CHAPTER VII
HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM
"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." And it happened that we, sojourning in this land, bethought ourselves of this journey of Abraham; we also, therefore, arose one morning and took two horses of the horses of Ur, and three Zaptiehs also upon horses, and we set our servants upon mules, and departed across the plain to visit this Harran, the city of Nahor; and there came with us a lady of the American Mission and her servant Jacobhan and a young Armenian friend; and they also were upon mules. And we all rode together across the plain of Mesopotamia, of which it is written: "When corn comes from Harran, then there is plenty; when no corn comes, then there is hunger." And, even as we rode, the villagers were gathering in barley, the clean white straw with its well-filled heads; and from time to time we came also upon a couple of sleek-skinned oxen drawing the wooden plough through the soil, making the furrows for the next year's seed; and the soil, where it was turned, was of a rich red colour, beside the yellow stubble which was yet unbroken. The villages stood at the space of one hour's ride apart, and by the side of every village, by the side of their bell-shaped huts, we saw great mounds of such a size that they covered as much ground as the villages themselves; and each of these mounds was of a rounded shape. And, looking across the plain as we rode, as far as we could see we saw also many such mounds far distant upon the horizon.
And we said to Hassan, "Wherefore these mounds?" And he answered and said, "Behold, Effendi, you see these villages at the space of one hour's ride apart, each with its cornfields and its unbroken stubble, its pasture and its flocks; so it was in the days when Abraham and Terah passed this way, even as you and I are now passing; but these villages that we see of the bell-shaped huts were not the villages that Terah and Abraham saw, for they are now buried under these same mounds."
Now Harran is eight hours across the plain from Ur; four hours we rode to Rasselhamur, a village by the side of a stream, where we ate and drank and rested awhile, and yet another four hours we rode from Rasselhamur to Harran.
Now consider the journey of Terah and Abraham. There were his women and his children, his camels, his man-servants and his maid-servants, his he asses and his she asses, his oxen and flocks of sheep; and they would cause him to delay on the road, for they cannot be over-driven: yet, even as the Arab tribes journey to-day, the caravan of Terah and Abraham would reach this Harran on the second day from the day they left Ur of the Chaldees; and the land of Canaan, the land towards which they journeyed, would still be far distant.
And we, marvelling, pondered on the words of the learned man who has said that the Harran of Terah and Abraham lies not here but at one day's journey from the city of Damascus.
But why should our souls be vexed over the words of learned men? for, whether it be that Terah stayed at this Harran, even the Harran we are approaching, or whether he journeyed on day by day over the plains to the city of Damascus, for us, as our noiseless steeds trod the soft earth, these silent plains yet echoed with the tinkling of his camel bells, the bleating of his innumerable herds, and the cries of his men-servants and his maid-servants.
And the sun was yet high in the heavens when the walls of the city of Harran rose up before us; and as we rode through the fields without the city walls we looked, and behold there was a well in the field, and near it were gathered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, for it was out of that well that they watered the flocks. And it was at the time of the evening, the time that the women go out to draw water; and we drew rein and watched them, even as Jacob watched Rachel. And these daughters of the men of the city were dark-eyed and blue-smocked, and they balanced their pitchers on their heads; and they went down into the well, down the slippery stones which were worn by the feet of the generations which begat Rachel and Rebekah. And on beholding the strangers some of them ran back, even as Rebekah on beholding the servant of Isaac, and told their mothers; and some of them, even as Rachel on beholding Jacob, emptied their pitchers into the troughs and bade us water our horses. And the herdsmen gathered themselves together and looked at us in silence; and their look was long and straight, like the look of those who have the habit of looking far, as far as where the sun sinks on the horizon; and we, wondering, held our peace. Of what availed it, that we should vex ourselves as to whether this indeed were the Harran where Terah stayed on his way to the Land of Canaan, here are we in the fertile regions, without the walls of a city, by the side of a well where the maidens come down to fetch water and where the flocks are gathered at the going down of the sun. And we bethought ourselves of those ancient days, and we said unto the herdsmen, even as Jacob said unto the herdsmen as they tended the cattle of Laban, "Whence are ye?" and they answered us saying, "Of Harran are we."
Jacob's Well. Harran.
Jacob's Well. Harran.
And looking about us we saw also the black tents, the good camel-hair tents such as the Arabs use, and they stretched out from the side of the watering-place; and on the ground in front of them the young children rolled amongst the bleating flocks and herds. And the shepherds, haughty and silent amongst men, walked to the right and to the left in and out amongst the bleating flocks and herds; and their cloaks were of sheepskin, long and squarely cut—they hung from their shoulders, reaching nearly to the ankles; and looking at them we thought of Abraham who had left this city for the Land of Promise, of Isaac who sent his servant to seek out Rebekah, and of Jacob, who beheld Rachel even on this spot, and who tended the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle for her father Laban on these same fertile plains.
