Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan Volume Ii Part 24

The women when young are beautiful, but hard work and early maternity lead to a premature loss of form, and to a withered angularity of feature which is far from pleasing, and which, as they do not veil, is always _en evidence_.

The poorer Kurds wear woollen socks of gay and elaborate patterns; cotton shoes like the _gheva_ of the Persians; camlet trousers, wide at the bottom like those of sailors; woollen girdles of a Kashmir shawl pattern; short jackets and felt jerkins without sleeves. The turban usually worn is peculiar. Its foundation is a peaked felt cap, white or black, with a loosely-twisted rope of tightly-twisted silk, wool, or cotton wound round it. In the girdle the _khanjar_ is always seen. Over it the cartridge belt is usually worn, or two cartridge belts are crossed over the chest and back. The girdle also carries the pipe and tobacco pouch, a long knife, a flint and steel, and in some cases a shot pouch and a highly-ornamented powder horn.

The richer Kurds dress like the Syrians. The under-garment, which shows considerably at the chest and at the long and hanging sleeves, is of striped satin, either crimson and white or in a combination of brilliant colours, over which is worn a short jacket of cloth or silk, also with long sleeves, the whole richly embroidered in gold. Trousers of striped silk or satin, wide at the bottom; loose medieval boots of carnation-red leather; a girdle fastened with k.n.o.bbed clasps of silver as large as a breakfast cup, frequently incrusted with turquoises; red felt skull-caps, round which they wind large striped silk shawls, red, blue, orange, on a white or black ground, with long fringed ends hanging over the shoulders, and floating in the wind as they gallop; and in their girdles they carry richly-jewelled _khanjars_ and pistols decorated with silver k.n.o.bs, besides a number of other glittering appointments. The accoutrements of the horses are in keeping, and at marriages and other festivities the head-stalls, bridles, and breast-plates are completely covered with pendent silver coins.

The dress of the women is a foil to that of their lords. It consists of a blue cotton shirt; very wide trousers, drawn in at the ankles; a silver saucer on the head, from which chains depend with a coin at the end of each; a square mantle hanging down the back, clasped by two of its corners round the neck, and many strings of coins round the throat; a small handkerchief is knotted round the hair, and in presence of a strange man they hold one end of this over the mouth.

The Turks in Bitlis are in a small minority, and the number of Armenian Christians is stated at from 2000 to 5000. The Old Church has a large monastery outside the town and several churches and schools.

The Protestant Armenians have a substantial church edifice, with a congregation of about 400, and large boarding-schools for boys and girls.

The population is by far the wildest that I have seen in any Asiatic city, and is evidently only restrained from violence by the large garrison. It is not safe for the ladies of this mission to descend into the Moslem part of the city, and in a residence of more than twenty years they have never even pa.s.sed through the bazars. The missionaries occupy a restricted and uncertain position, and the Armenian Christians are subject to great deprivations and restraints, and are distrusted by the Government. Of late they have been much hara.s.sed by the search for arms, and Christian gunsmiths have been arrested. Even their funeral ceremonies are not exempt from the presence of the police, who profess to believe that firearms are either carried in the place of a corpse or are concealed along with it. Placed in the midst of a preponderating and fully-armed Kurdish population, capable at any moment of being excited to frenzy against their faith, they live in expectation of a ma.s.sacre, should certain events take place which are regarded as probable within two or three years.

It was not to see the grandeur and picturesqueness of Bitlis that I came here so late in the season, but to visit the American missionaries, especially two ladies. My hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Knapp, have returned from a visit to America to spend their last days in a country which has been their home for thirty years, and have lately been joined by their son, who spent his boyhood in Bitlis, and after graduating in an American university has come back, like so many sons of missionaries, to cast in his lot with a people to whom he is bound by many links of sympathy, bringing his wife with him. The two Misses ----, who are more than half English, and are highly educated and accomplished, met Mr. and Mrs. Knapp long ago in a steamer on the Mediterranean, and decided to return with them to this dangerous and outlandish place, where they have worked among the women and girls for twenty-three years, and are still full of love and hope. The school for girls, in which fifty boarders are received in addition to fifty day pupils, has a _kindergarten_ department attached to it. The parents of all are expected to contribute in money or in kind, but their increasing poverty is telling on their ability to do so, and this winter the supply of food contributed by them is far short of the mark.

The tastefulness and generosity of these ladies have produced as bright and beautiful a schoolroom as could be found anywhere, and ivy trained round the windows, growing plants, and pictures which are not daubs give a look of home. With them "Love is the fulfilling of the law"--love in every tone, look, and touch, and they have that true maternity of spirit which turns a school into a family, and trains as well as educates. They are now educating the children, and even grandchildren, of their earliest pupils, and have the satisfaction of seeing how very much their school has effected in permeating the household and social relationships of the Armenian women with the tone of Christian discipleship, so that one would scarcely hear from the lips of any of their married pupils the provoking question, "We are only women, what can we do?" Many of them have gone to homes in the roughest and wildest of mountain villages, where they sweeten village life by the gentle and kindly ways acquired in the Bitlis school.

