THE ZAB RIVERS, ANCIENT ASSYRIA AND ADIABENE, ARBELA, KIRKUK
Reference to a map will show a rhomboidal space of country with natural
boundaries upon all sides, of which the Tigris forms the western.
From it spring the others, the two Zab rivers, Lesser and Greater,
running up at an angle to meet the Zagros range, which, parallel to
the Tigris, makes a fourth boundary. Within these limits lies a land,
part plain, part hill, well watered, and of a pleasant climate and
extreme fertility, and this was Assyria proper, and the later kingdom
and province of Adiabene, whose eastern border, the Zagros Mountains,
harboured then, as now, hordes of savage hill people, and formed at
once a barrier and a menace, even to the kings of Assyria.
The northern river, that upon which we were camped, is the Greater Zab,
known to the Romans as the Lycus. Its proximity to the capitals of
Assyria (Kalah was at its mouth) kept it in a protected region during
Assyrian times, and the first great battle recorded upon its banks is
in 128 B.C., when the Assyrians were but a memory. At the spot where we
camped, Indates, general of an army of Fravartish, a Parthian monarch,
descending from the Median hills (Zagros), met Antiochus, a Syrian king
of renown.
Here a fierce battle was fought, ending in the defeat of Indates,
and Antiochus erected a monument upon the spot of his victory, to
commemorate the defeat of a powerful Parthian.
The Lesser Zab, a smaller river, a long day’s journey across the plain,
has acquired more fame in battle and history. Tiglath-Pileser I. in
1100 B.C. mentions on the famous cylinder found at Asshur, “forty-two
countries altogether, and their princes from beyond the Lesser Zab,
the remote forest districts at the boundaries to the land Khatti,[22]
beyond the Euphrates, and into the upper sea of the setting sun,[23] my
hand has conquered from the beginning of my reign until the fifth year
of my rule.”[24]
[Sidenote: THE LESSER ZAB]
In A.D. 52, during the time of dispute between Parthians and Romans,
Vologases, the Parthian king, undertook an expedition against Izates,
the tributary king of Adiabene, “the land between the two rivers,”
but having encamped upon the Lesser Zab, was called back suddenly
southwards by rebellions in the cities there.
However, the battles for which the Lesser Zab must be above all
events famous, are the battles between the Khurasan forces of Abu
Muslim the Abbaside and those of Abdullah ibn Marwan in A.D. 749, and
between the same Khurasanis and Marwan himself, in A.D. 750, five
months afterwards, in both of which battles, Marwan, the last of the
long line of Ummayid khalifas, was defeated. The importance of these
battles ranks as high as any in modern Eastern history, for by the
decisive victories gained there, an Arab khalifate of immense power was
terminated, and replaced by a Persian dynasty, the House of Abbas, of
Khurasan, in Eastern Persia.
“It may truly be said that Qadisiyya and Nihavand were avenged on the
banks of the Zab,” says a great authority, alluding to the battles one
hundred and ten years before, when Zoroastrian Persia was broken before
the Arabs of the new faith of Muhammad, whose descendants in their time
were to become the subjects of those Persians to whom, in the folly of
their own ignorance and savagery, they had applied the name Ajam--‘the
Barbarians.’
From our position on the Greater Zab it was a day’s journey (ten
to twelve hours in the saddle) to Arbela, or Erbil, as the modern
style has it,[25] and we crossed the river early, and by sunset were
arrived. The situation of the town is in a low hollow at the foot of a
small range of hills, behind which rise a higher ridge of the Zagros.
Consequently, it would not be visible across the rolling plain, were it
not for the huge mound that marks the buried ruins of the city of the
goddess Ishtar.
The particular afternoon we approached it was a typical spring day. In
the plain we had slight showers, but as we approached the mountains, we
began to draw into the region about which the thunder-storms circled.
Our first view of Erbil was remarkable. Heavy clouds were driving along
by and over the mountains, from which the rain descending in grey
curtains shrouded the landscape. Brilliant lightning flashes showed up
crags of hills among the clouds, and a rainbow attempted to arch the
scene. We were searching among the confusion of showers for a sight of
the town, when a heavy cloud and its pendant shower passed, leaving a
patch of travelling sunshine behind; and, as a curtain that sweeps by,
with the muttering of thunder, this veil swept from before Erbil, and
shining red and lurid in the sunshine we saw its mound--mysterious,
and indistinct, backed and flanked by tortured black clouds and their
downpouring rain. For an instant we saw it thus, and then from overhead
occurred a cloudburst. The clouds descending in a funnel-shaped deluge
hid the mound, and a din of thunder broke out about it, brilliant
lightnings playing the while, making a tumult of the elements fitting
in its grandeur to the memory of that great goddess of all, Ishtar of
Arbela.
We were just in time to see the little town by daylight. There are
no signs of antiquity about it now, except some Muhammadan ruins.
All those of Assyria are safely conserved in the mighty mound upon
which the modern Turkish ruler has built his castle. The height of
the mound is very considerable, rising far above the roofs of the
highest houses, a mound so great as to appear natural; one would never
credit the fact that it covers the works of man, had we not seen the
palaces of the Assyrians elsewhere. Here, where was the great temple
that during a thousand years and more received the homage of all races
and monarchs, there is every reason to believe that the accumulated
embellishment and offering must have made there a shrine unequalled,
perhaps, anywhere in Asia.
[Sidenote: ERBIL]
When we arrived it poured with rain, and in the dark we slopped
through the alleys of a modern Eastern town, and over a mound to a
ruinous caravanserai, where I found a damp, half-inundated room for
my belongings. Since nothing, not even wood, was obtainable, I dined
off tea and dry bread and a few dates that night, and slept in a pool.
My companions had become separated in the dark, and had found asylum
elsewhere. Here is the western border of southern Kurdistan; and Erbil
is populated by Baban Kurds, a sedentary tribe, speaking a variation of
the Mukri dialect.[26] Turkish is also understood, or rather Turkoman,
for Altun Keupri and Kirkuk, Turkoman towns, are not far off.
In the tenth chapter of Genesis, 8–12, we read:--“And Cush begat
Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty
hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty
hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,
and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. Out of that
land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and
Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.”
Now the date of the building of Asshur’s city is at least 1800 B.C.,
and verses 11–12 allude to the small district of Assyria proper, with
its three cities of Kalah, Nineveh, and Arbela. During the whole time
of the Assyrian monarchies Arbela took the relation to the reigning
king’s capital that Canterbury did to London in English history: it
was always the religious capital, gaining an added importance, for
that in Assyria the king was always the high priest of the religion
of Asshur. That Ishtar, the goddess Baalath of the earlier Chaldeans,
transferred her shrine northwards when Assyria began her separate
existence, is probable; and Arbela (whose name Arba-Ilu means “Four
Gods”) was chosen, perhaps as being the shrine of some then existing
divinity. So that the Erbil of to-day is at least three thousand years
old, and was the second seat of that goddess Ishtar to whom reference
was made in Chapter II. The vitality that has kept it in existence
since those early days has not deserted it any period, for it has been
worthy of mention at least once during the supremacy of every one of
the nations that successively ruled it--Assyrian, Mede, Persian, Greek,
Parthian, Roman, Armenian, Roman again, Persian, and the Arabs. A few
notes arranged chronologically will show this.
