All my leisure moments during the two days in Aleppo were occupied in
changing muleteers. It seemed a necessary, if a regrettable measure. At
Antioch we should reach the limits of the Arabic speaking population.
Ḥabīb and his father had no word of Turkish, Mikhāil owned to a few
substantives such as egg, milk and piastre, while I was scarcely more
accomplished. I shrank from plunging with my small party into lands
where we should be unable to do more than proclaim our most pressing
needs or ask the way. The remarkable aptitude of north Syrian muleteers
had been much vaunted to me--the title of muleteer is really a misnomer,
for as a fact the beast of burden in these parts is a sorry nag, kadish,
as it is called in Arabic; from Alexandretta to Konia I doubt if we ever
saw a mule, certainly we never saw a caravan of mules. I had heard,
then, that I should not begin to know what it was to travel in comfort,
without worry or responsibility, and with punctuality and speed, until I
had reorganised my service, and that when I reached Konia I should be
able to break up my caravan if I pleased, and as I pleased, and the
Aleppo men would find their way home with another load. So I said
good-bye to my Beyroutīs--and to peace.
The system on which the journey was henceforth conducted was the
sweating system. The sweater was a toothless old wretch, Fāris by name,
who shared with his brother one of the largest teams of baggage animals
in Aleppo. Owing to his lack of teeth he spoke Arabic and Turkish
equally incomprehensibly; he supplied me with four baggage-horses and
rode himself on a fifth, for his own convenience and at his own expense,
though he tried vainly to make me pay for his mount when we reached
Konia; he hired two boys, at a starvation wage, to do all the work of
the camp and the march, and fed them on starvation fare. This unhappy
couple went on foot (the independent men of the Lebanon had provided
themselves with donkeys), and it was a part of their contract with
Fāris that he should give them shoes, but he refused to do so until I
interfered and threatened to dock his wages of the price of the shoes
and buy them myself. I was obliged also to look into the commissariat
and see that the pair had at least enough food to keep them in working
condition; but in spite of all my efforts the hired boys deserted at
every stage, and I suffered continual annoyance from the delays caused
by the difficulty of finding others, and, still more, from the necessity
of teaching each new couple the details of their work--where the tent
pegs were to be placed, how the loads were to be divided, and a hundred
other small but important matters. I had also to goad Fāris, who was
furnished with a greater number of excuses for shirking labour than any
man in Aleppo, into doing some share of his duty, and to superintend
night and morning the feeding of my horses, which would otherwise have
escaped starvation as narrowly as the hired boys. Finally, when we came
to Konia, I found that Fāris had turned the last of his slaves on to
the street, and had refused categorically to take them back to their
home at Adana, saying that when he escaped from my eye he could get
cheaper men than they; and since I would not abandon two boys who had,
according to their stupid best, done what they could to serve me, I was
obliged to help them to return to their native place. To sum up the
evidence, I should say that those who recommend the muleteers of Aleppo
and their abominable system can never have directed a well-trained and
well-organised camp, where the work goes as regularly as Big Ben, and
the men have cheerful faces and willing hands, nor can they have
experience of real businesslike travel, for that is possible only with
servants who show courage in difficulties, enterprise and resource. I
admit that my experience is small, and I confidently assert that it will
never be larger, for I would bring muleteers from Baghdad rather than
engage Fāris or his like a second time.
It was just when the difficulties of the journey multiplied that
Mikhāil's virtue collapsed. Two days spent in drinking the health of
his departing companions, with whom he was on excellent terms, as the
members of a good camp should be, were enough to shatter the effects of
two months' sobriety. From that time forward the 'arak bottle bulked
large in his saddle-bags, and though an 'arak bottle can be searched for
and found in saddle-bags and broken on a stone, no amount of vigilance
could keep Mikhāil out of the wine shop when we reached a town.
Adversity teaches many lessons; I look back with mingled feelings upon
the uneasy four weeks between our departure from Aleppo and the time
when Providence sent me another and a better man and I hardened my heart
to dismiss Mikhāil, but I do not regret the schooling that was forced
on me.
