian mountains hung steep over the stream, it appeared to the
generals that they must march over those mountains, for they had heard
from the prisoners that if they could cross the Carduchian heights they
would be able to ford the sources of the Tigris in Armenia.”[184] They
turned north, therefore, and fought their way through the land of the
Carduchi, which are the Kurds, until they reached the sea, while we,
having a ferry-boat at our disposal and a smaller force to handle,
passed over the Tigris into the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. So at length we parted, and
Cheirosophus in advance with the light-armed troops scaled the hills of
Finik and led slowly forward, leaving Xenophon to bring up the rear with
the heavy-armed men. Their shields and corselets glittered upon the
steep, they climbed, and reached the summit of the ridge, and
disappeared....
“Effendim!” Fattûḥ broke into my meditations. “Effendim, the boat is
ready.”
“Oh Fattûḥ,” said I, “the Greeks are gone.”
Fattûḥ looked vaguely disturbed.
“The Greeks of old days, who marched with us down the Euphrates,” I
explained.
The history of the Ten Thousand is not included in the Aleppine
curriculum, and since Fattûḥ can neither read nor write, he is debarred
from supplementing the acquirements of his brief school-days, but he
searched his memory for fragments of my meaningless talk.
“Those?” he said. “God be with them!”
We had more reason to invoke the protection of the Almighty on our own
behalf. The ferry-boat was packed with our baggage animals, standing
head to tail; the current was very swift. We shot down it, heading
aslant, until we neared the further shore; the ferrymen thrust their
long poles sharply into the water, and the boat heeled round until the
gunwale touched the level of the stream. Thereat the horses tumbled over
like ninepins, one upon the other, and I, sitting high in the stern, was
saved by the timely clutch of a zaptieh from plunging headlong into the
stream. “Allah, Allah!” cried the ferrymen, and we ran aground upon the
bank.
The Ṭûr ’Abdîn, which we now entered, is a lofty plateau that stretches
from Finik on the east to Mardîn and Diyârbekr on the west, and south to
Nisîbîn. The Tigris embraces it to north and east; on the south side the
heights of the plateau fall abruptly into the Mesopotamian deserts
which, interrupted only by the long hog’s back of the Jebel Sinjâr,
extend to the Persian Gulf. The Mount of the Servants of God--such is
the meaning of its beautiful name--was known to the ancients as Masius
Mons and Izala Mons, Mount Izala occupying the eastern end of the
plateau.[185] This country lay upon the confines of the Roman and the
Persian empires, and in the confused accounts of the campaigns of
Constantius, Justinian and Heraclius the frontier fortresses of Izala
and Masius play a conspicuous part. While war raged round Amida, Marde,
Dara and Nisibis, the secluded valleys of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn were falling
peacefully into the hands of the Servants of God. The Mount was a
stronghold of the Christian faith; monastery after monastery rose among
the oak woods, the rolling uplands were cleared and planted with
vineyards, and the ancient communities of the Eastern Church multiplied
and grew rich in their almost inaccessible retreat.[186] Very little has
been published concerning the architectural remains of the district, but
I had happened to see in Môṣul some photographs which had awakened my
curiosity, and the Dominican fathers whom I met at Baviân had raised it
still higher.[187]
The morning was half spent before we landed on the west bank of the
Tigris. Our path climbed up on to the plateau and led us over downs
sweet scented with clover and very thinly populated: during the five
hours’ journey from the Tigris to Azakh we saw only three villages.[188]
Azakh, where we camped, is inhabited mainly by Jacobites, some of whom
have modified their creed under the influence of American missionaries.
The Protestant pastor paid me a visit and brought disquieting news.
While we were still at Môṣul we had heard rumours of a massacre of the
Christians which had taken place at Adana. The Ṭûr ’Abdîn was full of
these reports. It was impossible to make out whether the events which
were related to us were past or present, how serious the massacre had
been or whether it were now at an end, and it was not until I reached
Cæsarea that I learnt the truth with regard to the double outbreak in
Cilicia. For a month we were greeted wherever we went with details of
fresh calamities that were in part the reverberation of those of which
we had already heard, and everywhere these histories were accompanied by
the assurance that a deliberate attempt had been made from without to
stir up massacres in the districts through which we passed. No direct
proof of this statement was offered; I never met the man who had set
eyes on the reported telegram, nor any one who could tell me what
signature it bore. But in the East, conviction does not wait upon
evidence. I learnt to realize the evil power of rumour, and experience
taught me how hard it is to keep the mind steadily fixed upon the
proposition that two unsupported statements (or the same often repeated)
will not make a certainty. The atmosphere of panic which surrounded us
is the true precursor of disaster, and I found good reason to respect
the statecraft of the Turkish officials whose firmness saved the
population from the consequences of their own loudly expressed
suspicions. I bear testimony to the fact that all that I saw or heard of
the agitation which attended the events of April 1909 led me to the
conviction that the local authorities had set their face against
bloodshed, and by so doing had averted it.
Next morning we rode for six hours to Bâ Sebrîna, over wide uplands
almost entirely uncultivated and covered with small oak-trees. The
country was so like the swelling, thinly wooded hills that lead out of
the Belḳâ towards the Syrian Desert that at times I could have sworn
that we were riding from Gilead into Moab.[189] The characteristic
feature of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn is the absence of streams; even when we
crossed a deep valley, as we did twice during the course of the morning,
there was no running water in it. The water supply of the villages is
derived from pools which are fed by the winter rains and snows. In the
second valley we found the ruined monastery of Mâr Shim’ûn, placed among
thickets and deep herbage, but, to my disappointment, it was of little
architectural interest. The village of Bâ Sebrîna is wholly Christian.
