A LAND OF DUST AND ASHES
(DIARBEKR AND MARDIN)
Due east and west, from the Gulf of Iskanderun almost to the heel of the
Caspian, there stretches a range of lofty mountains--a sort of natural
bulwark, fencing off the high rugged plateau of Asia Minor on the north
from the low level plain of Mesopotamia on the south. At its western
extremity this range is known as the Taurus, but further east it appears
now to possess no generic name; yet it well deserves so much
distinction, for it is here that the peaks attain their highest
altitude, and hold in their wild recesses some of the grandest scenery
in the world.
The hills which we entered near Urfa are the first outposts of these
mountains, but at this point of their line the outposts are very far
advanced. We must push on for two or three days across a broad
undulating upland before we find ourselves approaching the foot of the
main chain itself. On the whole it is a dull enough journey; for though
the snow summits rise nobly on the horizon ahead of us, the heathlands
immediately round us are as barren as land can be. There are a few
sordid Kurdish villages at four or five hours intervals, but apart from
these there is nothing for the eye to rest on; and our own little party,
crawling slowly across the landscape, seem to be the only living
creatures except the ubiquitous hooded crows.
During the second day, however, we became aware of another feature,
which, if it adds no beauty, at least lends interest to the scene. A
layer of higher ground is thrust across the plateau. It radiates out
into long flat tongues; and its steep escarpments are littered all over
with the big black boulders that have fallen from the bristly fringe
along the upper edge. These boulders are covered with a grey-green
lichen, and mottled with patches of moss of a warmer and richer green;
but no other kind of vegetation seems able to flourish among them, and
the prevailing tone of the landscape is a gloomy bilious grey. To those
who have seen it before such a picture needs no commentary. A vast
outpouring of volcanic scoriæ has covered the whole countryside.
As we pursue our way further the signs become yet more pronounced. The
Acropolis of the little town of Severek is perched, like Bamborough
Castle, on a platform of basalt rock. Not far off at the village of
Kainak is an isolated cone--once doubtless a miniature crater: and we
remember that Diarbekr is built of basalt also--Diarbekr, two days'
journey away. Whence came this prodigious outflow of seventy miles in
diameter, and of four thousand square miles in area--as large as the
county of York?
A full day's journey ahead of us, all along the eastern horizon, lies a
huge squat bun-shaped mountain, just over 6000 feet high. This is Karaja
Dagh, the great extinct volcano, the outermost of that group of
volcanoes which lie to the north of Mesopotamia, in Armenia and eastern
Kurdistan. This region must have been the scene, at some remote
geological epoch, of some of the greatest eruptions that have ever
occurred on this globe. The five huge craters which produced them (not
to mention a host of smaller ones)[16] are ranged diagonally athwart the
country in a line some 300 miles long. At the north-eastern end is
Alageuz, 150 miles south of the Caucasus. Then come Ararat, Sipan, and
Nimrud; with Karaja at the south-western end. The biggest of all perhaps
was Nimrud, a mountain but little higher than Karaja, but possessing the
third largest crater that is known to exist in the world. Karaja would
seem to consist of a group of associated craters; something like the
Puy de Dome mountains, but infinitely grander in scale.
It is held by many commentators that the site of the Garden of Eden was
near modern Van and Bitlis, round about the head waters of the
Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, and the Zab. If so, then the Garden
of Eden now lies buried beneath the lava of these volcanoes; and where
could we find fitter antitypes of the Cherubim with the flaming swords?
Karaja juts out towards the plains like a huge cape, isolated from the
mountains; and our road slowly heaves itself upward to find a way over
its tail. As a road it is incredibly villainous, for it takes the basalt
boulders _au naturel_, and hardly an attempt has been made anywhereto
form a surface at all.[17] Round our left sweep the desolate fields of
broken and disintegrating lava. On our right they rise, terrace on
terrace, toward the mountain from which they flowed. And as we leave the
mountain behind, and continue our way to the eastward, the aspect of the
country changes little: it is still lava that surrounds us on every
side.
At length, two full days beyond Severek, we descry a city ahead of us. A
city notable for its size, and yet more for its menacing aspect:--a grim
black row of massive towers and curtains, with the slender stems of a
dozen minarets shooting up into the sky behind the ramparts like reeds
behind a dyke of stone. The snow peaks on our left stretch beyond it,
and fade off gradually into the distance; and as we draw nearer we
perceive that on our right the town is guarded by the deep ravine of the
Tigris. Such is Diarbekr--Black Amida; whose classical name is not yet
disused entirely, and which owes its inseparable epithet to the basalt
of which it is built.