Ḥājj Maḥmūd reached at Aleppo the term of his commission, and from
him also I took a most reluctant farewell. The Vāli provided me with a
zaptieh whose name was Ḥājj Najīb, a Kurd of unprepossessing
appearance, who proved on acquaintance a useful and obliging man,
familiar with the district through which we travelled together, and with
the people inhabiting it. We were late in starting, Mikhāil being
sodden with 'arak and the muleteers unhandy with the loads. The day (it
was March 30) was cloudless, and for the first time the sun was
unpleasantly hot. When we rode away at ten o'clock it was already
blazing fiercely upon us, and the whole day long there was not a scrap
of shade in all the barren track. We followed for a mile or so the
Alexandretta high road, passing a café with a few trees about it, soon
after which we struck away to the left and entered a path that led us
into the bare rocky hills, and speedily became as rocky as they. Our
course was east with a touch of north. At half-past twelve we stopped to
lunch, and waited a full hour for the baggage, during which, time I had
leisure to reflect upon the relative marching speed of the new servants
and the old, and on the burning heat of the sun that had not been so
noticeable when we were ridings Half an hour further we passed a hovel,
Yaḳit 'Ades, where Najīb suggested that we might camp. But I decided
that it was too early, and after we had given strict injunctions to
Fāris concerning the route he was to follow and the exact spot where we
should camp, the zaptieh and I bettered our pace, and without going
beyond a walk were soon out of sight of the others. We rode along the
bottom of a bare winding valley, past several places that were marked on
the map though they were no more than the smallest heaps of ruins, and
at four o'clock turned up the northern slope of the valley and reached a
hamlet, unknown to Kiepert, which Najīb informed me to be Kbeshīn.
Here amid a few old walls and many modern refuse heaps we found a
Kurdish camp, one of the spring-time camps in which half nomadic people
dwell with their flocks at the season of fresh grass. The walls of the
tents, if tents they may be called, were roughly built of stone to a
height of about five feet, but the roofs were of goats' hair cloth,
raised in the centre by tent poles. The Kurdish shepherds crowded round
us and conversed with Najīb in their own tongue, which sounded vaguely
familiar on account of its likeness to Persian. They spoke Arabic also,
a queer jargon full of Turkish words. We sat for some time on the
rubbish-heap watching for the baggage animals till I became convinced,
in spite of Najīb's assurances, that some hitch must have occurred and
that we might watch for ever in vain. At this point the Kurdish sheikh
announced that it was dinner time, and invited us to share the meal. One
of the advantages of out-door life on short commons being that there is
no moment of the day when you are not willing and ready to eat, we fell
in joyfully with the suggestion.
[Illustration 128: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN]
The Kurd has not been given a good name in the annals of travel. Report
would have him both sulky and quarrelsome, but for my part I have found
him to be endowed with most of the qualities that make for agreeable
social intercourse. We were ushered into the largest of the houses; it
was light and cool, airy and clean, its peculiar construction giving it
the advantages of house and of tent. The food consisted of new bread and
sour curds and of an excellent pillaf, in which cracked wheat was
substituted for rice. It was spread upon a mat, and we sat round upon
rugs while the women served us. By the time we had finished it was six
o'clock but no caravan had appeared. Najīb was much perplexed, and our
hosts sympathised deeply with our case, while declaring that they were
more than willing to keep us for the night. Our hesitation was cut short
by a small boy who came running in with the news that a caravan had been
seen to pass by the village of Fāfertīn on the opposite side of the
valley, and that it was then heading for Ḳal'at Sim'ān, our ultimate
destination. There was no time to be lost, the sun had set, and I had a
vivid recollection of our wanderings in the night about El Bārah in a
country not dissimilar from that which lay in front of us, but before we
started I took Najīb aside and asked him whether I might give money in
return for my entertainment. He replied that on no account was it to be
thought of, Kurds do not expect to be paid by their guests. All that was
left me was to summon the children and distribute a handful of metalīks
among them, an inexpensive form of generosity, and one that could not
outrage the most susceptible feelings. We set off, Najīb leading the
way and riding so quickly along the stony path that I had the greatest
difficulty in keeping up with him. I knew that the great church of St.