It has been an important place, and though it has now fallen to the
estate of a small hamlet, it contains innumerable monasteries. Several
of these are beyond the limits of the town. They lie, each in its own
enclosing wall, like small forts upon the hills, and each is garrisoned
by a single monk. The monastic buildings are exiguous, and I doubt
whether they can have been intended for more than one or two persons;
perhaps they should be regarded as clerical rather than as monastic
foundations,[190] and the living-rooms were intended for the lodging of
those who served the shrine. The first monastery which we reached upon
the outskirts of Bâ Sebrîna was of this character. Its high and rather
tapering rectangular tower, and strong walls, gave it from afar a
striking appearance, but the vaulted chapel and the rooms set round a
tiny court were rudely built of undressed stones, almost totally dark,
and devoid of decorative features. I looked at several of the monastic
houses within the village, and always with the same results: they had no
pretension to architectural interest and were without ornament or
inscriptions by which to determine their date. But at the monastery of
Mâr Dodo I found a clue to the history of Bâ Sebrîna. The church, which
is the largest in the place, stands upon the north side of a walled
court round which are placed insignificant living-rooms, store-rooms and
stables. The church consists of a closed narthex running along the south
side of a vaulted aisleless nave, with a single apse to the east. On the
east side of the court, south of the church, there is an exedra covered
by a semi-dome and provided with a stone reading-desk on which to set
the holy books. All the masonry is rude and unskilful, and the carved
capitals and moulded arch of the exedra bear no sign of great antiquity,
while the engaged capitals in the church are merely blocked out. Now
this scheme of a single-chambered church, with a narthex to the south
and an external exedra, filled me with amazement, for it was unlike any
that I had seen, but I was subsequently to learn that it is one of the
oldest ecclesiastical plans of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn, and its combination at Bâ
Sebrîna with rough masonry and late decorative details is explained by a
Syriac inscription above the porch which states that the church was
built in the year 1510 of the Seleucid era, _i.e._ A.D. 1200. Whether
this be the date of the first foundation or of a fundamental
reconstruction upon an older site I cannot be certain, though from the
absence of all trace of early work I incline to the former alternative,
and I conclude that the old architectural scheme of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn was
adhered to closely at a later date, when a second period of building
activity saw the foundation of the churches and monasteries of Bâ
Sebrîna. But since I did not then know that these edifices were exact
copies of more ancient work, their recent date was a rude shock, and I
began to wonder whether the Mount would prove to be as fruitful a field
as I had hoped. Bâ Sebrîna, at any rate, had been drawn blank, and we
rode down for three-quarters of an hour through vineyards to the village
of Sâreh. As soon as we had settled upon a camping-ground--no easy
matter on account of the interminable vineyards--I walked down to the
village to examine the church. The âghâ of Sâreh belongs to one of the
leading Kurdish families of these parts. I found him in an open space
near the church, entertaining friends who had ridden over from a
neighbouring village. They too were âghâs of a noble house, and they
were tricked out in all the finery which their birth warranted. Their
short jackets were covered with embroidery, silver-mounted daggers were
stuck into their girdles, and upon their heads they wore immense
erections of white felt, wrapped round with a silken handkerchief of
which the ends stuck out like wings over their foreheads. They pressed
me to accept several tame partridges which they kept to lure the wild
birds, and while we waited for the priest to bring the key of the
church, they exhibited the very curious stela (Fig. 192) which stands
upside down in the courtyard.[191] Meantime the village priest had
arrived, and I followed him unsuspiciously into the church. But I had
not stood for more than a minute inside the building than I happened to
look down on to the floor and perceived it to be black with fleas. I
made a hasty exit, tore off my stockings and plunged them into a tank of
water, which offered the safest remedy in this emergency.
“There are,” said the priest apologetically, “a great many, but they are
all swept out on Sunday morning. On Sunday there are none.”
I confess to a deep scepticism on this head.
The incompleteness of the maps and the absence of trustworthy
information led us far astray upon the following day. I had heard of a
very ancient monastery that lay upon the outer edge of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn:
upon the way thither I proposed to visit the castle of Ḥâtim Ṭâi.
Accordingly I spread out Kiepert, and drawing a bee-line across the
blank paper, told Fattûḥ to take the camp to Useh Dereh (Kiepert calls
it Useden), and provided him with a zaptieh and a guide. Another
villager accompanied Jûsef and me and the second zaptieh, and undertook
to guide us via the castle to Useh Dereh. We set forth from Sâreh at
5.30 and rode through uninhabited oak woods till 8.10, when we reached a
ruined village from which we could see the castle of Ḥâtim Ṭâi standing
up boldly on the opposite side of a deep valley. There was no road by
which to reach it--not so much as a bridle path. We struggled down
through the woods, dragging our horses over rocks and fallen trees, and
by the special mercy of Providence reached at 9.15, and without
accident, the foot of the castle hill. A path led round it to the Yezîdî
village of Gelîyeh, and thither I sent Jûsef and the zaptieh with the
horses, while the man of Sâreh climbed the hill with me. Ḥâtim Ṭâi was a
renowned sheikh of the Arab tribe of the Ṭâi, but the castle which is
called after him has a far longer history. The summit of the hill is
enclosed in a
[Illustration: FIG. 192.--STELA AT SÂREH.]
