Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume 2 (of 2)

As I have no lodging but a dark stable, I am utilising the late afternoon, sitting by the village threshing-floor, on which a mixed rabble of animals is treading corn. Some buffaloes are lying in moist places looking amiable and foolish. Boy is tied to my chair. The village women knit and stare. Two of the men, armed with matchlock guns, keep a look-out for the Kurds. A crystal stream tumbles through the village, over ledges of white quartz. Below, the valley opens and discloses ranges bathed in ineffable blue. The mountain sides are aflame with autumn tints, and down their steep paths oxen are bringing the tawny gold of the late harvest on rude sledges. But the shadow of the Kurd is over it all. I left English-speaking people so lately that I scarcely realise that I am now alone in Central Kurdistan, in one of the wildest parts of the world, among fierce predatory tribes, and a ravaged and imperilled people.

I bade the Patriarch farewell at six this morning, and even at that early hour men were seated all round his room. After shaking hands with about thirty people, I walked the first mile accompanied by Mr. Browne, who then left me on his way to seek to enlighten the wild tribesmen of the Tyari valley. From the top of the Kamerlan Pass, above Kochanes, the view was inconceivably beautiful. On the lovely alp on which the village stands a red patch of autumnal colouring flamed against the deep indigo and purple mountains of Diz and Shawutha, which block up the east end of the lofty valley; while above these rose the Jelu ranges, said to be from 12,000 to 15,000 feet in altitude, bathed in rich pure blue, snow-fields on their platforms, new-fallen snow on their crests, indigo shadows in their clefts and ravines, – a glorious group of spires, peaks, crags, chasms, precipices, rifts, parapets, and ridges perfect in their beauty as seen in the calm coloured atmosphere in which autumn loves to die. Higher up we were in vast solitudes, among splintered peaks and pasturages where clear streams crashed over rock ledges or murmured under ice, and then a descent of 1800 feet by steep zigzags, and a seven hours' march in keen pure air, brought us through rounded hills to this village.

Van, November 1.– There was a night alarm at Kotranis. A number of Kurds came down upon the threshing-floor, and the zaptiehs were most unwilling to drive off the marauders, saying that their only orders were to protect me. The Kurds, who were at least ten to one, retired when they saw the Government uniforms, but the big dogs barked for the rest of the night.

The next day's march occupied eleven hours. It was very cold, "light without heat," superb travelling weather. One zaptieh was a Moslem, the other an Armenian, and there were strong differences of opinion between them, especially when we halted to rest at a Christian village, and the Kurdish katirgi took several sheaves of corn from a threshing-floor without paying for them. The Moslem insisted that he should not pay and the Christian that he should, and it ended by my paying and deducting the sum from his bakhsheesh. The zaptiehs are usually men who have served five years with the colours. In Eastern Asia Minor they are well clothed in dark blue braided uniforms, and have ulsters in addition for cold weather. They provide their own horses. Their pay is eighty piastres a month, with rations of bread for themselves and of barley for their animals, but the pay is often nine months in arrear, or they receive it in depreciated paper. They are accused of being directly or indirectly concerned in many robberies, and of preying on the peasantry. They are armed with Snider rifles, swords, and revolvers. From the top of a high pass above Kotranis there was a final view of the Jelu mountains, and the remainder of the day was spent among hills, streams, and valleys, with rich fertile soil and abundant water, but very thinly peopled.

A very ingenious plough has taken the place of the primitive implement hitherto used. The share is big and heavy, well shod with iron, and turns up the soil to a great depth. The draught is from an axle with two wheels, one of them two feet in diameter and the other only ten inches. The big wheel runs in the last furrow, and the little one on the soil not yet upturned, the axle being level. Some of these ploughs were drawn by eight buffaloes, with a boy, singing an inharmonious tune, seated facing backwards on each yoke. After the ploughing, water is turned on to soften the clods, which are then broken up by the husbandmen with spades.