And as we tarried, marvelling on these things, there came out a messenger from the city, and he said, "Why standest thou without? we have prepared a house and room for thy horses"; and turning our horses' heads we followed him and rode into the city.
Now the people of Harran number at this day over 4,000 souls of the Moslem faith; of men there are 1,900, and of the women 2,300. And some of them live in the city and some of them live without, in the villages. Now in the generations that have passed Harran was a great city of merchants; they went forth to Tyre, they were her traffickers in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar.
Harran lay also on the highway from the north to the Land of Canaan, on the highway from the west, from Assyria and Babylonia to the shores of the Cilician Sea; hence also was Harran a great fortified city. And looking about us as we rode through the city, many and ancient were the ruins that we saw, showing that Harran had been great indeed in her time; and there stands to this day a four-sided tower, the walls of which are perfect even now; and at the summit of this tower the bricks are exceeding hard and of a bright yellow colour speckled with black spots withal. And still riding in and out amongst the bell-shaped huts we came at last to the ruins of a great castle; and still riding, our good horses picked their way amongst the columns which were fallen, of which there were many, and under the massive stone arches which were not yet fallen. And we came at last to an open space set right in the midst of the castle, and on this space the grass grew green all about in amongst the fallen stones. And, dismounting, we climbed yet a little way further until we came to a room in the walls, well covered in and newly built up with stones, so that neither wind nor rain could enter in. And at the door of this well-built room stood the Shaykh of the Beni-Zeid. And he welcomed us, bowing after the fashion of his country, and we also greeted him, bowing after the fashion of our country; and speaking to Jacobhan, for we knew not his language, neither did he know ours, he bade us welcome, and said that meat and drink would be laid before us, and provender should be found for our horses. And we rejoiced, for we were exceeding hungry. But the sheep was yet roasting on the great fire in a hut in the ruins of the castle below, and we said to Jacobhan, "Send these men away, for we are weary and would rest awhile." And, taking Hassan only with us, we climbed up to where the ruins of a great tower looked away over the plain, even the plain over which we had ridden and beyond also on the other side further than where we had ridden; and sitting down here we rested awhile; and down below the servants tended the horses, and Jacobhan and the lady from the American Mission unpacked the neatly folded bundles—and, further below, lay the ruins of the great city, and between them the little bell-shaped huts; but above us there was nothing but the sky. And looking away from the city, over the walls and over the plain even unto the far horizon where the sun was now setting, for the day was far spent, I said unto Hassan: "What think you, Hassan, can this indeed be the city whence Abraham departed, and think you that this is the plain over which Jacob fled with his women and children, his men-servants and his maid-servants, his asses and camels, his cattle and his sheep?"
And Hassan knit his great brows and pondered awhile, and then he made answer: "What matters it, Effendi, whether this was the city of Abraham, and whether this was the plain over which Jacob fled before the wrath of Laban? Look down below and see these fallen ruins, which are all that is left of the great nations who conquered this city in the generations that have passed; and look down again, and you will see the miserable huts of the people who are left; what do they care for the great people who have lived and died within these walls where you and I are sitting? In a short time they also will be dead, and you and I will be dead, and therefore why should we care whether or not this was the city of Abraham? for, where Abraham is, there shall we soon be also."
As he was speaking we heard a shout from below, and looking down we saw Jacobhan beckoning to us, for the meat was now served. And we made haste to come down, and entered the room. Here on the earthen floor stood a well-filled bowl, all hot and smoking, for the meat was mixed with swelling rice well cooked in fat. Now Jacobhan fetched a little red carpet and spread it on the floor by the side of the bowl, and on this we sat, crossing our legs after the fashion of the country.
On one side of us sat the lady from the American Mission, and on the other side sat Hassan.
And they brought us flat cakes of bread, which we dipped into the bowl and scooping out the rice and meat, we ate it thus, for we had neither spoons nor forks. And round about us as we ate sat the dark-eyed Arabs in the white robes. When we had finished eating, one of them rose and fetched a pitcher of water and another brought a bowl, and they poured water over our hands until they were clean. Then, making way for those who had not yet eaten, we caused the carpet to be spread on the far side of the room, where, lying on it, we watched the men eating, gathered round the bowl. Now, when all had finished, one removed the empty bowl and another fetched a brush and swept the floor, for much rice had been spilt about. Then each man folded his cloak together, and sitting back against the wall gazed at us out of the dark corners.
