SHAHR-I-ZUR AND HALABJA
Next morning with the tea, an individual whom I had not hitherto seen
appeared and assisted. He seemed to be a servant, but the garments
he wore did but little credit to his employers. To enter by the low
door he had to bend nearly double, and when he had fairly straightened
himself out he was a good six foot four. A ragged tunic reached
half-way to his knees, the length proclaiming him a Mukri Kurd of
Persia; and were this not sufficient, he wore the sharp-pointed cap
of that race, around which was a blue cotton handkerchief with the
two corners hanging about his ears. Under the tunic he wore nothing,
except his ancient and patched trousers; it was his only garment, and
displayed a triangle of broad chest burned to a brick-red. He had
no trouble of removing shoes as he entered, for he possessed none.
While I was having tea, the scribe of Tahir Beg entered and partook
with me, and upon my asking him who the man was, explained that one
of his objects in coming at this hour was to introduce him. He was a
poor Mukri out of employment of any kind, and sought service, and as
he was known to Lady Adela, Tahir Beg, and Mansur, he recommended him
as a servant for me. “For,” he said, “you, as an important person,
should not go servantless; it will be advisable to employ a local man
while you are here, and he, too, will travel anywhere you like, and is
desirous of seeing Persia.”
The applicant meanwhile stood by and looked foolish, and as I was not
sorry to have at any rate one adherent in a strange land, I agreed
to employ him, upon terms not unusual among natives--a new suit of
clothes, his food, and the sum of one toman a month--about three
shillings and sixpence, or tenpence halfpenny a week. His food included
cigarettes, an inexpensive item, for they were thirty-five for the
equivalent of a penny, and by purchasing tobacco it was possible to
make as many as fifty for the same sum, a “baichu” in the dialect of
southern Kurdistan.
[Sidenote: THE RENEGADE EATS DIRT]
During the conversation I was called to Lady Adela, and now, followed
by my servant--whose garb reflected little credit upon his master, as
he had not failed to tell me--I obeyed the summons. In the audience
was a group of maids laughing at what amused them as well as the armed
retainers outside. Standing near the door was Amin Effendi, protesting;
and sitting in her usual place on the mattress, Lady Adela in her
deep contralto tones called him every vile name in the vocabulary of
Kurdistan. As I came in she renewed her abuse, called Heaven to blast
a creature who had violated all the tradition of the Kurds, who had
blackened the face of the Jafs before a stranger, who had presumed
to alarm a guest under her protection, and finally commanded him to
apologise to me there and then in the words of humblest degradation.
He obeyed with a bad grace. “Mud is upon my head, filth upon my eyes;
I have eaten ordure and my heart is vile; I kiss the hoofs of the
ass thou ridest, and clean the shoes of thy servant, whose slave am
I; I go abased before all men, a speaker of lies, and I am not fit
to attend the womenfolk,” and so on, and yet again and again. He was
reluctant at first, but the sound of a cartridge clicking home in a
Martini breech and the feel of a knife-point at the back of his neck
made him voluble, to the great amusement of the company, and at last
I begged Lady Adela to let him go. So she allowed him to creep away,
while the maids, unrestrained, advised him to try Epsom salts for
the ills of his soul. I had not looked for this kind of revenge, nor
desired it, but everyone present seemed to think that I had achieved a
considerable victory over one naturally at enmity with me, and I was,
despite emphatic protests, put down as an accomplished physician, from
the fact of Lady Adela discomfiting her old retainer for my benefit.
The rough but sincere congratulations poured upon me by man and maid
alike demanded some diversion of object, and suggesting a cup of tea at
the coffee-house, I left with a score of men-at-arms to accompany me
and retail the story of Amin Effendi to the public there, who by that
mysterious telepathy of the East had already got wind of the tale.
It may be remembered that in the first chapter reference was made
to a Kurdish priest I had met in Constantinople, and whose talk of
his native land had resolved me upon taking my journey. During the
time I was making my way across Turkey, I had not forgotten him, and
had news of him in Kirkuk, where I heard that he had been robbed by
the Hamavands. At Sulaimania I again made enquiries, and had indeed
expected to hear that he was there, but was told that he had gone back
to Sina of Persian Kurdistan. This news gave me very considerable
relief, for I had begun very seriously to consider a matter which I
could not put off, namely, the explanation of my identity should I
meet him and be recognised. When in Constantinople he had told me, in
conversation, that should I as a Christian come to Kurdistan and there
turn Muhammadan, he could find me a pretty livelihood in photography,
quack surgery, and medicine and teaching; but this was only the style
of inducement typical of the priest, and meant nothing more than a
nicely put compliment. If he were to encounter me now, passing as a
Musulman, and a Shi’a at that (he would have made a Sunni of me), the
situation would have been extremely difficult, and all his distrust
would arise at seeing before him one in a guise so different from
that which he bore in Constantinople, and who had so strangely chosen
exactly this spot to journey to for no particular reason, and that
after enquiries concerning trivial affairs which had been made in
Constantinople.
[Sidenote: A RETROSPECT]
So I had thought of this possible predicament, and had done my best
to guard against it. I must, in order to explain how I was enabled
the more securely to adopt my disguise of Persian, ask the reader
to pardon me a momentary retrospect, which gives a view of Shiraz
four years before. Here I had, after a preceding three years’ study
of the religion of the Persians, became converted to Islam. I am
not here to state to what extent I was convinced of the truth or
otherwise of Muhammadanism, nor whether I was convinced at all.