There is a great charm about the scenery as seen at this season, the glorious colouring towards sunset, the fantastic forms and brilliant tints of the rocks, and the purity of the new-fallen snow upon the heights; but between Kotranis and Van, except for a little planting in the "Valley of the Armenians," there is scarcely a bush. If I had warm clothing I should regard the temperature as perfect, nearly 50° at noon, and falling to about 25° at night. After a severe march, a descent and a sudden turn in the road brought us in the purple twilight to Merwanen, the chief village of Norduz, streamily situated on a slope – a wretched village, semi-subterranean; a partly finished house, occupied by a newly arrived Kaimakam and a number of zaptiehs, rising above the miserable hovels, which, bad as they are, were all occupied by the Kaimakam's attendants. Zaptiehs, soldiers, Kurds, and villagers assured me that there was no room anywhere, and an officer, in a much-frogged uniform, drove my men from pillar to post, not allowing us standing room on the little dry ground that there was. I humbly asked if I could pitch my tent, but a rough negative was returned. A subterranean buffalo stable, where there was just room among the buffaloes for me to lie down in a cramped position, was the only available shelter, and there was none for the servants. I do not much mind sharing a stable with Boy, but I "draw the line" at buffaloes, and came out again into the frosty air, into an inhospitable and altogether unprepossessing crowd.

Then there was a commotion, with much bowing and falling to the right and left, and the Kaimakam himself appeared, with my powerful letter in his hand, took me into the unfinished house, at which he had only arrived an hour before, and into a small room almost altogether occupied by two beds on the floor, on one of which a man very ill of fever was lying, and on the other an unveiled Kurdish beauty was sitting. The Kaimakam, though exceedingly "the worse of drink," was not without a certain dignity and courtesy. He apologised profoundly for the incivility and discomfort which I had met with, and for his inability to entertain me "with distinction" in "so rough a place," but said that he would give up his own room to so "exalted a personage," or if I preferred a room outside it should be made ready. Of course I chose the latter, with profuse expressions of the gratitude I sincerely felt, and after a cup of coffee bade him good-night.

The room was the justice or injustice room over the zaptieh barracks, and without either door or glazed windows, but cold and stiff as I was after an eleven hours' march, I was thankful for any rest and shelter. Shortly my young Kurdish katirgi, a splendid fellow, but not the least "tame," announced that he must leave me in order to get the escort of some zaptiehs back to Julamerik. He said that "they all" told him that the road to Van was full of danger, and that if he went on he would be robbed of his mules and money on the way back. No transport however, was to be got, and he came on with me very pluckily, and has got an escort back, at least to Merwanen. In the morning the Kaimakam rose early to do me honour, but was so tipsy that he could scarcely sit upright on his chair on a stone dais amidst a rabble of soldiers and scribes. We were all benumbed with cold, and glad that the crossing of an expanse of frozen streams rendered walking a necessity. A nine hours' march through mountains remarkable for rocky spires and needles marvellously coloured, and for the absence of inhabitants, took us to the Armenian village of Khanjarak, finely situated in a corrie upon a torrent bank; but it is so subterranean, and so built into the hillside, that a small square church and conical piles of kiziks are the only obvious objects, and I rode over the roofs without knowing what was underneath.

All the women and children, rabbit-like, came out of their holes, clothed in red rags, and some wore strings of coins round their heads. The men were dressed like Kurds, and were nearly as wild-looking. They protested against my tent being pitched. They said the Kurds were always on the watch, and would hack it with their swords in half an hour to get at its contents, that they had only three matchlock guns, and that the Kurds were armed with rifles. I felt that I could scarcely touch a lower depth in the matter of accommodation than when they lodged me in a dark subterranean stable, running very far back into the hill, with a fire of animal fuel in the middle giving off dense and acrid fumes. A recess in this, with a mud bench, was curtained off for me, and the rest of the space was occupied by my own horses and baggage mules, and most of the village asses, goats, cows, calves, and sheep. Several horses belonging to travellers and to my own escort were also there, and all the zaptiehs, servants, travellers, and katirgis were lodged there. There were legions of fleas revelling in a temperature which rose to 80° at midnight, though there were 5° of frost outside. In the part of the roof which projected from the hill there were two holes for light, but at night these were carefully closed with corks of plaited straw.