These ladies conduct a mothers' meeting, and I thought that the women were much developed in intelligence and improved in manner as compared with the usual run of Armenian women. On being asked to address them, I took their own words for my text, "We are only women," etc., and found them intelligent and sympathetic.

These ladies have endured great hardships, and their present position is one of continual deprivation and frequent risk. One of them was so severely stoned in Bitlis that she fell unconscious from her horse. In the winter Miss ---- itinerates among the Armenian villages of the Mush and Rahwan Plains and the lake sh.o.r.e, travelling over the crust of the enormously deep snow in a hand-sled drawn by a man, braving storms which have nearly cost her her life, sleeping and living for a month or more at a time chiefly in _odahs_, and fearlessly encountering the very roughest of Kurds and others in these dim and crowded stables. The danger of village expeditions, and the difficulty of obtaining _zaptiehs_ without considerable expense, have increased of late, and the Mush Plain especially has been ravaged all the summer and autumn by the Kurds, with many barbarities and much loss of life, so that travelling for Christians even in companies has been dangerous. Caravans have lately been attacked and robbed, and in the case of one large mixed caravan the Christians were robbed but the Moslems were unmolested. A traveller was recently treacherously murdered by his _katirgis_, and Miss ----, having occasion to employ the same men a few days ago, saw and heard them rehea.r.s.e his dying agonies more than once for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Kurds on the road.

Luxury is unknown in this mission house. It is so small that in order to receive me the ladies are sleeping in a curtained recess in the kitchen, and the reception-room for the natives is the eating and living room of the family. Among them all there is a rare devotion, and lives spent in cheerful obedience to G.o.d and in loving service for man have left on their faces the impress of "the love which looks kindly and the wisdom which looks soberly on all things." The mission has had a severe struggle. The life on this mountain slope above the fanatical city is a very restricted one,--there is nothing of what we are accustomed to regard as "necessary recreation," and a traveller is not seen here above once in two or three years. All honour to those who have courage and faith to live such a life so lovingly and cheerfully!

I. L. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] It does not present any difficulty to me that Xenophon omits all mention of the lake of Van, for a range of hills lies between it and the road. I have travelled over the track twice, and failed to see anything in the configuration of the country which would have led me to suppose that the region to the eastward was anything but a continuity of ranges of hills and mountains, and if the Ten Thousand took the route from the eastern head-waters of the Tigris to the Murad-chai at the farther end of the plain of Mush, directing all their investigations and inquiries in a westerly direction, there are very many chances against their having been informed, even by their prisoners, of the existence of the sea of Van.

[55] _Paradise Lost_, iii. 741, "Nor stayed, till on Niphates' top he lights."

LETTER x.x.xIII

PIKHRUZ, _Nov. 14_.

I was indeed sorry to leave the charming circle at the Mission House and the wild grandeur of Bitlis, but a certain wan look in the sky and peculiar colouring on the mountains warned my friends that winter might set in any day, and Dr. Reynolds arranged for _katirgis_ and an escort, and obtained a letter from the Governor by means of which I can procure additional _zaptiehs_ in case of need. My Turkish _katirgi_, Moussa, is rich, and full of fun and jollity. He sings and jokes and mimics Mirza, rides a fine horse, or sprawls singing on its back, and keeps every one alive by his energy and vitality. My loads are very light, and his horses are strong, and by a peculiar screech he starts them off at a canter with no other object than the discomfiture of Mirza, who with all his good qualities will never make a horseman. Unluckily he has a caravan of forty horses laden with ammunition for the Government on the road, so things may not be always so smooth as they are now. Descending by a track more like a stair than a road, and crossing the Tigris, my friends and I performed the feat of riding through some of the bazars, even though Mr. Knapp and I had been pelted with stones on an open road the day before. There was no molestation, for the people are afraid of the _zaptiehs'_ swords.

Bitlis is busy, and it is difficult to get through its crowded markets, low, narrow, and dark as they are, the sunbeams rarely entering through their woven roofs. The stalls were piled with fruits, roots, strange vegetables, red home-dyed cottons, gay gear for horses, daggers and silver chains such as Kurds love, gay Kurdish clothing, red boots with toes turned up for tying to the knees, pack-saddles, English cottons ("_Mankester_"), mostly red, and pipes of all kinds.

There was pottery in red and green, huge earthen jars for the storage of water, brooms, horse-shoes, meat, curds, cheeses, and everything suited to the needs of a large and mixed population, and men seated in the shops plied their curious trades.