Asshurnazipal, 884 B.C., a king who showed the city great favour,
calling it “his city,” took here a captive king who had rebelled
against him, “flayed him alive, and spread out his skin upon the city
wall.” Sennacherib, a greater king, perhaps the most famous of all
kings of Assyria, performed a pilgrimage there in 692 B.C., to pray for
success from Ishtar in his coming battle against the Babylonians. He
was answered. His son Esarhaddon, but twenty-four years later, being
in the northern mountains engaged upon an expedition to avenge the
foul murder of his father, is described as having communicated with
Ishtar the goddess, and received from her shrine at Arbela messages of
encouragement and assurances of victory.[27]
A few years later, in 656 B.C., Asshurnazipal (Sardanapalus), preparing
for war against Elam (modern Arabistan in south-western Persia), made
a great pilgrimage there, to pray for a sign from the goddess, which
was granted. The temple was then one of the most glorious of Assyria.
The usurping king, Teumman, was duly defeated, and many captives were
brought to Arbela, and, in the brutal manner of the times, flayed
alive.
At the end of that century--in 608 B.C.--the battle of Nineveh finally
overthrew the great empire, and the Medes took possession of it, Arbela
falling into their hands. The city’s sacredness must have ensured a
certain immunity from sack or destruction, for it was important eighty
and odd years later, when Darius crucified there a petty king, him of
Sagartia.
[Sidenote: ADIABENE]
Till Alexander with his army invaded Asia, it remained in tranquillity,
but in 331 B.C. a great battle there made it a Greek town.
However, it was but eighty years after that Arsaces I., the liberator
and founder of the great Parthian empire, conquered Adiabene, and
subsequently the sanctity of Arbela won for it the distinction of
becoming the burial-place of the Arsacid kings of Parthia. The Greek
and later Syrian kings of the Alexandrian Succession had, however,
sufficient hold over the province to make it necessary for the
Parthians to fight them for it; and not till about 136 B.C., did
Mithridates, a Parthian monarch, overcome the last of them and possess
the country then called Adiabene, ancient Assyria proper. The province
became, under Parthian rule, governed by a petty king or “vitaxa.”
Armenia in 83 B.C., under Tigran I., the ruling prince, who for
some time enjoyed considerable power, possessed itself of Arbela
and Adiabene, but was driven out a decade after he entered it, by
the Romans and Parthians acting in concert against this insolent
upstart. Under the Roman and Roman-Parthian sway the province of
Adiabene--always coveted for its richness--attained prominence, for the
Romans desired absolutely to possess it and its capital.
So in A.D. 49, Meherdates, a Parthian prince in exile at Rome, being
invited by the Parthians to expel the tyrannical Godarz, proceeded from
Nineveh to Arbela to meet the usurper, encouraged by the allegiance of
Izates, king of Adiabene. He met Godarz near Arbela, and after a long
battle, decided chiefly by the desertion of Izates and other fickle
friends, he was defeated.
Thirteen years later, A.D. 62, Tigran V., a king of Armenia appointed
by the Emperor Nero, attracted by the richness of Adiabene, and by the
absence of the Parthian king Vologases I., attempted its invasion. He
harassed the unfortunate people so much, that they sent to Vologases
complaining, and threatening to earn peace for themselves by giving
allegiance to Rome. The Parthian king responded promptly enough,
declared war upon Armenia and the Romans, and appointed Manubaz, king
of Adiabene, to command of an army, which expelled Tigran and invaded
his country.
From this time Adiabene became a bone of contention till the Persians
rose up, and smote Parthian and Roman alike, to found once more an
Aryan empire.
In A.D. 115 the Emperor Trajan occupied the province, which resisted
bravely; but his successor Hadrian, unable to hold it, relinquished
it two years later. Severus, one of the greatest of the later Romans,
fired by ambition and a desire to chastise the Adiabenians, who had
given him great trouble by helping other states to resist him, invaded
the country, but Vologases, in A.D. 196, expelled him. Severus,
however, made a final attempt a year or two later, and this time added
Adiabene to the Roman Empire, establishing his right to the title
Adiabenisus, which he had prematurely assumed in A.D. 193.
Arbela under the Roman rule suffered a scandalous and sacrilegious
outrage by one Caracullus, who, returning from an expedition against
Babylon in A.D. 216, broke into and violated the Parthian royal
burying-place, dragged out the bodies, and cast them away.
It had but ten years longer to exist under the foreign tyrant, for
Artaxerxes (Ardashir) the Persian, of the new Sasanian dynasty,
conquered it, and expelled both Roman and Parthian from that and many
other lands.
Under the favourable rule of this enlightened and civilised monarchy
the Christians made great progress, obtaining protection and
encouragement from the Persian Zoroastrian monarchs, and Adiabene
was in A.D. 500 the see of a Chaldean bishopric, including Mosul and
Arbela, where the shrine of Ishtar, after having exacted worship for a
couple of thousand years, fell into a speedy disrepute.
[Sidenote: ARBELA]
In the 7th century the hordes of fanatic and savage Arabs swept away
the Persian culture that was fast becoming imbued with Christianity,
and Arbela and Adiabene fell into those depths that engulfed many a
greater city and province. However, Arbela was sufficiently important
to be mentioned as one of the larger cities sacked and ruined by the
barbarian Mongols of Hulagu Khan in the 13th century. Fortunately the
ruins of Ishtar’s temple and the old city were then hidden under a
covering of earth that time had deposited upon them, and thus Nature
has preserved them for Western investigation, from the hands of a human
pestilence that respected neither monument of God nor man.
During the centuries the Kurds, who drive out many peoples, have
occupied the city, which is still the most important of the province.
So powerful is the Kurdish language, however, that in many places
whose population is not of that race, the forceful, graphic language
has displaced all others; and as in Sulaimania, the people, originally
mixed, now call themselves Kurds.
As we entered Erbil at nightfall and left it in the dark of dawn, I
had practically no opportunity of seeing its modern aspect, but its
mound was visible till we had gone many miles over the flat plain.
Starting at four in the morning, we got into Altun Keupri in the late
afternoon. To the north of this town the plain gives place to low
hills, the valleys of which at this time of the year were a mass of
flowers; but the rain once more overtook us as we passed by the pretty
gardens outside the little town. Here the Lesser Zab crosses the plain
from east to west, marking the boundary of old Assyria proper, and the
later Adiabene. Altun Keupri, a place without any particular history,
is situated on an island between two branches of the river. From the
north it is entered by a long bridge with a turn in the middle, like
an elbow. Reaching the entrance to this, one is challenged by an
individual who emerges from a hole in a wall, and counting the mules,
gives tickets in return for payment of tolls, which tickets enable the
passenger to pass the bridge on the south side free of further charge.
The place is picturesque enough, standing up upon its island, the
house-walls being built in a continuation of the low cliff face, giving
it a fortified appearance. One long street runs through the town, which
among the river Arabs and in Bagdad is known as Guntara (Qantara), “The
Bridge.” There is a little bazaar, occupying half the length of the
town, which gives place to a coffee-house and a tea-house lower down.
Then come the barracks, which occasionally harbour a few soldiers; and
lastly the telegraph office, which one passes, to reach another large
coffee-house and the foot of the bridge that gave the name of “Golden
Bridge” to the place.
“Gable Bridge” would have been more correct as a descriptive title. To
ride up or down is impossible, the loaded mules and horses have to be
carefully pushed and guided over its precipitous slopes.
As an example of the daringly experimental in bridge design it is
excellent, and its extraordinary appearance must have impressed its
builder very considerably to gain the name “Golden Bridge”: it is of
the most prosaic and uncompromising stone and plaster.