[Illustration: FIG. 193.--ḲAL’AT ḤÂTIM ṬÂI, CHAPEL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 194.--MÂR AUGEN.]
double line of fortification following the contours of the slopes. The
lower ring is provided with towers at the angles of the wall, and with
round bastions of very slight projection. Within the inner enclosure
stands the citadel, now completely ruined and bearing evidences of
frequent reconstruction. The oldest parts are unmistakably of Byzantine
masonry, and contain a chapel of which the apse is well preserved (Fig.
193). The castle must have been rebuilt during the Mohammadan period,
and then again rebuilt, for in one of the walls of the citadel there is
a fragment of an Arabic inscription, which is not in its original
position, neither is the inscription complete.[192] The Yezîdîs declare
that the castle was one of their strongholds until it passed into the
hands of the Ṭâi, and this might account for a reconstruction of the
citadel at a late period. The only other inscription which I could find
is also Arabic. It is apparently a name, with no date or further
qualification, cut upon the main gate of the outer wall.[193] In the
space between the two walls there are a number of small rock-hewn
cisterns, some of which were probably intended to hold corn and other
provisions. The main water supply was drawn from a large cistern in the
citadel. So far as I could judge, the ruins, therefore, exhibit Yezîdî
or Arab work (or both) upon Byzantine foundations, and I think it
exceedingly likely that the castle of Ḥâtim Ṭâi is that Rhabdium which,
according to Procopius, was fortified by Justinian. It lay, says he, on
a steep rock upon the frontiers of the Roman and the Persian empires,
two days from Dara. Below it was the Ager Romanorum, which has been
identified with the plain between Môṣul and the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Since there
was no water near it (there is none, as I have said, in the Ṭûr ’Abdîn),
Justinian was obliged to cut a number of cisterns.[194] The whole of
this description exactly fits the castle of Ḥâtim Ṭâi, and the presence
of Byzantine masonry among the ruins is strongly in favour of the
identification. The position of the fortress is exceedingly fine. The
hills drop down sharply from its very walls into the Mesopotamian plain,
where the long line of the Jebel Sinjâr, a mountain occupied almost
exclusively by the Yezîdîs, alone breaks the desolate expanse.
A cruel disillusion awaited us when we reached the valley. The Yezîdîs,
who were feasting Jûsef and the zaptieh on bread and bowls of milk,
declared that there was no getting to Useh Dereh except by taking the
path down into the plain and climbing up into the hills again by a pass
at Ḳal’at ej Jedîd. Even the direction from which we had come was
blocked to us, for we refused to contemplate a return through the woods
down which we had pushed our way with so much difficulty. The Yezîdîs,
who had heard from Jûsef that we had recently visited ’Alî Beg, begged
us to stay the night in their caves (the village of Gelîyeh is all
underground), and offered to kill a sheep for us, and when I was obliged
to decline this eagerly proffered hospitality, one of their number
accompanied us for some distance to show us the way. Riding through oak
woods where the bees had hived in every hollow trunk we came to a small
and dilapidated Yezîdî shrine, where my guide paused to kiss the largest
of the trees. “It belongs to the ziyârah,” he said in answer to my
question. “We do not collect the honey out of any of these trees; all
the wood here belongs to the ziyârah.” We left Gelîyeh at 10.30 and in
two hours found ourselves in the familiar Mesopotamian landscape, an
interminable flat strewn with big mounds, each with its village near it.
The climate, too, was familiar, and we rode wearily through a burning
heat to which we had not thought to return. At 11.30 we passed near
Kalka; at 12.30 we came to Kinik, where we spent half-an-hour trying to
re-shoe one of our horses. But the farrier was dead, so we were
informed, and though we had the shoe with us the whole village could not
produce a single nail. When once the Yezîdî was gone none of our party
had any special knowledge of the way, but Kiepert (upon whom be praise!)
served us well, and with his help we hit off the valley which led up to
Ḳal’at ej Jedîd, and at five o’clock we found ourselves, tired and
hungry, under its towers. It soared above us, no less splendidly placed
than Ḳal’at Ḥâtim Ṭâi, and guarded this second pass just as Ḥâtim Ṭâi
had guarded the other. If we had been certain that we should reach our
camp before nightfall I should have climbed up to it, but in the
mountains no one can make a sure calculation of distances, and we dared
not stay. I know nothing, therefore, of Ḳal’at ej Jedîd but its
magnificent outer aspect, and it remains in my memory as a vision of
wall and tower and precipitous rock rising into the ruddy sunset light
above a shadowy gorge, a citadel as bold and menacing as any that I have
seen.[195] We led our horses up the rugged gorge, and at 6.40 regained
the plateau of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. A little village, Bâ Dibbeh, stood at the
head of the pass, and before us stretched a rolling, thickly wooded
country. We stopped at the village pool to inquire our way, and were
given the general direction of Useh Dereh, coupled with a vague
assurance that it was not far. The paths were too stony for riding, and
to walk was a relief after so many hours of the saddle; I left my
companions to bring on the horses and turned into the darkening oak
woods. For close upon an hour I followed the course of a shallow winding
valley; the trees, standing close about the path, obscured all view; a
brooding silence, unbroken by man or beast, hung over the forest, the
dark deepened into cool, sweet-smelling night, and still the narrow
rocky path wound on between wooded banks. And just as I was wondering
whether it had any end, the trees fell back round an open patch of corn
and vine, and the lights of my camp shone out upon the further side.
