Kotoor—The Quarantine station—The medical officer in
charge—The Governor of Kotoor—A Russian disguised as
a Persian—Mineral wealth—The Russians would like this
territory—A stepping-stone to Bagdad and Mosul—A loyal
Kurd—Aleshkert—The people there take the strongest
side—Moullah Hassan—Kurdish merchants—The postman—His mule—The
mule in the water—My new yellow trousers—The saddle-bags in
the river—Nestorian villages—How to buy a wife—Exchange and
barter—A horse and two sheep—Van—The Pacha—The barracks—The
garrison—Bitlis.
I was not sorry to reach Kotoor. The track had been very bad for
the last half of our journey. An eleven hours' march made under such
circumstances is tiring for man as well as beast.
There is a quarantine station in the town. The medical officer in charge
has to examine all people travelling from Persia to Turkey by this
route. This is done to prevent persons suffering from cholera or plague
spreading these maladies throughout the Sultan's dominions.
The governor of Kotoor was a Persian by birth. His father had been
in the Shah's service, but had changed his allegiance and enabled the
Sultan to take possession of some land round Kotoor, which originally
belonged to Persia. He now informed me that the Persians were forming
a military camp at Salmas, and said that probably this was being done
with the connivance of Russia.
The medical officer, an Italian, entered the room; he was about eighty
years of age, and had been in Kotoor since 1847. His emoluments consist
of ten piastres per head, which he receives from every one who passes
along the Kotoor road from Persia to Turkey.
"A Russian came here the other day," observed the doctor. "He was
disguised as a Persian, and thought that I did not recognize his
nationality."
"What was the object of his journey?"
"Probably to stir up the Kurds, and invite the Armenians to rise against
the Mussulmans," replied the doctor. "There is a great deal of mineral
wealth in this neighbourhood," he continued; "coal and iron abound
within two miles of this place."
"The Russians would like to take this territory for two reasons,"
remarked the governor; "first, because having Kotoor and Van, they
would be able to make depôts and preparations for a march further south
upon Bagdad and Mosul; and, secondly, on account of the mines in the
district."
A Kurdish chieftain who lived near Bitlis had recently written to the
Sultan, offering him the services of 20,000 men, in the event of a war
between Turkey and Russia. His offer was accepted, and the loyal Kurd's
heart had been gladdened by the present of a magnificent silk turban
and a sword.
The mountaineers near Kotoor could all be relied upon by the Turks. But
there was reason to mistrust the sincerity and good faith of the Kurds
in the neighbourhood of Moush and Aleshkert. They were said to have
recently received large sums of money, besides arms, from Russia.
"If the Russians were to be worsted, the Kurds would be the first to
turn these arms against their quondam friends," added the governor; "for
the people about Aleshkert are proverbial for one thing,—namely, that
they always take the winning side."
The following morning I said good-bye to the hospitable old doctor, in
whose house I had slept. He had kindly given me a bed in one corner of
his room—he himself, and the rest of his family, having slept in the
other.
We rode towards Van. It is about sixty miles distant from Kotoor. Our
track for the first hour ran within the mountain gorge—a continuation
of the Kotoor Pass, but which here is several miles wide. After riding
by several Kurdish villages, we began to ascend a succession of rising
slopes. Plateau after plateau, each higher than its neighbour, were
extended in front of us; the snow at each moment became deeper. It was
evident that we could not reach Van on that evening. I determined to
break the journey at the village of Moullah Hassan, which would be about
a ten hours' march from Kotoor. Several Kurdish merchants had joined
our party; they were travelling from Khoi, and drove before them oxen
and calves laden with timbaki (Persian tobacco).
One of the Kurds possessed a mule. This animal, besides his master's
personal effects, carried the post-bag from Khoi to Van. The Kurd led
his mule for some time, but at length, tiring of this, he turned the
animal loose, and drove him before our party, in company with the oxen
and calves belonging to the other traders. We had nearly reached Moullah
Hassan; the mule had outstripped the rest of the caravan, I was riding
behind him. The road suddenly dipped. There was a declivity in front of
us. I lost sight of the animal. He had disappeared.
It was becoming dark. I pulled up my horse for a moment—it was lucky
that I did so, for in another moment we should have been in a river—the
dip being neither more nor less than the bed of the stream, which was
covered over with a thin film of ice and two or three feet of snow. In
another second the mule's head appeared above the surface. His frantic
struggles showed that he was endeavouring to gain a foothold.
