TO KIRKUK
Our caravan was a tiny one, and the muleteer, a long-legged Turkoman
known as Ahmad Bash Chaush, was accompanied by a youth and a
long-haired darvish, both natives of his town. This second was a quiet,
cheerful man, short and stoutly built, as are many of the Turkomans,
and he was the laughing-stock of many he met, for he had adopted the
habit of wearing a Persian felt hat, which excited the ridicule of such
of the local population as took him for a Persian at first sight.
We did not go far that day, but pushed along quickly till the village
of Baba Murda, the inhabitants of which were encamped miles away in a
pleasanter spot. Here upon a knoll we threw the loads, and while the
youth took the animals to water, the darvish filled the jars at the
spring, and Ahmad, as head-man, and entitled to ease first--though he
had walked his twelve miles--sat with me and smoked.
It was hot this summer afternoon in Lower Kurdistan, though the heat
was past its greatest, and we were glad to get that side of the loads
where a light breeze played, and wait for the mules to be tethered,
groomed, and finally given their barley, when the day’s work was done.
Then the darvish and the lad joined us, and we shared the pears I had
brought, for they would not keep; and these with bread made the evening
meal.
One is soon tired and sleepy after the jolting of the mule and the heat
and air, and it is not usual to sit up long after sunset The meal
finished, we lay down where we were, upon a somewhat stony ground, and
waited for the sleep that comes quickly. But the darvish sat upon his
heels and commenced in a low voice chanting in monotone, “La allahu
ill’allah,” in rising cadence, drawing deep breaths with a groan,
till his voice rang out in the still night. His breath shortened, and
the curious exhaustion that accompanies these exercises overtook him,
and with a groan he sank motionless upon the ground. Then, after a
few minutes he recommenced, “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar,” in sharp
staccato, accentuating the last syllable of the word “akbar” so that
it fell like a hammer-stroke upon the ear. Again till exhaustion he
continued, and once more he rose and started the cry upon “Allah.”
After this he lay prostrate and slept where he collapsed, and we slept
too.
In the manner of caravan travelling it was yet pitch dark when we got
under way in the morning, and the sun rose as we arrived at the foot
of the ridge and pass, into Bazian--the now evacuated country of the
Hamavands.
We struggled slowly and painfully up the long and stony ascent, and
from the summit looked back again over Sulaimania--whose position was
marked in the valley of Surchina by a white streak up the ridge of the
opposite range--the road to Panjwin and Persia.
A turn behind a rock, and we left it all out of sight, and below our
feet lay the narrow valley of Bazian, stretching right and left.
Opposite it was bounded by the Bazian range, not high, but rising in a
sheer cliff of several hundred feet, shutting in the land and giving
the place an air of peaceful seclusion in the bright morning light,
which changed to a gloomy prospect when the sun, going west, threw
the cliff’s shadow across the plain, and its face appeared a frowning
wall, under whose lee the Hamavands had encamped, and from their camps
watched the passage of caravans--and victims.
Now it was deserted, no smoke curled up quietly in the morning air,
no horse neighed, and we had not heard the report of a single rifle
since daylight. So, having nothing to apprehend, we picked our way
leisurely down the slope, and at the bottom turned to the right along
the valley, gradually making our way to the other side towards the pass
of Darband-i-Bazian. We passed, as we went along, many a little garden
that the Hamavands had left, little neat patches of cultivation on the
hill-sides and in the bottom of the valley, which were now bearing
fruit, and of which the travellers of another small caravan we had
overtaken were busy cutting and carrying away the deserted produce.
[Sidenote: BAZIAN]
About eleven o’clock, when we were well on the way towards
Darband-i-Bazian, some alarm was caused by the sight of a small band
of horsemen coming from behind us, along our road, and some were for
getting their arms ready. But the general run of the passengers shared
the opinion that if the approaching riders were Turkish irregular
soldiery, there would be nothing to fear, and if they were Hamavands
it would be useless to resist, so that our pace did not alter and we
proceeded in the jogging way of caravans, apparently unconcerned.
Nevertheless the relief was general when the riders were seen to be
two irregular Turkish “mule-cavalry” and a handful of shaikhs’ men.
These, on coming up with the caravan, proceeded to scrutinise all very
carefully, as if in search of someone, and one more officious than the
others gave me a fright by holding the bridle of my steed the while he
called his comrades, shouting:
“Amma niyya? piaeki bash nabi am kabra.” (“Is this not he? this fellow
appears not to be a good man.”)
But my muleteer affirmed so loudly and strenuously that I was a
trader, a friend of the Mosul traders, that they raised a laugh at the
horseman’s expense; so, changing his tone, he asked for a cigarette,
and having obtained it, rode on with the others, and they passed
ahead bound for Chemchemal. It is a long stretch from Baba Murda to
Darband-i-Bazian, or it seemed so, for it was already noon--we had
started at four in the morning--when we veered to the left, where
the hills receded in a kind of bay, and crossed a large patch of
cultivated land, where we threw the loads to give the beasts a rest.
This was where Rich, the East India Company’s gifted resident at Bagdad
in the early part of the 19th century, passed, and noticed in passing,
that in 1808 there had been a Turkoman village named Derghezeen. There
is nothing now but a little cultivation belonging to Bazian village;
nor is there any sign of the ruins Rich mentions, and which he opined
to be of Sasanian times; though, in view of the fact that this district
was upon the borders of a province which in Sasanian times enjoyed
great importance (Holwan), and in which there are still many relics of
the Persian occupation of that period, there is every probability that
Rich was perfectly right in his surmise.