Unless I became outwardly Muhammadan I could never learn properly the
language, which is so inseparable in its idiom from the religion.
So after some interviews with a priest whose name to-day I remember
with feelings only of the greatest admiration and respect, I was made
a member of the congregation of Islam, and undertook a course of
theological study. Under the tuition of my priest and his confrères I
acquired considerable knowledge, and was able to hold my own in the
theological discussions and arguments which are at once the profession
and diversion of so great a part of the populace of Shiraz. By the
merest stroke of chance I was prevented from going, as I had planned,
to Kerbela and Mecca, and found myself rushing to England on a P.
& O. steamer instead of creeping up to Jeddah as a deck passenger
on a “ditcher.” Thus I had acquired a good knowledge of my subject,
if I may so call it; and while away, received many letters from my
priestly friends in Shiraz, addressed to Mirza Ghulam Husain, which not
unnaturally I kept, and had preserved till now, when I found myself in
Kurdistan.
I had resolved if I were confronted by the Kurdish priest, the Shaikh
ul Islam of Sina, to produce certain letters wherein it was mentioned
that I had been “under the guise of an European, but, thank God, a
walker in the paths of peace, and a chooser of Islam and no pagan, such
as appears to be.” With these letters and my knowledge of Islam, I
hoped to be able to prove that I was a Persian and a Musulman, and if
he believed that, it was but an insignificant affair to point out what
he already knew, that a Persian going, as I had been, to London, must
adopt European dress to go there, which would explain my appearance to
him as a European.
To return to Halabja, I was talking to my newfound servant a morning
or two after his engagement, when it occurred to me to ask him if he
had seen the Shaikh ul Islam at Sina. He had not, and for the very
good reason that the priest had never returned there. It appeared
that he had got as far as the domains of Lady Adela, and had, in a
stormy interview with her, demanded armed assistance to destroy Sina,
and put to confusion his enemies there--the Government and religious
authorities. Lady Adela, whose sympathies with him were very limited,
absolutely refused, and forbade him to enter Persian territory, lest
she warn the Government and have him imprisoned. So in a fit of rage
and chagrin, he betook himself to a holy place in the great Aoraman
Mountain, where, upon a steep valley-side the Shaikh of Biara had built
for himself a “takia,” and entertained sundry darvishes and wanderers
upon monastic fare.
From this quiet retreat he did not stir except to pay occasional
visits to Halabja, where he was tolerated but not welcomed. At such
times he would put up in Tahir Beg’s house, sometimes even in the
room I was now occupying. Hama, my servant, made some enquiries
regarding his intentions, and ascertained that he purposed coming
to Halabja very shortly, in fact, as soon as the Pasha returned, to
pay respects to him. As the Pasha was expected daily, I was feeling
a little uncomfortable, for up to now I had enjoyed the confidence
of all the Halabja people, had made friends of some, and had, in the
way of the East, become accepted by the place as part of itself. And
what was more, in order at once to provide myself with a little money
and show my _bona fides_ to the people in general, and Lady Adela in
particular, I had advanced certain moneys to a Jew to go to Juanru
and buy me four mule loads of that valuable cargo called “run,” or
clarified butter, which in Kurdistan has such a delicate perfume, and
tastes so well that one does not scoff at the native description, that
“the run of Juanru takes the scent of the flowers the sheep graze on.”
[Sidenote: LIFE AT HALABJA]
Thus there were reasons not a few why I should wish to lead an
undisturbed life in Halabja so long as I elected to remain. And so
I bethought me of some scheme whereby I might forestall an untimely
arrival of the Shaikh ul Islam and the public curiosity, and perhaps
animosity when he should express his surprise and doubts.
The only thing I could think of was to go and see him quietly, saying
that I was making a pilgrimage to Biara, to which place it was the
fashion to journey now and then, calling the jaunt a pilgrimage. It
took me some days to make up my mind to this course, for I did not want
to hurry, nor to go sooner than was necessary; and meanwhile the days
passed in idleness, attendance at the divans of Lady Adela and Tahir
Beg, and walks with Mansur the Christian, in the late afternoon, to a
garden just outside, where he would squat in the grass, and producing
a little bottle from his pocket, consume his araq accompanied by nuts
or melon seeds, as is the habit of drinking in Persia. His greatest
efforts were to induce me to join him, asserting that it made him
miserable to drink alone; but I did not wish to open any possible
channel along which thoughts might flow detrimental to the excellence
of my Islamic orthodoxy, and which might on occasion become words.
When I had mentioned to Hama that I was going to see the Shaikh ul
Islam, he was somewhat astonished, and very much hurt because I would
not tell him my business; for such a lack of confidence was unusual
he said, between a master and his servant, and reflected upon the
latter’s integrity. So I bound him to great secrecy, and told him that
the Shaikh ul Islam owed me money and I was going to try and recover
it, but did not want to wait till he came here, as he was a man of
uncertain temper and contumacious nature, and might endeavour to injure
me if he found his creditor suddenly installed, so to say, on his
door-step. This was sound Kurd sense, and Hama extolled my reasoning,
and advised the purchase of four loaves of sugar as a present for the
Shaikh, for it is a fault to go and see such a person without something
in the hand.