The city crowns a bold rocky bluff overhanging the gorge of the Tigris,
which flows some 300 feet beneath it in a broad and sandy bed. The river
is here wide and deep, and its modern name--_Shat_, the
Arrow--testifies the rapidity of its current; but a little below the
city its course is checked by a bridge and a weir. In the severe winter
of 1910-11 it was frozen over so hard at this point that the caravans of
camels were able to cross it on the ice. The river covers the eastern
face of the city; and the ground falls fairly steeply along the southern
face also. But toward the remaining two faces the approaches are over
level ground.
We possess many cities in Europe which are still entirely encircled by
Roman or mediæval ramparts. Such are Carcassonne, Aigues Mortes, Avila,
Lugo, and Rothenburg; and we may add Constantinople, though in this case
the circuit is incomplete. But, having seen all these examples, we feel
bound to put it on record that the basalt walls of Diarbekr are
distinctly the finest of all. The walls are some forty feet high and
about five miles in circuit, and are strengthened at frequent intervals
by eighty massive towers. Most of these are semicircular, but some are
semioctagonal. They are spaced about three and a half diameters apart,
and project boldly from the curtain walls between. The line traced by
the walls is irregular, skirting the edges of the hollows; and at each
salient angle is a huge circular bastion. The gateways are somewhat
insignificant, being mere holes in the walls flanked by a tower on
either side: and this is characteristic of most Roman fortifications,
the gateways of Lugo (for instance) being very similar in design.[18]
The curtain walls are from ten to fifteen feet thick; thinner along the
river front, where the precipitous basalt cliffs rendered assault almost
impracticable; and thicker along the other three sides. These sides are
further protected by a moat cut in the solid rock, but neither so deep
nor so wide as the giant moat at Urfa. Along the inner edge of this
moat, some paces from the base of the ramparts, is a low breastwork of
masonry as at Constantinople and Carcassonne. A loopholed and vaulted
gallery is carried along the top of the ramparts, and above this were
the battlements, so that the defenders had a double banquette.[19] The
towers are vaulted internally, and have double banquettes also; and the
garrison could reach their stations by a double staircase at every
tower. The citadel is at the north east corner overhanging the gorge of
the river, and in the midst of it is a huge mass of masonry, once the
mount of the demolished keep.
The walls are beyond all doubt, in the main, of Roman construction;
though some Saracenic additions have since been incorporated in the
work. They are built of squared black basalt, which has weathered
externally to a dull yellow tone owing to the lichen which has
overspread the surface. Possibly this process was assisted by the fact
that some twenty years ago it was deemed a good idea to whitewash them,
in order to give a distinguished welcome to a specially prominent Pasha!
But fortunately the traces of this sacrilege are almost obliterated now.
The houses in the town for the most part are a set of squalid hovels,
intersected in all directions by a maze of narrow crooked streets. Our
carriage fairly stuck in one of these alleys as we were attempting to
pass through it; and for some minutes it seemed problematical whether we
should be able to wriggle free. Yet not all the houses are mean; and in
the quarter near the citadel, the residence of the chief officials, a
very considerable number are solidly constructed of stone. Some few of
these are genuinely old, and possess a good deal of interest. They are
often built in two colours, with alternate horizontal bands of black
basalt and yellow marble, resembling not a little the black and white
marble buildings of Pistoia. It is curious how this taste for coloured
ornamentation seems inherent in the dwellers in volcanic districts,
where materials of different colours are always readily available. The
same trait is very conspicuous in the volcanic districts of Auvergne.
The most notable example at Diarbekr is a big mansion in the main
thoroughfare. A house very similar in type to the old palaces of Spain
and Italy; bare, square and prison-like outside, and entered by a single
great doorway; but with graceful arcaded porticoes surrounding the
_patio_ within. Once, no doubt, it was indeed a palace, the abode of
some prominent magnate: but now it is only a _khan_; and a _khan_ so
notoriously filthy that even our _Arabaji_ shrank from an encounter with
its fleas.
The principal Mosque is also of peculiar interest, and presents an
architectural problem which has never been quite fully solved. Two sides
of its courtyard are formed by the façades of an ancient palace--a
palace of regal dimensions, and constructed in a style that is
admittedly unique. One of these façades is in two stories, with a
pointed arcade below and square-headed windows over; the other has now
but one story which consists of a pointed arcade.[20] These are not
quite Romanesque in style, but more Romanesque than Oriental. They are
rather like primitive versions of the Otto Heinrichs Bau at Heidelberg
Schloss. But the building to which they are nearest akin is Diocletian's
famous palace at Spalatro; albeit they are far less massive, and far
more fantastically ornate. The theory most generally adopted concerning
them is that they formed part of the palace of the Armenian king,
Tiridates; and this theory is strongly supported by their resemblance to
the palace at Spalatro, for Diocletian and Tiridates were contemporaries
and close allies.