The wretched poverty of the people of this place made a very painful impression on me. They may have exaggerated when they told me how terribly they are oppressed by the Kurds, who, they say, last year robbed them of 900 sheep and this year of 300, twenty-five and some cattle having been driven off a few days before, but it is a simple fact that the night of my visit the twenty-four sheep for which there was no room in the stable were carried away by a party of well-armed Kurds in the bright moonlight, the helpless shepherds not daring to resist. It is of no use, they say, to petition the Government; it will not interfere. The Kurds come into their houses, they say, and terrify and insult their women, and by demands with violence take away all they have. They say that the money for which they have sold their grain, and which they were keeping to pay their taxes with, was taken by the Kurds last week, and that they will be cruelly beaten by the zaptiehs because they cannot pay. Their words and air expressed abject terror.49

Their little church is poorer than poverty itself, a building of undressed stone without mortar, and its length of thirteen feet includes the rude mud dais occupied by the yet ruder altar. Its furniture consists of an iron censer, an iron saucer containing oil and a wick, and an earthen flagon. There are no windows, and the rough walls are black with candle smoke. The young man who showed the church took a Gospel from the dais, kissing the cross upon it before handing it to me, and then on seeing that I was interested went home and brought a MS. of St. Matthew's Gospel, with several rudely-illuminated scenes from our Lord's life. "Christos," he said with a smile, as he pointed to the central figure in the first illustration, and so on as he showed me the others, for in each there was a figure of the Christ, not crowned and risen, but suffering and humiliated. Next morning, in the bitter cold of the hour before sunrise, the clang of the mallet on the sounding-board assembled the villagers for matins, and to the Christ crowned and risen and "sitting on the right hand of power" they rendered honour as Divine, though in the midst of the grossest superstition and darkness, and for Him whom they "ignorantly worship" they are at this moment suffering the loss of all things. Their empty sheepfold might have been full to-day if they had acknowledged Him as a Prophet and no more.50

Leaving this wretched hamlet, where the unfortunate peasants are as avaricious as they are poor and dirty, and passing a Kurdish village with a stone fort picturesquely situated, we crossed a pass into a solitary valley, on which high rounded hills descend in harmonised buffs and browns, both hills and valleys covered with uncut hay. The zaptiehs said that this was a specially dangerous place, and urged the caravan to its utmost speed. We met three Armenian katirgis in their shirts. They complained most bitterly that they had been robbed an hour before of five mules with their equipments, as well as of their clothing and money. The ascent and the very tedious descent of the Kasrik Kala Pass brought us into the large and fertile plain of Haizdar, the "plain of the Armenians," sprinkled with Armenian villages, and much cultivated.

Mirza and one zaptieh had gone back for a blanket which had been dropped, and after halting in an orchard till I was half-frozen I decided to proceed without them, having understood that we could reach Van in three hours. I started my party by signs, and after an hour's riding reached a village where Johannes spoke fluently in an unknown tongue, and the zaptieh held up five fingers, which I learned too late meant that Van was five hours off. I thought that they were asking for instructions, and at every pause I repeated Van.

After a brief consultation we went up among the hills, the young Kurdish katirgi jumping, yelling, singing, and howling, to keep his mules at a trot, the zaptieh urging them with his whip, and pointing ominously at the fast sinking sun. On we clattered with much noise, nor did we slacken speed till we gained a high altitude among desert solitudes, from which we looked down upon the Dead Sea of Van, a sheet of water extending in one direction beyond the limits of vision, lying red and weird, with high mountains jutting into it in lofty headlands hovered over by flame-coloured clouds. High up along the mountain side in a wavy line lay the path to Van in the deepening shadows, and the zaptieh, this time holding up three fingers, still urged on the caravan, and the Kurd responded by yells and howls, dancing and jumping like a madman.