The flanking wall of the valley here broadened greatly in depth from
east to west, and became broken into spurs. This affords a passage
westwards to get out of Bazian valley, and a long rising approach ends
by passing through a neck, not twenty yards wide, whence one emerges
as from a door, the hills finishing abruptly at the ridge in which
the neck occurs, and which is left, as a wall, by the westwards bound
passenger.
From the spot where we now rested to the neck was the danger place in
times of peril, for the Hamavands had made this at once the impregnable
gate of their secluded country, and the trap for those who would enter
it. Upon these hill-sides and behind the rocks and boulders they had
waited for their prey, and darted down and out upon the unfortunates;
those who had entered the neck from outside and found themselves cut
off from retreat, and those who would pass out and found themselves
driven into the narrow funnel of the pass and assailed from all sides.
Even now, when we could see in the distance the tent of the “bimbashi,”
who had pitched it by one of the streams that watered the Hamavand
cultivations, we could not stray from the vicinity of our loads,
for behind lay the folds of the hills where the Turks had not dared
penetrate, and they might yet contain Hamavands.
At this neck of Darband-i-Bazian, Abdurrahman Pasha, one of the old
Baba pashas of Sulaimania, made a brave stand in 1805, during the war
by which he hoped to make this part of Kurdistan independent. He built
a wall across the neck--the ruins of which are visible to-day--and
fought there against Kuchuk Sulaiman Pasha of Bagdad, being defeated in
the manner related by Rich.
[Sidenote: DARBAND-I-BAZIAN]
“He placed here a wall and gate and three or four pieces of cannon,
two of which were planted on the height in order to fire upon the
Turkish camp below; and vain would have been Sulaiman Pasha’s attack
on this pass, had not a Koordish chief called Mahommed Bey, a son of
Khaled Pasha who was united with the Turks, led a division of the
Turkish troops and auxiliary Koords up the mountain, by a pass only
known to some Koords, and which had been neglected as impracticable, so
that Abdurraham Pasha found his position turned, and his guns on the
height pointed against himself. He was then obliged to retreat, and
the wall was razed by the Pasha of Bagdad, who afterwards advanced to
Sulaimania.”[69]
It was very hot that noontide, and do what we could, it seemed
impossible to get any shade, though we piled the loads high and
stretched a cloak over two sticks; so perforce we lay upon the stones
sweating. Together we shared a meal of water-melon and bread--the
former they had found in a Hamavand cultivation. Then the darvish and
the youth had to go far away where the stream ran to attend to their
animals, while I was left with the head-man, Ahmad. I had taken a great
liking to him, for he was a quiet, respectable man, who minded his own
business, and, while showing no distinction between himself and his
passengers, assumed no hectoring bearing, as is so often the case with
the muleteer and his native passengers. Together we sat and smoked our
Kurdish cigarettes of chips, and he asked me, at length, my religion,
for he remarked that he had not seen me pray, and supposed I could not
therefore be a Musulman.
So, liking the character of my man, I resolved to try the truth upon
him, and, quoting the words of a greater than myself, said:
“Thou hast heard that I am of Persia, thou speakest such of the tongue
of that land as thou knowest to me; yet though I am of Persia in a
measure, I am not Persian, and though I be not Persian, neither am I
Kurd, nor Arab, nor Turk.”
“What, then?” he asked.
“Nor yet am I of the tribe of the Nasara (native Christian), for I am
of the land they call England, which is in Ferangistan.”
“What! of Constantinople that is,” he replied; “then you are a Turkish
subject!”
“No,” I said, “nor yet a Turkish subject. I am a subject of a land far
from Turkey.”
“And what God do they worship?”
“That same as the Nasara.”
“Well, well,” he said, with a doubtful cadence, “they are them I see
in Bagdad, that wear such garments as the Constantinople Turk affects,
but hats of various kinds, so that no man can tell from their headgear
of what tribe and religion they may be. Why, then, do you not wear your
country’s headgear?”
“Because it pleases me,” I said, “to adopt among these people their
garments; for the Persian proverb truly says, ‘He who would not be
ashamed among the strangers, let him put upon himself their raiment and
their speech,’ and it would become neither me nor my circumstances to
travel girt about with the unsightly swathings of a Ferangi, where I
can avoid annoyance to myself and others by adopting the habits of the
simple among the simple.”
“Well, thou art come a long journey, doubtless, and sigh for your
native mountains. Have they great hills and deserts there?”
“No,” I replied; “it is a land of little hills and little valleys,
of no seclusion, of no peace and no rest, of incessant hurryings; in
contravention of the word of Quran, that says, ‘All haste is of Satan,
and patience of God.’ We are conveyed by rushing chains of carriages
that run upon iron bars, that travel a day’s march in an hour.”
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO KIRKUK]
“‘Haste is of Satan,’ O true speaker,” he replied; “it is a pity that
you were not a Musulman, but each to his own faith, and the Nasara is
of the people of the book and not damned; but tell me, have they there
no muleteers and no caravans?”
“No, indeed, for where such carriages exist, what need for a muleteer?”
“What a land this, with never a caravan to traverse the country! Have
you Kurds? and do they not rob these trains of carriages?”
“No, there are no Kurds, nor Arabs, nor Turks, nor are any of these
tongues understood there.”