Amida was one of the great fortresses that guarded the southern frontier
of the Roman Empire. Northward, in Asia Minor, _Pax Romana_ had a fairly
long innings; but Parthia and Persia to the southward were at no time
definitely subdued. The hold of the Romans on Mesopotamia was indeed in
some sort analogous to the hold of the Austrians on Italy previous to
1860. They regarded it as within their "Sphere of Influence," and
sometimes they judged it expedient to "assert their interests" by
invading it. But generally they found that enterprise was a bit beyond
their capacity; their real "Scientific Frontier" lay along the mountains
in the north. And here they, too, maintained their four great
fortresses; not ranged in a square like the famous Austrian
Quadrilateral, but _en échelon_ one behind the other along the southern
slopes of the hills. Nisibis and Daras were in the forefront; Amida and
Edessa withheld in reserve behind them. And though thus in the second
rank, Amida got its full share of fighting when the kings of
resuscitated Persia began to make invasions in their turn.
Amida's defences were perfected, and its arsenal formed, by Constantius;
and it was Constantius' great opponent Sapor II who undertook its first
memorable siege. The great Sassanid Shah invaded the Roman territory
with a huge army of 100,000 men in the year 360. He had at first
intended to ignore the fortresses and to scour the hinterland for
plunder; but as he rode past the walls of Amida an arrow struck his
helmet, and he turned upon the place like an angry bull. His summons was
answered by a volley from the _balistæ_ which slew the only son of his
chief auxiliary, Grumbates the king of the Chionites; and Sapor swore to
the bereaved father that he would not rest till he had taken the city in
revenge.
For seventy-three days he pressed his assaults with the utmost fury and
persistence. He brought up battering rams and huge wooden towers
constructed for him by Roman deserters; and on one occasion he succeeded
in surprising one of the towers upon the river frontage, but the seventy
picked archers who occupied it were overwhelmed by the garrison and
slain. At last he breached the walls; and though some of the garrison
(including the historian Ammianus) cut their way through his lines on
the further side, and thus succeeded in escaping, the rest, with all the
inhabitants, were massacred in the ensuing storm.
Yet Amida had at least performed the duty which is ordinarily expected
of a fortress. It had held back the tide of invasion for the period of a
whole campaign. Sapor had lost a third of his army; and the season was
too far advanced for any further operations. He retreated again into
Persia, and abandoned the city that he had won.
An even more notable siege occurred in the year 502. King Kobad, the
father of the yet mightier Chosroes I. invested the city that autumn;
assailing it from the western side (as Sapor had done before him), and
employing similar siege engines to those of his predecessor's days.[21]
The garrison caught the blows of his rams on reed mattresses lowered
from the ramparts, and greased the drawbridges of his wooden towers so
effectively that the stormers could not cross. Also they employed
"winged words" of such singular virulence and pungency as to scandalize
even their own historian.[22] He felt obliged to draw the line at
"Lime-house," though boiling oil and firebrands were fair. "If the
bishop had still been alive he would never have permitted it;" and
indeed when the women took to stripping themselves on the ramparts, and
taunting the besiegers with their inability to sack the place, we may
grant that any bishop would have had good cause to protest!
Kobad next "cast a mount" against the walls in the manner of Sargon and
Sennacherib; a huge incline of earth and brushwood to give his men
access to the parapet. The besieged breached their own wall under it,
and secretly drew away the core; propping the cavity with balks of
timber, and then filling it with combustibles. When the assault began
they fired their mine; and an hour or two later the mound collapsed
beneath the feet of the attacking columns, precipitating the luckless
stormers into the blazing furnace below.[23]
Three months had passed in vain assaults, and Kobad had made no
progress. His thinly clad Persians were suffering terribly from the
winter cold; and the Great King swallowed his dignity and offered to
raise the siege for half a crown! But success had made the defenders
more insolent than ever, and they scorned even this show of homage. They
retaliated by sending him a bill for the vegetables which his army had
consumed out of their gardens. This was too much for Kobad, and he
resolved to fight to a finish. Three days later the laugh was on his
side.
One night a party of Persians were pursuing a certain Kutrigo who had
sallied from a privy postern to make a raid on their camp. As they
neared the walls they received no challenge, and not an arrow was shot
at them. That particular tower was manned by the "Sleepless" monks of
Anzetene; and it chanced that "a certain man" (in the most friendly
spirit) had given them a good supper and wine to drink, so that they
were all in deep slumber. The Persians seized their opportunity and made
themselves masters of the tower. The garrison were aroused and hurried
up to expel them, endeavouring to cut away the vaulted floor under their
feet. The Persians planted their scaling ladders and swarmed to the help
of their comrades; and for thirty-six hours continuously the fight raged
furiously on the wall. Peter of Amkhoro, a man of gigantic stature and
clad in complete armour, held the banquette on one side against the
utmost efforts of the Persians: but in the opposite direction they
pushed on from tower to tower till at last they gained one of the
gateways. The army poured in irresistibly, and the massacre began.