I found out more about the place later on, but on this occasion we
passed right through it, and in a downpour threw down the loads in a
yard among a few houses on the south bank of the river. My companions
repaired to a little tea-house near by, and I found a room in a
corner of the yard occupied by a darvish, who followed the trade of
mat-weaver, a craft unknown in these regions. This room he consented to
share with me, advising me not to sit too near the door, which had a
habit of falling down occasionally. As I was in a town and my Kurdish
head-dress was soaking wet and very heavy, I discarded it for my fez,
thereby gaining the title of “effendi” from the darvish, where before
I had been but “brother” or “beloved.” Moreover he busied himself to
attend upon me, asking me in Kurdish the while where I was going. At
last he stopped in the middle of puffing at a smoky fire, looked up
at me with a half smile and addressed me in Persian. He had detected
a Persian word or two I had used in Kurdish. Hearing my Persian he
displayed his knowledge of tongues by asserting that I was undoubtedly
a Shirazi, and receiving a confirmation of his statement, immediately
changed his “effendi” for “agha,” the Persian polite form of address.
Nor was he content with this adjustment of affairs; he rose, and taking
my hands in his, kissed me on both cheeks, ejaculating:
[Sidenote: ENCOUNTER A PERSIAN]
“Bi haqq i ’Amiru’l Mu’minin chashmam raushan shud va ruzigaram bi
ghurbat khush!” (“By the right of the Lord of the Faithful[28] my eyes
are lighted, and my days in the strange land made pleasant!”)
Never did I realise more vividly the truth of the Kurdish saying,
that Persian is the sweetest of tongues; or the Shirazi, “that a word
of Persian in a strange land is better than a drink of water in the
desert.” After weeks of harsh Arabic, uncouth Turkish, and rough, if
not disagreeable, Kurdish, Persian came like the voice of a friend
among enemies. My darvish was a native of Nishapur, the birthplace of
the famous Omar Khayyam, and had travelled on foot from there to Mecca,
and though it was now three years, had not yet returned, wandering
towards it gradually, earning a living by the exercise of his craft.
Now he would not allow me to so much as light a cigarette for myself,
and sent me out to the tea-house while he swept the room, prepared tea,
cooked some eggs, and got some curds and bread.
So I strolled out, and entered the little place where a dozen people
were sitting round on high benches, and had a place made for my
fez--not me--by a Kurd, distinguishable by his headgear. I found that
my companions had already spoken of me, and I was thus introduced as a
Persian of Shiraz, by name Ghulam Husain, which the Turks could never
get hold of, calling me Husain Ghulam Effendi, or Husain Effendi. My
fellow-travellers must have advertised my place and circumstance, for
tea was brought, and the Kurd beside me, getting up, took away from
before a muleteer a little table upon which to put my glass. It is the
custom in Turkey in Asia, and Europe too, to greet a newcomer with the
“Marhabba,” at the same time raising the hand to the eyes.[29] The
habit is, besides being an act of politeness, a very true gauge of the
relative importance of newly met persons. By the number of “Marhabba”
the stranger gets, he can judge the position he shall take among
those assembled. On this occasion everyone, including two Turks in
uniform, saluted me thus, and I replied to all in the popular fashion,
dabbing at my forehead in everyone’s direction, only uttering audibly,
“Marhabba, Effendim,” to the Turks.
My Kurdish neighbour, I found, knew a little Persian, and had been to
Teheran and Kashan. He introduced himself as a Kurd of the Mukri, a
native of Sauj Bulaq, the Mukri capital, and lamented the fate that
kept him in Turkish territory mending shoes. Here I began to get in
contact with the sentiment I found often expressed by Christian and
Kurd alike all over southern Kurdistan and eastern Turkish territory, a
leaning towards Persian rule and custom, and an emphatically expressed
aversion to all things Turkish. Among the Kurds this sentiment takes so
strong a form, that many of them set themselves to make a study of the
Persian language, and employ it in all transactions requiring writing,
never using Turkish unless forced to do so.
Half the occupants of the coffee-house were Turkomans, natives of Altun
Keupri, which is one of the settlements which originated in the times
of the Seljuq Sultans--in the Middle Ages. They are a pleasant race,
and proud of their descent; nor do they display much sympathy with
the Ottoman Turks, whom they regard as plebeian, and their contempt
for their mincing and malpronounced Turkish is unbounded. Their own
language, which is the same as that of Azarbaijan in Persia, they call
Turkoman, and it is a rough, forcible tongue pronounced in the guttural
manner the Turkish originally displayed.
[Sidenote: REMINISCENCES OF PERSIA]
After consuming a couple of glasses of tea, I rose and returned to my
darvish, whom I found seated behind my tin samovar, tea prepared, the
room swept. He had procured a number of flaps of bread, a large bowl
full of “dugh” or “airan,” as the Turks call it, which is curds mixed
with water.
In Persian fashion he rose as I entered, his hands crossed before him,
nor sat till I was installed upon my strip of carpet and had requested
him to do so.
My muleteer now appeared, and Qadir, one of my fellow-travellers, Kurds
both. These sat upon the door-step, and by the light of a candle we
partook of tea. These two, hearing myself and the darvish speaking
Persian, introduced us to the rhyme which is ever being quoted all over
Kurdistan--
“Laoza laoza arawia
Turki hunara
Farsi shikara
Kurdi guzi kara;”
a doggerel signifying,
“Arabic is sonorous, Turkish an achievement, Persian is sugar--and
Kurdish an unpleasantness.”[30]
The darvish and myself became so engrossed in the reminiscences of
Persia in which we indulged, that we quite forgot the presence of
the two Kurds. Our conversation outlasted the candle, which guttered
out on its end in the mud wall, and by the light of a burning stick
the darvish spread our bedding, and we retired, to the sound of a
chant which he murmured under his cloak, till he fell asleep, mainly
consisting of “Bismillah ar Rahman ar Rahim, al Hamdu’l illah Rebbu’l
’alemin ar Rahman ar Rahim.”
He woke me next morning by murmuring gently, “Agha! Agha!” in my ear.
To rouse a sleeper noisily is a breach of etiquette among Persians.
It was just dawn as we crept along the stony road leading out of Altun
Keupri to Kirkuk. There are three roads between the two places, and
the condition of the country determines which one the caravan takes.
This time we were to take the longest; for to our left, the east,
lay the Hamavand country, distant certainly, but whence roving bands
of Kurds emerged, raiding. By turning to the right, about ten miles
outside Altun Keupri, we should pass through a long range of low hills
which runs between the two places, and have their protection on our
left as we went south to Kirkuk. These are almost the last of the
ranges, which, rising higher and higher as the Kurdistan highlands are
approached, are the sentinels of the Zagros range, which itself is the
rampart of the Persian plateau. All along this road, till we put the
hills between ourselves and the east, we could see far-away snowpeaks
beyond Rawanduz, that were on Persian soil. We found a way through
the range, which is not more that 500 feet high, and came out into a
broken place of foothills, where were a few Kurds grazing sheep, and
lower down some Arabs cutting green barley that would have yellowed and
scorched if left longer. For here is the hot region; Kirkuk is on the
same plain as Bagdad, and suffers from an even worse climate, the hot
winds scorching it during several months of the year. Clear of these
hills, we came out to the flat desert that stretches away west to the
Tigris, and beyond to the Euphrates, and beyond again to Syria, a dead
level over which the hot wind of summer blows, or where in later spring
the air, getting stagnant, grows hot, and one bakes in the shadowless
waste. Four hours from Kirkuk, whose gardens were visible as a dark
line on the horizon, we passed a ruined caravanserai, which a native
of Kirkuk, jogging along on an ass, assured me was the remains of a
caravanserai built by Shah Abbas of Persia, some 300 years ago.