So one fine morning, having hired for the day for four krans (or one
shilling and eightpence) a mule, we loaded it with the four sugar
loaves in a saddle-bag, and set forth, having provided the usual bread
and cigarettes for consumption on the way. The road lay east from
Halabja, towards the great wall of Aoraman, and at the base of the
hills south of Shahr-i-Zur. For half an hour we passed along a level
road, looking out upon our left across the great depression, imagining
what a sight this hill-girt basin of a plain must have been when
Nushirwan the Just ruled the land, and gardens and towns covered its
still fair face. To the north, in a blue distance soon to be dispelled
by a fierce sun, lay the piled-up mountains of the Azmir, behind
Sulaimania, whence faint wreaths of blue smoke from the burning grass
ascended like the fume of an offering to the sun, as a vindication of
the ancient religion of Zoroaster that had its fires upon these same
mountain-tops, a votive duty forgotten by man and perpetuated by Nature.
As the road left the level we passed through the village of Anab,
where, under a grove of willows, a group of Kurds smoked the morning
cigarettes beside a great tank into which a brook bubbled. Here we were
joined by an old man, who greeted us, asking where we were going. He
spoke in Turkish, knowing no Kurdish, and said he was bound for Biara
like ourselves, to visit the retreat of the Shaikh. He was a native of
Roumania, and a Russian subject. On foot he had gone to Mecca, thence
to Damascus and Bagdad. Now he had come to Kurdistan, and was visiting
every one of its little shrines and holy places, after which he would
walk to Roumania again. My name, which was one only encountered among
the Persians--Ghulam Husain--gave him some difficulty, for he had
never heard the first word of it, and so suited it to his own liking,
and called me Husain Effendi. We climbed our way over a number of
succeeding ridges till we came to a stream and a tree by it in the
little valley. Here we halted awhile and shared our bread, making a
frugal meal. The old man here became more friendly yet, and in return
for a little cheese I had given him, presented myself and Hama with
four little amulets, scraps of paper sewn in a triangular piece of
cloth. These he had purchased in Sulaimania from a kind of hedge-priest
with whom he had travelled, and he said he kept them, sometimes selling
one to a villager, or giving in exchange for food or a night’s lodging.
[Sidenote: A ROBBERY]
Hama, whose edification at meeting so virtuous a man was considerable,
accepted the amulets with a gratitude not quite free from a certain
awkwardness noticeable about the simpler Kurd whenever he comes in
contact with any of the stock-in-trade of religion.
After resting awhile we resumed our journey, drawing ever nearer to the
great mountain wall, and crossing ridges that grew larger and larger
as we progressed, the descents into some of the valleys being almost
precipitous. It was upon a ridge that we met a little squad of people,
four soldiers, a sergeant, and a muleteer. In the custom of suspicious
Kurdistan they enquired where we were going, and betrayed themselves
by their accent as Turkomans of Kirkuk. We passed after exchange of
greetings, and each had descended to his separate valley, when a
bullet whistled by, and we saw one of the soldiers running full speed
after us. We ourselves possessed not one of the weapons of defence,
nor could we escape the pursuer, for we were kept to the track by our
mule, and he could scramble straight up the hill-side. So we stood,
and he came up at a run, without a word seized my bridle, and with
the other hand started to explore my pockets. All he discovered was
a watch and twenty krans; not much, certainly, but enough to provoke
an attempt at resistance on mine and Hama’s part. This infuriated the
robber, or appeared to do so, for he drew his long dagger and stabbed
me in the arm, making a nasty wound. Then he jabbed his rifle-butt with
considerable force against Hama’s nose. Meanwhile, the old Roumanian
was calling upon God. He then explored the saddle-bag, but was told
by the old man that this was sugar ordered by the Shaikh of Biara,
too influential a person for even a soldier to offend, so he left
it and started to return. Hama had not seen him take the watch, and
on hearing it from me, set out at a run after the soldier, who was
now some distance away. Hearing him coming, the thief stopped, and
Hama, with true Kurdish skill, made a swift leap and threw him, not,
however, without encountering the knife, in the shoulder. I could not
hear what he said, but he was remonstrating with the soldier, and
after some time, having recovered the watch and the money, he started
to come back, when the robber knelt and, taking careful aim, fired.
The bullet passed just over the top of his head and carried away the
little tassel on the peak of his high cap, but Hama did not hasten his
pace, nor appear at all perturbed. The old man had taken advantage of
the incident to escape over the brow of the hill, and was no longer
visible, and as Hama came up we proceeded upon our way, the soldier
watching us from the opposite side of the valley. Just over the ridge
we came upon the old darvish, sitting behind a rock, very disturbed in
mind, but overjoyed to see us with no worse wounds than the knife had
inflicted. We now bound these up, and when Hama had to a degree stopped
the flow of blood from his nose, we proceeded.
In another hour we came to where a sheer wall of mountain rose above
us, to where we could see large fields of snow, and we turned to the
right up a narrow, ascending valley, or trough, at the foot. This had a
stream running down it, and the sides were thickly covered with gardens
and fruit-trees. A little path ran among these, and we gradually
ascended, the temperature dropping as we rose. As we went we made a
good meal from the hanging mulberries, black and white, which were
just ripening. Some miles up, a narrow ravine branched off, as if to
go straight into the face of the Aoraman Mountain, and we turned into
it. Here the trees were thicker, and the gardens, terraced upon the
hill-sides, were divided by stone walls, the alleys between them being
often brooks which rushed down to join the main stream. We struggled
through the mud, and in places thick undergrowth, for an hour or so,
then crossing a bridge of tree-trunks over the stream, came to a
rambling stone house set in the hill-side.