Simon Stylites stood upon a hill and must be visible from afar, though
the famous column of the saint, round which the church was built, had
fallen centuries ago. After an hour's stumbling ride Najīb pointed
silently to the dim hills, and I could just make out a mass of something
that looked like a fortress breaking the line of the summit. We hurried
on for another half hour and reached the walls at 7.30 in complete
darkness. As we rode through the huge church we heard to our relief a
tinkle of caravan bells that assured us of the arrival of the tents--we
heard also the shouts and objurgations of Mikhāil, who, under the
influence of potations of 'arak, was raging like a wild beast and
refusing to give the new muleteers any hint as to the way in which to
deal with my English tent. Since I was the only sane person who knew how
the poles were to be fitted together, the pegs driven in and the
furniture opened out, I was obliged to do the greater part of the work
myself by the light of two candles, and when that was over to search the
canteen for bread and semen for the muleteers, an order to my rebellious
cook that he should prepare the customary evening meal of rice having
been greeted with derisive howls mingled with curses on all and sundry.
It is ill arguing with a drunken man, but with what feelings I kept
silence I hope that the recording angel may have omitted to note.
[Illustration 129: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN]
At last, when all was ready, I wandered away into the sweet Spring
night, through the stately and peaceful church below the walls of which
we were lying, and presently found myself in a circular court, open to
the sky, from whence the four arms of the church reach out to the four
points of the compass. The court had been set round with a matchless
colonnade, of which many of the arches are still standing, and in the
centre rose in former days the column whereon St. Simon lived and died.
I scrambled over the heaps of ruin till I came to the rock-hewn base of
that very column, a broad block of splintered stone with a depression in
the middle, like a little bowl, filled with clear rain water in which I
washed my hands and face. There was no moon; the piers and arches stood
in ruined and shadowy splendour, the soft air lay still as an unruffled
pool, weariness and vexation dropped from the spirit, and left it bare
to Heaven and the Spring. I sat and thought how perverse a trick Fortune
had played that night on the grim saint. She had given for a night his
throne of bitter dreams to one whose dreams were rosy with a deep
content that he would have been the first to condemn. So musing I caught
the eye of a great star that had climbed up above the broken line of the
arcade, and we agreed together that it was better to journey over earth
and sky than to sit upon a column all your days.
[Illustration 130: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE WEST DOOR]
The members of the American survey have mapped and thoroughly explored
the northern mountains as far as Ḳal'at Sim'ān, but neither they nor
any other travellers have published an account of the hilly region to
the north-east of the shrine.[12] I, who rode through it, and visited
almost all the ruined villages, found that it was generally known to the
inhabitants as the Jebel Sim'ān, by which title I shall speak of it.
The Mountains of Simon, with the Jebel Bārisha, to the south-west, and
the Jebel el 'Ala still further to the west, belong to the same
architectural system as the Jebel Zāwdyyeh, through which we had passed
on our way to Aleppo. It would be possible to draw distinctions of style
between the northern group and the southern; the American architect, Mr.
Butler, with his wide experience of the two districts, has been able to
do so, but to the hasty observer the differences appear to depend
chiefly on natural conditions and on the fact that the northern district
fell more directly under the influence of Antioch, the city which was
one of the main sources of artistic inspiration (not for Syria alone) in
the early centuries of the Christian era. The settlements in the Jebel
Sim'ān are smaller and the individual houses less spacious, possibly
because the northern mountains were much more rugged and unable to
support so large and wealthy a population; they would seem to have begun
earlier and to have reached the highest point of their prosperity a
little later, nor did they suffer the period of decline which is evident
in the South during the century preceding the Arab invasion.[13] The
finest sixth-century churches in the north show an almost florid
luxuriance of decoration unapproached in the latest of the Southern
churches, all of which are to be dated a century earlier, except the
Bizzos church at Ruweiḥā. It is interesting to observe that the
Ruweiḥā church, though it is a little later than Ḳal'at Sim'ān, is
far more severe in detail, and to this it may be added that even small
houses in the north present not infrequently a greater variety and
lavishness of decoration than is customary in the South.[14] When the
traveller reads the inscriptions on church and dwelling, and finds the
dates reckoned in the north always by the era of Antioch, he may be
pardoned for surmising that it was the magnificent hand of Antioch that
touched here architrave and capital, moulding and string-course. The
church of St. Simon was raised not by local effort only but as a tribute
to the famous saint from the whole Christian world, and probably it was
not executed by local workmen but by the builders and stone-cutters of
Antioch; if that be so it is difficult not to attribute the lovely
church of Ḳalb Lōzeh to the same creative forces, and a dozen smaller
examples, such as the east church at Bāḳirḥa, must be due to
similar influences.