The proprietor of the animal came up.
"My new yellow trousers!" was his first remark. A fearful oath then
resounded from his lips.
He had bought some clothes at Khoi. They were in his saddle-bags and on
the mule—the letter-bag being evidently considered by the muleteer as
something quite secondary to his personal attire. He tried to reach the
animal, but the ice, breaking, let him into the water. In the meantime
the exertions of the mule had loosened his surcingle, presently it
gave way; saddle, and letters, in addition to the wardrobe of the Kurd,
slipped off the animal's back. They sank to the bottom of the river.
Our guide, turning to the right, proposed that we should ride up the
stream, and try and find a place where the ice would bear. This was
done. About half an hour afterwards we found ourselves beneath the
roof of a Kurdish farmer—the chief proprietor in the village of Moullah
Hassan.
There were several Nestorian villages in the neighbourhood; however, the
inhabitants of these hamlets possess the reputation of being dirtier
than the Kurds, so the traveller who is wise will invariably elect to
pass the night with the mountaineers.
The Kurd whose mule had fallen into the water entered the room. In
one hand he bore something which was dripping wet. He salaamed, and
then began to wring out the article he was carrying; the trousers were
exposed to view. Once of a yellow colour, they were now a dull brown.
The Kurd, stretching them out on the floor, gazed in a melancholy manner
upon the soiled vestments.
"A horse and two sheep," he remarked with a sob; "Effendi, have pity
upon me!"
"What does he want?" I inquired of Mohammed.
It appeared that the Kurd wished to buy a wife from a neighbouring
farmer who had some marriageable daughters. Their father, nothing loth,
and who was in want of a pair of broad yellow trousers, had consented,
provided the candidate for his girl's hand would provide him with a
beautiful pair, a turban, and some tea. Broad yellow drawers, or pants,
as Yankees would call them, are not often to be met with in Kurdistan.
They are brought from Erivan in Russia, and are greatly prized by the
mountaineers. The Kurd had been to Khoi on purpose, had sold there a
horse and two sheep; with the proceeds of the sale he had purchased the
attire in question. He was now dreadfully alarmed lest the father of
the girl should decline giving his daughter in exchange for the soiled
apparel.
"But what can I do in the matter?" was my next question.
"Give me a baksheesh," said the Kurd, "and I will return to Khoi and
buy some more garments."
The man had forgotten about the mail-bag, which lay buried beneath the
frozen surface of the river.
Desiring him to go and fish up the letters, I promised that, later in
the day, I would take his case into consideration.
The snow disappeared as we approached the town of Van. We rode by a
small lake, about twelve miles from our halting-place. Continuing on
over a succession of table-lands, the path sloped down towards the great
lake or sea, to which the capital of Armenia gives a name.
Van stands in a plain and is surrounded by orchards filled with
fruit-trees. The ground in the neighbourhood is highly cultivated, corn
and other cereals flourishing throughout the district.
I had sent forward a letter of introduction to the governor of Van from
Ismail Pacha of Erzeroum. The man to whom I had entrusted the epistle
had not taken the trouble to deliver it. The governor was quite ignorant
of my arrival.
I stopped at his house, and, going up to the reception-chamber, found
him busily engaged in conversation with an official who had recently
arrived from Constantinople, to inquire into the excesses said to have
been committed by some soldiers upon the Armenians in Van.
The Pacha received me very courteously, in spite of my not having a
letter for him; he remarked, with a smile, that there were no hotels in
Van as in Constantinople, and said that he would provide me with a room
in a barrack which had been lately erected in the town.
The officer commanding the garrison now entered the room, and
accompanied me to my quarters. The barrack was two stories high, and
in the form of a square, with a courtyard for drill in the centre of
the building. The officers and men's rooms were on the first story,
and below them the stables for the horses. The apartment given me was
large and clean. The walls were whitewashed, the floor was covered with
a Persian carpet. A large looking-glass—the first I had seen since I
quitted our consul's house in Erzeroum—was suspended from the walls.
There were only half a battalion of infantry and a battery of Krupp guns
at that time in Van. The remainder of the garrison, consisting of one
battalion and a half, had marched the previous week to the neighbourhood
of Bitlis, where some Kurds had burnt down a Turkish guard-house.