If we had travelled far in the body upon that day, we travelled further
in the spirit upon the next. There lies upon the lip of the hills,
overlooking the wide desolation of Mesopotamia, a monastery which is
said to be the mother house of all the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Into these solitudes,
according to the tradition of the mountain, wandered at the beginning of
the fourth century a pupil of St. Antony, whose name was St. Eugenius.
He had learnt from his master the rule of solitude and had overcome with
him the devils that people the Egyptian sands; among the rocks of Mount
Izala he laid down his pilgrim’s staff, gathered disciples about him and
founded the monastery that still bears his name. It was at first no more
than a group of cells hollowed out of the cliff, but as its fame
increased, the monks built themselves a church upon a narrow shelf
between precipice and precipice, and helped out the natural defences of
the mountain by a strong wall of masonry. The cave cells increased in
number until the rocks were honeycombed on every side, and disciples of
the first founder led forth companies of monks to raise fresh
monasteries over the Ṭûr ’Abdîn.[196] The Jacobite priest of Useh Dereh,
when he heard that we proposed to visit Mâr Augen, offered to accompany
us, saying that he wished to pay his respects to the bishop who lived
there (this was a figure of speech, for the bishop is not to be seen of
any man), and he guided us for an hour through the woods to the southern
edge of the hills.[197] The path to the monastery was a rock-cut
staircase, but we succeeded in dragging the horses down it and left them
by the gate (Fig. 194). Under the crag stands the church with its tiny
cloister and walled court, and it did not take long to discover that, in
spite of many rebuildings, the tradition as to its age could not be far
wrong. A church must have stood here in the sixth century, if not in the
fifth; some of the old capitals have been re-used at a later time, and
the ancient plan is preserved in church and cloister. Ten monks are
lodged in the rock-cut cells of their remote forerunners--I met with one
of them in the cloister and he carried intelligence of my arrival to the
prior, who came in haste to do the honours of his church. He was a man
of some thirty years of age, with melancholy eyes. We sat together in
the shadow of the cloister, while he explained to me the rule under
which he and his brethren lived, and as he spoke I felt the centuries
drop away and disclose the ascetic life of the early Christian world.
They spend their days in meditation; their diet is bread and oil and
lentils; no meat, and neither milk nor eggs may pass their lips; they
may see no woman--
“But may you see me?” I asked.
“We have made an exception for you,” explained the prior. “Travellers
come here so seldom. But some of the monks have shut themselves into
their cells until you go.”
The cell of St. Eugenius stands apart from the others, hollowed out of
the cliff to the west of the church. The prior had spent a lonely winter
there, seeing no one but the brother who brought him his daily meal of
bread and lentils. As we stood in the narrow cave, which was more like a
tomb than a dwelling-place, I looked into the young face, marked with
the lines drawn by solitude and hunger.
“Where is your home?” I asked.
“In Mardîn,” he answered. “My father and my mother live there yet.”
“Will you see them again?” said I.
“Perhaps not,” he replied, but there was no regret in his voice.
“And all your days you will live here?”
He looked out calmly over rock and plain. “Please God,” he said. “It
seems to be a good place for prayer.”
It is the habit of the monks to let no traveller depart without food, a
habit well known to the neighbouring Kurds who claim more hospitality
than the monastery can well afford. While I worked at the church, the
prior betook himself to the cave kitchen and prepared an ample meal of
eggs and bread, raisins and sour curds for me and for my men. When we
had eaten I asked whether it would not be seemly to thank the bishop for
the entertainment which had been offered to us.
“You cannot see him,” said the prior. “He has left the world.”
“The kas from Useh Dereh came to-day to visit him,” I objected.
“He came to gaze upon his cell,” answered the prior, and with that he
led me out of the church and pointed to a cave some fifty feet above us
in the cliff. Three-quarters of the opening had been filled with
masonry, and I could see that it was approached by a stair of which the
lower part was cut out behind a gallery and the upper on the face of the
rock. An active novice might have thought twice before attempting the
path to the bishop’s cell.
“Is he old?” said I.
“He is the father of eighty years,” replied the prior, “and it is now a
year since he took a vow of silence and renounced the world. Once a day,
at sunset, he lets down a basket on a rope and we place therein a small
portion of bread.”
“And when he dies?” I asked.
“When he is sick to death he will send down a written word telling us to
come up on the next day and fetch his body. Then we shall see his face
again.”
“And you will take his place?” said I.
“If God wills,” he answered.
We walked across the hills for half-an-hour to Mâr Yuhannâ, a monastery
founded by a disciple of St. Eugenius. It is neither so finely placed
nor so interesting architecturally as Mâr Augen, though the rough walls
of church and monastic building, which cling to the rocky slopes, are
not without a certain wild beauty. The bishop who rules over the house
of Mâr Yuhannâ is less exclusive than the prelate at Mâr Augen, for he
shares a tower with his four monks, but he was still too exclusive to
receive my visit. The aged prior was all for serving us with a meal, but
I could not undertake to dispose of another omelet, nor did I realize
that my refusal would be regarded as a shocking breach of the social
code. The prior was so deeply hurt that he would not bid us farewell,
and we left under the cloud of his displeasure. We climbed back to the
summit of the hills and rode home to Useh Dereh, and if any one should
wonder why a recluse from Egypt should have sought so distant a
dwelling-place as Mount Izala, I can give a sufficient answer. It was
because he found Iris Susiana growing among the rocks. The great grey
flowers lift their heads in every open space between the oak-trees,
gleaming silver in the strong sun, and so perfect are they in form, so
exquisite in texture, that I stood amazed at the sight of them, as one
who gazes on a celestial vision.