[Illustration 131: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE CIRCULAR COURT]
I spent the morning examining the church of St. Simon and
the village at the foot of the hill, which contains some very
perfect basilicas and the ruins of a great hostelry for pilgrims. At
lunch time there appeared upon the scene a Kurd, so engaging and
intelligent that I immediately selected him to be my guide during the
next few days, the district I proposed to visit being blank on the map,
stony and roadless. Mūsa was the name of my new friend, and as we rode
together in the afternoon he confided to my private ear that he was by
creed a Yezīdi, whom the Mohammedans call Devil Worshippers, though I
fancy they are a harmless and well-meaning people. The upper parts of
Mesopotamia are their home, and from thence Mūsa's family had
originally migrated. We talked of beliefs as we went, guardedly, since
our acquaintance was as yet young, and Mūsa admitted that the Yezīdis
worshipped the sun. "A very proper object of adoration," said I, and
thinking to please him went on to mention that the Ismailis worshipped
both sun and moon, but he could scarcely control his disgust at the
thought of such idolatry. This led me to consider within myself whether
the world had grown much wiser since the days when St. Simon sat on his
column, and the conclusion that I reached was not flattering.
[Illustration 132: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE CIRCULAR COURT]
The rain interrupted our wanderings among the villages at the foot of
Jebel Sheikh Barakāt, the high peak to the south-east of Ḳal'at
Sim'ān, and drove us home, but the clouds lifted again towards evening,
and I, watching from the marvellous west door, saw the hills turn the
colour of red copper and the grey walls of the church to gold. Mikhāil,
depressed and repentant, served me with an excellent dinner, in spite of
which I should have dismissed him if St. Simon could have supplied me
with another cook. Indeed, I was half inclined to send back to Aleppo
for a new man, but the doubt whether I should secure a good servant by
proxy, combined with the clemency of indolence, led me to a course of
inaction which I attempted to justify by the hope that Mikhāil's
repentance would be of a lasting nature. Thus for a month we lived on a
volcano with occasional eruptions, and were blown up at the end. But
enough of this painful subject.
[Illustration 133: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE APSE]
[Illustration 134: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE WEST DOOR]
Next day I set off with Mūsa to explore the villages in the Jebel
Sim'ān to the east and north-east of the church of St. Simon. We rode
almost due east for rather less than an hour to Burjkeh, which exhibited
all the characteristics of these villages of the extreme north. It had
the tall square tower, which is nearly universal. All the stone work was
massive, the blocks frequently laid not in courses, or if so laid, the
courses showed great variety of depth. The church had a square apse,
built out beyond the walls of the nave, and a running moulding hooded
each window, passed along the level of the sill from one window to
another, and ended beyond the last in a spiral, as though it had been a
bit of ribbon festooned over the openings with the surplus rolled up.
This moulding is peculiar to sixth-century decoration in North Syria.
The houses of Burjkeh were very simple square cottages, built of
polygonal masonry. Mūsa got wind of a newly opened tomb near the
church. I contrived with some difficulty to crawl down into it, and was
rewarded by finding on one of the loculi the date 292 of the era of
Antioch, which corresponds to 243 A.D. Below the date were three lines
of Greek inscription, much defaced. We rode on for half an hour to
Surkanyā, a deserted village, charmingly situated at the head of a
shallow rocky valley in which there were even a few trees. The houses
were exceptionally massive in construction, with heavy stone balconies
forming a porch over the door. One was dated, and the year was 406 A.D.
