Akserai—The Kurds—Raids upon the villages—Five females
ravished—The Pacha at Van is powerless to help the
villagers—The hot springs in Lake Van—Fish—How to
catch them—Zerekli—Starlings—Patnos—We cross the Murad
river—Dotah—The Caimacan—The devil-worshipper—His house—A
Yezeed sheik—Scarcity of accommodation.
We reached Akserai. I was informed by my host, an Armenian, that the
Christians in this district live in constant dread of their warlike
neighbours, the Kurds—and the more particularly of the Kurds from
Persia. These mountaineers sometimes made raids upon the villages, and
committed all sorts of excesses on the women. Only three months previous
a scene of this description had taken place at Akserai. The Kurds had
come there in the night: five of the females in the village had been
ravished by the assailants.
The Armenian who gave me this information declared that he liked the
Pacha at Van, but said that the latter was powerless to prevent these
attacks. There were 5000 Kurds in the mountains, and all were well-armed
men. Artillery could not be transported in those regions. The troops
at the disposal of the Government were too few to be of any real
assistance.
There were many hot springs in Lake Van, and I was assured that, in
places, a man could not put his hand in the water without being scalded.
Fish, according to my informant, are only caught in the spring months.
The finny tribe then descend the rivers to the Lake, and are taken in
large numbers.
The villagers draw three nets across the mouths of the rivers. There
are funnels in the first two nets, which are left open for the fish to
pass. The apertures in the second net being much smaller than those in
the first. When the men discover, by the pressure against the outer net,
that they have as many fish as the trammels will hold, they close the
funnels, and draw the nets together. The captives, in their endeavours
to escape, leap several feet into the air, and the scene is a highly
animated one. No large fishes are met with, their average size being
from one to two pounds. When a sufficient number have been taken, the
women salt them down, and they are kept for winter consumption.
There is a great deal of plough-land in the neighbourhood of Akserai,
and, on inquiry, I learnt that corn is grown here in large quantities.
We rode along the shores of the lake for two hours, and, after
traversing a well-cultivated country, reached Zerekli. Here many of the
inhabitants were seated on the roofs of their houses—the women working
and the men basking in the sun. A few soldiers could be seen mending
their uniform, and an old Armenian woman was occupied in stitching a
shirt belonging to a truculent-looking sergeant. This gentleman sat
beside her, sans chemise, and smoking a long chibouk; volumes of smoke
from his pipe were slowly wreathing themselves in the atmosphere.
My host was engaged in mending the roof of his house. A buffalo, or some
heavy animal, had walked upon it. The part near the chimney had given
way.
Thousands of starlings were perched on some trees in the rear of the
dwellings. Many of these birds could be seen hopping about in close
proximity to a crowd of Turkish and Armenian urchins. The latter were
very different to English lads; for if the starlings had settled down
in one of our own villages, it would not have been long ere some boy or
other had thrown a stone at them.
It was pleasanter sitting on the roof of the house than being an inmate
of its subterranean recesses. But the night turned bitterly cold. A
thick mist arose from the lake. It warned the villagers to retire within
their dwellings, if they did not wish to risk catching a fever.
We followed their example, and in a short time experienced one of the
plagues with which Moses afflicted the Egyptians. There were some loose
boards in a corner of the stable; I took them, and tried to remove my
body from the onslaught of the vermin by making a sort of scaffolding
to sleep upon, three feet from the floor. However, it was all to no
purpose. If my tormentors could not reach me by climbing from the
ground, they ascended the sides of the building and dropped down upon
the scaffolding from the ceiling.
Sleep was out of the question. Starting before daybreak, we continued
our journey alongside the lake. Thousands of geese and ducks were
skimming along the surface of its waters. In the distance some
broad-bottomed boats could be seen. They were laden with wood, and were
transporting this article of fuel to the adjacent villages.
We crossed two small rivers, and then, continuing through deep snow,
arrived, after a six-hours' march, at Patnos. A river of the same name
runs through the village, which contains fifty houses, and the stream,
continuing its course a few miles farther, runs into the Murad. Patnos
was garrisoned by a company of soldiers. A Mudir looked after the
welfare of the inhabitants. The troops were not strong enough to cope
with the Kurds in the neighbourhood. The result was that the misdeeds
of the mountaineers went unpunished.
A few hours later, and we crossed the Murad river, here about sixty
yards wide, the water being up to our horses' shoulders, and, after an
eight-hours' march, halted in a Yezeed village called Dotah.
The Caimacan in this place was not very hospitably inclined. Instead
of offering me a room in his own house, as had been the custom with
the governors at our previous halting-places, he ordered an old Yezeed
farmer to provide us with accommodation for the night.
The ancient devil-worshipper was anything but pleased at having to find
a shelter for my servants and self. He had only two rooms, and one of
the travelling priests or sheiks of his community was with him as a
visitor. The sheik would want a room to himself, and there would be only
the stable left for the old man, his family, our horses, and selves.