MOSUL, THE CITIES OF THE ASSYRIANS, THE YAZIDIS
I suppose it must be the proper thing when writing of Mosul, to
expatiate upon the antiquity of Nineveh; but so much has already been
written upon this subject ever since Layard first uncovered its mounds,
and so well written, that to attempt adequately to treat of it here
would be presumption. Suffice it to say, that around Mosul, the modern
city, which stands opposite the ancient Nineveh, sometime capital
of Assyria, are the remains of Nineveh, old and new, while in the
neighbourhood are Kalah, Asshur, Hadra, and Khorsabad (Dar Sharrukin),
some of which are being excavated by energetic Germans, who publish
yearly an excellently illustrated account of their labours.
The traveller to-day is shown by the people of Mosul the mosque and
minaret of Nebi Yunis, “The Prophet Jonah,” erected in Muhammadan times
by Muslims, who had identified the site with that of Nineveh.
Christian, Jew, and Muslim alike pay considerable reverence to the
shrine, although the two former are not allowed access to it. All
believe in the ingenious story with a blind faith that should shake
our modern sceptics. Unfortunately it is practically impossible, in
these days of miracles explained, to believe in the fish of Jonah,
that either slid across dry land, or, as Mr Fraser[11] remarks, “must
have been a clever fish to swim 20,000 miles ... in three days and
nights,” unless, as he sagely observes, “the fish ... according to the
Scriptures, had been specially prepared, doped perhaps, as they call it
in America.”
The Bible, with that protective ambiguity not always absent from its
more wonderful tales, says that Jonah embarked from Tarshish. Now
Tarshish, the Phœnician name for Spain, is just exactly the direction
in which the unwilling Jonah would have fled in order to escape the
tedious desert journey to Nineveh. We are not told how far they got
when the tempest broke out, but there seems no reason why one should
not assume it to have occurred promptly, and to have driven the ship
back upon the Syrian coast, when Jonah might possibly have landed, if
we can ignore the fish. Certainly the fish is unfortunately assertive,
and its curious feat of carrying Jonah to a point three days from
Nineveh is explainable only as hazarded above by Mr Fraser. Also, the
Tigris is hardly deep enough even for sharks above Tikrit, many miles
towards Bagdad.
At any rate, one explanation is as good as another with so Biblical
a history. It would seem reasonable to suppose that Jonah, finding
himself once more in Syria after his shipwreck, set forth for Nineveh,
a journey which must have taken him anything between twenty and forty
days.
But here, if we accept the foregoing theory, we are faced by another
remarkable feat of travelling, for “Nineveh was an exceeding great city
of three days journey,” which has been taken to mean that Nineveh was
three days away from where the fish vomited up Jonah.
But it is a noteworthy fact that the magnitude of the city is
mentioned, so to say, in a breath with the distance from somewhere, and
this supports a theory which, in all humility, is here advanced.
Those unfamiliar with Eastern colloquialisms cannot be expected to
know that in these lands of camel and mule travel, the unit of travel
is “one day,” and since miles and furlongs do not exist--the parasang
is a Persian, not an Arabian measure--“a day” means about twenty
miles. Would it not be intelligible to say--when it is remembered
that the name of a city still comprehends the cultivated lands about
it--“Nineveh was an exceeding great city of sixty miles (in extent),”
_i.e._, with its irrigated lands, around which was, and is, sandy
waterless desert.
[Sidenote: JONAH]
The following verse[12] then reads intelligibly: “Jonah began to enter
into the city a day’s journey.” He began to enter by the cultivated
lands, and assuming the city to be about the centre, would reach it the
second day. If, as we used to be told, Jonah was yet two days away from
Nineveh when he predicted and cried, “Yet forty days ...” and so on,
the obvious conclusion must credit Jonah with an exceeding great voice,
or messengers to carry his word before him, or unavoidably figure him
as a fatuous fellow literally “crying in the wilderness.”
If, however, we assume that for a day he came along through the
fields and cultivations, he would arrive at the city the second
morning, and his cry would naturally fall direct upon the ears of the
townspeople.[13]
A curious feature of the whole business is that no mention of Jonah
is made on the Assyrian monuments, which would surely have been made
by those conscientious historians, the rulers of Asshur, if he had
acquired such importance before the King of Nineveh as we are told in
Jonah iii. 6.