It is just an hour’s ride from Useh Dereh to Mâr Melko,[198] which
stands fortress-like upon the top of a hill. The bishop (for there was a
bishop here also--the number of prelates in the Ṭûr ’Abdîn is scarcely
to be reckoned) was singularly unlike his colleagues of the other
monasteries. He carried sociability to so high a point that I doubted
whether I should be allowed to proceed that day upon my journey, but
with the regrettable incident at Mâr Yuhannâ fresh in my memory, I put
force upon my appetite and ate the second breakfast upon which his
hospitality insisted, while the zaptieh and Jûsef, who were not in the
habit of counting breakfasts, did fuller justice to the remains of it.
The monastery is a rambling building with a chapel upon an upper floor
and a crypt containing the tombs of priors. The tomb of the patron saint
is in the church itself. Over it hangs a rude picture of Mâr Melko with
the devil beside him: upon inquiry the bishop explained that the saint
had been renowned for his power of casting out devils, and he pointed to
a collar and chain attached to the wall and observed that men who were
afflicted with fits or madness came here to be cured, and all went away
sound, no matter what their creed.[199] The buildings bore evidences of
frequent reconstruction, and parts of the church were still in the state
of ruin in which a recent Kurdish raid had left them. It is almost
impossible to date architecture of this kind, for the new work and the
old have much the same character, but the plan of the church is the
ancient monastic scheme, as I learnt at Mâr Gabriel and at Ṣalâḥ, and in
all probability Mâr Melko is to be counted among the oldest foundations
of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Like Mâr Gabriel it is some distance removed from the
nearest village, and depends for its security upon its own strong walls.
After we had passed through Kharabah ’Aleh, which contains the ruins of
a church, we wandered among the rolling, wooded hills, and had gone
needlessly far to the north before we caught sight of the monastery of
Mâr Gabriel standing upon an eminence, with my tents pitched beside it.
The inevitable bishop was away and I could not regret his absence, since
it implied a relaxation of the social duties which I should otherwise
have been obliged to fulfil, and permitted me to give my whole attention
to the building.
The house of St. Gabriel of Kartmîn was, during the Middle Ages, the
most famous and the richest of Jacobite establishments. It is said to
have been founded in the reign of Arcadius (395-408) and rebuilt under
Anastasius (491-518), and I see no reason to doubt that the great church
of Mâr Gabriel is, as it now stands, a work of the early sixth century.
There are two other churches within the existing monastic precincts, one
dedicated to the Virgin, the other to the Forty Martyrs, but neither of
these is as old as that which is dedicated to the tutelary saint (Fig.
197). A large area of ruins beyond the walls gives some indication of
the former magnificence of the monastery which gained, as early as the
days of Justinian, a reputation for holiness second only
[Illustration: FIG. 195.--THE BISHOP OF MÂR MELKO.]
[Illustration: FIG. 196.--KHÂKH, THE NUN.]
[Illustration: FIG. 197.--NARTHEX OF MÂR GABRIEL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 200.--KHÂKH, CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN.]
[Illustration: FIG. 198.--KEFR ZEH, MÂR ’AZÎZÎYEH; PARISH CHURCH.]
to Jerusalem. It bore at that period the name of St. Stephen; St.
Gabriel was bishop of the monastery during the reign of Heraclius. When
the Arab invaders drove out the forces of the Byzantine empire, he
obtained from the Khalif ’Umar ibn u’l Khaṭṭâb rights of jurisdiction
over all Christians in the Ṭûr ’Abdîn, for which reason the monastery is
sometimes called after him, Deir Mâr Gabriel, and sometimes after the
khalif, Deir ’Umar. It was despoiled by Tîmûr towards the close of the
fourteenth century, and many a harrying it must have endured from the
Kurds before it sank into its present state of poverty and decay. One
monk and a single nun, well stricken in years, were its sole occupants
at the time of my visit. The church of Mâr Gabriel is built upon a plan
which I conjecture to be monastic as distinguished from parochial. The
two types, which are quite unlike each other, are also unlike all
churches known to me outside the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. The parish church (Fig.
198), which has no domestic buildings attached to it, or nothing but a
few chambers for the lodging of clerks, follows invariably the plan that
I have described at Bâ Sebrîna; at Mâr Gabriel, and in the other
monastic churches (Fig. 199), the atrium and narthex lie to the west,
the vaulted nave is placed with its greater length running from north to
south, and three doors in the east wall communicate with a triple
sanctuary. From what prototypes did the Christian architects of the Ṭûr
’Abdîn derive the singular feature of the nave lying with its greater
length at right angles to the main axis of the building? I can only
suggest that they may have preserved the ancient scheme of the
Babylonian temple and palace hall, which was retained by the Assyrians
in their palaces, but not in their temples; and if this be so, the
monastic churches of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn are the last representatives of the
oldest Oriental architecture. The walls and vault of the nave of Mâr
Gabriel are devoid of ornament, but the vault of the central sanctuary
is adorned with mosaics. The accumulated soot of centuries of
candle-smoke has not entirely obscured the glory of its golden ground,
of the great jewelled cross laid over the centre of the vault, and the
twisted vine scrolls with which it is encircled. It is said that similar
mosaics once covered the whole church and were destroyed by the soldiers
of Tîmûr.
[Illustration: FIG. 199.--ṢALÂḤ, MÂR YA’ḲÛB; MONASTIC TYPE.]