The church was almost exactly similar to that at Burjkeh. Another three
quarters of an hour to the north and we reached Fāfertīn, where, it
began to rain. We took shelter under an apse, which was all that
remained of a church larger than any we had yet seen, but rude in
workmanship.[15] The village was inhabited by a few families of Yezīdi
Kurds. In the streaming rain we rode for an hour north-east to Khirāb
esh Shems, but could do nothing there owing to the weather, and so north
by Kalōteh to Burj el Kās, where I found my tents pitched on a damp
sward. Mūsa was much distressed by the heavy rain, and said that the
wet spring had been disastrous to his fields, washing down the soil from
the high ground into the valleys. The work of denudation, which has so
greatly diminished the fertility of North Syria, is still going forward.
[Illustration 135: A FUNERAL MONUMENT, ḲĀṬURĀ]
At Burj el Kās there was a square tower on the top of the hill and some
old houses that had been repaired and re-inhabited by the Kurds. On one
lintel I saw the date 406 A.D., on another an inscription difficult to
decipher. The end of this stone was hidden by the angle of a rebuilt
house, but peering along it I could just make out that there was a small
carving at the extreme point. The owner of the house announced that it
represented without doubt the Lady Mary. This would have been a curious
addition to the meagre collection of sculpture in North Syria, as well
as a theological innovation, and I expressed my regret that I could not
see it better. Thereupon my friend fetched a pickaxe and chipped off a
corner of his house, and the figure of the Virgin proved to be a Roman
eagle.
[Illustration 136: KHIRĀB ESH SHEMS]
[Illustration 137: KHIRĀB ESH SHEMS, CARVING IN A TOMB]
With Najīb and Mūsa I returned to the villages that I had passed in
the rain the previous day. We left Najīb with the horses at Kalōteh,
and ourselves walked to Khirāb esh Shems, the path being so rocky that
I wished to spare my beasts a second journey over it. Khirāb esh Shems
contained a fine church, twenty-one paces long from the west door to the
chord of the apse. The outer walls to north and south had fallen,
leaving only the five arches on either side of the nave with a
clerestory pierced by ten small round-headed windows, a charming
fragment like a detached loggia. Further up the hill stood a massive
chapel, destitute of aisles, with an apse built out and roofed with a
semi-dome of square slabs, resembling the fifth-century baptistery at
Dār Kīta.[16] In the hill side we found a number of rock-hewn tombs,
in one of which I had the satisfaction to discover some curious reliefs.
On the loculus to the left of the door were four roughly carved figures,
their arms raised in the attitude of prayer, and on the rock wall in a
dark corner a single figure clothed in a shirt and a pointed cap, holding
a curious object, like a basket, in the right hand. Returning to
Kalōteh we visited an isolated church on some high ground to the west
of the village. On the wall by the south door there was a long
inscription in Greek. The nave was separated from the aisles by four
columns on either side, some of which (to judge by the fragments) had
been fluted and some plain. The arcade ended against the corner of the
apse with engaged fluted columns carrying beautiful Corinthian capitals.
The apse, prothesis and diaconicum were all contained within the outer
wall of the church. The west door showed a stilted relieving arch above
a broken lintel, the lintel decorated with a row of dentils. To the
south of the church there was a detached baptistery, some 9 ft. square
inside, the walls still carrying the first course of the stone vault.
The church must have been roofed with tiles, for I saw a number of
fragments lying in the nave. A massive enclosing wall surrounded both
church and baptistery. The village below contained two churches, that to
the west measuring 38 ft. by 68 ft., the other 48 ft. by 70 ft. The
mouldings round the doors in both churches indicate that they cannot
have been earlier than the sixth-century. There Were also some houses
with stone verandahs.
