Part 30

There are many Circassian villages on the skirts of the Sipan Dagh, and their inhabitants bear nearly as bad a reputation as that of the Kurds. They are well armed, and defy the local government. They are robbers and pilferers, and though they receive, or did receive, an allowance raised by a tax on the general community, they wring what they please out of the people among whom they live.

A mile from Akhlat, on a table-land of smooth green sward high above the silver sea, facing southwards, with a glorious view of the mountains of Central Kurdistan whitened with the first snows of winter, lies in an indescribable loneliness--the city of the dead. The sward is covered though not crowded with red sandstone monoliths, from six to fourteen feet in height, generally in excellent preservation. Each has a projecting cornice on the east side with carved niches, and the western face is covered with exquisite tracery in arabesques and knot-work, and inscriptions in early Arabic. On the graves are either three carved stones arranged on edge, or a single heavy hewn stone with a rounded top, and sides decorated with arabesques. Few of these beautiful monoliths have fallen, but some are much time-worn, and have a growth of vivid red or green lichen upon them.

Besides these there are some lofty _turbehs_ or mausoleums, admirably preserved and of extreme beauty. The form is circular. The sepulchre is a closed chamber, with another above it open half-way round on the lake side, and a colonnade of very beautiful pillars supports round arches, above which are five exquisitely-carved friezes. The whole is covered with a conical roof of carved slabs of red stone, under which runs an Arabic inscription. Each of these buildings is decorated with ornament in the Saracenic style, of a richness and beauty of which only photography could give any adequate representation. Close to the finest of these _turbehs_ is an old mosque with a deeply-arched entrance, over which is a recess, panelled and carved like one in the finest of the rock chambers. The lintels of the door are decorated with stone cables. Mirza counted more than 900 monoliths.

As I sketched the finest of these beautiful mausoleums some _mollahs_ came up and objected to the proceeding, and Moussa urged me to desist, as the remainder of the march was "very dangerous," he said, and must be "got over" in full daylight. This phrase "very dangerous," as used in Armenia, means that there is a serious risk of having the baggage and horses driven off, and the men stripped to a single garment. Such things are happening constantly, and even Moussa ceases his joking when he speaks of them.[56] The remaining march was over great solitary sweeps of breezy upland to Pikhruz, an Armenian village of 100 houses, which has an intelligent Protestant teacher with sixty boys in his school. The villagers possess 4000 sheep, and have not been much harassed by the Kurds. They employ Kurdish shepherds and four night watchmen, two of whom are Kurds. The head-dresses of the women are heavy with coins, and they wear stomachers and aprons so richly embroidered that no part of the original material is visible.

The _khan_ is an exceptionally bad _odah_, and is absolutely crowded with horses, oxen, and men, and dim with the fumes of animal fuel and tobacco. It is indeed comically wretched. The small space round the fire is so crowded with _zaptiehs_, _katirgis_, and villagers that I have scarcely room for my chair and the ragamuffin remains of my baggage. Murphy is crouching over a fire which he is trying to fan into a state in which it will cook my unvarying dinner--a fowl and potatoes. Moussa is as usual convulsing the company with his stories and jokes, and is cracking walnuts for me; the schoolmaster is enlarging to me on that fruitful topic--"the state of things," the sabres and rifles of my escort gleam on the blackened posts, the delectable ox and horse faces wear a look of content, as they munch and crunch their food, the risk of sleeping in a tent is discussed, and meanwhile I write spasmodically with the candle and ink on a board on my lap. I am fast coming to like these cheery evenings in the _odahs_, where one hears the news of the country and villages. The _khanji_, the man who keeps the guest-house, provides fire, light, horse-food, and the usual country diet at so much per head, and obtains the daily fowl, which costs about 6d., and is cooked while warm. Milk can be got from one of the cows in the stable. My expenses for food and lodging are from 4s. to 6s. a night.

_Matchetloo, November 19._--One of the most unpleasant parts of the routine of the journey is the return to the _odah_ at 5 A.M. after a night in the fresh air, for the atmosphere is so heated and foul as almost to knock one down. The night frosts are sharp, and as we start before sunrise we are all glad to walk for the first hour. The night in my tent at Pikhruz was much disturbed, and I realised that it is somewhat risky for me to have my servants out of hearing in the depths of a semi-subterranean dwelling. The village dogs raged at times as though the Kurds were upon them, and every half-hour the village guards signalled to each other with a long mournful yell. I was awakened once by a confusion of diabolical sounds, shots, shrieks, roars, and yells, which continued for some time and then died away. In the morning the guards said that the Kurds had attacked a large caravan on the plain below, but had been repulsed, and that men on both sides had been wounded.