“La allahu ill’allah!” he exclaimed, “what a land! and yet God made all
men, brother, and all countries, in which are ever good and bad, and
I trust that thou art of the better. What matter if man be Christian
or Islam. Can he not follow the laws of his own prophet, and the
ordinances of God? And thou, too, art a stranger, far from thy people,
and it behoves both Turkoman and Kurd to treat such an one as his own
brother.”
With that he stretched himself in the four or five inches of shade that
the boxes now cast, and composed himself for sleep; and I did likewise,
my head in shadow and my body burning and sweating in the fierce sun.
Our rest was not for long. Half an hour afterwards we rose and loaded
the mules, and once more set out. As the rocks drew closer on each
side of the road the heat became intense. There was no wind, and we
unwound the handkerchiefs that enveloped our heads, and tried to make
miniature canopies of them, with little effect. It took us an hour to
get over the stony track to the neck, the exit from which is not more
than a few yards wide, a break in an otherwise uninterrupted line of
hills that shows an almost perpendicular face to the outside world,
a rampart--almost the last--of Kurdistan, to the west. Outside the
Darband the ground fell away, and the plain of Chemchemal lay before
us, no plain at all in reality. It is, so to speak, a long and broad
valley filled with rolling hills intersected by deep ravines, but whose
summits are so exactly of the same height that the country looks from
afar but a flat plain.
Ahmad Bash Chaush had resolved to leave Chemchemal, and striking
farther north take a more difficult but nearer route through the hills,
stopping during the night, or what should remain of it, at a village he
knew of. Our caravan was now a considerable one, for we had joined with
two small parties, with a mixture of queer muleteers. There were three
Arabs, men of the low country about Kifri, some Turkomans, a Shuan Kurd
or two, and a Persian from Teheran, looking very out of place in his
globe hat and short skirts among these men of turbans and long garments.
In company with these we jogged along, our faces to the now declining
sun. Chemchemal was hidden behind the ridge formed by the ever-rolling
hummocks and hills of the plain. From various spots great pillars of
smoke arose; for the grass, dried with the summer heat, was burning
furiously, and at night would shine like great beacons. A few miles
further we saw Chemchemal--it was just sunset.
The little town lay in a great hollow, and above stands the mount, an
artificial eminence similar in shape to the mounts seen at Erbil and
other places once occupied by the Assyrians. The tents of the Turks
were pitched around the foot of the mount, and made a gleaming white
spot in the dusky scene.
Here, while yet Chemchemal lay indistinct, we left the road and the
bulk of the caravan and proceeded in the gathering darkness, our way
lit by a roaring furnace of flame that rushed up from a gully as from
out of a volcano. Beyond Chemchemal lies the last range of hills
westward on the Kirkuk road. This last is approached by a gradual
slope--formed by innumerable little hills of rounded shape over and
about which the track winds. The village to which we were bound lay
well up in the eastern face of this range, and now our difficulties
commenced, for the track started forking and branching, leading to
the various villages of the Shuan Kurds hereabout. At eight o’clock
we separated in the darkness from a large number of our companions,
but, relying upon the local knowledge of one of the Arabs, who said he
knew the road well, did not attempt to follow them. We had passed no
water since leaving Bazian, and all were getting thirsty, but Jum’a,
the Arab, promised us to be at the village in an hour or two. He had
missed the right track, though, and we commenced to wander among these
low hills, a cloud of dust accompanying us, and rendering our thirst
considerably worse. From the dark ahead a shout arose that we had come
to water, and we sent the youth on quickly to get our jar filled. A
moment later we ourselves arrived there, to find that the mules had
made a rush for the tiny stream and had hopelessly befouled it before a
single one of us could get a drink. And now we knew that we were lost,
for there is no spring on the road we had expected to travel, besides
which this track was heading in a wrong direction. The Arab, however,
persisted that he knew the way, and a lively discussion ensued as to
whether we should throw the loads there, where there was at least a
drop of water, or push forward. The fear of being attacked in the night
by Kurds overcame the greater part of the company, and in deference to
them we once more got under way, heading for what we thought to be the
right direction. We were gradually rising, and the curious effect of a
dry climate and no breeze was well illustrated here. We would descend
into a hollow to a temperature that made us sweat, and a moment after,
rising again, come to the cool of the night, which struck chill.
[Sidenote: LOST IN A DESERT]
We stumbled along thus for two or three hours, too tired to say much,
the monotony of the dark night varied only by the falling of a mule, or
the refusal of a donkey to proceed, till a volley of shots rang out,
the bullets whizzing over our heads to the accompaniment of an inferno
of barking from watchdogs. We stopped behind a protected hump and
shouted to our assailants to desist. These to satisfy themselves of our
harmlessness came running down from their village, and finding us what
we affirmed--harmless travellers--put us on our way. But we must have
missed in the darkness again, for we dragged on hour by hour, always
rising gradually and never getting out of, or above, the knolls and
hummocks. We seemed to wind round and round these interminable little
hills. We had reached that stage where to sit on a mule is almost
fatal, for one falls asleep--and off the beast. Most of us had walked
some distance, and in the dark stumbled along tired and disgusted. We
could see that it wanted but a few hours to morning, and yet, with the
hope that pushes a man to foolishness, we went ahead. At last, however,
we came to a point where the road definitely turned south--we wanted to
go north--and there men and mules alike gave in. The beasts fell about,
refusing a sharp, stony rise before us, and, disgusted with everything,
we let them lie, loosening and casting off their loads where they stood
or fell. The youth was parched, his tongue so swollen that he could not
speak, but only grunted, and he, as well as Ahmad Bash Chaush, had been
walking some fourteen hours without resting. Not stopping to arrange
the loads or collect the nosebags and small gear that lay about, we
fell upon the stones of the road, and, from the time we had stopped,
during the process of throwing the loads and tying the animals to them,
no one had spoken a word--though the process usually demands a great
deal of talking.