[Sidenote: BIARA]
Above us the valley narrowed yet, a little village hung to its sides,
and above, not a quarter of an hour away, it became but a furrow in
the great mountain-side--and Persian territory. We could see nothing
of the house but a thick stone wall above us, and had to clamour at
a small door set in it. This was opened, and upon Hama proclaiming a
visitor for the Shaikh ul Islam, we were allowed up the stone staircase
upon which it gave. Ascending this we found ourselves upon a broad
terrace, the retaining wall of which had stood above our heads a minute
before. We crossed it and came to a cistern of rough marble set in the
pavement, which was here of the same stone, and seeing that at its edge
all shoes were removed, did likewise, and entered from it to a little
room at the end of the house. From the far end of this yet a smaller
apartment opened, and I was shown into it, and my greeting of “Salamun
Alaikum” fell upon the ears of its occupant, the Shaikh ul Islam, who
squatted beside a little unglazed window, smoking a cigarette. He
returned my greeting, invited me to be seated, and then recognising
me, exclaimed:
“Ah, it is thou!”
I sat down and asked after his health, to which he replied in a
surly way, keeping the use of the second person singular, a somewhat
unmannerly method of addressing a visitor, and then he relapsed into a
silence, which was broken by Hama appearing with the four sugar loaves,
which he set down near the door, together with the saddle-bags.
The Shaikh ul Islam asked, “What are these?” and Hama replied, somewhat
taken aback by the sour tones, that we had brought them as a greeting
present, unworthy as they were, but the Shaikh turned to me and with a
heavy frown said the rudest thing possible:
“Take them back whence they came, consume them yourselves, sell them in
Halabja; I have no need of such things, nor are we such friends as to
warrant this style of civility.”
Then again addressing Hama, he said:
“What is your master’s name?”
“Agha Mirza Ghulam Husain Shirazi,” the poor fellow answered,
astonishment and dismay showing in every line of his great form.
“And yours?”
“Hama.”
“Whence?”
“Of the Mukri, of Sauj Bulaq,” and here he bridled a little, as should
a man of a great and powerful tribe.
“And where did you find him?” I was asked.
“In Halabja,” I replied.
I was wearing a new aba, or camel-hair cloak, and this next attracted
his attention:
“Was that given you as a mark of esteem by Lady Adela?” he queried,
with a sneer.
“No,” replied Hama for me, his ire rising; “my master seeks favour of
none, and pays for what he obtains with his own, good Persian money.”
“Once more I say, take those away, I want no sugar; take them out, and
you”--to his own servant--“go away, what affairs are these of yours?”
[Sidenote: THE SHAIKH UL ISLAM]
Still Hama refused to take up the sugar, till I turned and told him to
take and give them to the poor, the usual means of signifying that one
has no use whatever for a rejected gift.
So the room was clear of servants, and the Shaikh ul Islam turned to me
and recommenced his unpleasant remarks:
“So you are that Englishman of Constantinople; how does a European find
his way from there to here in this guise, unattended, speaking Kurdish,
and using Persian as his own language? When I was in Constantinople you
were my guest and I could say nothing, though I knew what you were; but
here I can speak freely, for we are both strangers. And that explains
why I cannot accept your presents; I wish to do you no discourtesy,
but I am living here in a retreat of darvishes, where our diet is but
buttermilk and bread; nor do we indulge in any luxuries, therefore I as
a guest in another’s house cannot accept presents from any.
“Yet, because I bear you no ill-will, though you have doubly deceived
me--coming there in false guise, and here too, perhaps--I beseech you
to be frank and tell me who you are--what, after your close enquiries
at Constantinople, your business is here upon the frontier.”
“It is evident,” I replied, “from what you say that you had suspected
in Constantinople that I was a Persian, and your surmises were correct,
and as a proof I will hand you letters from my native place, Shiraz,
covering a long period.”
These he perused and handed them back.
“Yes,” he said, “that is all very specious, but how am I to know these
are not forgeries. And at any rate, what brought you here to see me?”
“When I was in Constantinople,” I said, “you were kind to me and
lightened the monotony of many a dark day there, it is only natural
that I should come to see you when I hear that you are here now.”
“No, no,” he replied, with the air of a man who despairs of extracting
the truth, “it was not that; tell me what it was. Remember, you have
placed yourself in an awkward position. If I like, being a priest and
holding a judicial position, I can cause you to be examined, and if the
truth is what I suspect, it will be very awkward for you. It is useless
to tell me you are this or that, for you have lied badly either then or
now. It occurred to me in Constantinople that you were not a European,
and I first thought you were a Kurd, for none but such know the names
of places and tribes as you did; but you spoke Persian as a Persian,
and not like a Kurd--like I do, for instance. I suspected then that you
had some ulterior motive, and now, can you not see how suspicious your
presence looks? As to your letters, they are or are not genuine. One
thing remains, you are a native of Persia, that I feel sure; and now,
if you would make a friend of me, tell me what you did to be expelled
from Persia. Abandon all lies, my son, and cleave to the truth.”