Wheat was growing in some places along the roadside, but a swarm of
small black locusts covered the road with their hopping millions,
which were making havoc among the young stalks. Farther on, we were
alarmed by the sight of some black tents, the abodes of nomads, and we
were not reassured when two horsemen cantered up from behind a fold in
the plain. They were Kurds in dress and appearance, but persisted in
talking Arabic as they rode along, probably to conceal their dialect.
Our suspicions of course at once made them Hamavands, and the one or
two of us who possessed rifles slipped a cartridge in. But they either
heard or saw a signal in the hills we had crossed, for leaving us
suddenly they put their horses to a gallop, and soon disappeared among
the hillocks. We were quite close to Kirkuk, where the roads, short and
long, converged, and as we came to the junction, an Arab, who had come
from Altun Keupri by the short route, told us that our horsemen were
two of a gang which had looted a caravan that morning in the hills. It
appeared that this band, an outlying one of the Hamavands, patrolled
the long road one day, and the short one the next. Our luck had sent us
along while they were engaged elsewhere.
[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT KIRKUK]
Kirkuk, which lies at the end of this range, is invisible till
nearly approached, for, forced by the necessity of getting near the
water-supply, it has taken a position by the river-bed (which is dry
half the year), and is quite hidden by the hillocks around, except
from the east side, where the ground slopes gradually down to it. It
possesses a mound, upon which part of the town is built, the remainder
being round the south of its base.
We entered an outlying village, passed between gardens to a
huge barrack where the garrison is quartered, then by a line of
coffee-houses full of idle, uniformed creatures, over a long stone
bridge, and turning to the right, plunged into the gloom of a short
arched bazaar of extraordinary height and width, and out again along a
busy street to a clean, new caravanserai.
This, like so many of the caravanserais in the towns of Mesopotamia,
is of a composite nature. Its yard and the stables surrounding afford
accommodation for beast, while the rooms which enclose it on three
sides, upstairs, harbour both travellers, and residents, who are
strangers without womenfolk. The entrance to this caravanserai was
between two huge cafés, at the back of which the yard lay, and above
this long entrance were the offices of the mayor, and the agent of
Singer’s sewing-machines, an article which has penetrated to the
remotest districts of Kurdistan. These offices opened upon a gallery
which communicated direct with the rooms set apart for passengers.
Kirkuk is famous for Turkomans, fruit, and crude oil, all of which
abound. The town, which must have a population of at least 15,000, is
one of the trilingual towns of the Kurdistan borders. Turkish, Arabic,
and Kurdish are spoken by everyone, the first and last being used
indifferently in the bazaars. Itself a Turkoman town, to its south
and west are nomad Arabs, and to its east the country of the Hamavand
Kurds. Turkish power is very evident here. Being near to Bagdad--seven
days--and possessing a Turkish-speaking population, it is in a
position to supply a large number of youths to the military schools,
which, half-educating the lads, turn them out idle and vicious, and
incapable of existing without a uniform. The result is that they all
obtain some post, telegraph, police, or customs, or join the ranks of
the superfluous and unattached army “officers,” and return to their
native town to lounge in the innumerable tea-houses, and earn a living
by tyrannising over whatever unfortunate their position enables them
to blackmail and persecute. Consequently, Kirkuk is full of uniforms
containing the scum of the town, often drunken brutes--who sap the
life of the place, driven to any length of rascality to gain a living,
for they are usually unpaid. Despite this plethora of police, I was
unmolested, probably the composite crowd of the Kirkuk bazaar makes a
stranger too inconspicuous for their attention.
The architecture of the place is purely Arab; the Persian influence
noticeable in Bagdad, Mosul, Diarbekr, and other cities of Mesopotamia
and Syria is not seen here. Solid stone buildings of no beauty, a few
mean mosques and minarets, very solid, but with no ornamentation,
and an immense arched bazaar, make the architectural features of the
place. The Turkoman population, or rather the commercial section of
it, compares very favourably with the people of Bagdad and Mosul. A
stranger meets with great consideration, nor is he swindled right and
left, nor annoyed, as among the Arabs of the greater cities. Purchasing
food and other things in the bazaars, I found everywhere an astonishing
honesty and rough goodwill that wins the heart of a stranger, and this,
notwithstanding the fact that I was taken for a Persian, and a Shi’a
Muhammadan, with whom the Sunni has very little sympathy.
[Sidenote: KIRKUK FOLK]
I can quote an example which shows how this hospitable quality often
appeared.
Some days after I arrived there I found the soles of my boots flapping
under me as I walked, so repaired to a shop in the bazaar where Bagdad
shoes were for sale. Selecting a pair, I proceeded to bargain, but not
knowing the proper price, I was somewhat at a loss to determine my
highest figure. The shopkeeper asked two mejidies or forty piastres,
so I proposed eighteen piastres, and brought him down by degrees to
twenty-two, when having nearly halved the original price, I thought
it sufficient, and assented. I produced a mejidie in payment, and
was groping in my pocket for the two piastres remaining, when the
shopkeeper extended his hand, saying:
“A mejidie is the real price; you are a stranger, and did not our
prophet command us all to honour the stranger? Take the shoes, for
from you I will not take more than a mejidie, for a Kirkukli the
price is twenty-five piastres, but big profits among ourselves do not
matter, whereas from you--who I hope will go from Kirkuk with pleasant
remembrances--I am content with what a mejidie gives.”
This sentiment I encountered everywhere in Kirkuk, except from the
Christians; but that is but natural, seeing that I was in the guise of
a Muhammadan. I experienced later the kindness of the Chaldeans for
strange Christians in the town.
Besides the Turkomans and other Muhammadans there is a large number of
Chaldeans and of Syrian Christians, natives of Bagdad. A few Armenians
are also there, employed in Government and commercial affairs, but
they are natives of Diarbekr or Armenia. The Chaldean settlement is
of considerable antiquity, having migrated here, according to their
own traditions, during the time of Alp Arslan, in the 11th century. If
Kirkuk is, as the natives assert, a remnant of the Seljuq kings, this
is possible, and perhaps even probable. Unlike the Chaldeans of Mosul,
they have not forgotten the Syriac character, and while they speak
only Turkish, employ these characters in writing among themselves. It
is only the Chaldeans who are found living among the Kurds, who have
retained their language, both written and spoken. In Mosul, where it is
reckoned part of a good education to know it, it has no generality of
use, and one has to go to the villages to hear it spoken.
There is a church in Kirkuk administered by priests from Mosul; the
Chaldeans are, like nearly all in Turkish territory, Roman Catholics,
for the old Chaldean Church died under the unscrupulous assaults of the
Roman Catholics, who pursued a Machiavellian policy in bringing over
the old Church to Papal allegiance, a change which has been for nothing
but the worse.[31]
In Kirkuk they enjoy great freedom from persecution, despite the
periodical efforts of Muslim priests to incite ill-feeling against
them. Their presence is too necessary to the well-being of the town to
make a massacre anything but a catastrophe for the Muhammadan traders,
who have been led by their integrity and capability to place great
faith and confidence, and often to deposit large sums of money with
them. In these qualities of honesty, and an ability for getting on
with Muslims amicably without conceding a particle of their behaviour
as strict Christians, they contrast very forcibly with the Armenians,
Syrians, and Arab Christians.