I suppose we slept for a couple of hours or so, when the cold woke us.
I was shivering, and chilled through. A morning breeze had risen and
blew from the hills above, lowering the temperature by many degrees in
a few seconds. The false dawn was just showing in the east, and, with
the unthinking simplicity of the land, we sat up and smoked cigarettes
in the hope of getting warm. Far away, on the other side of the plain
under Bazian, we could see the big grass-fires still blazing, and
sighed not a little for some of their warmth. The silence of the early
morning was broken only by the swish of the wind through the dry grass,
and an occasional rifle shot told of vigilant Kurds in their villages.
[Sidenote: REACH A VILLAGE]
With the first light we began to load our animals, and the Arab who was
responsible for all the trouble was made to go to the top of the hill
where the breeze blew strongest and spy the village up on the side of
the range, which he succeeded in descrying at no great distance away.
So we struck across the foothills, and after an hour reached the place,
which looked pretty enough in the cool bright morning, for a thick
clump of fig-trees and a large willow grove, with several streams and
many green and grassy patches, made it look a desirable spot for a
halt. We found the bulk of the caravan already encamped here, and had
but little room to dispose of ourselves in a place where shade should
cover us when the sun rose higher. As we approached, the villagers,
some of whom were working at the fig-garden, greeted us with the
laconic Kurdish salutation, “Ma nabi!” (“May you not be tired”), and
one or two ran off to get us a skin of “du,” and some barley for the
mules.
Under a willow-tree we threw the loads, and arranged them in a wall to
keep off the fast warming sun-rays, and having entrusted them to the
care of a traveller near by, they took the mules away to water, while
Ahmad Bash Chaush and myself retired to a tiny spring of clear cold
water and indulged in a good wash--the first since Sulaimania--and
filled our water-pots.
From the grove there was a fine view of the borders of Kurdistan, for
we were high enough to see the hills behind Bazian, and the greater
mountains behind them. Pir-i-Muguran, or Omar Gudroon, as it is called
by Rich, the great rock of Sulaimania, stood up like a sentinel of
the mounted army--on its outskirts, with the outlines of Aoraman just
visible on one side, and the Kandil Dagh over Ravanduz and Keui Sanjaq
on the other side. Immediately below us the plain of Chemchemal, like
a sea of lumpy billows, stretched away to Bazian, the break in the
range at Darband giving a glimpse of the hills on the other side of the
valley of evil fame.
During the morning a cousin of the Shuan chief to whom this plain
belonged came in, a gaudy young Kurd, rich in striped silks and scarlet
riding-boots, a good rifle over his shoulder, and a Mauser pistol
in his belt, and having said a word or two to all, a question as to
destination and journey, he departed again, followed by three or four
men.
We had bought a great handkerchief full of fresh figs, like small green
pears in appearance, for a kran, and having soaked a little of our
bread--for it was as hard as an iron plate--we all sat round and made a
great meal, and then, our troubles and labour over for the time being,
sprawled about, to rest till the afternoon, when we must once more take
to the road.
Upon a knoll above, under a canopy of leaves, sat three Kurds, whose
sharp eyes saw everyone approaching, and now and then a hoarse cry
of “Karvani, oh, Karvani,” would come down, and a muleteer would run
out to collect his mules nearer home, for they were grazing on the
hill-side.
[Illustration: THE KURDISH FRONTIER MOUNTAINS.]
Once they shouted to all to bring their mules into camp, and a rush
ensued, followed by an invasion of trotting mules kicking up clouds
of dust. And the reason we saw a little while after, for down below
a great army of men and beasts filed slowly across the plain, like a
string of ants--Kurds shifting their camp--and a band of thirty or
forty horsemen rode by the grove-men from over the Rania side, Pishdir
and Bilbas, in the short velvet coats and rakish turbans of those
people, as wild a lot as any might wish to meet.
[Sidenote: ON THE ROAD]
Soon after noon a move was made to leave again, and, as is so often
the case, when one beast had been loaded everyone else displayed the
utmost activity in the hope of being away first. Half the caravan and
more, having got ready, left, but took a path along the hill-side,
which would lead them through a break in the range later. We, however,
with a few others, made a line straight for the hills, and were soon
among them, passing through some fine valleys where plentiful streams
ran swift and strong. In one of these a camel caravan was camped, the
camel-men being at first invisible, till feet were seen protruding from
between pairs of bales arched over with a cloth, forming a kennel in
which the Arab camel-men retired during the day. These caravans travel
very slowly and by short stages, and stop whereever there is thorn
for the camels, never putting up at a village. They are thus always
met with in deserted places, and, as the Arabs are unpopular with the
Kurds, and _vice versa_, one of the former may pass from Bagdad to
Kirkuk and Sulaimania without ever seeing a Kurd at close quarters, or
ever exchanging a word with him.
The range, as seen from the Bazian, where it forms a high sky-line,
appears to be but a single ridge of hills, but it took us five hours
to get clear of it. The track was ever on an up-grade; one ascended
through valleys and over ridges to the very top, where there was a fine
view. Looking back, Kurdistan and its mountains stood up high; and
forward, the vast Tigris plain stretched away, unbroken, except for the
low ranges towards Altun Keupri, and the single mountain that stands up
due west of Kirkuk, which we could see yellow in the afternoon sun, at
a great distance.