I could do nothing but humour his delusion, so I described how I had
been mixed up with political troubles in Teheran during the days of
Muhammad Ali Shah, and my subsequent flight to London. Whether he
believed this or not I do not know, but he pretended to accept it.
“And so you fled to escape the imprisonment or death that was the fate
of some of your countrymen about that time,” he said with a smile.
“Yes,” I said, and could not resist the temptation to add, “like
yourself from Sina not so long ago.”
“Dogs,” he cried, “the Persians, with their crafty tongues; you are one
of the accursed breed, for you have the tongue. How I wish all those
Persians would slay one another in their squabbles.”
“Well,” I replied, “such being your opinion of us, it is useless to
make any statement, and I volunteer none; if you ask me questions
you must accept what I say, or refrain from asking them. Your right
to cross-examination I deny, not being a Turkish subject nor a
co-religionist, for like all my countrymen I am Shi’a, and there the
affair ends. I came to call upon you, and find myself suspected, and my
country insulted!”
[Sidenote: UNDER SUSPICION]
“That is very well,” he said, “but you do not realise that in this
retreat, a resort of darvishes and pious people, I have but to say that
I suspect you of being an Armenian or even a Shi’a, and you would not
reach the bottom of the valley alive. As it is, I am convinced of your
identity, and there is no need for anyone to talk about it. How you
explain your presence here I do not know, and shall not ask; let me
only tell you this, that if you seek favours from the Halabja family
I shall oppose you, for I have all my suspicions. Let us now dismiss
the subject. So long as you remain in Halabja I shall treat you in a
friendly way, for we are both strangers, and each is bound to assist
the other in a strange land. If you would stay here the night, do so,
and I shall be glad to act as your host. The way back to Halabja is
far, and you may not arrive by sunset.”
“No,” I said; “I will return, and hope to get back safer than I came,
for I was robbed on my way here by one of these Turkish soldiers.”
He called for his servant, and told him to bring food, for he insisted
upon my eating with him once, and I did not refuse; for thereby, if he
were a true Kurd, he would lay upon himself in a measure the obligation
of hospitality, and the fact of my having eaten in his house would tend
to soften in him whatever enmity he might feel. So when they brought a
simple meal, of bread and buttermilk, I joined him, dipping from the
same bowl. He excused the frugality of the meal, saying that here this
was their diet, and this alone, and when I had finished allowed me to
bid him good-bye. I stood before him, bidding him the lengthy parting
words of Persian, and he took my hands in his, and looked up for a
moment straight into my eyes, as if he would see truth there.
Then he smiled, and said, “My son, the ways of the world are hard, and
the stranger brave who comes to the unknown, as you have done. There is
that in you I like, for you are not afraid; but you lie, like all your
countrymen. But I am sorry for you, yes I am truly grieved for you,
poor lad!” and with that he let me go.
At the threshold, however, he called me back in his slow tones, unused
to Persian, and I halted in the doorway. He had gone to the opposite
side of the room, and now hastened across and pressed into my hands a
small sum of money, saying, “Take this; thou wert robbed within our
bounds, and we at any rate can give back.”
“But not to me,” I said; “you refuse a gift and seek to give? No, I
hunger not, nor do I look for favours from any; keep it, it is a fit
mate for my sugar loaves.”
The priest smiled, and patted me on the shoulder. “A good test, a good
test,” he cried; “Persian, ah! Persian of the Persians, pride forbids
you to take it. You are from the south, and not like the Teherani, who
would take a kran from his wife’s murderer because it was money. Now
give it to the poor for me, and we shall both acquire merit, nor seek
by imagining to make out why I gave it.”
I called Hama, whose long form I could see in the yard, and giving him
the money before the priest, told him to scatter it to the poor, and
so I scored again, for I knew the old trick; he sought to make me take
the money, and relying upon a native cupidity, had presented me with a
trust which gave me the power of retaining the cash. He saw that I had
seen the catch, and smiled quietly, looking at me in a curious way, and
I, waiting for no further comments, left him.
Outside again I mounted the mule, and the emptiness of the saddle-bags
recalling to mind the rejected sugar, I asked Hama what he had done
with it.
“Why,” he said, “when the dog refused it, I took it to the
coffee-house here, and pretended I had brought it from Halabja for
sale. They bought it for seventeen krans, and here’s the money,” and he
showed me the krans in his hand, and expressed his satisfaction at so
profitable an ending of the affair. Yet he was boiling with indignation
at the reception I had met from the Shaikh ul Islam, and upbraided me
for wasting my time upon such a person, recommending me rather than
suffer the indignities he had put upon me to relinquish my quest of the
unpaid debt--a piece of advice I told him I would take with pleasure.
[Sidenote: RETURN OF UTHMAN PASHA]
When I arrived at Halabja in the evening, I found that Uthman Pasha
had arrived from Sulaimania with all his suite, and that Shaikh Ali
of Tavila had also come in with a huge procession of hangers-on, from
Gulanbar, where he had been staying. So full was the place now that I
was glad that I had, two days before, shifted my quarters to a room
below the reception-room of Lady Adela, where in a back verandah I
lived a secluded and peaceful life, undisturbed by anyone except the
people of Lady Adela coming to fetch me for secretarial duties, which I
had taken up almost regularly for her by now.