Just as it was becoming dark, four mounted men, each armed with two guns, rode violently among the mules, which were in front of me, and attempted to drive them off. In the mêlée the katirgi was knocked down. The zaptieh jumped off his horse, threw the bridle to me, and shouldered his rifle. When they saw the Government uniform these Kurds drew back, let the mules go, and passed on. The whole affair took but a few seconds, but it was significant of the unwillingness of the Kurds to come into collision with the Turks, and of the power the Government could exercise in the disturbed districts if it were once understood that the marauders were not to be allowed a free hand.

After this attack not a word was spoken, the bells were taken off the mules, the zaptieh, as fine and soldierly a man as one could wish to see, marched in front, quiet and vigilant, and so in a darkness in which I could not see my horse's ears we proceeded till, three hours later, the moon rose as we entered Van. It was one of the eeriest rides I ever made, and I had many painful reflections on having risked through ignorance the property of my faithful Kurdish katirgi. The first light of Van was a welcome sight, though after that there was a long ride to "the gardens," a large wooded suburb chiefly inhabited by Armenians, in which the American missionaries live. Dr. Reynolds, the medical missionary, has given me a most hospitable welcome, though his small house is more than full with new arrivals from America. I wanted to re-engage my jolly katirgi for Bitlis, but he went back at once with the zaptieh, and after the obvious perils of the road it would not have been fair to detain him. Visitors are scarce here. Van does not see more than one non-official European in three years. The Vice-Consul says that he should have doubted the sanity of any one who had proposed to travel from Urmi to Van by the route I took, but now that the journey is safely over I am glad that no one at Urmi knew enough to dissuade me from it. The Vice-Consul and all the mission party are as kind as they can be, and Van is for me another oasis.

I. L. B.

LETTER XXXI

Van,51 Armenia, Nov. 4.

Van and its surroundings are at once so interesting and picturesque that it is remarkable that they are comparatively seldom visited by travellers. Probably the insecurity of the roads, the villainous accommodation en route, and its isolated position account for the neglect.52 Here as elsewhere I am much impressed with the excellence of the work done by the American missionaries, who are really the lights of these dark places, and by their exemplary and honourable lives furnish that moral model and standard of living which is more efficacious than preaching in lifting up the lives of a people sunk in the depths of a grossly corrupted Christianity. The boys' and girls' schools in Van are on an excellent basis, and are not only turning out capable men and women, but are stimulating the Armenians to raise the teaching and tone of their own schools in the city, with one of which I was very greatly pleased. The creation of churches, strict in their discipline, and protesting against the mass of superstitions which smother all spiritual life in the National Armenian Church, is undoubtedly having a very salutary effect far beyond the limited membership, and is tending to force reform upon an ancient church which contains within herself the elements of resurrection. Great honour is due to Dr. Reynolds for the way in which, almost single-handed, he has kept the valuable work of this Mission going for years, and now that colleagues have arrived a considerable development may be hoped for.

I have confessed already to a prejudice against the Armenians, but it is not possible to deny that they are the most capable, energetic, enterprising, and pushing race in Western Asia, physically superior, and intellectually acute, and above all they are a race which can be raised in all respects to our own level, neither religion, colour, customs, nor inferiority in intellect or force constituting any barrier between us. Their shrewdness and aptitude for business are remarkable, and whatever exists of commercial enterprise in Eastern Asia Minor is almost altogether in their hands. They have singular elasticity, as their survival as a church and nation shows, and I cannot but think it likely that they may have some share in determining the course of events in the East, both politically and religiously. As Orientals they understand Oriental character and modes of thought as we never can, and if a new Pentecostal afflatus were to fall upon the educated and intelligent young men who are being trained in the colleges which the American churches have scattered liberally through Asia Minor, the effect upon Turkey would be marvellous. I think most decidedly that reform in Turkey must come through Christianity, and in this view the reform and enlightenment of the religion which has such a task before it are of momentous importance.