But Jacobhan the Armenian and his young friend, who was also of the same people, had no mind to sit thus quiet all the evening. For they were not as the Arabs are, content to smoke and make no sound. "Give us some song," he said to the assembled company, "that we may make merry, for the night is yet young."
And they pushed forward, out of the far corner, a young man who seated himself at our feet. After looking at us awhile, there being no sound in the room, he began to sing softly, and these are the words that he sang, as they were told to us later by Jacobhan: "As the swallows from a far country winging their way from the north to the south, so you come to us for the day and on the morrow you are gone. You have the soft eyes of a dove, your hair is of silken threads, and your skin is as the soft skin of the pomegranate. Your little feet they are as the feet of swift gazelles—and they will bear you hence so that your going will be as swift and silent as your coming. Oh, may the snows come in the morning to stay your going away, for my heart will be sick when you are no longer here, and my eyes no longer behold your eyes. The land will mourn and be desolate; the herbs of the field will wither and the waters of the river will dry up in the wilderness."
When the words of the song were finished, a silence fell upon us all; and the silence was so long in the quiet stillness of night that many of us fell half asleep sitting there in the dark room. And one by one the company glided out softly into the night until we were left only with our own men. There numbered thirteen of us in all, and wrapping ourselves each in his blanket we lay on the hard floor until morning.
Now on the morrow the son of the Shaykh came to us and said:
"My father sends you word he will be absent until evening, for he rode away this morning two hours before the rising of the sun. To-night, however, he prepares a feast for you and will return, Inshallah, with glad tidings for his people. He bids me meanwhile ask of the ladies what their pleasure will be to-day; and I am at their commands."
And we said to the son of the Shaykh:
"Take now thy father's lance and these our horses, and we pray thee call out one of your companions and let us see how the men of your country fight their enemies."
And the young chief, nothing loth, fetched the long spear which stood at the door of his father's house, and he mounted one of our horses; and he called another youth from amongst the many that would ride with him, and they rode out together into the field, without the city walls. And we climbed up upon the high walls of the castle which looked over the field that we should have the better view. And the two young men set their lances and rode their horses hard at one another, first to the one side and then to the other, now wheeling round, now holding the spear aloft, shouting with loud cries. And their cries were mingled with the cries of all the assembled company, and we also shouted with the others. For the space of an hour or more did they fight thus with one another until they and their horses were weary, but we were not weary with watching them.
Now as we were feasting that day at the time of the setting of the sun, the Shaykh entered the room where we sat, and greeted us.
And we, speaking through Jacobhan, said to him, "Has your business been well?" And he said, "Very well; to-day is a great day for myself and for my people."
And we said, "Tell us, we pray thee, how that is?" And he seated himself in our midst, and he told us how his tribe, the tribe of the Beni-Zeid, had offended the great Kurdish chief, Ibrahim Pasha, head of the Hamidieh, who lived not far distant at Viran-shahir. For some amongst them had stolen camels and mules belonging to his people. The wrath of Ibrahim Pasha was very great, and he caused his men to harass their men, and their beasts were no longer safe. Now the Shaykh knew not which among his people were the offenders, but after a year had gone by there came certain of the tribe to him and said, "Behold these camels and mules, are they not those which were stolen from Ibrahim Pasha? We pray thee restore them that we may no longer live in fear of having ours stolen." Thus it was, that on this same day the Shaykh had ridden out with his men, driving these animals, and had delivered them back to the Pasha at Viran-shahir. Inshallah, now they would no longer live under fear of his displeasure. For those who offended Ibrahim Pasha had no mercy at his hands; but those who pleased him had much kindness shown them.
And we and the whole company rejoiced together over the good deed that had been done that day, and there was much feasting and singing that night.
On the morrow we mounted our horses once more and rode away through the bell-shaped huts and past the ancient ruins, over the rich plains, back again into the city of Ur, at the foot of the grey hills.
CHAPTER VIII
THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA
We were encamped in the khan, the native inn, at Severek, a dismal town in the dismal wilds of Mesopotamia; the weather and the depth of mud made it impossible for us to pitch our tent outside, and the dirty, windowless sheds round the courtyard, which afforded the only sleeping accommodation, were not inviting, so we had fixed our tent in a covered passage by tying the ropes to the pillars supporting the roof. The Zaptiehs deputed to guard us for the night hung about the door, plying Hassan and Arten with questions as to our sanity. Why should two foreign ladies choose the depth of winter to travel between Urfa and Diarbekr along the caravan route which had been long deserted owing to the raids of the Hamidieh Kurds? I had often asked myself the same question during the last few days, but had not yet thought of an answer.