The following day's march by the silver sheet of the Kuzik Lake, alive with ducks, divers, and other water fowl, was very charming. Snow had fallen heavily, and the Sipan Dagh and the Nimrud Dagh were white more than half-way down their sides. From the summit of a very wild pass we bade adieu to the beautiful Sea of Van, crossed a plain in which is a pretty fresh-water lake with several villages and much cultivation on its margin, and, after some hours of solitary mountain travelling, came down upon the great plain of Norullak, sprinkled with large villages, very fertile, and watered by the Murad-chai, the eastern branch of the Euphrates.

I was to have had an easy march of five hours, and to have spent Sunday at Shaoub in the comfortable house of a Protestant pastor with an English-speaking wife, but the _zaptiehs_ took the wrong road, and as twilight came on it was found that Shaoub had been left hours behind. I have been suffering very much from the fatigue of the very long marches, and only got through this one by repeatedly lying down by the roadside while the _zaptiehs_ went in search of information. After it was quite dark and we were still astray, news came that Shaoub was occupied by 400 Turkish soldiers, and that there were neither supplies nor accommodation, and after two more hours of marching and counter-marching over ploughed lands and among irrigation ditches, we emerged on the Erzerum road, six inches deep in dust, forded a river in thick darkness, got very wet, and came out upon the large village of Yangaloo, a remarkable collection of 170 ant-hills rather than houses, with their floors considerably below the ground. The prospects in this hummocky place were most unpromising, and I was greeted by Moussa, who, on finding that Shaoub was full of troops, had had the wits to go on to Yangaloo, with the information that there was "no accommodation."

A womanly, Christian grip of my arm reassured me, and I was lodged for Sunday in the Protestant church, the villagers having arranged to worship elsewhere. A building forty feet long with small paper-covered windows under the eaves was truly luxurious, but the repose of Sunday morning was broken by loud and wearisome noises, lasting for several hours, which received a distressing explanation. I was informed by the priests and several of the leading men of the village that Yangaloo for some time past had suffered severely from the Kurds, and that just before a heavy demand for taxes had been made by the Government, the three days' grace usually granted having been refused. The local official had seized the flax seed, their most profitable crop, at half-price, and had sold it for full price, his perquisite amounting to a large sum. Fifteen _arabas_, each one loaded with seven large sacks of "linseed," were removed in the morning.

The people were very friendly. All the "brethren" and "sisters" came to kiss hands, and to wish that my departure "might be in great peace," and on Sunday evening I was present at a gathering of men in a room with the door carefully bolted and guarded, who desired me to convey to "the Consul" at Erzerum, with the attestation of the names of the priests of the Old and Reformed Churches, certain complaints and narratives of wrong, which represented a condition of living not to be thought of without grief and indignation, and not to be ignored because it is partially chronic.

Yangaloo is a typical Armenian village, its ant-hill dwellings are half-sunk, and the earth which has been excavated is piled up over their roofs and sides. The interior of each dwelling covers a considerable area, and is full of compartments with divisions formed by low clay walls or by the posts which support the roof, the compartments ramifying from a widening at the inner end of a long dark passage. In Yangaloo, as in other villages on the plains, the earth is so piled over the houses as to render them hardly distinguishable from the surrounding ground, but where a village burrows into a hill-side only a small projection needs an artificial roof. The people live among their live stock; one entrance serves for both, and in winter time the animals never leave the stables. The fireplace or _tand[=u]r_ is in the floor, but is only required for cooking purposes, as the heat and steam of the beasts keep the human beings comfortably warm. From two to five families live in every house, and the people are fairly healthy.[57]

All the male members of a family bring their brides to live under the parental roof, and one "burrow" may contain as many as three generations of married couples with their families. On becoming an inmate of her father-in-law's house, each Armenian bride, as in the country districts of Persia, has to learn the necessity of silence. Up to the day of the birth of the first child she is the family drudge, and may not speak to any one but her husband, and not to him in the presence of his parents. Maternity liberates her tongue; she may talk to her child, and then to the females of the household; but she may not speak freely till some years of this singular novitiate have passed by. She then takes a high place in the house, and eventually rules it if she is left a widow. The Armenian women are veiled out of doors, but only in deference to the Moslems, who regard an uncovered head as the sign of a bad woman. The girls are handsome, but sheepish-looking; their complexions and eyes are magnificent.