[Illustration 138: CAPITAL, UPPER CHURCH AT KALŌTEH]
[Illustration 139: BARĀD, CANOPY TOMB]
An hour and a half to the north-west of Kalōteh lies Barād, the
largest and most interesting of the villages in the Jebel Sim'ān. It is
partly re-inhabited by Kurds. I found my camp pitched in an open space
opposite a very lovely funeral monument consisting of a canopy carried
by four piers set on a high podium. Near it stood a large rock-cut
sarcophagus and a number of other tombs, partly rock-cut and partly
built. I examined two churches in the centre of the town. In one the
nave, 68 ft. 6 in. long, was divided from the aisles by four great
piers, 6 ft. deep from east to west, with an intercolumniation of 18 ft.
The nave was 23 ft. wide and the apse 12 ft. deep. The wide
intercolumniation is a proof of a comparatively late date, sixth century
or thereabouts. The second church was still larger, 118 ft. 6 in. by 73
ft. 6 in., but completely ruined except for the west wall and part of
the apse. To the north of it there was a small chapel, with an apse
perfectly preserved; near it lay a sarcophagus which suggested that the
chapel may have been a mausoleum. The eastern end of the town contained
a complex of buildings of polygonal masonry, including a square
enclosure with a square chamber ill the centre of it, resting on a vault
that was possibly a tomb. To the extreme west of the town stood a fine
tower with some large and well preserved houses near it. A small church
lay between it and the main body of the town. Near my camp was a curious
building with two apses irregularly placed in the east wall. I take it
to have been pre-Christian. The walls stood up to the vault, which was
perfectly preserved. While Mūsa and I measured and planned this
building we were watched by two persons in long white robes and turbans,
who exhibited the greatest interest in our movements. They were, said
Mūsa, Government officials, sent into the Jebel Sim'ān to take a
census of the population with a view to levying the capitation tax.
The next day was one of the most disagreeable that I remember. A band of
thick cloud stretched across the sky immediately above the Jebel
Sim'ān, keeping us in a cold grey shadow, while to north and south we
saw the mountains and the plain bathed in sunshine. We rode north for
about an hour to Keifār, a large village near the extreme edge of the
Jebel Sim'ān. Beyond the valley of the Afrīn, which bounds the hills
to the north-west, rose the first great buttresses of the Giour Dāgh.
Mūsa observed that in the valley and the further hills there were no
more ruined villages; they end abruptly at the limits of the Jebel
Sim'ān, and Syrian civilisation seems to have penetrated no further to
the north, for what reason it is impossible to say. At Keifār there
were three churches much ruined, but showing traces of decoration
exquisitely treated, a few good houses, and a canopy tomb something like
the one at Barād. There was a large population of Kurds. We rode back
to Barād and so south-east to Kefr Nebu, about an hour and a half away
through bitter wind and rain. There was a Syriac inscription here on a
lintel, one or two Kufic tombstones, and a very splendid house partially
restored, but I was a great deal too cold to give them the attention
they deserved. Chilled to the bone and profoundly discouraged by
attempts at taking time exposures in a high wind, I made straight for my
tents at Bāsufān, an hour's ride from Kefr Nebu, leaving unexplored a
couple of ruined sites to the south.
[Illustration 140: BARĀD, TOWER TO THE WEST OF THE TOWN]
Mūsa's home is at Bāsufān; we met his father in the cornfields as we
came up, and:
"God strengthen your body!" cried Mūsa, giving the salutation proper to
one working in the fields.
"And your body!" he answered, lifting his dim eyes to us.
"He is old," explained Mūsa as we rode on, "and trouble has fallen on
him, but once he was the finest man in the Jebel Sim'ān, and the best
shot."
[Illustration 141: MŪSA AND HIS FAMILY]
"What trouble?" said I.
"My brother was slain by a blood enemy a few months ago," he answered.
"We do not know who it was that killed him, but perhaps it was one of
his bride's family, for he took her without their consent."
"And what has happened to the bride?" I asked.
"She has gone back to her own family," said he. "But she wept bitterly."