Around us the hills of the range, a wonderful red and yellow, earth
and stones twisted into queer shapes, stretched away on either side,
and below; and after half an hour of level mountain-top, we began the
descent. Darkness overtook while yet we were in the mountain, and as
there was no moon, the going was retarded, for the shadows of the hills
made the darkness yet more sombre.
Our caravan was now very small, as many of the others had taken other
tracks through the hills, and we pushed forward as fast as possible
to get into Kirkuk before midnight, when the gate would be closed
against passengers, and a long detour would have to be made to get into
the town by another entrance. All the way across the plain we were
descending, by steps in the plain formed of rocky outcrop, very bad
going for the mules, and as we approached the town it grew warmer and
warmer.
About midnight, having been ten hours on the march, we passed the gate,
and turned into the long street of Kirkuk, a full mile from end to end.
I had a letter to one Salim, a Mosul Christian, and to his business
caravanserai we proceeded. Our way took us through the silent-domed
bazaars, and by the light of a single lamp we picked our way under the
sombre vaults of the bazaar till we came to the door of the serai, our
blows upon whose door resounded through the whole place.
A sleepy guardian opened to us, and after Ahmad Bash Chaush had
announced who we were, we had permission to pass in. In the dark I
could not see what kind of a place it was, except that it was an
ordinary business caravanserai, but without any cloisters round it, on
the ground floor. Instead there was an upper storey, the rooms of which
stood back from the level of the wall, making a verandah all round the
serai-yard.
There came from above a small man in the slack garments of night, a
handkerchief about his head. He introduced himself as Khaja Salim, and
hearing that I was recommended to him, showed me a bench on the upper
floor where I might sleep, and where, without further talk, I soon lay
upon the hard boards in sound slumber.
In the morning I had my effects brought up and disposed in an empty
room, and proceeded to the coffee-house for a cup of tea. Here I met
Salim, and joined him in a cup of hot sweetened milk, which it is the
custom to take early in the morning in these parts. I returned with
him to his office, a little room, where he--more advanced than his
co-religionists in Sulaimania--sat upon a chair behind a table. I
did not care for the looks of the man. He was a tiny fellow, rather
fat and pale, and with a very sharp and shifty look. However, he was
polite enough and welcomed me to Kirkuk, asking my nationality. I told
him I was English, and he made no remark, except to ask if I had met
his neighbours in the caravanserai. As I had not, he took me round
to half a dozen rooms like his own, each of which harboured a pair
of Mosul merchants. Unlike the Mosuliots of Sulaimania, who were an
exceptionally pleasing set of men, the looks of none of these were
reassuring, nor was my further experience of them conducive to a better
opinion. One of them in particular, a youth who wore European clothes,
collar and cuffs complete, was unusually unpleasant in appearance.
His eyes were those of the habitual drunkard, and his sloppy mouth
and greasy face were quite repellent. This was the son of a very rich
merchant of Mosul.
[Sidenote: CHRISTIANS OF KIRKUK]
Salim’s lack of curiosity was no feature of the behaviour of these men.
They pestered me with questions, and were loth to believe me English,
taking me for a Persian; for I had to speak to Salim in Kurdish, and
as I had not the appearance of a Kurd (I was now wearing a short
coat, European trousers, and a fez), they opined I must be a Persian.
However, on being told that they might please themselves as to what
they believed, they put me a question or two from the New Testament,
and receiving satisfactory replies, became convinced that at any rate I
was a Christian, and dubbed me “Saun Effendi.”
They pressed me to stay, and Salim told me that he would not permit
me to make any arrangements for dinner while I was there, that I must
share with the rest of them, and fend for myself during the day. He
promised meanwhile to try and find me mules in the Bagdad caravan,
which would leave a few days hence.
So, having nothing to do, I bethought me of that resort of the idle,
the bazaar, and took a stroll there, refreshing my memories of the
place, where I had stayed sixteen days four months before.
It was extremely hot here. The end of August in Kirkuk is probably
as hot as in any town of Mesopotamia, and, fresh from the hills of
Kurdistan, great drowsiness overtook me, and hardly was I back in my
room than I lay and slept--till sunset, being awakened by Salim, who,
thinking I must be ill, came in to see what was the matter.
We went and sat in the verandah outside, where Salim’s brother was
cooking a meal, and Salim himself having divested himself of his
business garments--the long striped tunic, Aleppo gold-threaded
belt and fez--donned loose clothing, and enveloped his head in a
handkerchief.
For a time he rummaged about in his room, and at last came forth with
two little glasses and a bottle wrapped in wet rags, to keep the
contents cool--and I perceived that I had met a drinker. The drink
was araq, a fiery spirit flavoured with aniseed and aromatic gum, and
he insisted on my joining him in three or four glasses of the stuff,
followed by morsels of sweet water-melon, which is taken to remove the
unpleasant aftertaste from the mouth, and quench the thirst the spirit
generates.
As it grew darker, we repaired to the roof, where benches were set
about. The sun had just set, and from the roof one could see over
Kirkuk, with its flat roofs, to the great desert westwards, where the
gold of the setting sun was blotted by the shape of the big mountain,
standing lonely and unsupported by foothills or rising slope, in the
west.