By this time I was hoping to be able to leave Halabja soon, for there
was nothing to do save act as Persian writer to Lady Adela and the
Pasha, which I did not particularly want to do, as it would make
departure more and more difficult as time went on. I had enquired
into the possibilities of making a corner in “run,” and had partially
succeeded, being now possessor of the bulk of that commodity in the
district. It was not yet, however, delivered, so I made Mansur the
Christian my agent, and began to look around for fresh occupation
elsewhere. When I announced my intention of leaving to Lady Adela, she
protested loudly, as did Tahir Beg, and swore that she would keep me.
She wanted me to teach Persian to her two young sons--rowdy boys of
twelve and sixteen--who never rested at home a day, being ever in the
saddle or in the mountains. Then Tahir Beg, too, had his obstacles to
place in the way. As a final inducement Lady Adela tried to keep me for
the purpose of entering into a business agreement with Uthman Pasha, a
lure which also failed, though so well meant, for I was not disposed to
create a responsibility from my part to other persons which might hold
me when I wanted to leave the country. So I engaged a mule in a caravan
shortly to leave for Sulaimania, and began to take farewells of my
acquaintances. I was the more resolved to go, seeing that some little
time before, when I had had the idea to go to Khaniqin to buy sugar
wholesale I had been opposed by the same arguments as were now tendered
to keep me from Sulaimania. But the caravan delayed and delayed, and
every morning’s promise of departure became a new dalliance at noon.
Meanwhile the Shaikh ul Islam turned up suddenly, and came to see me.
I was hardly disposed to receive him civilly, and Hama was for openly
insulting him, but this was obviously undesirable, so he was received
with as much reserve as possible. I had expected to see him in a
revengeful mood, for he would have heard by now how well I got on in
Halabja, and his jealousy would--if his antagonism were actuated by
that feeling--flame into possibly open opposition. But I found him all
honey and smiles; he was meek, and a little inclined to be servile.
Why he adopted this attitude I did not see, except that he must have
resolved to accept me at my own valuation, and, finding me popular,
submitted to public opinion. At any rate it was not worth while to go
into such details and theories, as I was leaving, and told him so.
Immediately he raised a hundred objections: I should find trade bad in
Sulaimania; I should be harassed by the Government; I should lose in my
transactions with a people noted for their craft and deceit; I could
never live among so rude a populace, and so on, to which I gave no
reply. Hama supplying one in the vigorous manner in which he was roping
a box the while.
So at last the priest took his departure, and I was relieved. As he
went out the muleteer came in, and swore he would get away to-morrow
early, if he left half his goods behind him. I was taking back to
Sulaimania several loads of “run,” worth about fifty pounds in
all, contained in sheepskins. As the weather was warm the stuff
was semi-liquid, and we had to sew the greasy skins in gunnies for
transport. Each skin was slipped into a coarse sack, of which the
mouth was sewn up. Then an edge each of two sacks was sewn together
with strong cord, and a kind of saddle-bag thus formed, which it was
possible to hang over a mule’s back. This job took till fairly late,
when the Shaikh ul Islam suddenly came rushing along like a madman.
[Sidenote: LEAVE HALABJA]
“I thought my counsels had prevailed,” he said, pouring out the
words; “I imagined you were remaining, and now I hear you are leaving
to-morrow. It is better far to stay here, why leave comfort and peace
for the rush of Sulaimania? Will you not stay? Will not the counsels of
reason prevail against your impetuosity?”
“No,” I said, “for I am going. I have hired the animals, and did I wish
to stay it would now be impossible.”
While speaking, I was leaning over a saddle-bag of “run,” and he stood
behind me. For two or three minutes he stood thus, and then muttering a
goodnight, departed as swiftly as he had come. The muleteer afterwards
told us that he had tried to induce him by every means in his power to
abandon the idea of going, or refuse to let me have the animals I had
hired. What his reason was for wishing to keep me I never discovered,
nor could Hama, whose wits usually supplied a reason for everything,
offer any solution of the affair.
So next morning early we rose, and collected our goods by the light
of candles, conveying them to the edge of the wide verandah, whence
we dropped them upon the mules’ backs. Mansur, who had consented to
look after my interests, came as far as the gate and assured me of his
diligence in my affairs; and at last when it was quite light we moved
off. As we passed out of the main doorway, Hama directed my attention
to the Shaikh ul Islam, who was standing upon the roof, where he had
slept with Tahir Beg’s household, gazing down upon us. So we left
Halabja.
As a mark of regard or from excess of politeness, Lady Adela had
provided me with a guard of four horsemen, two stalwart fellows of
her tribe under a little wiry man, one Rasul Ahmad, who was noted in
Halabja for his bravery and integrity. His three underlings were big,
well-set-up men, typical Kurdish horsemen of the south, with long
tunics, which, as they sat their horses, shaded their bare ankles
from the sun. Rasul Ahmad alone wore the scarlet riding-boots of
these parts. I noticed that one of them had a very poverty-stricken
appearance. His horse was a veritable Rosinante, and he matched it. A
great hole was worn in his tunic where the butt of his rifle had rubbed
as he carried it over his shoulder, the leather of his saddle-peak was
sadly damaged by the gun, from long carriage across his knees. These
are the two positions in which a Kurd usually carries the arm: the
first when it is known that it will not be necessary at short notice;
the second preparatory to carrying it almost upright, the stock resting
upon the saddle. His bare feet, innocent of shoes, were thrust into
rusty old shovel-stirrups. His rifle was an old Snider, not the smart
Martini carbine as carried by the others, and his melancholy face
seemed to reflect the seediness and unfortunate appearance of his
gear. He had the heavy, square jaw and small blue eyes of the Kurds of
the Shuan and Hamavand, and spoke little to any of his fellows. Once,
however, one of them made a joke at his expense, and the sorrowful
cavalier charged down at him with rifle aimed, but as he fired, Rasul
Ahmad knocked the gun up, and as no harm was done, the incident was
regarded in their rough manner as a joke.