Kobad allowed his army three full days to sack the city, and at the end
of that time 80,000 corpses were carried out through the north gate that
the king might enter at the south. Even so the Persians' vengeance was
not sated, and they demanded leave from their king to execute one tenth
of the survivors to appease the _manes_ of their own dead comrades.[24]
They bore these wretched victims outside the city walls, and killed
them "in all sorts of ways."
[Illustration: MOSUL.
View from the bridge, looking up stream. The Tomb of Cassim is one of
the more distant buildings near the water-side.]
Kobad pillaged the city thoroughly, sending his booty away on rafts down
the Tigris to Ctesiphon; and when he himself departed, he left a certain
Glon to hold the fortress with a garrison of 3000 men. This seems a
small enough force to man such an extent of rampart: yet at first it
proved amply sufficient; and when the Roman general Patricius attempted
to regain the city he was repulsed completely and ignominiously, though
the Romans were much more skilled than the Persians in the conduct of a
siege. But Amida was not yet at the end of its agony: and what all the
emperor's horses and all the emperor's men had so conspicuously failed
to accomplish was reserved for the grim persistence of an irregular
partisan.
Farzman was an active local Sheikh who had espoused the cause of the
Romans, and who had made his name a terror to the Persians by a
multitude of daring deeds. He was only in command of 500 horse; and any
attempt to form a regular siege of such a first-class fortress would of
course have been ridiculous. But an adroitly handled cavalry force can
do a good deal in the way of "containing" an Oriental city. In the
winter of 1911 Shuja ed Dowleh, the Agha of Maragha, nearly reduced
Tabriz, with all its 300,000 inhabitants, with an equally puny band.
Farzman knew full well that the Persians in Amida could not have had
time to replenish their magazines. He quietly cut off communication with
the surrounding villages, and suppressed the daily market that was held
without the walls. Glon very naturally grew restive; and listened
greedily to a certain Gadono, a prominent local sportsman, who told him
that he had located Farzman's camp in the course of his hunting
excursions, and would enable him to take it by surprise. Accordingly
Glon sallied out with all his available cavalry. But the wily Gadono had
been in communication with Farzman. The "surprise" had been all arranged
beforehand; and Glon and his party were wiped out.
This signal miscarriage of their "aggressive defence" profoundly
disconcerted the Persians. Glon's son, now in chief command, kept
breathing out threatenings and slaughter; but he no longer had any
cavalry, and his infantry was barely sufficient to man the ramparts and
overawe the citizens within. He shut up all the able-bodied inhabitants,
to the number of 10,000, in the Stadium; and calculated by this measure
to free his own hands for the defence. But, struggle as he might, he
could not snap the line which held him:--Farzman had hooked a salmon
with a trout rod, but he played it in masterly style.
Then came days of horror unutterable. The prisoners in the Stadium were
left without any food whatever. They ate their boots, and their belts,
and finally preyed on each other; and when the wretched survivors were
let loose as no longer worth guarding, they crawled out of their prison
"like men risen from the dead." By this time the city itself was almost
in equal extremity. Many of the living skeletons from the Stadium were
enticed into the houses by the starving women and there killed and
devoured. The garrison were so reduced by hunger that they could
scarcely carry their weapons; and the Persian commandant sent to Farzman
to say that he was willing to capitulate.
Farzman granted easy terms. They might go off on rafts down the Tigris,
taking all their property with them, as many as elected to go. And he
himself, on their departure, took possession of that ghastly charnel
house; and assisted by the new bishop, Thomas (the same who was later to
build Daras), set to work to import new inhabitants, and nurse the dead
city back to life.
Diarbekr in 1895 was one of the centres of the Armenian massacres, and
as many as 2500 perished in this place alone. Little enough was heard
about it at the time in England, where attention was almost monopolized
by yet more monstrous holocausts; but what passed then as a mere local
incident wears a very different aspect when we visit the actual spot
where it was enacted--when we see the doors still splintered and patched
in the houses which were stormed by the rioters, the photographs of the
luckless victims still treasured in the albums of their surviving
friends and relatives, and the ghastly bald patch in the midst of the
city where the Armenian quarter was razed to the ground and has never
been re-erected to this day.
The massacre was undoubtedly prompted by the Government of
Constantinople; but their agents were the fanatical Kurds who swarm in
the slums of Diarbekr, and who flocked in eagerly from the surrounding
villages to take a hand in the work of slaughter and to share in the
plunder which followed. That the massacre was political and not
religious was proved by the fact that the Syrian Christians (who are
also numerous in Diarbekr) did not suffer to anything like the same
extent as their Armenian co-religionists. The crowd of refugees who
sought sanctuary in the Jacobite cathedral were not molested, and only
isolated individuals fell victims to the fury of the mob. That the
outbreak wore a mask of fanaticism was a thing inevitable in the Orient.