How little did these lineal descendants of the Assyrians know that the
very prospect they looked over, the town in which they lived, had been
founded by their ancestors, and the mount under which the caravanserai
lay, called “Qala debeit Seluk”--“The fortress of the Seleucids.”
[Sidenote: CHRISTIAN MANNERS]
There was but little time to enjoy the prospect, for the sun having
set, it grew dark almost immediately, and the chatter of the Christians
and their invitation to drink prevented any attempt at a stroll in the
cool breeze. Every one of them was provided with a little bottle of the
araq, and by the bench of each was a pail of water in which they kept
their bottles cool.
I created, I fear, a bad impression by refusing to drink with them,
and finding their conversation of very little interest, relapsed into
silence, at which they were not a little surprised, for the spirit
moving them, they grew extraordinarily loquacious, and failed to
understand why their merriment was not shared by me. Salim besought
me to join them, for, he said, “It creates a bad impression upon your
hosts to refuse their drink, for which we live, counting it our only
pleasure in a wretched life. Besides, what kind of an Englishman will
it be that does not drink, and drink level with the rest?”
I replied that it was no longer considered an accomplishment and
sign of good breeding to drink another man under the table, and that
popular opinion condemned the practice, and therefore I could not
join them; neither could my stomach, unused to alcohol for so long,
endure the spirit. Yet he did not desist, and at last, at the risk
of seriously offending him, I told him that if the presence of a
stranger and a guest who did not drink was repugnant to him and his
companions, I would not force my company upon them, at which he became
very apologetic and left me in peace, and the dinner arriving just
then--many dishes of pilau and baked meats--the discussion closed,
and we drew round a table they set, and dipped our fingers into some
particularly savoury dishes. Here, again, I was unpopular, for having
been used for a long time to eat little more than dry bread and fruit,
a diet I found sufficient in every way, I could not eat much of these
dishes, and made a meal from the bread that accompanied them, much to
the disgust of my hosts, who, like all these sedentary Christians, put
away enormous quantities. Unpopularity, however, among such people
is of no disadvantage, for it permitted me to say I was tired, and
retired to my bench, where I lay smoking and looking up at the stars,
thinking, while I listened to the rising voices of the Christians, who
were growing more noisy as the drink got into them, of the contrast
between them and the Musulman; and rather wishing I had continued as
a Musulman, among whom I made and kept good friends, and lived in the
reasonable manner possible among people the preservation of whose
self-respect was at least a factor in their character.
As the night drew on these creatures began to get drunk, and shouted
dirges and ditties in monotonous Arabic, hiccupping and breaking into
screams of laughter, an inane and futile gathering of sots. The night
was made hideous by their clatter, and, as no one slept till drink
overcame him on the ground or couch, it was late before I could sleep,
and the last sound I heard was of violent vomiting over the roof edge
into the courtyard.
I had caught a cold in the head, a very bad one, too, and in the
morning I woke with a strong fever, and crawled to my room out of the
sunlight and lay down on my bed, a piece of thin carpet on the bricks.
Here I lay all day burning in the heat of both fever and climate.
Kirkuk is a place where temperatures at this time of the year are over
one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and that little room, which
had no outlet to the air except the door, just stored up the heat
reflected from the walls of the caravanserai, and never felt the breeze
to cool it.
About sunset the fever left me, and Salim appeared, to ask why I had
not come out during the day. He quite refused to believe that there was
anything the matter with me, thinking my conduct but a continuation of
that of the previous evening. But I induced him to leave me alone at
last, and he went away to his araq in dudgeon, and I dozed again.
[Sidenote: A COFFEE-HOUSE INCIDENT]
So for three days I kept in the room, creeping to the bazaar once a day
to buy a piece of bread and some water-melon. The Christians, convinced
that I was an unsociable fellow, shunned me, for which I was rather
thankful than otherwise, and devoted their time after sunset to that
form of amusement which appeared to be their only resource.
The fourth day, the cold and fever were a good deal better, and I
bethought me of the coffee-house where they sold warm milk, entered in
there, and ordered my drink. This I consumed and paid for, when one
came forward with coffee, and would have poured out some of the bitter
stuff for me. When I refused he looked astonished, and retired to
where the owner of the place was making the nasty beverage, holding a
conversation with him, of which, to judge by the glances they cast in
my direction, I must be the subject. The owner himself now came forward
with coffee and poured out for me, and I again refused, at which he
grew wroth.
“Who are you,” he exclaimed, “that comes into a coffee-house and
refuses what it serves to its customers? Either take your coffee or go.”
“Why,” I replied, “I drank your milk, and paid for it, must I drink
coffee as well? By what right or custom do you force your coffee down
your customers’ throats?”
“By the right of the owner of the coffee-house; the milk-seller is
nothing to do with the coffee-house, and his customers have no right to
sit in the coffee-house. Now that you have done so, you must have the
coffee and pay for it.”
“Never!” I replied, feeble and excessively angry; “pour your coffee
in the gutters, where the filth were well left. You trap strangers in
your shop by allowing them to be attracted by one of another trade, and
then force them by harsh words and the bestial manners of the Turk to
buy your wares.”
The coffee-seller had poured out a cup of coffee and held it still
towards me. With an exclamation of disgust at my stubbornness he thrust
it at me, and in the annoyance of the moment I took it and flung the
contents in his face and walked out of the shop, to the astonishment
of several Turkish officers, who had been close by and listened to
what was going on. One of these, an elderly man in the uniform of a
“yuzbashi,” followed me out and caught me by the arm as he left.