Whatever be the solution of the story, the worthy prophet, who
displayed a lamentable temper in his proceedings at Nineveh, enjoys the
full respect and admiration of the good folk of Mosul, who in 800 A.D.,
inspired by the tale that occurs in the Bible, Turah, and Quran alike,
erected the present mosque.
The Mosul people, especially the Christians, are very proud of their
city and the antiquity of its surroundings. The Christians, regarding
themselves as direct descendants of the great rulers of Assyria, assume
an autocratic bearing in their relations with the plebeian Armenian,
which I believe no one grudges who knows both races.
Mosul itself, crowded on and around its mound, a filthy and
labyrinthine city, inspires the modern visitor with a respect for its
apparent antiquity and its no less remarkable smells. I remember noting
one most pleasing feature of municipal arrangements, which provides a
kind of pool by one of the main streets where the superfluous contents
of cesspools is emptied. Antiquity cannot claim Mosul as it does many
a lesser city, it is only in Muhammadan times that it has come to
importance, and held a place in the economy of Mesopotamia.
A modern Persian historian and geographer, Haji Zainu’l Abidin
Shirvani, gives the following note upon Mosul, in his work, the
“Bustanu’s Siaha” (“The Garden of Travel”), p. 569:--
“The general opinion is that the first person to build it (Mosul)
was Zuwayid bin Sawda, and in Persian it was called Ardeshir. After
Islam arose, the Hammer Arabs attacked and took it, building therein
structures of stone, and a protecting wall, leading water to it, and
making gardens.”
Its proudest boast, as an Arab city, is that there is no definite
record of it having fallen into Persian hands, a fact indisputable
apparently; but it must be remembered that, when the Persians possessed
these lands, Mosul, if it existed at all, was a place of little
importance.
[Illustration: BAB-UL-TOP AND AUCHON MARKET, MOSUL.]
To-day its most uncharitable detractor cannot say that. Despite its
filth, the meanness of its bazaars, its unpleasant climate, and the
Turks, it is a very important place, and a populous one, counting
90,000 souls, by a late and reliable computation. If the purpose of
this book were to talk trade, it were possible to descant upon its
leather craft, its cigarette-paper manufacture, its carpenters and
masons; and it is but due to the Christians to say, that whatever
commercial importance it possesses is due to their efforts, and to
their efforts alone.
[Sidenote: MOSUL]
Here, of all the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, the Christians enjoy
more freedom from persecution than any other population of the same
persuasion forced to live side by side with Musulmans. They themselves
attribute this desirable state of affairs to the fact that both Muslim
and Christian are Arab in language and sympathy, and above all are
bound together by the bond of fellow-townsmanship that is often so
strong a consolidating feature of isolated towns in the East. At all
events the statement is supported by the immunity they have enjoyed
from molestation during all the massacres of Christians that have
occurred within the last two centuries.
They affirm that on one such occasion the Turks endeavoured to rouse
the Musulmans of the surrounding districts to enter the town and slay
the Christians, and did their utmost to incite the Muslim townspeople
to assist in the massacre, but so far from their proposals being met
with consent, they were warned that any attempts of the kind would see
Christian and Musulman combined.
Nowadays, when Mosul is a city fairly well kept in order, when street
murders are of not more than weekly occurrence, the place is full of
the Turk, who seeks a post in a city where the hostile Kurd and nomad
Arab cannot offend his dignity by their disrespect, nor menace his
person with their ever-ready rifles. The language of the place is
Arabic, but Turkish is understood, as is also Kurdish, for Kurdistan
is not far away, and the wild characters one meets sometimes in the
bazaars tell of the proximity of the tribes.
Bad government and continual insecurity of the country have done their
best to restrain the people from any attempt at permanent buildings,
the result being that every bazaar, mosque, and caravanserai is broken
down and ruinous; in fact, Mosul strikes the stranger as a squalid
city on the verge of disintegration. A few moments outside the city
one steps into the Mesopotamian desert, and Mosul, standing there,
a mound in a desert, looks every bit what it is reputed among the
Western peoples, a city buried in a remote and unmerciful wilderness.
To approach it from any side except Diarbekr, by river, one must
pass several days of the almost waterless desert road. Only to the
south-east is the land fertile, and one understands why it is in that
direction that Assyria proper lay. To-day the distant Zagros Mountains
and their unknown and feared Kurds form a barrier as unconquerable as
ever the ancients found them; and to them it was my purpose to go.