We rode next morning into Midyâd,[200] and camped beside the ruined
church of Mâr Philoxenos which, since it has not been recently repaired,
is of greater interest than any other in the town.[201] The task of
planning it was a labour of hatred. The population of Midyâd, men, women
and children, stationed themselves upon the ruined walls, and for them
it was no doubt the most entertaining afternoon which they had spent for
many a long week, but for me, and for the patient bearers of the
measuring tape, the hours were charged with exasperation. The Ḳâimmaḳâm,
when he appeared upon this agitated scene (Midyâd is the seat of
government in the Ṭûr ’Abdîn), succeeded in clearing the ruins for a few
moments, but as soon as he had turned his back, the hordes reassembled
with a greater zest than before.
My Christian servants returned in the evening from the bazaar gravely
disquieted by the gossip which was current there. It was rumoured that
the wave of massacre had spread to Aleppo and they trembled for the fate
of their wives and families. The news which was causing us so much
anxiety was in fact nearly a month old, but we did not learn until we
reached Diyârbekr that Aleppo had escaped with a week of panic.
The next day was devoted to three churches which I visited and planned
on the way to Khâkh, Mâr Yâ’ḳûb at Ṣalâḥ, Mâr Kyriakos at Arnâs and Mâr
’Azîzîyeh at Kefr Zeh. I doubt whether there exists anywhere a group of
buildings
[Illustration: FIG. 201.--KHÂKH, CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN.]
more precious to the archæologist than these three churches and the
little domed shrine of the Virgin which stands almost perfect among the
ruins of Khâkh (Fig. 201). It is close upon a miracle that in this
forgotten region, long subjected to the tyranny of the Kurds, such
masterpieces of architecture should have escaped destruction; the
explanation is probably to be found in the rugged mountain frontiers of
the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Even though it lay upon the edge of country which was
for over a hundred years the battle-ground of the Persian and the
Byzantine, war seems to have penetrated but little into its heart. The
Christian communities, from their rock-cut cells in the crags of Mount
Izala, must have listened to the rumours of advance and flight and
siege; they could almost witness the encounter of armies in the plain
below. But “the lofty mountain, precipitous and almost inaccessible,” as
Procopius describes it, was a sure refuge, and Procopius himself can
scarcely have been acquainted with the wooded uplands and fertile
valleys where already in his time stood the churches and monasteries of
Ṣalâḥ and Arnâs, Kefr Zeh and Khâkh. The Arab conquerors left the
Christians undisturbed; they bowed the head and suffered under the
fierce blast of Tîmûr’s invasion and under the secular persecution of
the Kurds; but decimated and stripped of their wealth, they held firmly
to the bare walls of their religious houses, and the meagre, ragged
choirs still chant their litanies under vaults which have withstood the
assault of fourteen centuries. Into this country I came, entirely
ignorant of its architectural wealth, because it was entirely
unrecorded. None of the inscriptions collected by Pognon go back earlier
than the ninth century; the plans which had
[Illustration: FIG. 202.--KHÂKH, CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN, CAPITALS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 203.--KHÂKH, CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN, DOME ON SQUINCH
ARCHES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 204.--THE CHELABÎ.]
[Illustration: FIG. 205.--FORDING THE TIGRIS BELOW DIYÂRBEKR.]
been published were lamentably insufficient and were unaccompanied by
any photographs. When I entered Mâr Yâ’ḳûb at Ṣalâḥ and saw upon its
walls mouldings and carved string courses which bore the sign manual of
the Græco-Asiatic civilization I scarcely dared to trust to the
conclusions to which they pointed. But church after church confirmed and
strengthened them. The chancel arches, covered with an exquisite
lacework of ornament, the delicate grace of the acanthus capitals, hung
with garlands and enriched with woven entrelac (Fig. 200), the
repetition of ancient plans and the mastery of constructive problems
which revealed an old architectural tradition, all these assure to the
churches of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn the recognition of their honourable place in
the history of the arts.
It was evening when we rode over the last of the wooded hills and saw
the village of Khâkh lying upon a green knoll in the midst of a fertile
plain. The rays of the setting sun touched the dome of the church of the
Virgin, the tower of Mâr Sobo and the terraced houses; they flashed upon
the pool below the village, by the edge of which my camp was pitched,
and were mercifully unrevealing of poverty and ruin. It seemed to me
that I had ended the most wonderful day since that which had brought me
to Ukheiḍir by dropping into a village of the fifth century, complete
and prosperous in every part. The searching light of morning disclosed a
different picture. The houses were mere hovels, and except for the
church of the Virgin, not one of the ancient buildings but had fallen
into the extremity of decay. That church is, however, the jewel of the
Ṭûr ’Abdîn (Figs. 200, 202, 203). It has suffered scarcely any change
since the builders completed it, and it points a way to the solution of
many a problem of Byzantine architecture. Its plan suggests a memorial
rather than a monastic type; the domestic buildings near it are small
and modern and I saw no trace of an ancient monastic house. A nun and
the village priest occupied the rooms that now stand to the north of the
courtyard. The nun was young and personable, and she found the religious
life very much to her taste. Her sacred calling gave her the right to
come and go as she pleased, to mix in male society and even to put forth
her opinion in male councils. Moreover it provided her with an excuse
for claiming audience of me on the evening of my arrival.
“I have come to see my sister,” I heard her announce. “Does she speak
Arabic?” And before Fattûḥ could answer, she had presented herself at
the tent door. The object of her visit was to ask me for a revolver.
“What do you want with a revolver?” I said.
“We are afraid,” she replied. “We are all afraid of massacre.”