Sunday was windy, with a gray sky, and the necessity of getting over the Ghazloo Pass before the weather absolutely broke was urged upon me by all. On the plain of Norullak, not far from Yangaloo, I forded the Euphrates,--that is, the Murad-chai, a broad, still, and deep river, only fordable at certain seasons. The fine mountain Bijilan is a landmark in this part of the country. Leaving the Euphrates we ascended for some hours through bleak uninteresting regions to Kara Kapru, and on the road passed thirty well-armed Kurds, driving a number of asses, which the _zaptiehs_ said had been driven off from two Christian villages, which they pointed out. I was interested in the movements of some mounted men, who hovered suspiciously about my caravan, and at one time galloped close up to it, but retired on seeing the Government uniforms, and were apparently "loafing about" among the valleys. The _zaptiehs_ said that they were notorious robbers, and would not go home without booty. Towards evening they reappeared with several bullocks and asses which they had driven off from the village of ----, the headman of which came to me in the evening and asked me to report the robbery to "the Consul," adding that this was the third time within a week that his village had been robbed of domestic animals, and that he dared not complain.

At Kara Kapru, the best-looking Armenian village I have seen, while I was looking for an _odah_, Moussa, in spite of Murphy and the _zaptiehs_, dashed off with his horses at full speed, and never stopped till he reached Ghazloo, three hours farther on. This barbarous conduct was occasioned by his having heard that two of his forty horses ahead had broken down, and he hurried on to replace them with two of mine! I was so tired and in so much pain that I was obliged to lie down on the roadside for a considerable time before I could proceed, and got a chill, and was so wretched that I had to be tied on my horse. It was pitch dark, the _zaptiehs_ continually lost the way, heavy rain came on, and it was 9 P.M. when we reached Ghazloo, a village high up on a hill-slope, where Mirza and Murphy carried me into a small and crowded stable, and later into my tent, which was pitched in the slime at the stable door. Moussa was repentant, borrowed a _kajaveh_, and said he would give me his strong horse for nothing!

Torrents of rain fell, changing into sleet, and sleet into snow, and when the following day dawned dismally my tent was soaked, and standing in slush and snow. My bed was carried into the stable, and I rested while the loading was going on. Suleiman, my special _zaptieh_, said that the _khanji_ was quadrupling the charges, and wanted me not to pay him anything. The _khanji_ retorted that I gave the _zaptieh_ money to pay, and that he gave only a few coppers to the people--a glaring untruth, for Murphy pays everything in my presence. Thereupon Suleiman beat the _khanji_ with his scabbarded sword, on which the man struck him, and there was a severe fight, in the course of which the combatants fell over the end of my bed. So habituated does one become to scenes of violence in this country that I scarcely troubled myself to say to Murphy, "Tell them to fight outside."

It was a severe day's march over the Bingol Dagh, and I know little about the country we passed through. We skirted a bleak snowy hillside, first in rain and then in a heavy snowstorm, made a long ascent among drifting snow clouds, saw an ass abandoned by a caravan shivering in the bitter wind, with three magpies on its back picking its bleeding wounds, and near the summit of the Ghazloo Pass encountered a very severe "blizzard," so severe that no caravan but my own attempted to face it, and sixty conscripts _en route_ for Bitlis in charge of two officers and some cavalry turned back in spite of words and blows, saying, "We may be shot; better that than to die on the hillside"! Poor fellows, they are wretchedly dressed, and many of them have no socks. The "blizzard" was very awful--"a horror of great darkness," a bewildering whirl of pin-like snow coming from all quarters at once, a hurricane of icy wind so fearful that I had to hold on by the crupper and mane to avoid being blown out of the saddle; utter confusion, a deadly grip at my heart, everything blotted out, and a sense of utter helplessness. Indeed I know of no peril in which human resources count for so little. After reaching the summit of the pass the risk was over, but we were seriously delayed in forcing a passage through the drift, which was fully seven feet deep. The men were much exhausted, and they say that "half an hour of it would have finished them." All landmarks were lost in the storm, and after some hours of struggling through snow, and repeatedly losing the way, the early darkness compelled us to take refuge in a Kurdish village of bad repute on a bleak mountain side.

The _odah_ was not only the worst I have yet seen, but it was crammed with handsome, wild-looking Kurds, and with the conscripts who had turned back at the pass, some of whom were suffering from fever, and with cavalrymen and their horses, every man trying to get near the fire. I cannot say that any of them were rude, indeed the Kurds did their best for what they supposed to be my comfort. I spent the evening among them, but slept in my tent outside, in two feet of snow, 100 yards from the stable, in spite of the protestations of the _zaptiehs_. In fact I trusted to Kurdish watchmen, who turned out faithful, and when an attempt was made to rob my tent in the night they sprang on the robbers, and after a struggle got two of them down and beat them with their guns, both sides yelling like savages. When I left the _odah_ for the tent two Kurds gripped my arms and led me to it through the deep snow. It was better to run some risk than to be suffocated by the heat and overpowering odours of the stable, but it was an eerie place.