We put up in an upper room of a khan or caravanserai called Hamad Qadu,
and as our ways lay together, at least as far as Erbil, we thought to
continue in companionship. But Haji found a cousin, who dragged him
off to his house, and so we settled up our accounts and parted. The
old man seemed to have conceived a great affection for me during his
journey. “I never had a son,” he said, “for never did I take to myself
a wife, for women are affliction and tribulation; but now I am old,
I realise what it might have been to have had a son, and I curse the
stiff-neckedness that ran me counter to the infallible laws of the
Omniscient,” and he wept awhile, embraced me, and departed.
Left alone in my stone cell, I bethought me of finding a muleteer to
take me to Sulaimania, and as the café is the advertisement medium of
the East, I betook myself there, inquired for a “qatirchi,” as the
Turks call a muleteer, and found myself immersed in local politics.
The bearing of them upon my need of a mule appeared at the end of the
story, and may as well do so here.
There are in Mosul a number of Sulaimanians engaged in trade,
besides the inconsequent people who in the East travel from place
to place apparently for the love of it. There are also soldiers
galore--creatures dead to any feeling of self-restraint, decency of
behaviour and manners, who are a curse to the place they pollute.
A brawl occurred, owing to an assault by a drunken soldier upon a
Kurdish woman of Sulaimania, and as Kurdish blood, even the vitiated
blood of Sulaimania, is hot, it boiled, and many Mosul people were
killed.
[Sidenote: A FEUD]
The primitive laws of these parts count the blood-feud as their
chief, and here was sufficient to keep the two towns at feud for
years. No native of Mosul dared go to Sulaimania, and equally, no
Sulaimanian dared show himself in Mosul, though he was safer in a city
where sufficient order prevailed to prevent his murder, except under
provoking circumstances.
Besides this, even were there not these obstacles to free intercourse,
a Kurdish tribe called the Hamavand had cut all communications on the
Sulaimania road, killing and robbing all who attempted the passage.
That was why I could get neither mule nor muleteer, and had to face the
prospect of remaining in Mosul indefinitely. To this I could not resign
myself, and cast about for some means of approaching Sulaimania by
another road.
Two days I spent in idleness, passing the time in my room and at the
café. The question of food was simplified for me by the excellent dates
and buffalo cream in the bazaar, upon which, with unleavened bread, I
lived, desiring nothing better.
On the third morning three or four Turkoman natives of Kirkuk
appeared, and tried to make me hire mules to that place, which is
half-way to Sulaimania. Big, rough men, almost like Kurds, speaking
Kurdish fluently, they dilated upon the dangers of the other routes,
the impossibility of going to Sulaimania from Keui Sanjaq, whence I
had entertained hopes of going. They would not give me transport to
Sulaimania, but would undertake to find me mules if any went on, a
very safe compact for them had I accepted it. But I resolved to wait a
little longer, thinking that perhaps they would, finding cargo scanty,
consent to take me all the way.
My patience was rewarded, but not as I expected. That afternoon,
returning from the café, I was hailed by a sorrowful-looking
individual, who turned out to be a native of Sulaimania and a
muleteer. It seemed that he had been engaged to bring from that place
a merchant, who had made himself so obnoxious to the natives as to
prefer the risks of Mosul to those of Sulaimania. The muleteer, not
in any actual danger, was nevertheless somewhat nervous about staying
in Mosul, and as all trade was stopped between the two places, could
not hope for loads, all of which considerations put him in such an
accommodating frame of mind, that he was ready to start at any time,
and accept the sum of four mejidies (about 13s. 4d.) for the six days’
journey.
So I paid him his earnest money of a mejidie, and sealed the contract
by a cup of tea at the café. The Turkomans were somewhat disconcerted
when they heard of the transaction, and predicted all kinds of
catastrophes, particularly robbery and murder by the Hamavands, through
whose country they swore we could not pass.
However, we started next day in the afternoon. The mules were on the
opposite side of the river, so porters had to carry the luggage over
the bridge of boats and its stone continuation to the flat beach on the
other side, where loads were piled, awaiting mules for Kirkuk and Keui
Sanjaq. The mules appeared about four o’clock in the afternoon, and
we started. My steed was loaded with two boxes, slung at either side;
upon these bedding was laid, and the whole secured by a long girth,
and I climbed to the summit of the erection and experienced once more
the joys of sitting on a sloping half-yard of bedding through which
all the knobs of the pack-saddle asserted themselves. Upon such a seat
one has to sit for twelve hours at a stretch very often, and to the
inexperienced the question of balance is usually sufficient to occupy
attention till the lumps beneath him begin to bruise.