[Sidenote: KIRKUK FOLK]
They are distinguishable by their head-dress and shirt-sleeves alone,
for they wear the long, striped tunic reaching to the heels, and the
zouave jacket or “salta,” which, however, they do not ornament with
scroll-work in gold and silver as do the Kurds.
Their shirt-sleeves are tight round the wrist, and do not appear below
the long sleeves of their jackets; while their head-dress, a blue
handkerchief round a skull-cap, is worn broad and flat, embracing the
head closely, not standing out as do the turbans of the Muhammadans.
Up to recent years they still displayed a partiality for light yellow
striped garments, a relic doubtless of the choice of colour forced upon
them in the early Middle Ages by the Khalifas of Bagdad, who commanded
all unbelievers to wear a distinctive dress, usually honey coloured.
In Kirkuk is a large colony of Jews, the first of the hosts of that
race that exist from here eastward all through Kurdistan to Sina of
Persian Kurdistan and Hamadan.
It is thought possible that these are direct descendants of the Jews of
the third captivity,[32] whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylonia
in the 6th century B.C., just after the fall of the Assyrian Empire.
They use the Aramaic character, and in Kurdistan speak Hebrew, a
remarkable fact being that the Chaldeans of Sina in Kurdistan and the
Jews of the same place, while survivals of different epochs, speak
almost exactly the same ancient Semitic dialect, a conclusive proof,
were any needed, of the Semitic origin of the Chaldeans.
In Kirkuk, as in all Kurdistan, the chief occupation of the inhabitants
is that of drapers and mercers, the cotton cloth and print trade is
entirely in their hands; in fact so far have their co-religionists of
Bagdad progressed, that the cottons of Kurdistan are supplied from
Manchester by Bagdad Jews settled there.
Kirkuk is thus a collection of all the races of eastern Turkey--Jew,
Arab, Syrian, Armenian, Chaldean, Turk, Turkoman, and Kurd--and
consequently enjoys considerable freedom from fanaticism, besides
being strongly governed by a Turkish governor who possesses sufficient
military strength to keep in order almost every element, the Kurds
being the only difficult section of the population, with their contempt
for all rule and order that does not emanate from their own khans.
Unfortunately this excellent state of affairs does not extend for more
than a mile or two outside the town, where Arab and Kurd roam at will,
defying all.
In the bazaars one occasionally sees a knot of swarthy fellows,
very ragged, speaking a dialect only the traveller in south-western
Persia can recognise. These are the Faili Lurs, Persian subjects,
whose presence warrants the institution of a Persian Consul here.
This individual forced himself upon my acquaintance in the following
manner:--
The frequenters of the tea-house by the caravanserai, during the first
few days of my stay, came to know me as a Persian of Shiraz, and as
Persians are rare in Kirkuk, the consul heard quickly of my existence.
I was waited upon one day by a Kurd wearing a Lion and Sun badge, but
with no other sign of his office as a consular servant. He demanded
my Persian passport, and could not be convinced that I was a British
subject, and consequently not amenable to Persian passport laws.
Nothing I could say could convince him, the very fact of my speaking
Persian fluently damned my assertions; but I was inflexible, and he
eventually went away.
Two days afterwards he turned up again; but this time I was prepared to
prove to him my identity as a Persian-born British subject. To this
end I had arranged my Foreign Office passport, which bore the visés of
both Turkish and Persian consuls in London. These contained a certain
amount of writing in the two languages, and under each of these I wrote
in Indian ink, which could be erased by licking it off later, the words
“Mirza Ghulam Husain Shirazi,” under the Persian visé in the Persian
“shikasta” hand, and under the Turkish in the handwriting adopted by
Turks. This I now produced with a flourish, displaying with triumph to
the messenger and a few of the bystanders with whom I was acquainted
the English arms and the signature of Sir Edward Grey--and then turning
to the back, the Persian and Turkish visés with my name under each.
Perfect success met the scheme, the servant changed his tone and became
polite, and the effect upon my audience was to win me many “marhabba”
afterwards in the café.
[Sidenote: A PERSIAN CONSUL]
Next morning I was engaged in a little tailoring. My overcoat was
getting too warm, or rather, the weather was getting too warm for the
coat, and I had no other garment sufficiently long to be dignified,
save a thin corded dressing-gown. Perforce I adapted this. I took
off the abundant braiding, removed the waist-cord and sewed on some
buttons, and produced a garment thereafter called a “labbada” or long
coat, such as religious students and Azarbaijan merchants wear.
I was sewing on the last button, when a knock came at the door, and the
servant of the Persian Consul stood there bowing, “Would I come and see
the Persian Consul on a friendly visit? He was in the caravanserai and
very anxious to make my acquaintance.” So donning my new garment, I
followed him along the gallery.
I found him in a room over the gateway, seated at the upper end upon
a small carpet. Below him, that is, against the long side wall and
nearer the door, was a collection of varied Kurds, of Sauj Bulaq, Sina,
Merivan, and other Persian towns. Their head-dress of handkerchiefs
indicated their origin. Standing up near the consul was an elderly,
thick-set man, bushy-bearded, wearing the baggy trousers and shirt
tucked in, that are typical of the muleteers of the Persian border,
but his pointed cap proclaimed him a Mukri. The room was partly taken
up with three tables, upon which stood basins and copper vessels
containing various concoctions. A tray covered with small sweetmeats,
just cooked, stood by an earthen oven in a corner; and a young man was
engaged in placing therein a fresh tray full of uncooked confections.
Sugar loaves lined the walls, hanging by nails, and a smaller table
near the window was covered with bottles of colouring matter and the
apparatus of a sweet-maker’s trade. Amid all this the consul sat, a
grey, fierce-looking man, in Kurdish dress, but he wore upon his head
the felt hat and narrow handkerchief of the Kermanshah Kurd.
To this assembly I entered, walking delicately to avoid numerous
obstacles on the floor, and all rose, answering my “Salamum ’alaikum”
with a sonorous “alaikum as salam,” to which the bearded man added the
“wa rahmatullah wa barikatah.”
The consul made place for me by his side, and in excellent Persian
replied to my compliments. The assorted Kurds, who understood very
little, began a discussion about some tribal feud somewhere, and left
us to a conversation in which the bearded man, who turned out to be the
proprietor of the sweet business, and a Persian subject of Sauj Bulaq,
joined. This old fellow, Haji Rasul, was a darvish of a sect of the
Shi’a Muhammadans.
Our conversation turned inevitably upon politics, and thinking my
companions must be Nationalists, as are most Persians nowadays, I began
to describe some of the doings of the Majlis in Teheran during 1906
and 1907. They listened in silence for some time, offering no opinion,
but when I ceased, the consul began with great enthusiasm a flowing
eulogium of Muhammad Ali Shah, cursing in the most powerful language
the revolutionary movement that tended to put power in the hands of
mean schemers, plebeians, and heretics. His arguments hung upon the
nail of fanaticism, as I am afraid most of the Royalist arguments
ever did in those days, and warming to his subject he read me a homily
upon the evil of allowing my young mind to be led away by the specious
arguments of them who called upon the saints to witness the right of
their evil actions. Apt quotations from the Quran he poured out upon
me, growing ever more excited, and at length ceased suddenly, out of
breath, and hot. I managed to steer him away from this subject, and he
began to relate his difficulties and the qualms of conscience he had
had in the matter of his late wife, whom, suffering from some terrible
internal disease, he had taken to Mosul to the English doctor there.