Finding him riding alongside, I asked him concerning himself, when he
informed me that he was of the Hamavand and not of the Jaf, though
he had taken service with them, and he explained the reason. It
appeared that after several raids upon caravans with his tribe, he had
attempted to hold up some travellers unassisted. In this he had been
unsuccessful, and a bullet through his horse’s shoulder had brought him
to earth, to be caught. To make matters worse, he discovered that his
victims were themselves Hamavands, and relations of his chief. Stung by
their ridicule, for the affair was regarded as a joke, and urged by the
fear of ultimate retribution, he fled on foot to the Jaf country, and
took service as a mounted messenger and guard.
[Sidenote: AN EXILED HAMAVAND]
His melancholy, he averred, was due to his separation from his own
hills, and his wife and family, and the loss of loot that he suffered
by his absence from the tribe. He drew a pathetic comparison between
himself scorching in the heat of Shahr-i-Zur, while his wife sat upon
her roof in the hill village, clad in silk and satins, under her the
finest of Persian rugs, round her a wall of rolls of cloths and stuffs
from which she chose new garments, the while she listened to the
hissing of the tea samovar and held her face to the cool breeze.
By such talk we whiled away the time, and made Sulaimania in one stage,
halting during the night for a few hours to rest the animals, and
snatching a nap on the hard ground.
A little excitement was caused during the afternoon, by a skirmishing
party from a tent village discovering our presence and mistaking us for
robbers, and we saw the spectacle of village Kurds calling to horse.
We saw the village calm and quiet in the heat of the afternoon, and
next instant, men--a moment ago asleep--darting forth at a gallop in
twos and threes upon horses kept ever saddled and bridled, to take
up positions around us and prevent attack. Rasul Ahmad was able to
convince them at a distance that we were but the Pasha’s people, and
they came down and invited us to tea.
As Lady Adela had put me in the charge of Rasul Ahmad, I was fain
to bide by his counsel for a resting-place in Sulaimania during the
night, and adopted his suggestion of staying at the house of a woman,
Piruz, a relation of his, who possessed a small house. This, too,
was conveniently placed upon the edge of the town, and afforded a
resting-place for him when in Sulaimania.
As this was a type of the humbler houses of Kurdistan, it may be well
to describe it briefly here.
Round three sides of an irregular square courtyard were built rooms of
mud, three of which had no wall on the courtyard side, making a shady,
cool place to sit in the summer. The winter rooms, with doors opening
from these chambers, possessed each but a single glazed door barely
five feet high. One of these, the best, was whitened with gypsum, and
the rest plastered with the mixture of chaff and mud that is the chief
ingredient of the mason’s trade in the Middle East. The floors were of
unmixed mud, smoothed as well as the stamping of bare feet could do it.
In the midst of the yard a stream of cold, clear water bubbled up from
a hole, filling a cistern of plaster and brick nearly level with the
ground, under a large willow-tree that made a shady place to drink tea
in the morning and afternoon. The landlady, as owner of this mansion,
worth fifty pounds, was reckoned wealthy according to the Kurdish idea.
She let the rooms to a couple of families for a total of half a crown
a month, and having relations and friends who kept her supplied with
flour and oil, lived comfortably. Here, where bread is made in the
house, and is the main article of food, living comes cheaply enough.
Here I rested awhile, passing the time in conversation with the woman
of the house, a good-looking Kurd of not more than thirty years, who
by the sensible custom of Kurdistan is free to go about unveiled,
and hold all her dealings with men as if she were a reasoning being,
conducting all her affairs herself, a type of the only Middle Eastern
race whose women are almost as free as the women of Europe, their only
restriction being that they shall not go to the bazaar, or if they do,
they must cover their heads. In Persia, or among other Musulmans, for
two strange men to live in a house full of women, as was this, would be
an unheard of atrocity, but here it was thought no more of than such a
thing in England.
[Sidenote: RETURN TO SULAIMANIA]
After eating a lunch of new bread, fresh from the oven, in leaves two
feet across, with some “kebab” Hama brought from the bazaar, I set out
to find Matti the Christian, who had shown himself so friendly before,
and discovered him in his office with his younger brother Ismail,
who assisted him. I had not been there a few minutes before Habib
Badria appeared, and took his seat upon the bench outside the office,
from which he could converse with the inmates; and I was introduced
to a much older man, Antoine, and a younger one, Bihnan, who spoke
French remarkably well. These were all the Mosul Christians in the
caravanserai, and being just as inquisitive as anyone else, took the
first opportunity of making the acquaintance of a stranger. They were
quiet, well-mannered men, and finding that I had business, strolled off
to their offices, with the exception of Habib Badria, who remained,
being a special friend of Matti.