The perpetrators were the Kurdish riff-raff; and on this point
Mohammedan _badmashes_ are alike all over the world. Only religious zeal
can excite their passions dangerously; and when their passions are
dangerously excited they always find expression in religious zeal.[25]
But the very fact that a distinction was made between Armenians and
Syrians, is alone sufficient to indicate that in this instance the mob
was under some sort of control.
The hatred of the Turks for the Armenians is due to the fact that the
Armenians are the only one of their subject nations of whom the Turks
are afraid. The Arabs and Kurds are their co-religionists, and have no
national cohesion. The Nestorian and Jacobite Syrians are either too few
to be dangerous, or too thoroughly tamed by long subjection to have any
desire to rebel. But the Armenians are numerous and imbued with national
aspirations; and though the majority of them are inoffensive
cultivators, they include a considerable number of intelligent and
capable men. A small percentage too are active political propagandists,
who continue to work persistently to overthrow the present régime. Under
equal political conditions the Armenians would soon secure dominance:
and this would be a subversal which the Turks could never endure. So
when the Armenians grow restive the Turks resolve to "take precautions."
They cannot cope with them in cleverness, but in physical force they
can.
Will there be further massacres? It is an ever-present danger. The Turks
do not wish it--it makes trouble with the European Embassies; and, after
all, slaughtering the Armenians is killing the goose that lays the
golden eggs. The Kurdish chiefs do not wish it either, for they too
stand to lose pecuniarily: but beneath them seethes the fanatical mob,
easily roused by hot-headed agitators, a sort of open powder magazine
which any stray firebrand may ignite. "I will give you full warning if I
can," said a friendly Vali to a gentleman of our acquaintance; "but I
can only tell you that I see no danger just now. There is talk of
course--there is always talk; and so long as the talk reaches our ears
it is not likely to go further. When you see little groups whispering
together outside the mosques, and breaking up whenever a Christian
passes within earshot--that is the real danger-signal, and you can see
that as well as I."
There was plenty of "talk" at Diarbekr; and we frequently heard the
children (no doubt in imitation of their elders) invoking curses on us
as we passed along the streets. The tension must have become greater
since: for the Moslems will have been touched in the raw at the result
of the Balkan fighting, and are prone to avenge their discomfiture on
any Christian who is ready to hand. Moreover the Constitution had not
altogether improved matters: for it was inaugurated by a general amnesty
whereby all exiles and prisoners had been released. Some were certainly
innocent sufferers, but a large number would have been much better kept
in durance; and Diarbekr was consequently growing anxious at the
intrigues of Abdul Reshek Agha, grandson and heir to Bedr Khan Beg of
Massacre memory,[26] who had just got reinstated in his ancestral
stronghold in Bohtan. He was credited with an ambition to establish
himself under the ægis of the Russians, as Shah of United Kurdistan: and
though a "United Kurdistan" is a sufficiently Utopian conception, such
an attempt might well begin with an Armenian massacre, and bring Russian
intervention in its train.
The old régime used to deal with such dangers tactfully, if not
altogether discreetly, according to our insular ideas. And this may be
exemplified by the case of another Bedr Khan Beg, a scion of the same
family--a tale which, if not _vero_, is so _ben trovato_ that we cannot
refrain from quoting it; and which at least shows the sort of methods
with which the Government was credited, and in which its liege subjects
were quite disposed to acquiesce.
The Sultan, in an expansive mood, had recalled Bedr Khan Beg from exile,
and proposed to re-invest him with part of his ancestral domain. That
gratified gentleman blossomed out luxuriantly under such sympathetic
usage, and began asking for all sorts of powers and privileges, and
reviving a whole host of dormant claims. The Government grew rather
uneasy, but showed no signs of displeasure. It granted each demand in
turn; escorted him with high distinction on board a warship; and
dispatched him to Trebizond en route for his satrapy.
Two days later the ship was back at its anchorage. Perhaps it had
forgotten something. Perhaps it needed some repairs to its engines. But
it seemed in no hurry to start again; and it presently transpired that
Bedr Khan Beg was no longer on board. He had not been seen to land; and
the ship could have touched at no harbour. There is often some apparent
inconsequence in the movements of Government ships. "_Et quaesitum est
a_ Toad-in-the-hole _ubi est ille_ Bedr Khan Beg?" "_Non est inventus._"
The Young Turks have adopted a self-denying ordinance with regard to
such expedients; but they have hardly attempted to touch that cancer of
Ottoman rule--the chronic corruption of the Administration. Turkey
enjoys an admirable code of laws, and a revenue system which should be
the envy of our own fiscal extremists; but it has also evolved along
with them that other modern panacea, a multiplicity of jobs. Every
single official, be he Old Turk or Young Turk, Arnaut or Armenian, is
frankly "on the make." His post entitles him nominally to a starvation
salary: yet he pays for it with a bribe, and he knows it is well worth
paying for, since the incidental pickings will enable him to "make his
pile."