[Sidenote: THE FERANGI DOCTOR]
“This matter,” he said, “is a constant source of anxiety to me, for I
have not the satisfaction of knowing that God sanctioned the means by
the end attained, for she died. I took her from Sulaimania to Mosul
in a palanquin, and laid her before the European’s door, together
with presents of gold and silver, and a bottle of brandy I had bought
specially, knowing such things acceptable to the Christians. And he
was moved to pity, for he was a generous man, though an infidel, and,
refusing the presents, took her in. And many days he spent, labouring
with all his knowledge to cure her. Despite the shame of this discovery
of her nakedness, and the ridicule it might pour upon me, I persisted,
but He who knows took her life. And I yet think that her death was
perhaps an expression of the Almighty displeasure, for though but a
woman she was a Muslim, and the wife of a Muslim, and the procedure was
not in propriety.”
He seemed relieved when I was able to quote him the case of a High
Priest’s wife in Shiraz who had been cured by a European doctor.
After this the meeting broke up, and he departed, and I after him. I
subsequently learned that with the appointment of consul he combined
the craft of watchmaking, and was known as Mirza Saatchi--“Mr
Watchmaker.” The old man, the proprietor of the sweetstuff shop, had
something to say before I left, and he addressed me in his feeble
Persian mixed with Kurdish:
“I am an old man,” he said, “and by many cities have I wandered, from
Salonica to Basrah, and Trebizonde to Mecca, but never have I missed
the opportunity of cultivating the acquaintance of a Persian or Shi’a.
Let us not forget one another. We are both strangers, both of that
land that is the fairest of all the earth, where mercy and charity
overspread the land, where Muslim treats Muslim as a brother and not
a foe--like these Turks. Let it not, therefore, be said that I, Haji
Rasul, though I am but a poor Kurd, have violated the tradition of
Islam, Persia, and the Kurds alike. Here I work by day, and in the
verandah I sit at night, alone; help to relieve my loneliness by your
constant company while you are here.”
The old man was so evidently sincere, and expressed himself so
fervently, that I felt forced to promise to come and see him that
evening.
There was a long bench in the verandah from which we could look down at
the crowd below and the operations of the police, whose headquarters
was just opposite. Here, too, every morning an auction was held, amid a
crowd that sat upon high benches under a tree, drinking tea or coffee,
discussing local politics, and hatching plots against their neighbours.
The crowd that frequented these coffee-houses--there were four of them
round the caravanserai door--were the idlest collection of creatures it
is possible to imagine.
Being near the mayoral office, police court, and one or two other
public offices, the attendance of uniformed parasites was enormous,
and these, appearing about the twelfth hour (then about 7 A.M.), sat
till the second hour, then lounged away to their houses in the town,
appearing again at an hour to sunset, and sitting there chattering and
rattling the everlasting tasbih, the Muhammadan rosary, till late at
night.
The newcomer in Kirkuk, who would buy bread, experiences difficulty
unless he can find the special bread-sellers, who hawk this necessary
comestible about in shallow baskets. Desiring dates, I purchased some
the first day I arrived, at a shop, and noticing next door a basket of
bread, attempted to buy two flaps, but the owners would not sell it.
Nor would they consider the question unless I bought something at their
shop. This I refused to do, and launched out in some indignation into a
tirade against such a habit, which annoyed and harassed the stranger,
leaving him hungry in a strange land. This induced them to attempt to
make a gift to me of two pieces, which pleased me less, and at last
they consented, very unwillingly, to sell me what I wanted. The sale
of bread alone, by shopkeepers, is rare all over Sunni Mesopotamian
country, and among the Turkomans, and they will--as in this case--give
it rather than sell it. This is probably owing to the habit in these
patriarchial lands, of making bread in the house which is given freely
to all who request it; the sale of such a necessary is looked upon as
rather degrading.
[Sidenote: A DARVISH AND HIS CAT]
One evening at sunset I joined Haji Rasul where he sat meditating
on his bench. He had a companion and assistant who performed the
labour connected with their daily life, cooking, cleaning their room,
spreading the bed-clothes and the carpet upon which we sat. This youth
was a native of Smyrna, a simple Turkish lad, the best specimen of his
race I ever met. He was a rarity in Muhammadan lands, a Sunni converted
to Shiism, for the old Haji had converted him in Smyrna. Despite his
travels he could talk nothing but Turkish.
A constant companion of this strange pair was a small white cat, to
which they were both strongly attached. Having been with them since
kittenhood, it fully reciprocated their affection, and had developed a
high degree of feline intelligence.
The old Haji had brought it from Aleppo, and it possessed a little cage
in which it performed its journeys. Its food was specially cooked for
it by the youthful Turk, and it had regular time and its own dish, for
meals.
Spotlessly clean it was, and very exclusive, desiring no intercourse
with the roof-prowling cats of the caravanserai, whom it ejected from
its neighbourhood.
Both Persians and Kurds have a strong liking for domestic cats, and
in the bigger towns of Persia it is a sorry household that does not
possess one or two, as petted as any in Europe.
It was a strange sight to see the rough Kurds who sometimes came to see
Haji Rasul, gravely rolling cartridges for it to pursue, or stroking
its arching little back with a lighter hand than they ever laid upon
anything else, the while talking seriously to it in their rough tongue.
Haji Rasul himself talked Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, and a little
Persian. He had acquired these during his twenty years’ wandering.
From Sauj Bulaq he had started twenty years before, and had walked via
Kurdistan and Anatolia to Constantinople. There he had learned the art
of making sweets. Saving a little cash, he embarked for Jedda, whence
he performed the great pilgrimage. From Medina he walked to Damascus,
and finding employment, rested there. Later he went by ship to
Salonica, and thence to Smyrna, where he remained some years collecting
money to make the long journey to Kazimain and Kerbela, near to Bagdad,
the most holy shrine of the Shi’a Muhammadans. It had taken him two
years working by slow stages to get from Smyrna to Kirkuk, and he was
attempting to collect enough cash here to get him to Bagdad. At any
rate he could not have gone when I saw him, for the Hamavand had closed
the road to Bagdad by their raids.
Fanatical he was to a degree I seldom have seen. He observed the letter
of the law regarding Christians, and was most careful to have nothing
to do with them, yet I found him a just, charitable man, very kind
hearted, and willing to take the greatest pains to help or make me
comfortable. If a Christian said Salam to him, he would not reply by
the same salutation, displaying thereby the haughty fanaticism of the
most bigoted Shi’a; yet, as every sincere Musulman must, he deplored
the decadence of Islam and cursed more violently the backsliders of
his own religion than the reprobates among Christians, “for,” said
he, “these have the law and the book, and the light of the saints
before them; while those have ever been in a mistaken path, and know no
better.”
[Sidenote: KURDISH HORSEPLAY]
In all his dealings he was just, nor would he favour the Musulman more
than the Christian in a matter of business.
He had a habit of dropping into deep meditation. One night he asked me
my name; hearing Ghulam Husain, he repeated several times:
“Ghulam Husain, Ghulam Husain,” he murmured, “The Slave of Husain,
may I be his sacrifice! Ah! Husain, Husain, shall we not rise up and
smite the Sunnis, for that they slew him, him the pure, the sinless,
betrayed, and murdered by the evildoer--ah, what a name, The Slave
of Husain, and what a life to live up to, Husain! Husain!...” and he
would drop into a reverie murmuring now and then “Husain”--reviewing
doubtless the details of the tragedy of that holy man, whose character
bears comparison with that of any Christian saint, and whose
self-sacrifice and resignation was no less heroic.