Bāsufān is used as a _Sommerfrische_ by certain Jews and Christians of
Aleppo, who come out and live in the houses of the Kurds during the hot
months, the owners being at that season in tents. There are a few big
trees to the south of the village sheltering a large graveyard, which is
occupied mostly by Moslem dead, brought to this spot from many miles
round. The valley below boasts a famous spring, a spring that never runs
dry even in rainless years when all its sister fountains are exhausted.
The Kurds used to grow tobacco on the neighbouring slopes, and the
quality of the leaf was much esteemed, so that the crop found a ready
sale, till the Government régie was established and paid the Kurds such
miserable prices that they were unable to make a profit. As there was no
other market, the industry ceased altogether, and the fields have passed
out of cultivation except for the raising of a little corn: "and now we
are all poor," said Mūsa in conclusion.
I had not been an hour in camp before the rain stopped and the sun came
out, bringing back our energy with it. There was a large church at
Bāsufān, which had been converted at some period into a fort by the
addition of three towers. What remained of the original building was of
excellent work. The engaged columns by the apse were adorned with spiral
flutings--the first example I had seen--and the Corinthian capitals
were deep and careful in cutting. Mūsa showed me a Syriac inscription
in the south wall, which I copied with great labour and small success:
the devil take all Syriac inscriptions, or endow all travellers with
better wits! When this was done there still remained a couple of hours
of afternoon light, and I determined to walk over the hills to Burj
Ḥeida and Kefr Lāb, which I had omitted in the morning owing to the
rain and the cold. Mūsa accompanied me, and took with him his
"partner"--so he was introduced to me, but in what enterprise he shared
I do not know. Burj Ḥeida was well worth the visit. It contained a
square tower and three churches, one exceedingly well preserved, with an
interesting building annexed to it, perhaps a lodging for the clergy.
But the expedition was chiefly memorable on account of the conversation
of my two companions. With Mūsa I had contracted, during the three days
we had passed together, a firm friendship, based on my side on gratitude
for the services he had rendered me, coupled with a warm appreciation of
the beaming smile that accompanied them. We had reached a point of
familiarity where I thought I might fairly expect him to enlighten me on
the Yezīdi doctrines, for, whatever may be the custom in Europe, in
Asia it is not polite to ask a man what he believes unless he regards
you as an intimate. Nor is it expedient; it awakens suspicion without
evoking a satisfactory answer. I began delicately as we sat in the
doorway of the little church at Kefr Lāb by asking whether the Yezīdis
possessed mosque or church.
"No," replied Mūsa. "We worship under the open sky. Every day at dawn
we worship the sun."
"Have you," said I, "an imam who leads the prayer?"
"On feast days," said he, "the sheikh leads the prayer, but on other
days every man worships for himself. We count some days lucky and some
unlucky. Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are our lucky days, but Thursday
is unlucky."
"Why is that?" said I.
"I do not know," said Mūsa. "It is so."
"Are you," I asked, "friends with the Mohammadans or are you foes?"
He answered: "Here in the country round Aleppo, where we are few, they
do not fear us, and we live at peace with them; but every year there
comes to us from Mosul a very learned sheikh who collects tribute among
us, and he wonders to see us like brothers with the Muslimīn, for in
Mosul, where the Yezīdis are many, there is bitter feud. In Mosul our
people will not serve in the army, but here we serve like any other--I
myself have been a soldier."
"Have you holy books?" said I.
"Without doubt," said he, "and I will tell you what our books teach us.
When the end of the world is near Hadūdmadūd will appear on earth. And
before his time the race of men will have shrunk in stature so that they
are smaller than a blade of grass,--but Hadūdmadūd is a mighty giant.
And in seven days, or seven months, or seven years, he will drink all
the seas and all the rivers, and the earth will be drained dry."
"And then," said the partner, who had followed Mūsa's explanation
eagerly, "out of the dust will spring a great worm, and he will devour
Hadūdmadūd."
"And when he has eaten him," continued Mūsa, "there will be a flood
which will last seven days, or seven months, or seven years."
"And the earth will be washed clean," chimed in the partner.