Islam is "cabined, cribbed, confined." Its forms of belief and thought and its social and political ideas remain in the moulds into which they were run at its rise. Expansion is impossible. The arrogance which the Koran inculcates and fosters is a dead weight on progress. If the Turk had any disposition to initiate and carry out reforms his creed and its traditions would fetter him. Islam, with its fanaticism, narrowness, obstructiveness, and grooviness is really at this moment the greatest obstacle to every species of advance both in Turkey and Persia, and its present activity and renewed proselytising spirit are omens of evil as much for political and social progress as for the higher life of men.

The mission houses and schools are on fairly high ground more than two miles from Van, in what are known as "the Gardens," where most of the well-to-do Armenians and Turkish officials reside. These gardens, filled with vineyards and all manner of fruit trees, extend for a distance of five miles, and being from two to three miles wide their mass of greenery has a really beautiful effect. Among them are many very good houses, and the roads and alleys by which they are intersected are well planted with poplars and willows, shading pleasant streams which supply the water for irrigation.

The view from the roof is a glorious one. Looking west over the gardens, which are now burning with autumn tints, the lofty crests of the huge crater of Nimrud Dagh are always visible across the lake of Van, intensely blue in the morning, and reddening in the sunsets of flame and gold. In the evenings too, the isolated rock on which the castle of Van is built bulks as a violet mass against the sinking sun, with a foreground of darkening greenery. The great truncated cone of the Sipan Dagh looms grandly over the lake to the north; to the east the rocky mass of the Varak Dagh, with white villages and monasteries in great numbers lying in its clefts and folds, rises precipitously to a height of 10,500 feet; and to the south the imposing peaks of Ardost, now crested with snow, and Mount Pelu, projecting into the lake, occupy prominent positions above the lower groups and ridges.

The town of Van is nearly a mile from the lake, and is built on an open level space, in the midst of which stands a most picturesque and extraordinary rock which rises perpendicularly to a height of about 300 feet. It falls abruptly at both extremities, and its outline, which Colonel Severs Bell estimates at 1900 yards in length, is emphasised by battlemented walls, several towers, and a solitary minaret rising above the picturesque irregularity of the ancient fortifications. Admission to the interior of the castle is refused, consequently I have not seen the chambers in the rock, supposed to have been the tombs of kings. The most celebrated of the cuneiform inscriptions cut on tablets smoothed in the rock is on the south side in an inaccessible position, and was with difficulty copied by the murdered traveller Schulz with the aid of a telescope. It is well seen from below, looking, as has been remarked, like an open copy of a newspaper. Like the tablets of Persepolis and Mount Elwend, it relates in august language the titles and deeds of Xerxes.

The founding of Van is ascribed to Semiramis, who, according to Armenian history, named it Shemiramagerd, and was accustomed to resort to its gardens, which she had herself planted and watered, to escape from the fierce heat of the summer at Nineveh. The well of Semiramis and other works attributed to her bring her name frequently into conversation – indeed she is mentioned as familiarly as Queen Elizabeth is among us!

The town, which is walled, is not particularly attractive, but there is one very handsome mosque, and a very interesting Armenian church, eleven centuries old, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The houses are mean-looking, but their otherwise shabby uniformity is broken up by lattice windows. The bazars are poorly built, but are clean, well supplied, and busy, though the trade of Van is suffering from the general insecurity of the country and the impoverishment of the peasantry. It is very pleasant that in the Van bazars ladies can walk about freely, encountering neither the hoots of boys nor the petrifying Islamic scowl.

Fifty years ago Venetian beads were the only articles imported from Europe. Now, owing to the increasing enterprise of the Armenians, every European necessary of life can be obtained, as well as many luxuries. Peek and Frean's biscuits, Moir's and Crosse and Blackwell's tinned meats and jams, English patent medicines, Coats' sewing cotton, Belfast linens, Berlin wools, Jæger's vests, and all sorts of materials, both cotton and woollen, abound. I did not see such a choice and abundance of European goods in any bazar in Persia, and in the city of Semiramis, and beneath the tablet of Xerxes, there is a bazar devoted to Armenian tailors, and to the clatter of American sewing machines stitching Yorkshire cloth! One of these tailors has made a heavy cloth ulster for me, which the American ladies pronounce perfect in fit and "style!"