“Brother, brother,” he said, “wherefore this unseemly rage, this insult
of the Turk? True, you are a stranger and apparently sick, to judge by
your looks, but that is the way to start blood-feuds and rebellions.
You have my sympathy, but I deprecate your haste. But you must come to
my house and rest awhile, for you are feeble,”--and in truth I was, for
I was stumbling at every step and fits of giddiness took and held me,
rolling me up against walls and corners, where I had to lean till my
head cleared.
The old man lived in a little house by the mosque of Kirkuk, a mean mud
and stone building, and had his wife spread a carpet on the shady side
of the yard. Here we sat down, and he called for tea and proceeded to
ask me those leading questions I was so used to hearing.
I could see that he did not believe that I was English, and interpreted
my statement to mean that I was a British subject. Hearing that I was
going to Bagdad, he told me that there were no caravans going for a
long time yet, and I should have to stay in Kirkuk for many days if
I intended to go with the caravan. I had no intention of doing this,
however, and told him so, when he proposed a very practical scheme,
that I should go to Altun Keupri and thence by kalak, or raft, to
Bagdad. This sounded excellent, and at least afforded an opportunity of
getting away from Kirkuk, the climate of which is abominable.
He, however, pressed me to stay with him for a few days till I should
be stronger, but the idea of quitting the uncongenial air of Kirkuk was
too good to be abandoned, even for a day or two more than necessary.
[Sidenote: AN UNWELCOME ENCOUNTER]
So I took my leave of him and went to a caravanserai near the western
gate and river-bed, where the Altun Keupri and Keui Sanjaq muleteers
gathered. Here I found one, Umar, willing to take me to Altun Keupri
for two mejidies--a high rate, but one at which I was not disposed to
cavil, for I wanted to go. He promised to leave in two days, and having
paid him a mejidie in advance, I came back to my room feeling more
pleased with life than I had done for several days.
Salim I informed of my pending departure, and he begged me to dine with
them that evening, calling in his neighbours to help his cause. So I
consented, as these were probably the last two evenings in Kirkuk,
though I made it a condition which was near to severing our friendship
once for all, that I should not be pressed to drink. They at last
agreed, though, and we parted on better terms than had existed since my
arrival.
Next morning I was going out of the serai to the bazaar, when to my
astonishment and dismay I heard someone calling “Ghulam Husain” from
right opposite the caravanserai door, and turning, saw sitting in a
saddler’s shop Sayyid Nuri, the youth, son of Shaikh Ahmad, who had
annoyed me so in Sulaimania.
I trembled lest one of the Christians should see me with him, or hear
him talking to me, for he spoke in a loud voice, and called me by name
at every second sentence.
His style of conversation was as ever, a string of questions, and his
first was as to why I had changed my style of clothing. I was now, as
previously mentioned, wearing a European suit of clothes and a fez
unadorned by any handkerchief. Needless to say, my dress included no
collar or cuffs, and I still wore the locally made shoes, and carried
an abba or camel-hair cloak. I explained to Sayyid Nuri that I was
bound for Bagdad, and answered as shortly as possible in order to get
away with all expedition. He asked me where I was staying, and I
replied, “In a caravanserai near,” for I did not mention that I lived
in the place from whose portals he had seen me emerge, lest he should
call there, and calling, ask for Ghulam Husain, when my friends the
Christians would curse me for a traitor and an enemy in their midst,
and I should lose caste with the Musulman for consorting with such
people.
Fortunately no one emerged from the caravanserai while we sat in the
saddler’s shop, and I managed to get away to the bazaar, where I had
been going. I had not expected to meet Sayyid Nuri, for I had thought
him to be in Chemchemal with his father, but apparently being unable to
rest so near to Kirkuk without being in it, every few days he undertook
the arduous journey between the two places for the pleasure of lounging
in the bazaar.
I met him again, but hurried by with scarcely a word, leaving him
astonished at my haste, and somewhat hurt or offended. Most of that
last day I spent with the old Turkish yuzbashi who had befriended me
the previous day; and, as I had promised, I dined with the Christians,
enduring once the sight of their transition from staid merchants to
boisterous idiots, and through all the stages of drivelling till they
lay quiet.
Next morning I was occupied with getting my few things together, and
purchasing some bread for the road. The journey was not a long one,
but the one stage in which it was done was very weary, and is usually
reckoned at ten to twelve hours, if one does not stop nor dismount.
The muleteer came after me at mid-day, and I bade farewell to the
Christians who gathered in Salim’s office and bade me good-bye
with great cordiality. Our starting-point was a long way from the
caravanserai, and we had to hire porters to take my baggage to a large
ruinous place at the extreme western edge of the town, where a large
caravan of donkeys was loading for Altun Keupri. As usual, a number of
travellers were not ready, so I sat in an archway in the portico of
the serai and got into conversation with a long Mukri Kurd, very like
my own Hama I had left behind, who was exercised as to how he should
bind his head with a piece of twine. On being asked the reason for
this strange anxiety, he said that he had missed the road from Keui
Sanjaq to Kirkuk, two days before, and getting among the hills, had
been attacked by Hamavands, and thrown off his donkey down a ravine,
hitting his head. He now bound it together to keep the pieces of his
skull in contact till they should stick again, but as he felt his head
aching in all kinds of places he was seeking advice as to how to make
one piece of twine bind all the aching spots together. In the middle
of the confusion of loading, a couple of Turkish mule-mounted soldiers
pushed their way into the place, upsetting donkeys, bursting loads,
and creating damage and confusion generally. They then found some five
mules in the stable somewhere, and proceeded to drive them out of the
caravanserai, ignoring the heaving mass of donkeys, loads and men they
had just thrown into turmoil. The mules, urged by the points of the
soldiers’ hangers, came trotting forward, mixed up in the rack and
riot, and a fight followed between our caravan and the soldiers, who
persisted in trying to force their way through. All the people around
seemed to be joining in the fight, and the situation was only saved by
a stampede of donkeys into the street, leaving a free passage for the
mules and soldiers, who got away, somewhat the worse for wear, to meet
a yuzbashi outside who cursed and swore at the delay.