The present officials did not reprobate their predecessors' conduct in
this: they only envied their opportunities. If they had been allowed a
chance of getting a look in themselves, they would have been quite
content with things as they were. But the Old Gang had packed the
Government so artfully that nothing but a revolution could oust them;
and so in due course the inevitable revolution happened. But the methods
of administration remain essentially the same.
Internal development of the empire is hardly ever attempted. The
standing instructions appear to be "Thou shalt do nothing at all." The
central Government is quite content if open revolt is avoided; and if
the taxes are gathered regularly enough to pay the officials' salaries,
and to maintain the standing army. Abdul Hamid even attempted to
dispense with paying the army; and this ill-judged bit of economy was
the primary cause of his overthrow. An army is an institution which
cannot be prudently starved.
Of course all this systematized corruption involves huge losses to the
Government. The officials, for a consideration, will always allow their
friends to "make a bit;" and will often undervalue their property for
assessment by as much as 90 per cent. The Kurds are favoured at the
expense of the Christians because their support has to be courted,
although in the development of the country they are much the least
valuable asset. Yet even the Kurds are not reconciled by such means to
the paying of their taxes. Not so much because the taxes are heavy as
because they are unremunerative. They see no return for their money: no
roads, no education, no irrigation works. They are paying not taxes but
tribute, like the old vassal kings under Assyria; and consequently they
are always ripe for revolt, if they see any prospect of obtaining
external aid to enable them to revolt successfully; again like the
vassal kings under Assyria, who knew well that they would get flayed
alive if they failed.
The best one can say of the administration of justice is that it
probably is not quite as corrupt as it appears to be. The judge takes
bribes from both sides with a view to remaining unbiased; and, if he is
scrupulous, restores his bribe to the loser. In criminal cases, however,
one must make allowance for a further principle. Among ourselves
criminal acts are regarded as an offence against the State, and it is
the State's duty to exact the penalty. But the Turks are inclined to
regard such acts merely as an offence against the individual. The State
does no more than recognize the right of the injured party (or his
representative) to take his own revenge--if he can.[27] It will only
itself occasionally condescend to act as his representative, if he
chances to be an influential person, or if some influential outsider
(say the British Consul) may be thereby obliged. Such a point of view is
very primitive, and inevitably leads to much injustice; but we cannot
hope to see this remedied until the Turk has digested our own Western
principles, and he has not made digestion easier by electing to swallow
them whole.
With regard to the Kurds[28] we desire to speak as charitably as we are
able; and we may find warrant for this in the words of Mar Ephrem, the
Syrian Bishop of Urmi, who, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
could say no worse of them than that they were _wakshi_ folk. _Wakshi_
means merely "uneducated;" but it is only fair to add that it is a term
of much greater opprobrium than seems quite reasonable in a country
where not one man in a hundred is able to read or write.
The lack of education which the bishop laments is akin to that "weakness
in arithmetic" which caused the Irishman to be hanged. They are apt to
have more sheep in their villages than they can legitimately account
for. They are a pastoral race, leaving agriculture almost exclusively to
the Syrians and Yezidis; but we fear that their "pastoral" ideals are
hardly those of Corydon or Meliboeus. Rather are they the modern
representatives of those Elliots and Maxwells and Johnstones who used to
practise "the faithful herdman's art" upon our own border; and it might
well be said to them (as was said to the chief of another great family
whose enormities have since culminated in the acquisition of a
dukedom)--
_Had everye honeste man his awin kye,_
_A right puir clan thy name wad be!_
Such doings are hardly criminal according to their own code of morals;
and if they confined themselves to cattle raiding, or even to an
occasional clean murder, we should be able to think of them more kindly.
But we fear that yet darker deeds must sometimes be reckoned against
them; deeds like those of Edom o' Gordon, or Black Adam of Cheviot, or
like that which drew Hepburn's vengeance on Bertram of Mitford tower. It
is highly interesting, no doubt, to find Donald Bean Lean in the flesh
still practising his old avocations in the highlands of Asia Minor; but
if we could also find there "the kindly gallows of Crieff," we do not
hesitate to avow that our state would be the more gracious.
There is a British Vice-Consulate at Diarbekr, but at the date of our
visit it was vacant. It is one of those posts which our Government is
apt to suppress whenever retrenchment seems advisable. Certainly the
Vice-Consul must lead a dull enough life; and the British trade, which
is the ostensible cause of his appointment, is a very nebulous entity.