The little community of Jacobites snatch their daily bread from field
and vineyard which lie at the mercy of marauding Kurds, whose practices
were not, unfortunately, to remain for us a matter of hearsay. The
second night at Khâkh was marked by the only misadventure that has
befallen me in Turkey. We had intended to leave the village early on the
following morning and everything was prepared for our departure; even my
saddle-bags, duly packed with note-books and camera, were lying ready in
my tent. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a rustling noise,
and starting up I saw the figure of a man crouched in the doorway. We
had grown careless with months of safe journeying in dangerous places,
and neither Fattûḥ nor I had taken the trouble to set a guard over the
camp. The thieves had found us an easy prey; before the servants and
zaptiehs were roused, they had made off into the night and we were left
to reckon up our loss. What money I had with me had been taken out of my
tent, the servants had been robbed of all their spare clothing, and
various other small objects were missing, but the real disaster was the
disappearance of the saddle-bags which contained my note-books. We stood
helpless, gazing into the darkness into which had vanished the results
of four months’ work. A rifle shot fired by Selîm had awakened the
priest, who came hurrying down to inquire into our case. Deeply
distressed was he, poor man, to hear of our misfortune, for we were the
guests of the village, and he feared that ill might fall upon him and
his flock for suffering us to come to harm. I listened to a great deal
of divergent advice, and finally decided to send for the Chelabî, who is
the feudal chief of the Kurdish tribes in the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Accordingly at
the first dawn Fattûḥ and a zaptieh were dispatched across the hills to
bear him the news. A certain village lay under suspicion, a little
robbers’ nest situated in the depths of a wild and rocky valley a few
miles to the east. The people of Khâkh were well used to the
depredations of the men of Zâ’khurân, and during the course of the day
we were provided with more positive evidence against them. It chanced
that the thieves had carried off a parcel of my gloves, and these they
shed along the path as they ran. Gloves lying upon the rocky ways of the
Ṭûr ’Abdîn are exceptional objects, and the path by which they were
found was that which led to Zâ’khurân. Evening brought the Chelabî,
pacing sedately upon his mare with twenty men behind him, all dressed in
white garments and armed with rifles (Fig. 204). I went out to welcome
them and brought their leader to my tents, where he listened to my tale
over a cup of coffee and gave me many assurances of redress. This done,
he repaired with great dignity to the roof of the priest’s house,
converted for the time into a court of justice, and received, until late
into the night, deputations from the neighbouring villages. Next day the
judgment seat was removed to Zâ’khurân, and Fattûḥ went with it as
witness to the crime and representative of the plaintiff; at dusk he
returned and reported that the Chelabî had arrested four men, selected,
so far as could be ascertained, by empirical methods from among the
inhabitants of the district, but that no clue had been found to the
missing note-books. It was now time to invoke a higher power, and I
entrusted a zaptieh with a letter to the Ḳâimmaḳâm of Midyâd and with a
telegram which was to be sent from Midyâd to the Vâlî at Diyârbekr. The
Ḳâimmaḳâm entered into the business like a man. On the following evening
ten zaptiehs arrived from Midyâd, and next morning fifty foot soldiers
marched into our camp. The nature of evidence is not clearly grasped in
the East, and by the third day after the robbery there was no person in
the country-side, except, I believe, myself, against whom a charge of
complicity had not been raised, but there continued to be no further
proof than that which we had had from the beginning, and it pointed to
Zâ’khurân. To Zâ’khurân, therefore, the miniature army took its way,
leaving me divided between regret for the disturbance which my own
carelessness had brought about, and gratitude for the good-will
displayed on every side. So difficult, however, had it become to protect
the innocent, that but for the notebooks I should have left the guilty
in peace. My servants were plunged in grief; their honour was
gone--indeed whose honour was left intact?--and in sackcloth and ashes
we passed the day. And then ... in the grey dawn we were wakened by a
voice shouting from the hills: “Your goods are here! your goods are
here!” Every man in the camp leapt up and ran in the direction of the
sound, and there, lying upon a rock among the oak scrub, was all that we
had lost. Nothing had been injured, nothing was missing, except some
money, which was subsequently refunded to me by the Ottoman government,
at the instance of the British Vice-Consul in Diyârbekr--and it may well
be questioned whether any other government would have recognized a like
liability. The villagers of Khâkh assembled round the tents and shed
tears of thankfulness over the recovered objects, and I mounted in haste
and rode off to Zâ’khurân to set a term to the pursuit of criminals. The
cause of the restitution was there apparent. The village was deserted;
men, women and children had fled into the hills taking with them all
that they possessed, and it was reported by a picket that the Chelabî
and the soldiers were engaged in capturing the flocks of the community.
I sent a messenger after them and rode myself to Midyâd to ask for a
universal amnesty. Revenge is not so sweet as it is said to be, nor is
it so easy when wrong is afoot to determine who is the more wronged.
Two days and a half of journeying brought us to Diyârbekr. The way was
without interest, except for that which was supplied by the dragoman of
the British Consulate, who had
[Illustration: FIG. 206.--DIYÂRBEKR, MARDÎN GATE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 207.--DIYÂRBEKR, YENI KAPU.]
