Part 18 (1/2)

We left Shokh on the 17th August by a bridge crossing the principal strea on the very outskirts of the town After a long and difficult ascent we cau, the pastures of the people of Shattak, and now covered with their tents and flocks This high ground overlooked the deep valleys, through which wound the two streaes

Crossing a high ered, we descended into a deep valley like that of Shattak, chiefly cultivated by Armenians

We crossed a small stream, and ascended on the opposite side to Ashkaun, whose inhabitants were outside the village, near a clear spring, washi+ng and shearing their sheep We had now entered Nourdooz, a district under a Mudir appointed by the Pasha of Wan, and living at a large village called Pir-bedelan

Our ride on the following day was over upland pastures of great richness, and through narrow valleys watered by nues inhabited by Kurds and Ar the Nestorian districts The first ed buffalo-keeper, who, in answer to a question in Kurdish, spoke to me in the Chaldee dialect of the mountains Hor the Armenian settlements, whose inhabitants, they declared, were for stupidity worse than Kurds, and for rapacity worse than Jews Chilghiri was the first Nestorian village on our way The men, with their handsome wives and healthful children, came out to meet us We did not stop there, but continued our journey to Merwanen, which we found deserted by its inhabitants for the Zoh poor and needy, the people of Merwanen were not less hospitable than other Nestorians I hadmesses of millet boiled in sour milk and mixed with e encareen valley, watered by ris[170] Abd-ur-Rah the annual salian or revenue of the tribe In his absence ere very hospitably treated, and itnesses of the activity and industry of the Kurdish co above us was the boundary between the pashalics of Wan and Hakkiari and the watershed of the Tigris and Zab On the opposite side the strea their waters flowed towards the latter river The first district we entered was that of Lewen, inhabited chiefly by Nestorians The whole population with their flocks had deserted their villages for the Zomas We ascended to the encae of dirty hovels, half tent and half cabin, built of stones and black canvas Behind it towered, amidst eternal snows, a bold and majestic peak, called Karnessa-ou-Daoleh[171] Round the base of this h ravines deep in snoe dragged our weary horses next day The Kurdish shepherds that wander there, a wild and hardy race, have no tents, but, during the summer months, live in the open fields with their flocks, without any covering whatever

After a wearisoerous ride, we found ourselves on a snowy platforated with Alpine plants The tiny streaet-me-nots of the tenderest blue, and with many well-remembered European flowers I clis of the principal peaks around us A sight as nificent as unexpected awaited es which spread like a troubled sea beneathin the rays of the sun Its foruide knew no more of this stately mountain, to him a kind of mythic land far beyond the reach of human travel, than that it ithin the territories of the Muscovites, and that the Christians called it Bashut-tama-hamda From this point alone was it visible, andit noour journey[172]

We descended rapidly by a difficult track, passing here and there encampments of Kurds and the tents and flocks of the people of Julaion of cultivated fields, and we see a precipitous pathway, and edrobes, black turban, and a white beard which fell alnised the features of Mar Shamoun, the Patriarch of the Nestorians, or, as he proudly terms himself, ”of the Chaldaeans of the East” He had not known of our co, and he shed tears of joy as he embraced us Kochhannes, his residence, was not far distant, and he turned back with us to the village Since I had seen hie, had worn deep furrows in his brow, and had turned his hair and beard to silvery grey

The gared Even the miserable allowance of 300 piastres (about 2_1_ 10_s_), which the Porte had promised to pay hi in arrears, and he was supported entirely by the contributions of his faithful but poverty-stricken flock Kochhannes was, moreover, still a heap of ruins At the time of the massacre Mar Shaht before the ferocious Kurds of Beder Khan Bey entered the village and slew those who still lingered in it, and were froe or infirmities unable to escape

Mar Shamoun, at the time of my visit, had no less cause to bewail the s The latter were perhaps partly to be attributed to his oant of prudence and foresight