Emerging into the full sunlight on the waggon road to Erzerum, we met strings of girls carrying water-jars on their backs from the wells, and long trains of a.s.ses and pack-bullocks bringing in produce, mixed up with foot pa.s.sengers and Kurds on showy horses. Bitlis rejoices in abundant streams, wells, fountains, and mineral springs, some strongly chalybeate, others resembling the Vichy waters. The grandly picturesque city with its piled-up houses, its barred windows suggestive of peril, its colossal ruins, its abounding waters, its bridges, each one more remarkable than the other, its terraced and wooded heights and the snow-crested summits which tower above them, with their cool blue and purple shadows, disappeared at a turn of the road, and there too my friends left me to pursue my perilous journey alone.

The day was superb, and full of fine atmospheric effects. As we crossed the Rahwan Plain the great mountains to the west were enshrouded in wild drifting mists, through which now and then peaks and ledges, white with recent snow, revealed themselves, to be hidden in blackness the next moment. Over the plain the blue sky was vaulted, and the sun shone bright and warm, while above the mountains to the south of Lake Van white clouds were piled in sunlit ma.s.ses. After halting at Tadvan, a pleasant village among streams, fountains, gardens, and fruit trees, we skirted the lake along pleasant cultivated slopes and promontories with deep bays and inlets to Gudzag, where I spent the evening in an _odah_, retiring to sleep in my small tent, pitched in the village, where a big man with a gun, and wearing a cloak of goatskin reaching to his feet, kept up a big fire and guarded me till morning. The water froze in my basin during the night. The _odah_ was full of Armenians, and Murphy interpreted their innumerable tales of wrong and robbery. "Since the Erzerum troubles,"

so the tales ran, "the Kurds kill men as if they were partridges." On asking them why they do not refuse to be robbed by "demand," they replied, "Because the Kurds bring big sticks and beat us, and say they will cut our throats." They complained of the exactions of the _zaptiehs_ and of being tied to the posts of their houses and beaten when they have not money wherewith to pay the taxes.

Starting at sunrise on the following morning I had a very pleasant walk along the sweet sh.o.r.e of the lake, while water, sky, and mountains were blended in a flood of rose and gold, after which, skirting a wooded inlet, on the margin of which the brown roofs of the large village of Zarak were scarcely seen amidst the crimson foliage, and crossing a low range, we descended upon a plain at the head of a broad bay, on the farther side of which, upon a level breezy height, rose the countless monoliths and lofty mausoleums of Akhlat, which I had made a long detour to see. The plain is abundantly watered, and its springs were surrounded with green sward, poplars, and willows, while it was enlivened by numerous bullock-carts, lumbering and creaking on their slow way with the latest sheaves of the harvest.

After winding up a deep ravine we came upon a great table of rock scarped so as to be nearly perpendicular, at the base of which is a stone village. On the other side is a fine stream. I had purposed to spend the night at Akhlat, but on riding up the village street, which has several shops, there was a manifest unfriendliness about its Turkish inhabitants, and they went so far as to refuse both lodgings and supplies, so I only halted for a few hours. Few things have pleased me more than Akhlat, and the dreamy loveliness of the day was altogether propitious.

I first visited the Kharaba-shahr or "ruined city." The table rock is honeycombed with a number of artificial chambers, some of which are inhabited. Several of these are carefully arched. A very fine one consists of a chamber with an arched recess like a small chancel, and a niche so resembling a piscina at one side that one involuntarily looks for the altar. These dwellings are carefully excavated, and chisel marks are visible in many places. Outlining this remarkable rock, and above these chambers, are the remains of what must have been a very fine fortress, with two towers like those of the castle of Bitlis springing from below the rock. The whole of it has been built of hewn red sandstone. The walls have been double, with the centre filled up with rough stones and mortar, but not much of the stone facing remains, the villages above and below having been built of it.

Detached pieces of masonry, such as great ma.s.ses of walls, solitary arches, and partially-embedded carved fragments extend over a very large area, and it is evident that investigators with time and money might yet reap a rich reward. Excavators have been recently at work--who or what they were I could not make out, and have unearthed, among other objects of interest, a temple with the remains of a dome having a cornice and frieze, and two small circular chambers, much decorated, the whole about twenty-five feet long.

Akhlat Kalessi, or the castle of Akhlat, stands on the sea-sh.o.r.e, on which side it has no defences. It is a fortress with ma.s.sive walls, with round and square towers at intervals, and measures about 700 paces from the water to the crest of the slope, and about 330 across.

The enclosure, which is entered by two gates, contains two ancient mosques solidly built, and a few houses among fruit trees, as well as some ruins of buildings. The view of the Sipan Dagh from this very striking ruin is magnificent.

There are many Circa.s.sian 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 hara.s.sed 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 ap.r.o.ns 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 s.p.a.ce round the fire is so crowded with _zaptiehs_, _katirgis_, and villagers that I have scarcely room for my chair and the ragam.u.f.fin 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 pa.s.s 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 rea.s.sured 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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sed 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 Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed thirty well-armed Kurds, driving a number of a.s.ses, 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 a.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.s 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 Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s the risk was over, but we were seriously delayed in forcing a pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.s, 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.