[Illustration: FIG. 208.--DIYÂRBEKR, CHEMIN DE RONDE, NORTH WALL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 209.--DIYÂRBEKR, COURT OF ULU JÂMI’.]
come to Midyâd to help me out of difficulties. A cheerful travelling
companion he proved, and a well-informed. We camped on the second
evening under the mound of Karkh, not far from the Tigris, and shortened
our way next day by fording the river, which was now a shallow stream,
and cutting across a wide bend (Fig. 205). This route had the advantage
of giving us a first view of Diyârbekr under its finest aspect. It
stands upon the high crest of the Tigris bank, a great fenced city built
of basalt--“black are the dogs and black the walls and black the hearts
of black Amid,” says the proverb. Since the days when Ammianus
Marcellinus look part in the desperate resistance to Sapor, and watched
from the towers of Amida the Persian hosts “collected for the
conflagration of the Roman world,” the din of battle has never been far
from Diyârbekr. The town passed to and fro between the Byzantine and the
Sassanian. Constantius fortified it and lost it to Sapor; Anastasius
recaptured it and lost it to Kobâd and won it back; Justinian rebuilt
the fortifications, but it fell with Mesopotamia to the Moslem invaders.
The Kurdish Marwânds made it their capital, and after them the Turkmân
Ortuḳids; Tîmûr burst through the famous walls and put the inhabitants
to the sword, and finally the Turk conquered it in A.D. 1515 and holds
it still. But there is no peace for the lawless capital of Kurdistân.
Warring faiths struggle together as fiercely as rival empires, and the
conflict is embittered by race hatreds. The heavy air, lying stagnant
between the high walls, is charged with memories of the massacres of
1895, and when I was in Diyârbekr the news from Cilicia had rekindled
animosity and fear. Moslem and Christian were equally persuaded that the
other was watching for an opportunity to spring at his throat. Tales of
fresh outbreaks in different parts of the empire were constantly
circulated in the bazaars, and the men who listened went home and
fingered at their rifles. If there had been any sign of further
disturbance at Constantinople, Diyârbekr would have run with blood.
With the population in this temper it would have been futile to inquire
into the prospects of constitutional government. I spent a day among
ancient churches;[202] and a day upon the walls, which are as fine an
example of mediæval fortification as any that exists. They hang, upon
the south and south-east sides, high over the Tigris--it was from this
direction that Sapor’s troops effected an entry through a hollow passage
that led down to the water’s edge. On the south-west they crown a slope
set thick with gardens of mulberry and vine, and towards the north the
wall bends round to join the curve of the river. Four great gateways
break this circuit. The Mardîn Gate commands the terraced gardens, and
the road that passes through it runs down to an ancient bridge over the
Tigris (Fig. 206). To the north-west and north the Aleppo or Mountain
Gate and the Kharpût Gate open on to a fertile plain, and the Yeni Kapu,
the New Gate, stands above the precipitous southern bank (Fig.
207).[203] The lie of the ground makes it certain that the oldest
fortifications of the city must have occupied much the same position as
those which still surround it, and though the latter are proved by
numerous inscriptions to be Mohammadan work of different periods, I
should judge them to be built mainly upon ancient foundations. The north
wall with its round towers is perfectly preserved; even the domed
chambers inside the towers, together with the stairs that gave access to
the _chemin de ronde_, are intact. All the arches and domes in the
interior of the towers are of brick. Between the Kharpût and the Aleppo
Gates a small aqueduct brings water to the town, the few springs within
the walls being unpleasantly brackish. The citadel commands the
north-east angle above the river; most of the space surrounded by its
enclosing wall is occupied by modern buildings and by a mound whereon
stood the castle of the first Mohammadan princes. The domed arsenal is
said to have been a Christian church, but remembering my unsuccessful
attempts to visit the arsenal at Baghdâd, I did not ask permission to
enter it.[204] From a postern gate in the north wall a road leads down
to the river, passing under a cliff out of which gushes a sulphurous
spring. As I watched the soldiers of the garrison washing their clothes
in its waters, I tried to reconcile it with “the rich spring, drinkable,
indeed, but often tainted with hot vapours,” which Ammianus Marcellinus
describes as rising under the citadel, and to see the men of the 5th
Parthian Legion in the ragged groups standing about it.[205] From the
citadel we walked to the Mardîn Gate along the _chemin de ronde_, a fine
course, lifted high above the close air of the city and swept by the
breezes that come down from Taurus (Fig. 208). Between the Aleppo Gate
and the Mardîn Gate stand two huge round towers, larger than any others
and later in date.[206] Near the Mardîn Gate the _chemin de ronde_ is
for some distance vaulted over and lighted only by small loop-hole
windows on the inner side. To the south of the Mardîn Gate the wall runs
out abruptly, and the salient angle thus formed holds a great hall of
which the vault is borne on columns. The two main streets lie from gate
to gate, intersecting each other at right angles, and since this is in
accordance with an ancient scheme of city planning, the line of the
streets may be as old as the first foundation of the town. Not far from
the point of intersection stands the Ulu Jami’ with its famous
courtyard, enclosed to east and west by a two-storeyed portico, which
has been conjectured to be either the remains of a church built by
Heraclius or a Byzantine palace (Fig. 209). The buildings need a more
exhaustive study than the fanaticism of the Mohammadan population will
at present admit, and the correct plan of mosque and court has yet to be
made. The older part of the work is closely related to the ancient
architecture of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn.
Even this hasty survey of Diyârbekr was sufficient to convince me that
the treasures which it contains are still unexplored. Of its many
mosques only the Ulu Jami’ has been so much as photographed, though the
square minarets scattered over the town are probably an indication of an
early date. Once or twice as I walked in the bazaars I looked through
gateways into the courts of splendid khâns, where the walls were
decorated with contrasted patterns in limestone and basalt, and stripes
of black and white masonry are used in many of the houses and mosques.
The final history of Amida must wait upon a much more careful
investigation of the town than any which has yet been undertaken.