To my surprise, instead of heading south-east, we commenced to go
in a northerly direction, but this I found was to reach a good
camping-ground for the night. For an hour or so we went through a kind
of thicket, and at last, emerging on a little plain where the grass
grew high and green, we cast our loads, and the mules were led off to
water. Our party was a small one, all natives of Sulaimania, except one
muleteer, a Kurd of Halabja, a place I was to see later. The muleteer
himself, Rashid, had an assistant, an ancient man of vile temper, and
he in his turn boasted a menial youth. There were two other travellers,
a servant clad in a long green overcoat and pegtop trousers; and a
kind of pedlar. These last strongly advised me to discard my fez for a
skull-cap and turban, and provided me with the necessary articles for
constructing one.
[Sidenote: SULAIMANIANS]
It appeared that in wearing the conspicuous scarlet headgear I was a
source of danger both to myself and the others, for the Kurds, who hate
anything and everything appertaining to Turks, have a way of singling
out this mark of the beast as a target. Even the overcoat I wore was a
subject of deprecation, for we were getting to the land where, if one
is not a Turk, it is “aib”--a fault--to wear anything but what custom
sanctions.
The costume of Sulaimania cannot be termed Kurdish, though the wearers
style themselves Kurds, with what accuracy will be seen later.
It is the fashion to use the striped Aleppo cotton cloth called
“Shaitan Baizi” (which means the “white demon”) for garments, and a
Sulaimanian outfit is as follows:--A pair of white cotton trousers,
very baggy in the legs, but gradually growing narrower towards the
ankles, which they embrace tightly. Socks are not worn, but the feet
are shod with red leather shoes, of which the toe turns up in a point.
The back is often taken up to a tapering flap of several inches long.
The undershirt is equally of white cotton, reaching to the hips, and
fastening at the neck with a knob of cotton made into a button. The
sleeves however, a kind of exaggerated surplice sleeve, hang down in a
point reaching the ground, and serve for wrapping up money and papers,
for drying the face of water or sweat, and cleaning the nose after
it has been emptied by the application of the fingers and a powerful
snort. Over these garments a long tunic of cotton cloth, open at the
front and reaching to the heels, is brought together by a waistband
or belt. The sleeves of this are open from the wrists to near the
elbow, permitting them to be easily turned back and rolled up, when the
superfluous shirtsleeve is rolled round and tied about the upper arm.
If it be cold, a sleeveless waistcoat of thick felt is worn, and an
abba, or camel-hair cloak, is the property of every person of any
importance. The inferior classes make their abbas of a thin cloth,
of a grey or yellow colour. The head-dress is several blue and white
handkerchiefs wound about a skull-cap of black cotton cloth, ornamented
with flowers worked in silks. The style of head-dress marks to a great
extent the different tribes of Kurds. A heavy dagger stuck in the
girdle completes the costume for the townsman. This is the dress of the
Sulaimanian as well of the Hamavand, Jaf, and other extreme southern
tribes, who have discarded the old fantastic garments. The real Kurdish
costume, which will be described later, is very different.
My dress, however, had to pass somehow, and the muleteer coming up,
made the useful remark that if a stranger adopted the customs of a new
country, at once he would forfeit the consideration granted him by
those he met on the road, which is a very true observation.
By sunset we had the tea ready, the little glasses circulated, and,
casting our bread and dates on to a common handkerchief, we dined,
and then, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, lay down in the shadow of
ancient Nineveh to sleep, none of my companions aware that where we
reposed was just under the palace walls of Sennacherib.
There are, opposite Mosul, the remains of two great cities. The
most ancient of all Assyrian palace-cities is Asshur, the city of
Tiglath-Pileser, whose name occurs in the Bible so often, that great
spoiler of the Israelites, who reigned eleven hundred years before
Christ. The ruins of this, now known as Kileh Shergat, are situated
on the west bank of the Tigris, some distance below Mosul. Lower down
still, where the Greater Zab River joins the Tigris, are the ruins
of Nimrud, or Kalah,[14] the royal city of Asshurnazipal, who ruled
Assyria from 884 to 860 B.C., and whose campaigns extended, like those
of many of the Assyrian kings, to the Mediterranean coast.