A Kurd himself, he deplored the levity of the Kurds, who are much
given to dancing and singing. Each night the Kurdish muleteers
would collect on the roof of some rooms in the courtyard, and chant
their interminable “Guranis” or folk songs, dancing hornpipes of
ever-increasing fury and joining in roaring choruses. Sometimes they
would engage in wrestling matches, and cast one another about the yard,
the exercise often terminating in a display of hot temper, when knives
would be drawn, to be sheathed as an onlooker made a jest that called
forth laughter from all.
We were hopelessly detained in Kirkuk. Behind, on the road we had come,
the Hamavands had closed in; towards Bagdad it was the same, and to
the east where our course lay was their own particular country, across
which not even companies of soldiers would dare to go.
Every day it was announced that a certain army accountant, whose
presence was needed in Sulaimania, would attempt the passage with a
hundred soldiers, armed with Mauser rifles, and a number of mules were
engaged; but the good man never seemed to make up his mind to go.
Rashid, my muleteer, had engaged all his spare mules to the Government
for this purpose, and a daring Chaldean merchant prepared fifty loads
of sugar for isolated Sulaimania. Sixteen days we waited, and at
last the order came to load at midnight, and collect just outside
Kirkuk--that is, to join the main caravan and the guard. The leader
was one Shefiq Effendi, a Kurd of the Shuan or “Shepherds,” a large
tribe inhabiting the hill country south of the Lower Zab River. By his
influence and that of the hundred soldiers, we hoped to pass safely
these terrible Hamavands.
By law they were outlawed, and orders existed that any entering the
town were to be shot on sight; but such was their reputation for
daring, that I often saw them strolling in the bazaar of Kirkuk, caring
nothing for a knot of Turkish soldiers, who followed them round, afraid
to molest them, for the people of Kirkuk, armed though they were, and
protected by a regiment of soldiers, feared a sudden raid of revenge
from this intrepid handful of Kurds.
Hearing that I was resolved to go, Haji Rasul did his utmost to
persuade me to stay. For they were Kurds, he said--Kurds, more savage
than the Jaf, or the Guran, more daring even than the Mukri themselves.
He took me by the hands, beseeching me to stay, nor risk the life God
had given me for a mere mundane consideration of time.
“Time,” said he, “is long, and your life is young; what matter if
you stay another month, two months, nay a year, if you are enabled
to preserve the body God has entrusted to your care. Have I not been
twenty years wandering, and do I complain that I have not yet got back
to my native place?”
We were seated round a mess of a kind of porridge at the time, in which
we dipped our bread, eating it with our fingers.
“See,” he said, “I eat this morsel not because I delight in its
flavour, for it is of the poorest, nor because I crave a plenishment
of belly, but I am performing that duty which is incumbent upon all
of us, even pagans, the conservation of the flesh, which God has given
into the keeping of our intellects.”
[Sidenote: THE END OF SPRING]
Though the restless spirit of the Western had been long calmed within
me, yet it was not quelled, and here asserted itself. For sixteen
days I had remained in Kirkuk. The weather, with that suddenness of
progress to hot and cold that it exhibits upon these dry plains, had
grown oppressive; the plain which, when we arrived, was covered with
green, if scanty grass, was now a bright yellow, the dried stalks were
scorching, and the mules’ daily expedition to the plain to graze was
almost a farce. In that peculiar way that marks the approach of summer,
the sun shot up at a high velocity from behind the crimson hills
towards Kurdistan, climbed to his ever-mounting zenith, hung there,
it would seem for twelve hours or so, and as quickly descended; the
hours of cool daylight were but three. Towards sunset the decrease in
temperature was hardly appreciable, for the world was heating, and it
took an hour or two of darkness to make it reasonably cool. As has been
said before, the town is situated in a position that in our climate
we should call “sheltered,” which in these lands means extra hot and
stifling. The afternoon hours were approaching that temperature which
induces sleep behind closed doors, and the one occasion upon which
business called me outside, at about three in the afternoon, showed me
an empty town, and also scorching heat of the sun in Kirkuk in May.
Besides, the fez, the most utterly ridiculous headgear man ever
invented, protecting neither from heat nor cold, acts with such
calorific power as to make one’s scalp regularly boil in sweat under a
hot sun.
Flies, too, were breeding like microbes. My daily journey to the bazaar
took me past some butchers’ shops, and I noticed one morning that the
never-cleansed beams upon which the meat hangs were unrelieved black in
colour--flies, solid, and overlaid with flies, that hardly even moved
when the butcher swept his long knife along, squashing hundreds, to
cut meat next moment without even wiping his blade. Fortunately the
custom of the country doubtless prevents a great deal of disease that
might result from such condition. Butchers’ shops open in the early
morning till about the second hour; one sheep only at a time is killed,
and until that is sold another does not appear. Consequently owing to
the short time during which it is possible to purchase meat, there is
a great rush of buyers, and the flesh of the sheep and goats does not
remain long enough than to have one thin layer consumed by flies.
Water was becoming scarce too; the river, which had run fairly full as
we entered the town, was now the merest trickle, and all the water was
obtained from wells. To waste such a valuable would have called upon
the stranger the wrath of all in the caravanserai, so a scanty rinsing
of hands and face was all that could be attempted, and that only when I
could by stealth draw a potful and convey it unseen to my room. There
are public baths in Kirkuk certainly, but even the natives, bound by
tradition and custom to extol all indigenous institutions, admitted
that they were not very nice. Nevertheless it surprised them that I
did not patronise the “hammam”; but what upset my neighbours was the
fact of my shaving myself, which I had attempted to do in private,
knowing the prejudice against it. For the East reckons a barber as a
very mean fellow, and to perform upon oneself, if it be the beard, a
transgression of the Quranic law, and if it be the head, a dangerous
folly. And whether it be the result of this repugnance to the trade or
a naturally despicable nature that consents to the odium, it is a fact
that Oriental barbers are as a class very mean fellows indeed.
Through the offices of my friend the consular watchmaker, I was taken
one day to see a notable of Kirkuk, one Reza, called by the Muslims
Shaikh Reza, and by the Christians, who hate him, Mulla Reza, an
inferior title.
This worthy is the principal priest of the place, and though a Sunni,
and a fanatic at that, has no objection to seeing and being polite to
the dissenters of Islam, the Shi’a, among whose ranks both myself and
the watchmaker were classed.
[Sidenote: A KIRKUK PRIEST]
He inhabited a house adjoining the mosque wherein he officiated, one
of the best houses in Kirkuk. His courtyard was laid out in flat beds
in the Persian fashion, and a few mulberry trees veiled the bareness
of the high walls. He received us in a long room, well carpeted, and
was alone. A very reverend seigneur this indeed; the frown of sanctity
sat blackly upon his brow, unlightened by his white turban. At his
elbow on the floor was a gramophone, from whose trumpet a raucous Arab
voice had just ceased to shriek verses of the Quran--to such uses are
European abominations adaptable! Hearing that I was from Shiraz, he at
once began to quote Hafiz and Sa’di, for he spoke excellent Persian;
and then, producing a manuscript book, read some of his own poetry. He
versified in four languages--Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish;
but preferred Persian to all of them, having a just contempt for the
majority of Turkish verse, consisting as it does nearly all of Arabic
and Persian.
He complained bitterly of the progress Christians were making, and
doubtless would make under the _régime_ of constitutional government;
in speaking, his eyes flashed, he grew excited, the latent fanaticism
in him boiled, and he longed to see the blood of these infidels spilt.