_November 21._--The weather considerably delayed my farther progress. The days were severe, and the nights were spent in a soaked tent, pitched in slush or snow. Mist and snow concealed the country, and few travellers were stirring. We marched with the powder caravan for the sake of the escort and for its services in beating the track, and Moussa and his men watched at night. The going was very bad, and both Moussa and I fell down hill slopes with our horses, but the animals luckily alighted on their feet. Moussa's jollity was very useful. He is a capital mimic, and used to "take off" Mirza in the _odahs_ at night, and as Murphy lost no opportunity of showing up the poor fellow's want of travelling _savoir-faire_, he would have had a bad time but for his philosophical temperament and imperturbable good-nature. I suffered very much from my spine, but the men were all kind, and tried to make things easy for me, and the _zaptiehs_ were attentive and obliging.

Kurdistan is scarcely a "geographical expression," and colloquially the word is used to cover the country inhabited by the Kurds. They are a mysterious people, having maintained themselves in their original seats and in a condition of semi-independence through all the changes which have passed over Western Asia, though they do not exceed numerically two and a quarter millions of souls. Such as they were when they opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand they seem to be still. War and robbery are the business of Kurdish life.

[Illustration: A HAKKIARI KURD.]

One great interest of this journey is that it lies through a country in which Kurds, Turks, and Armenians live alongside each other--the Kurds being of two classes, the tribal, who are chiefly nomads, owning no law but the right of the strongest; and the non-tribal or settled, who, having been conquered by Turkey, are fairly orderly, and are peaceable except in their relations with the Christians. The strongholds of the tribal Kurds are in the wild mountains of Kurdistan, and especially in the Hakkiari country, which is sprinkled with their rude castles and forts. An incurable love of plunder, a singular aptitude for religious fanaticism, a recklessness as to the spilling of blood, a universal rapacity, and a cruel brutality when their passions are roused, are among their chief vices. The men are bold, sober, and devoted to their kinsmen and tribe; and the women are chaste, industrious, and maternal. Under a firm and equitable Government, asserting vigorously and persistently the supremacy of law and the equal rights of race and creed, they would probably develop into excellent material.

The village Turk, as he is described by Europeans well acquainted with him and speaking his language, and as I have seen him on a long journey, is a manly, hospitable, hard-working, kindly, fairly honest fellow, domestic, cheerful, patriotic, kind to animals, usually a monogamist, and usually also attentive to his religious duties.

The Christians, who, in this part of Kurdistan, are all Armenians by race, live chiefly on the plains and in the lower folds of the hills, and are engaged in pastoral and agricultural pursuits. My letters have given a faithful representation of them as dwelling with their animals in dark semi-subterranean hovels. The men are industrious, thrifty, clannish, domestic, and not given to vices, except that of intoxication, when they have the means and opportunity, and the women are hardworking and chaste. Both sexes are dirty, hardy, avaricious, and superstitious, and ages of wrong have developed in them some of the usual faults of oppressed Oriental peoples. They cling desperately to their historic church, which is represented among the peasants by priests scarcely less ignorant than themselves. Their bishops constitute their only aristocracy.

They are grossly ignorant, and of the world which lies outside the _sandjak_ in which they live they know nothing. The Sultan is to them a splendid myth, to whom they owe and are ready to pay a loyal allegiance. Government is represented to them by the tax-gatherer and his brutalities. Of justice, the most priceless product of good government, they know nothing but that it is a marketable commodity. With the Armenian trading communities of the cities they have slender communication, and little except nationality and religion in common.

As a rule, they live in villages by themselves, which cluster round churches, more or less distinguishable from the surrounding hovels, but there are also mixed villages in which Turks and Armenians live side by side, and in these cases they get on fairly well together, though they instinctively dislike each other, and the Turk despises his neighbour both for his race and creed. The Armenians have not complained of being maltreated by the Turkish peasants, and had there been any cause for complaint it would certainly have reached my ears.

On this journey hundreds of stories have been told to me by priests of both the Old and Protestant Churches, headmen, and others, of robbery by demand, outrages on women, digging into houses, killing, collectively and individually, driving off sheep and cattle, etc., etc.[58]