[Sidenote: LEAVE KIRKUK]
It took another hour before we were loaded, and as we were starting I
remembered I had left something with Salim, so I ran back all the way
to the bazaar to get it, the muleteer saying he would keep my mule.
It took me, I suppose, twenty minutes or more to return, to find the
caravanserai empty, so I started out on foot, walking quickly. They
must have started immediately after I left, for I walked right through
the outskirts of Kirkuk, through Quria the suburb village, and for
a couple of miles along the plain before I found them, and as I was
carrying a large water-melon I had bought, and was walking at my
quickest under the hot August sun, I was not sorry to get astride my
beast and open out my clothing to let the sweat dry a little. The sun
temperature in these parts at this time is about one hundred and forty
degrees.
There was the usual mixed crowd of travellers. Almost the first I
addressed was a native of Sina, of Persian Kurdistan, going to Bagdad.
He had, for a Kurd, travelled widely, having followed six or seven
trades anywhere from Teheran to Bushire on the Persian Gulf. He offered
to come with me as a servant and companion to Bagdad, on the terms
usual in such engagements, the price of his passage and his food. I
assented to this, but as it turned out, I left Altun Keupri before he
was ready, and so missed him.
There was also an Armenian of Aleppo returning to his native place, a
man of some intelligence and tremendous verbosity, who launched into a
long eulogium of the English and their behaviour during the Armenian
massacres. He was an unsavoury creature, though, like most of his race,
so I entered into an argument with a Sulaimanian in Kurdish--of which
the Armenian was ignorant--to rid myself of him.
We jogged along for hours and hours, through the low hills, across
them, and to the plain on the other side. There was no moon, and the
usual straining of eyes was accompanied by drowsiness, and the state of
semi-unconsciousness that overtakes one on long night journeys. Once we
were all brought to a halt by being bombarded from a village, bullets
flying around and over us, killing a donkey, whose owner, a Shuan Kurd,
calmly shifted its load to another beast and went on without a word,
for we had decided to go on through the firing and get away out of it,
which we did after a bit, the bullets--flying wide in the dark--hitting
nothing else.
I made the slight acquaintance during the journey of a queer pair of
people. One was a young man of singularly foolish appearance. His garb
was of Sulaimania or Kirkuk, and at first I took him for a Sulaimanian,
only finding my mistake when, on addressing him in Kurdish, he replied
in Turkish. His companion was his father, an elderly man of sturdy
build and firm demeanour, who rode upon a small donkey immediately
behind his son, urging them both along. To hear their conversation,
one would imagine that the youth was the victim of a harsh parent who
sternly rebuked him for everything he said and did, but a few moment’s
conversation with him was convincing evidence of his stupidity, and of
the justice of his father’s admonitions.
[Sidenote: NEW ACQUAINTANCES]
What attracted my attention to them at first was the crash of a
water-pot the lad had let drop, because he tried to drink from its wide
mouth while riding in the thick of the caravan. The inevitable result
occurred--a mule jostled him, and, putting out his occupied hand to
save himself, the jar fell. Not ten minutes after, he asked me for a
drink from mine, but as I was unhooking it from my pack-saddle his
father intervened.
“No, brother, give not to the foolish; for he that goes thirsty from
the breakage of his water-jar deserves no chance to smash another’s.”
Nor would he permit it at all, but turned upon his son and rebuked him
for his folly, and for his ill manners in thus addressing a stranger,
asking for the little water that another possessed.
The old man was not of a conversational nature, and rode in absolute
silence except when some foolishness of his son urged him to speech, so
I saw little more of him before we arrived at Altun Keupri, which we
did an hour before daybreak.
I had to rely upon my muleteer, Umar, for a place to sleep, and he said
he knew of such a one, and would take me there. The caravan melted
away as soon as we crossed the high-peaked bridge, and we with two
Kirkuklis who had a load of “run,” made our way along the long main
alley to a caravanserai, at whose door we beat in vain for some time,
to be told at last that four “Aistr-sawar,” or mule cavalry, had taken
the place and would let no one in. We succeeded in persuading them to
do so, however, and stumbled, in the dark, into the small courtyard.
Here the muleteer threw our loads and drove off his beasts, before I
realised that he did not intend to stable them there, or that the place
possessed no “Darban” or “Khanchi” men to look after travellers and the
caravanserai. The place was, moreover, a ruin. A flight of mud stairs,
so worn as to be little more than a smooth-backed buttress to its wall,
led up to the stable roof, and three or four rooms which I did not
explore. The soldiers were sleeping on the roof, so making the best of
a bad job, I shouldered my goods and got them up the stairs somehow to
the stable roof, and casting a sack upon the floor, lay down beside the
soldiers and slept for a couple of hours.
FOOTNOTE TO CHAPTER XI:
[69] Rich, _Travels in Kurdistan_, vol. i., p. 58.