Both of them advised me, as I had merchandise, to take a small house
near the bazaar for a time, and live with my goods, and they both
shut their offices and prepared to take me on a hunt for a suitable
house. Apparently they were well informed, for, passing out of the
caravanserai we traversed a bazaar, turned up a blind alley, at the end
of which we came to a house which they wished to show me, and which I
agreed to take. This was vacated by the death of the owner, a merchant
who had been murdered by Arabs on the way to Bagdad. He had left in
charge, when he left, his old mother, a pure-blooded Kurd, who gloried
in her uncontaminated descent, constantly asserting that she was not a
converted Jew like the rest of the Sulaimanians.
Her house was built in imitation of Kurdish architecture as developed
in Persia, a type common and growing commoner in Persia.
The door opened from the street into the corner of a stone-paved
courtyard, and one came under the shelter of a couple of square yards
of mud roofing supported upon pillars. Behind the door were a couple
of articles like big earthenware shovels, upon the ground. This was
the kitchen. The strip from here to the opposite end of the yard was
occupied by flower-beds containing hollyhocks and roses, and a cistern
raised a foot above the ground-level.
The house, standing opposite, was a two-storeyed one of three rooms
below, each opening from the yard by a door, too low for a boy of
twelve to enter erect. The best of these rooms, the centre one, boasted
a second pair of doors, glazed, and the ceiling was made of short
boards, the remains of sugar-boxes. The interior was washed in pinkish
mud over the yellow underneath, and the ground was as that of the
unpaved alley outside.
Upstairs, however, the architect had shown his skill. The best room,
which jutted out from the frontage line some six feet, was whitened
entirely with burnt gypsum, and ornamented by fresco and dado in raised
patterns of that material.
The pillars between the wall-recesses bore inlaid mirrors, and the
ceiling was painted in flowers and stars with scraps of looking-glass
here and there in patterns. Three double glass doors with the glass set
in huge fretwork patterns looked out over the yard, and the fourth, a
wooden door of walnut and oak, opened into the middle room or verandah,
from which steps of remarkable inequality descended to the yard. The
supporting pillars of the roof of this portico--which replaced the
fourth wall--were tree-trunks enclosed in narrow walnut planks, making
them octagonal, with long narrow mirrors a foot high inserted at eye
height. The ceiling was boarded. The third room would have been like
the best one, had not the owner died before he could finish his house,
and it had remained in yellow mud and beamed ceiling; and the doors,
put in afterwards, were of plain white glass.
[Sidenote: RENT A HOUSE]
The old lady, Baji Raihan, allowed us to look over the little place,
and offered to rent three rooms, two below, and the unfinished
one above, for the equivalent of seven shillings a month--not an
exorbitant sum, as the house was near to all the bazaars and business
caravanserais. She herself occupied the room under the finished upper
chamber, and would continue to do so. We, therefore, finding it
reasonable, decided upon the place and made our way to a coffee-house.
This, like all the coffee-houses of Kurdistan, was an edifice of high
arches or domes supported upon heavy pillars, ingress being effected
anywhere. High benches were ranged around, and in a recess was the
apparatus of the place, two large samovars, and tea-glasses, and
saucers, which stood upon a wide shelf made of mud and brick. The floor
was bricked, and a water-carrier, his skin over his shoulder, came in
every two hours and sprinkled the ground to keep the place cool. Here
we found a large number of merchants, Christian and Kurd, and I was
introduced in the manner of Kurdistan, my name being announced to those
who asked it, after they had greeted me with the “Marhabba” of these
parts.
The talk was mostly of the punishment of the Hamavands (for which the
Turks were supposed to be collecting an army at Chemchemal), of local
politics, or of harvest prospects. Here, in the coffee-house, the
news of the place is exchanged, prices of merchandise discussed and
fixed, bargains made, sales and purchases effected. It was announced
by Matti that I had fresh “run” from Juanru, and a little man, whom
Matti informed me was a respectable grocer, came forward and made
an appointment to come and see the stuff next morning. We sat for
some time, and I acquired an idea of the difficulty of the intricate
Sulaimanian dialect of Kurdish, one of the most peculiar of all.
We then dispersed to our respective houses, and I found Hama in the
widow’s house making tea, which, as I did not require it, was handed
round to the women. As the evening was close, I had my carpet put in
the yard on the ground, and having eaten, sunset being meal-time in
Sulaimania, I sat upon my bed-clothes smoking and chatting with the
women, who had disposed their sleeping apparatus upon the floor or on
the roof, to which they ascended by a rude ladder. Their conversation
was of the shaikhs, but as they appeared nearly all to be related to
the Shaikh family, they only deplored the recent murder of Shaikh
Sa’id, and I was constrained to enter into a flow of pious expressions
of regret. They also touched upon the question of marriage, but I
hazarded the opinion that a Shi’a could not ask in marriage a Sunni
woman without trouble occurring with the relations, and they were
nonplussed, thinking of no other suggestion to make, than that I should
turn Sunni, an action which, as a good Shi’a, I repudiated, and rising
said my prayers, as well to finish the argument as to convince them of
my sincerity.
Rest, however, was rudely interrupted by the sudden rise of the hot
north-east wind, here called the “rashaba,” which blows from the hills
with the force of a gale. This, coming suddenly, and across newly mown
fields, smothered us with chaff and dust, which was followed by a sharp
rain-shower which drove us to shelter, and we did not finally sleep
till the sky was clear, about midnight.