With cries of disgust against the lukewarm sentiments of the Turkomans,
he denounced Musulman and Christian alike, and frankly declared that
he would like to see the heads of the latter adorning the barrack
walls. This creature, who had naught but notoriety to gain from such a
catastrophe, has several times attempted to harass the Christians, but
they have found sufficient protection, and he sees himself foiled, and
his proposals ignored every time he would rouse feeling against these
harmless people. It took him the whole time of drinking three cups
of tea to exhaust his fury, and we took leave of him, expressing no
opinion upon his sentiments.
The watchmaker gave me an example of his hot temper, as we sat in the
coffee-house afterwards. At his house he was visited one day by the
sub-governor, a Constantinople Turk, and the talk turning upon poetry,
the shaikh, who has Kurdish blood in him, was extolling the merits of
Persian and even Kurdish verse, and expressing his scorn of Turkish.
The Ottoman officer naturally objected, and rashly quoted a long poem
terminating with the words:--
“Furukhta am bi sham’ u kafur u san sin.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the shaikh, seizing a perfect opportunity, “Furukhta
am” is pure Persian, and “sham’ u kafur” are Arabic, and what Turkish
remains, but a miserable insignificance? “u san sin,” the point coming
in with the meaning of the Turkish--“and thou art it”--the miserable
insignificance.[33]
About the tenth day of our stay there, the muleteer Rashid came along
in great glee, saying that we should leave next morning, and that I
had better lay in a stock of provisions for the journey, though, as he
remarked, “God knows whether we shall eat our bread, or the Hamavand’s.”
Four regimental doctors had turned up from Mosul, appointed to
Sulaimania, and they were to have as escort a “tabur,” or four hundred
soldiers. The usual fiasco occurred to prevent our going, for the army,
not having been paid for months, went on strike, and two hundred more
appointed to replace them flatly refused to go, fearing to face the
Hamavand, who had so barbarous a habit of thirsting for the guns and
blood of the Turkish troops, and such a capacity for quenching the
thirst. So we stayed.
As an instance of the self-imposed duties of the unattached Turkish
officer, I may quote the following episode:--
Haji Rasul and myself were sitting in the dark one evening smoking our
cigarettes, and conversing upon the usual topic of Persian politics,
when a highly uniformed individual rolled up, and between hiccups
gave vent to a hoarse “Salamun ’alaikum.” Without invitation he sat
between us, and introducing himself to me as a major in some regiment,
proceeded to bully Haji. It appeared that the old man had had some high
words with one of the people, whom he employed to sell his sweets, and
this officious busybody, overhearing, inserted himself between the two,
constituting himself an arbitrator. Haji had naturally refused to have
anything to do with such matters, but his opponent, seeing a chance of
winning his case, commenced pouring out his woes to the officer. The
old man in disgust had departed, leaving the pair, and laid his case
before the mayor of the town.
[Sidenote: A TURKISH OFFICER]
The major, meanwhile, had settled the affair with the other litigant,
arranging to receive two mejidies as a fee, and finding that Haji did
not accept his mediation, came to try and bully him into acquiescence.
Needless to say all the intimidation he could bring forth did not scare
Haji, who threatened to throw him downstairs. He solved the question
himself by falling over asleep, after a pause for the thought which his
fuddled condition made difficult. Such are some--I hope not all--of the
Sultan’s officers. This one had passed through the military school at
Bagdad, but as I afterwards heard how this feat may be performed--being
literally little more than a passage through the establishment in the
case of certain favoured individuals--I understood how he had become a
military officer.
One morning I received a polite note in Turkish from the
postmaster--with whom I was not acquainted--asking me to come and see
him. So I took my way along the dusty hot road, past the innumerable
cafés full of hunchbacked, uniformed Turks, till I found the office.
To-day not being post-day, the postmaster reclined in an armchair
behind a table, smoking cigarettes. On my arrival, he saluted me very
politely by my name, talking Turkish. It was, of course, not to be
expected that he would state his business till after some small talk,
so we conversed about various subjects till he worked round to that
of antiques, upon which he was an enthusiast. “Antiques” in this
country mean coins, and Assyrian cylinders, little cylindrical pieces
of stone with images and figures carved upon them. He had invited me
there to benefit by the opinion I must have formed upon the value of
antiquities, for Ferangistan to him was a place where half the world
sought antiques, and consequently anyone who had been there, as he
heard I had, must know the value of such relics as were to be found
near Kirkuk.
Having thus prepared me, he shut the door, and produced with
_empressement_ a small bag of coins and seals from his stamp-safe.
These were for the most part early Muhammadan, a Parthian or two, and a
few Assyrian pieces. The greatest treasure--to him--was a George III.
five-pound piece, upon which he put a fabulous value. Beyond telling
the probable date of his antiques I could not help him, but he pressed
so hard--thinking my unwillingness to mention prices was due to an
idea of purchasing--that at last I proposed some values which I was
pleased to see highly gratified him. In these regions there is always a
good market for antiques among the Turks and Christians, who buy them,
gradually collecting a stock, and then take them to Constantinople in
the hopes of selling for a fortune.
Coming back that morning I remember buying some lettuces of an old man,
who cleaned and washed them for his purchasers. The price, which gives
a good idea of the price of vegetables and fruit, was two lettuces for
three “pul,” seven of which make a “qamari,” which is equivalent to
three-farthings, so the lettuce worked out at about the twenty-fourth
part of a penny each.
In this stands explained the tenacity with which two persons will
haggle for an hour over fractional sums, for the acquisition of a
farthing means a considerable part of a meal gained.
[Sidenote: LEAVE KIRKUK]
One morning early, the muleteer Rashid came along and woke me. The
effendi under whose wing it had been arranged for us to go had suddenly
made up his mind the day before, and was now ready. So hurriedly we
loaded up, and barely getting time to bid farewell to Haji Rasul, who
commended me to God and the saints, we filed out into the yet empty
streets to the meeting-place outside the town. Just as we got there and
saw ahead a collection of mules, foot-passengers, and soldiers, the day
broke, and we bade farewell to this remote corner of Turkey for a time.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VI:
[22] The Hittites.
[23] The Mediterranean.
[24] Ragozin’s _Assyria_, p. 57.
[25] The Kurds call it Haoril and occasionally Haolir.
[26] Formerly one of the most famous and powerful families of southern
Kurdistan.
[27] Ragozin’s _Assyria_, p. 161.
[28] The Iman Ali, termed only by the Shi’a or Persian Muhammadans,
“Lord of the Faithful.”
[29] This action is an abbreviation of the compound wave, which
apparently beginning by lifting imaginary dust, places it upon the
mouth, eyes, and head.
[30] Persian translation of the last line:--
“Kurdi guz i khar ast.”
[31] Lest this statement seem unwarrantable, I beg to support it
by the opinion of the Chaldeans themselves. They are in most cases
fully aware of the circumstances under which their forbears--and
contemporaries--became absorbed into the Roman Catholic Church, and
there are very few of them whom I ever heard express any sentiment
upon the matter save deep regret, the more so that they know now that
it was possible to have the much-prized education the Roman Catholics
supply without a disintegration of their Church, for the Archbishop of
Canterbury’s mission has taught them that.
[32] “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And
the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the
vessels of the house of God, and he carried them into the land of
Shinar.”--Daniel i. 1–2.
[33] A little editing was unavoidable here, the shaikh’s words being,
“Wa bir parcha pukh qaldi, va san sin.”