Old influences, which I could not but deeply deplore, and to which I do not in Christian charity wish further to allude[173], had been at work, and I found hiainst the Aainst his Turkish or Kurdish oppressors He had been taught, and it is to be regretted that his teachers were of the Church of England, that those ere endeavoring to civilise and instruct his flock were seceders from the orthodox co all the sacraments and ordinances of the true faith, and intent upon reducing the Nestorians to their own hopeless condition of infidelity His fears orked on by the assurance that, ere long, through their , his spiritual as well as his temporal authority would be entirely destroyed I found him bent upon deeds of violence and intolerant persecution, which ered, for the second time, the safety of this people as well as his own I strove, and I trust not without success, to set before the old y and people, circulating the Scriptures, reforreater wrongs to cooverniven to the British erievously ill-treated and oppressed the Christian inhabitants; and they had suffered all kinds of outrage and oppression which the rapacious Turks could inflict There was no tribunal to which they could apply for redress A deputation sent to the Pasha had been ill-treated, and some of its members were still in prison There was no one in authority to plead for them They had even suffered less under the sway of their old oppressors, for, as a priest touchingly remarked to me, ”The Kurds took away our lives, but the Turks take aith we have to live”

We remained a day with the Patriarch, and then took the road to Julamerik, three caravan hours distant from Kochhannes This town has been lish travellers

Near Jula, with their wives and children, they knew not whither, froovernors

The direct road by Tiyari to Mosul is carried along the river Zab, through ravines scarcely practicable to beasts of burden It issues into the lower valleys near the village of Lizan On the banks of the Zab, I found the remains of an ancient road, cut in many places in the solid rock It probably led from the assyrian plains into the upper provinces of Armenia

There are no inscriptions or ruins to show the period of its construction; but, froreatness of the work, I am inclined to attribute it to the assyrians

We picked our way over the slippery pave for ourselves and our beasts, but in many places, where it had been entirely destroyed, ere co our horses by main force over the steep rocks and loose detritus, which sloped to the very edge of the river Before reaching the first Nestorian village in the valley of Diz, we had to ford an i over sirths One of the baggageand soon hurled it into the th, relieved itself from its burden, swam to the bank Unfortunately it bore my own trunks; ether with the little property I possessed, were carried far away by the strea searched in vain, the lost load was found about ht, stopped by a rock soht in the e of Rabban Audishi+o On the opposite side of the valley, but high in theprecipitous, and inaccessible even to mules, we turned to Madis, the residence of the Melek, or chief, of the district of Diz The villages of Diz, like those of the Nestorian valleys in general, stand in the midst of orchards and cultivated terraces They were laid waste, and the houses burnt, during the first massacre Diz was the first Christian district attacked by Beder Khan Bey The inhabitants th overpowered by nuh a deep and narrow valley heh mountains and by perpendicular cliffs The Melek e of Cherichereh, or Klissa The old man had the too co on the part of the Turks

Melek Beniamen implored me to help him in his difficulties; but I could do nothe Melek to pursue his tax-gathering, we rode through a e walled with precipitous cliffs, then opening into an ae ith was abruptly closed by the towering peaks and precipices of the Jelu e of Khouresin, where we encaht The inhabitants were, for the most part, like the other people of Diz, in the Zomas, or summer pastures

Not far froers of Jelu

They also had encae of eternal snow, but within the boundaries of Diz, as there were no pastures on the other side of the pass in their own district They were better clothed, and showed ns of cohbours Many of thetheir yearly visits as basket-makers to the low country

We were still separated fro fro this rocky ridge, we had to cross a broad tract of deep snow, over which we hadour heavily laden mules When on the crest of the pass we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by rugged peaks, the highest being that known as the Toura Jelu, of which we had scarcely lost sight frohest mountain in central Kurdistan, and cannot be under, if it be not indeed above, 15,000 feet

The pass we crossed before descending into the valley of Jelu is considered the highest in the Nestorian country, and is probably more than 11,000 feet above the level of the sea

From the top of the pass we looked down into a deep abyss The pathas fearfully dangerous, and over steep and slippery rocks Down this terrible descent we had to drag our jaded horses, leaving our track marked in blood I have had some experience in bad mountain roads, but I do not re into Jelu After nuully, and found ourselves on a slope ending, at a dizzy depth, in a torrent scarcely visible fro soil offered even afor our beasts than the polished rocks

The wildvalley of Jelu

Villages, embowered in trees, filled every nook and sheltered place We descended to Zerin or Zerayni, the principal settlement, and the residence of the Melek To our left were two other villages, Alzan and Meedee

As e caravan descended the hill-side, the inhabitants of Zerin took us at once for Turks, whose appearance is the signal for a general panic