"And then will come the Mahdi," said Mūsa, "and he will summon the four
sects, Yezīdis, Christians, Moslems and Jews, and he will appoint the
prophet of each sect to collect his followers together. And Yezīd will
assemble the Yezīdis, and Jesus the Christians, and Muḥammad the
Moslems, and Moses the Jews. But those that while they lived changed
from one faith to another, they shall be tried by fire, to see what
creed they profess in their hearts. So shall each prophet know his own.
This is the end of the world."
"Do you," said I, "consider all the four faiths to be equal?" Mūsa
replied (diplomatically perhaps): "The Christians and the Jews we think
equal to us."
"And the Moslems?" I inquired.
"We think them to be swine," said Mūsa.
These are the tenets of Mūsa's faith, and what they signify I will not
pretend to say, but Hadūdmadūd is probably Gogmagog, if that throws
any light on the matter.
The sun was setting when we rose from the church step and began to
clamber homeward over the ruins of Kefr Lāb. There was some broken
ground beyond the village, and I noticed large cavities under the rocks
at the top of the hill. Before them Mūsa's partner paused, and said:
"In this manner of place we look for treasure."
"And do you find it?" said I.
He replied: "I have never found any, but there are many tales. Once,
they say, there was a shepherd boy who lost his goat and searched for it
over the hills, and at last he came upon it in a cave full of gold
coins. Therefore he closed the mouth of the cave and hastened home to
fetch an ass whereon he might load the gold, and in his haste he left
the goat in the cave. But when he returned there was neither cave, nor
goat, nor gold, search as he would."
"And another time," said Mūsa, "a boy was sleeping in the ruins of Kefr
Lāb and he dreamt that he had discovered a great treasure in the earth
and that he had dug for it with his hands, and when he woke his hands
were covered with the dust of gold, but no memory remained to him of the
place wherein he had dug."
Neither of these stories offer sufficient data, however, to warrant the
despatch of a treasure-hunting expedition to the Jebel Sim'ān.
[Illustration 142: BĀSUFĀN, A KURDISH GIRL]
As we reached Bāsufān Mūsa asked whether his sister Wardeh (the Rose)
might honour herself by paying her respects to me. "And will you," he
added, "persuade her to marry?"
"To marry?" said I. "Whom should she marry?"
"Any one," said Mūsa imperturbably. "She has declared that marriage is
hateful to her, and that she will remain in our father's house, and we
cannot move her. Yet she is a young maid and fair."
She looked very fair, and modest besides, as she stood at the door of my
tent in the pretty dress of the Kurdish women, with a bowl of kaimak in
her hands, a propitiatory gift to me; and I confess I did not insist
upon the marriage question, thinking that she could best manage her own
affairs. She brought me new bread for breakfast next morning, and begged
me to come and visit her father's house before I left. This I did, and
found the whole family, sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren,
assembled to welcome me; and though I had but recently breakfasted, the
old father insisted on setting bread and bowls of cream before me, "that
the bond of hospitality may be between us." Fine, well-built people were
they all, with beautiful faces, illumined by the smile that was Mūsa's
chief attraction. For their sake the Kurdish race shall hold hereafter a
large place in my esteem.
[Footnote 12: Since writing this chapter I have learnt that Mr. Butler
and his party extended their explorations to the north of Ḳal'at
Sim'ān after my departure, and I look forward to a full description of
the district in their future publications.]
[Footnote 13: I would suggest that this decline was due in part to the
excessive burden of taxation laid by Justinian on the eastern provinces
of his empire during his efforts to recover the western. Readers of
Diehl's great work on Justinian will remember how the social and
political organisation of his dominions collapsed under the strain of
his wars in Italy and North Africa. The eastern parts of the empire were
the richest and suffered the most.]
[Footnote 14: This was noticed by Mr. Butler, "Architecture and other
Arts."]
[Footnote 15: Butler in his report states that this church is dated 372
A.D., which gives it the distinction of being the earliest dated church
in Syria, if not the earliest dated church in the world.]
[Footnote 16: Butler, "Architecture and other Arts," p. 139.]