Yet the mere presence of a European constitutes a very real protection
of the subject races in such an environment; and we owe at least this
much recognition of our treaty obligations towards them.[29]
Our national prestige in the East rests chiefly on our dominance in
India; and this is reflected in the fact that our Indian consulates in
the south are much better maintained than those in the north, which are
controlled from Europe. Our prestige too is a waning quantity. We are
living, as it were, on the capital accumulated for us by such men as
Stratford Canning; and it must be confessed that latterly our policy has
not been that of a Great Power. We seem content to preserve barbarism in
Mesopotamia in order to make our position in India easier; and to
discourage the Baghdad railway because it will make our frontier harder
to defend. That our military men should take this view is excusable.
They know our present unpreparedness; and some day it might even be
their duty to destroy that railway, because forces at their disposal
will not otherwise be adequate for defence. But from a national
standpoint such a dog-in-the-manger policy must eventually bring its own
punishment. Our most straightforward, and in the end our wisest, course
would be to promote all developments, and to shoulder manfully the
obligations which they entail.
We resumed our journey from Diarbekr across a lava-covered country by
perhaps the bumpiest bit of road between Aleppo and Mosul. We and all
our possessions were kept bouncing about in our _araba_ like so many dry
peas in a pod. The springs of a second carriage that was travelling
with us burst, and had to be spliced with string. Presently our own pole
broke off short at the socket, and had to be lashed up with string
likewise. By some miraculous dispensation the splice held out to Mardin.
These accidents and repairs delayed us, and nightfall caught us still on
the moorland. Our driver went astray off the almost invisible pathway,
and after a while was reduced to hunting for it with matches. We fished
out a portable candle-lamp, which gave somewhat more illumination; but
which scarcely seemed adequate for the next undertaking that awaited
us--the fording of a fairly wide river, running strongly, about axle
deep. Good luck, however, attended us, and we at length got safely to
our _khan_.
Next morning we were clear of the volcanic district and pursued our way
up a winding and fertile valley, which was threaded (for a marvel) by a
very presentable road. But over the _col_ at the head there was no road
whatever, and our horses had to scramble up a mountain side, rugged with
earth-fast boulders and the roots of stunted trees. But this was the
last of our obstacles. The road now revived intermittently; and though
but half finished and hilly, it held on to the end of our stage. Towards
evening we climbed the long zigzag ascent to the top of a 3000 feet
mountain, and, crossing the ridge, wheeled immediately into the streets
of the city of Mardin.
Mardin occupies a superb situation at the summit of one of the eminences
which are ranged like a wall along the northern border of the
Mesopotamian plain. All trace of an intervening plateau has here been
completely eliminated; and from the foot of the declivity the ground
stretches away to the southward in one illimitable level. The furthest
identified landmark, a huge _tel_ rising conspicuously in the far
distance, was pointed out to us as Tel Kokab nearly eighty miles away.
These mountains are the Jebel Tur, the Mount Athos of the extreme east.
They are a wild and barren district, containing very few villages, but
thickly studded with ancient Christian monasteries; some of which date
back to the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, and most of which are
still occupied by small companies of Syrian monks.[30] Mardin is
situated at the western extremity of this region; and the northern and
eastern boundaries are formed by a loop of the Tigris, which flows
behind the upland from Diarbekr to Jezire ibn Omar and issues there on
to Mosul plain.
The hill on which the city stands is of a form which is not uncommon
among the Kurdistan highlands, It rises from the plain in a single steep
slope, unbroken almost from base to summit; but it culminates in a
cresting of precipitous rock, so even and vertical that it looks like an
artificial wall. Immediately behind the city this cresting forms an
isolated knoll, cut off at the back and ends as abruptly as along the
front, and thus forming an immense table with a perfectly level top.
Many of the hills adjoining are of similar conformation; and another,
almost a replica of it, may be seen in the mountains further eastward,
forming the site of the town of Amadia.
Amadia is built entirely on the level top, and the encircling line of
precipice serves it instead of a rampart: but at Mardin the space on the
summit is only sufficient for the citadel, and the town lies just at the
foot of the precipice, sprawling down the southern slope of the hill.
The houses look forth across the plain, each over the roof of its
neighbour; and as even the lowest rank must be fully 1500 feet above
plain level, they form a conspicuous assemblage visible for scores of
miles away.
The town is some two miles in length and perhaps half a mile in width,
and is reputed to contain about 80,000 inhabitants. It is built of a
warm-coloured stone similar to that employed at Urfa; and, like Urfa, is
largely composed of good substantial buildings, which can sustain a
certain amount of dilapidation without lapsing altogether into squalor.
The streets are narrow and tortuous, and run for the most part
longitudinally; thus it is evident that the cliff which overhangs them
cannot (like the Amadia cliff) be in the habit of dropping fragments
down the slope beneath it; otherwise the lanes would run vertically,
and be a good deal wider than they are! Some of the principal mosques
possess considerable architectural pretensions, with Arabesque
stalactite corbelling inserted in the coves over the doorways, and a
certain amount of good carving introduced here and there on the facades.