[Sidenote: NINEVEH]
North-north-east of Mosul is the place called Khorsabad, a Kurdish name
meaning “The place of the bear,” or a corruption of Khosruabad--“The
Abode of Khosroes,” but known to the realm of Assyria as Dar Sharrukin,
the palace of Sargon, a great ruler, who carried away the Jews “into
Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor the river of Gozan, and
in the cities of the Medes,” _i.e._, in what is the western portion of
what is known as Assyria proper. The River Habor is now called Khabur,
a tributary of the Euphrates, in central northern Mesopotamia.
Of the great cities of the Assyrians there remain Arbela, to be
spoken of later, and Nineveh, probably the most famous of all. This
is situated partially in the mound upon which the shrine of Jonah now
stands, and at Koyunjik, a mile or two farther north, just by where
we camped. This latter is the older Nineveh. Here, Sennacherib in 700
B.C. built himself a palace in the already ancient city in the fashion
of his ancestors. Part of his life he spent in the wars with the Jews:
he had summoned Jerusalem to surrender, had besieged it, had done his
best to resubdue Judah and Israel, when he was driven off by a plague,
a fact recorded by Isaiah. From Syria to Persia, from Armenia to the
Persian Gulf, in the manner of his fathers, he waged war, and subdued
again the ever-rebelling lands, finally retiring to his palace at
Nineveh, to be foully murdered by his sons.
His fourth and favourite son, Esarhaddon, succeeded him in 681 B.C.,
and in 670 B.C. commenced the palace of New Nineveh, the mound of Nebi
Yunis, the other side of the brook Kauther, which we had crossed in the
afternoon, and which in those days existed.
In these mounds, of which four have been partially excavated,
furnishing us with a wealth of precise information and glorious
sculpture, there lies yet many a volume, and as yet Arbela, which is as
ancient as any of them, is untouched.
Next morning early we arose and loaded our animals, and took a course
almost due south. First, we recrossed the historic brook Kauther,
passed under the shadow of Nebi Yunis mound, upon whose sides is a
large village, and had before us a great rolling plain, entering which
we were upon the ground of ancient Assyria proper. To our left ran
a range of low hills, and in their folds were many villages, dull
collections of mud-huts half-buried in the ground. But they contain
two races whose history is full of interest. No Musulman inhabits this
plain; there are but Chaldeans and Yezidis, those “Devil-Worshippers,”
who have been accused, besides worshipping Mephistopheles, of adopting
and practising the rites of Semiramis, the priestess of the lascivious
cult of the worship of the sexual organs.
It is due to these Yezidis to clear their character of this last
accusation, for which no reason can really be attributed except the
hatred of the Muhammadan and Christian commentators, whose object has
been solely to discredit them, and not to enlighten general readers.
The Yezidis, while recognising a Supreme Being, shun allusion to him
as forcibly as to the devil, the mention of whose name, or any word
suggesting the evil principle, occasions them infinite distress. When
the name of Satan cannot be avoided, they use the expression Malek Taus
(King Peacock),[15] or Maleku’l Kut (The Mighty Angel). They believe
Satan to be chief of all the angels temporarily fallen in punishment,
but to be restored eventually.[16]
Next to Satan are counted Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Azrael, Dedrael,
Azraphael, and Shemkiel, seven powerful angels who influence the
affairs of this world.
[Sidenote: THE YEZIDI]
They reject none of the holy books of the various religions, but while
placing full confidence in the Old Testament, regard the New Testament
and the Quran simply as holy books worthy of veneration.
Christ they consider an angel, and deny His crucifixion,[17] and
Muhammad, Abraham, and the patriarchs they reckon as prophets.
Moreover, they await both a reappearance of Jesus Christ, and the
coming of the Imam Mahdi.
The name of the sect is of doubtful origin, but Layard is inclined to
a theory that it may be connected with an old Persian word meaning
God.[18] The theory advanced, particularly by Shiah Muhammadans, that
they were founded by Yazid,[19] the murderer of the saint Husain, is
obviously untenable, and was put forward solely in order to further
discredit them. The true origin of the sect is quite unknown, and
the peculiarly mingled nature of their tenets makes investigation
difficult. The Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, about the
6th century B.C., mentions and execrates certain devil-worshippers,
and Zoroaster himself had a campaign against similar people in north
Persia. There are, in the faith of the modern Yezidis, certain
indications of a connection with the ancient faith mentioned in the
Avesta as being that of prehistoric peoples--a species of nature
worship. But then there are equally indications of the survivals of the
old Chaldean or Babylonian sun-worship, particularly in the reverence
they pay to the sun, called by them Shaikh Shems, and the moon, as
Shaikh Sin, corresponding to Shamash and Sin of the ancient mythology.