They are generally covered with fluted domes--a rather unusual feature,
but one which is very conducive to the general effectiveness of the
design.
Mardin is a walled city, but its walls were never very formidable and
are now mostly ruinous. They consist but of broken fragments even on the
citadel rock. The place was no Roman fortalice like Urfa or Diarbekr,
and the part that it played in history was not of any great note. For
some time it was the capital city of a petty dynasty of little
independent Sultans; and the tomb of one of the most powerful of these
forms a graceful adjunct to one of the chief mosques. One unique
distinction, however, belongs to its rock-perched citadel. This is said
to have held out successfully against the invincible Timour himself.
Mardin is in these days best known to us as the residence of the
Patriarch of the Jacobites--Mar Ignatius, the modern inheritor of the
throne of Antioch, that earliest of all Metropolitan sees. He resides at
Deir el Za'aferan, the "Monastery of the Yellow Rocks," which is
situated about five miles eastward upon the southern slope of the
mountains, in a position very similar to that of the town itself but on
a separate hill. Deir el Za'aferan is a very ancient foundation dating
from the fifth or sixth century; and certain fragments of its original
structure still survive to this day, incorporated in the existing
buildings. They are of pronouncedly classical character, and display a
strong similarity to the admittedly Roman work in the Church of St.
James at Nisibin: but the major part of the monastery is of much more
modern construction; for it has been almost constantly occupied ever
since the date of its erection, and subjected to many vicissitudes,
being frequently ruined and rebuilt.
The Syrian "Jacobite" Christians are a poor remnant now, but they were
once the dominant Church in that group of old Roman provinces that we
style loosely, "Syria and Palestine," but which Romans called "The
Orient," _Praefactura Orientalis_.
Syriac (_i.e._ Aramaic) was the vernacular of these lands, whose capital
for both ecclesiastical and political matters was Antioch. Their use of
a separate language gave a national tinge to their Christianity; and
they resented the Greek uniformity which the Emperor of Constantinople
for political reasons sought to impose upon them. They fought this
battle on the doctrinal field, refusing to accept the "Constantinopolitan"
council of Chalcedon, and finding in that refusal a rallying-point for
their own desire for independence.
For some time, it seemed probable that the emperor would seek to
reconcile the discontented provinces by abandoning the council to which
they objected; this policy, however, was rejected by Justinian
(527-565), with the result that these "Monophysite"[31] malcontents
organized themselves on a footing of separation from the Greek Church,
but they remained in fellowship with the Churches of Armenia and Egypt;
and the bulk of the Christian population of these provinces was in
sympathy with them.
Thus, when the Mohammedan invasions of the seventh century commenced,
the Arabs found that the bulk of the provincials were disposed to
receive them as deliverers rather than as foes. In return, they
recognized these Monophysites as the dominant Christian _millet_ of
these provinces, and so they remained for centuries.
Their nickname of "Jacobite" has nothing whatever to do with the "White
Rose Society," but was given them during the sixth century. Justinian
attempted to force them into "Orthodoxy" by imprisoning their bishops,
so as to prevent the ordination of any clergy but those of whom he
approved. While in prison, the bishops consecrated a certain monk
Jacobus Baradaeus, to the episcopate, and gave him a "roving
commission." For thirty-five years he wandered from place to place in a
beggar's horse-cloth (_bara'da_), and reorganized the whole separatist
hierarchy.
Their Patriarch claims to be a true representative of the original
Patriarchate of Antioch. In the days of their oppression, he was
naturally not permitted to reside there, and shifted his quarters from
monastery to monastery, till he settled at last at Deir el Za'aferan.
The Greeks have of course a Patriarch of the see, though they have to
admit the existence of gaps in his line of ancestry, and a Latin
claimant of the same was established in the time of the Crusades. These
reside now at Damascus and Beyrout respectively.
The Jacobite Church comprises about a quarter of a million adherents in
Asiatic Turkey with--we believe--twelve bishops; and there are about the
same number under British rule in Malabar.
Neither they nor their eastern neighbours the "Nestorians" hold now (if
they ever did) the peculiar heresies which their names suggest, and
which their enemies credited them with teaching. Each has now come to
teach, and perhaps has always taught, all the doctrine that their
Orthodox opponents sought to guard at the councils which these
Separatists nevertheless continue to repudiate. The old division
continues; but more as a matter of convenience than of principle, and
the more intelligent bishops on both sides admit that all real
differences have disappeared.
Yet no fusion is likely at present, for the rank and file are
unreconciled, and fortify their mutual suspicion with all sorts of
groundless ideas. "Is it really true," asked an old Jebel Tur monk in
all simplicity, "that the Nestorians wash their altar with asses' blood
before they celebrate the Eucharist?"
The Nestorian deacon who attended us, and who heard this amazing
aspersion, could hardly be restrained from falling on the inquirer there
and then!