Their customs, like their tenets, display a remarkable catholicity.
They baptize, circumcise, reverence the sun and moon, carve Musulman
texts upon their tombs, quote the New Testament, allow polygamy,
consider wine lawful, and certain meats forbidden, a mixture of the
habits of Zoroaster, Assyrio-Babylonian, Muhammadan and Christian
worship unequalled by any other sect. They abhor the colour blue, and
never use it in their dress nor display it in their houses.
The centre and apparently original seat of these people is near Mosul,
and there, in a valley of the Kurdish hills, is buried the Yezidi saint
and prophet, Shaikh Adi, who is said to have lived variously in the
ninth and eleventh century.
Very little has hitherto been known about Shaikh Adi, the date of his
existence is disputed, and his identity has not been even hinted at,
except for an ingenious theory put forward many years ago, attempting
to connect him with Adde, a discipline of Manes.
So far we have had to be content with the assertion advanced in a
Persian work that he was one of the Marwanian dynasty of Khalifas or
“Caliphs,” an error easily discovered.
I think, however, that the following explanation may be now accepted,
the result of investigations in various Muhammadan works, to the
authors of which he is well known.
From these the writer has extracted the information that Shaikh Adi
was the son of Musafiru’ Zahid, of the family of Ummaya, a native of
Baalbek in Syria. In the reign of Marwan (early eighth century), he
“was transferred” to Mosul,[20] and resided in the towns of the great
Kurdish tribe of Hakkari, where his great sanctity gained him a large
following among the peoples there residing.
He died during his exile, and was buried in a valley called Lash,[21]
which means in Kurdish “the place of a body,” probably a name given
after the interment.
There are four ranks in the priesthood of the Yezidis: Pir, Shaikh,
Qawwal, and Faqir. The first, a Kurdish and Persian word signifying an
elder or a saint, are persons of great sanctity and abstention. The
Shaikhs (leader, chief), correspond to resident priests, while the
Qawwal (speaker) are itinerant, and are expected to sing and dance in
the festivals which demand those exercises. The last order, the Faqir
(poor, humble), perform menial tasks in attendance upon the tomb of
Shaikh Adi, at the valley of that name near Mosul.
The language used is a Kurdish dialect, but Arabic is employed in their
chants and hymns.
A great deal of mystery surrounds their origin, and, as reading and
writing are considered crimes among them, documents do not exist to
help speculation. Layard imagined them to be Chaldean by origin, who
have adopted the outward forms of many religions as a protective
measure, and incidentally fallen into confusion regarding their own
tenets.
They have been regarded from earliest times with execration by Musulman
and Christian alike, and have lived ever at hostility with all their
neighbours. At one time they possessed some numerical strength, and
harassed their enemies very seriously, but a Kurdish chief subdued them
and broke their power by a wholesale massacre. Since then they live
here and there among the Christians and Kurds, a certain number still
inhabiting the Sinjar range of hills, which stretches in a westerly
direction from Mosul. They also exist in the Caucasus, near Tiflis and
Bayazid.
Since Layard’s time they have suffered further persecution from Turk,
Kurd, and Christian, and at present are in a miserable state of
poverty. Except for the fact that they do not wear blue, they are
indistinguishable from the population of Kurd, Turkoman, and Chaldean
among whom they live, except by those little marks only a native or a
dweller in the land can discern.
South of the range that we passed that second day out of Mosul, and
beyond the River Ghazar, they do not exist now. This river we crossed,
trending to the east of our morning course, and had great difficulty
in passing its ford, the mules several times tottering, rendering
the rider’s balance doubly insecure. The river is an affluent of the
Greater Zab, and flows into it very near the place we passed. In fact,
our course, which was towards the Greater Zab River, lay across the
point of land, a few miles wide, between the two. We reached the high
banks of this historical stream in the afternoon at the same time as
the rain, and finding our way half-way down its cliffs by a little
path, threw our loads upon a ledge some ten feet wide, and sheltered
under a projecting rock.
Across the river we saw the flat plain of the ancient province known as
Adiabene to the Parthians and Medes, the most sought-after, the most
fertile of all the lands of Assyria, itself Assyria proper. At this
time of the year, it was a carpet of rolling green.
Below us, the river, in spring flood, roared around the rocks strewing
its broad course, and looking upstream we could see the white peaks
of Kurdistan tearing the ragged clouds. Opposite was the village of
Zailan, inhabited by a curious sub-tribe of Kurds in Arab dress, of
a savage and wild habit and speech. Here, at the same spot that has
seen the fording of the armies of the Assyrians, Persians, and Romans,
lay the old road from Nineveh to Arbela, which was the sacred city
of Assyria, and upon this road the conquering kings of that mighty
nation returned to do homage and render thanks and sacrifice to Her of
Arbela, the Goddess of Victory. Upon this ancient way we were taking
our humble course, and like many of our great predecessors, were
stopped at the ferry by the flood. In our times a tiny ferry bark, like
those described on the Euphrates, takes passengers across, but it was
just loading as we arrived, with some donkeys, and the owners had no
intention of attempting another crossing in the storm. While they were
employed thus I received a call under my rock, from the chief of the
place, an individual in a white hairy cloak. He tried me in Turkish and
Arabic, and we conversed in the former for a time, during which he told
me that, flood or slack, storm or calm, ferry or no ferry, the village
had to pay 600 liras a year to the Government of Mosul as the tax upon
that part of their revenue. Moreover, did the natives refuse to work
at a scheme so often unprofitable, they were chastised by soldiery.
Consequently the price exacted for passengers, two and four footed, was
excessive, a donkey paying 1s. 8d. and a mule 3s. These considerations
did not seem to affect the Kurds, for in the manner of their kind, they
worked like fierce demons, steering and rowing their unwieldy craft
with shrieks and laughter. Though called Kurds, and displaying some
resemblance to the race, I should think there is a strong Arab mixture
amongst them.
[Sidenote: AT THE ZAB]
We collected a heap of sticks, and sat round a blazing fire, shivering.
Sunset was accompanied by renewed wind and rain, so no sooner was
it dark than we covered ourselves with everything we possessed, and
lay down upon the soppy turf to sleep. The mules were tethered on
the ledge, and every now and then one of us would awake suddenly to
find a huge nostril purring inquiring breaths into his face, or to
save a quilt or coat being stamped into the earth by his odoriferous
neighbours.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER V:
[11] David Fraser, _The Short Cut to India_.
[12] Jonah iii. 3.
[13] Professor Ragozin, in his excellent book on the history of
Assyria, mentions a possible explanation of the “Fish,” which, if
acceptable, disposes entirely of that inconvenient creature.
“The very fable which is such a stumbling-block to the intelligent
reading of the whole book becomes most unexpectedly cleared of its
hitherto impenetrable obscurity when Assyriology informs us that the
Assyrian name of the “great City” is NINUA, a word very much like
“nunu,” which means fish, the connection being, moreover, indicated by
the oldest sign for the rendering of the name in writing, which is a
combination of lines or wedges plainly representing a fish in a basin
or tank. The big fish that swallowed Jonah was no other than the Fish
City itself, where he must surely have been sufficiently encompassed by
dangers to warrant his desperate cry for deliverance.”
[14] Kalah was founded by Shalmaneser I., 1300 B.C.
[15] Layard mentions the image of the bird, which local tradition has
seized upon as a proof of idolatry, but neither he nor any subsequent
traveller could gain a sight of it, nor learn more of its use than that
it was sent from place to place (being a small object) accompanying
important messages among the high priests.
[16] This is the usually accepted theory. The Tiflis Yezidis, however,
gave a later inquirer a different version, stating that Satan has,
after weeping sufficient tears in seven vessels to quench the seven
hells of his seven thousand years’ exile, now been reinstated in
Heaven. Can we assume this important event to have happened since 1839,
when Layard was informed of the theory quoted in the text?
[17] Here they have adopted the Muhammadan tradition, see Quran, iv.,
156: “They slew him not, and they crucified him not, but they only had
his likeness.”
[18] Yazd, Yazdan.
[19] Or, that Yazid became a leading member of the sect.
[20] Original reads “wa antaqala bi’l Musil” (Taraiq ul Haqaiq).
[21] I made inquiries when in Mosul and afterwards, regarding this
place, which is called Keuwi Lash, or The Mountain of a Body--or
corpse. A Muhammadan priest of Mosul informed me that Shaikh Adi is
certainly buried here, and reverence is paid to the tomb by some
Musulmans, who, however, are inclined to shun the place, owing to its
association with the Yezidis.