A pale, dishevelled young man in semi-European clothes slouched into the courtyard and joined the group. The Zaptiehs spoke roughly to him and he gave a cringing reply. He forced his way past them up to me.
"Moi parle Français," he said, with an accent corresponding to his grammar.
"So it seems," I answered, in the same language.
"To-morrow I travel with you," he went on.
"Indeed!" I answered, with more of interrogation than cordiality.
"Yes, you and my mother and sisters will go in an araba, and I and my brother will ride your horses."
I made a closer inspection of the individual, but could detect no signs of insanity to harmonise with his utterances.
"Who are you?" I said.
"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do thirteen hours to K——."
"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."
"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so long on the road."
I began to get angry.
"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."
"I will have everything ready," he said.
"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."
"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not my sister?"
"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit, and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our sisters' arabas."
Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats, and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck, suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was bitterly cold.
We rode for hours through a dreary country of broken grey stones with no sign of vegetation or life of any kind. At last we arrived at a collection of tumble-down deserted huts, built of the stones lying round, and hardly distinguishable from the rest of the country until we were actually amongst them. We were cold and wet and had hardly come half-way to our destination, but as neither of us could stand long hours in the saddle without rest or food, we called a halt here to recruit. The Zaptiehs forming our escort begged us not to stop. They could not understand the strange ways of these mad foreigners, who not only travelled in such weather, but sat down to picnic in it instead of pushing on to the shelter of the khan at the journey's end. But we were inexorable, and they reluctantly fastened the horses on the sheltered side of the remaining walls, against which they stood with their backs tightly pressed, drawing their ragged coats closely round them. The village had been but lately ransacked and destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha, the redoubtable Kurdish chief; he was still abroad in the neighbourhood, and any detention on the road increased the chances of our falling in with him or some of his stray bands. The knowledge of this and the discomforts of the journey made the men fretful and anxious. We picked out the least dilapidated looking house and clambered over fallen stones and half-razed walls until we found a roofless room which boasted of three undestroyed angles. In one of these the cook tried to make a fire with the last remnants of charcoal; we huddled in another to avoid, if we could, the blast which rushed across the broken doorways and whistled through the chinks of the rough stone walls. The arabas, accompanied by their bedraggled followers, rumbled heavily past us; the noise gradually died away as they disappeared in the distance; desolation reigned on all sides; the howling blast moaned weird echoes of destruction round the ruined walls.
We managed to boil enough water to make tea; and then, yielding to the men's protests, we mounted and rode on. Hour after hour passed; the driving wind hurled the hailstones like a battery of small shot right into our faces; the rain collected in small pools in the folds of my mackintosh, and I guided their descent outwards and downwards with the point of my riding-whip. The drop which fell intermittently from the overflowing brim of my hat had been the signal for a downward bob to empty the contents; but now the wet had soaked through and I let it run down my face unconcernedly. We were a silent and melancholy band. X rode in front with her chin buried in her coat collar; her face was screwed up in her endeavour to face the elements; the hump in her shoulders betokened resigned misery. The soldiers' heads were too enveloped to allow any study of their expressions, but the outward aspect of their bodies was a sufficient indication of their inward feelings; the very outline of their soaked and tattered garments bespoke discomfort and dejection.
The pale-faced little officer, straight from the military school at Constantinople, urged his horse alongside mine. "Nazil?" he said. It was a laconic method, essentially Turkish, of saying "How?"i.e., "How are you?" "How's everything?" "Hasta" (Ill), I answered. "Amān," he groaned. "Kach Saat daha?" I asked (How many hours more?). "Jarem Saat, Inshallah. Bak, khan bourda" (Half an hour, Inshallah. Look, the khan is there). I raised my head to follow the direction of his pointed whip; the jerk sent a trickle of wet down the back of my neck and the rain blinded my eyes. I dropped my head again. It was not worth while battling with the elements even to look upon our approaching haven of rest. I was too familiar with the aspect of the country to be particularly interested in the scenery; it had not altered at all for many days. If you looked in front, you saw an endless tract of slightly undulating country, the surface of which was a mass of stones; there were stones to the right, there were stones to the left, there were stones behind; you rode over stones, slippery, broken, loose, sliding stones; and now stones, stones of hail, were hurled at you from the heavens above. The very bread we had eaten for our midday meal seemed to have partaken of the nature of the country. I had accidentally dropped my share, and had to hunt for it, indistinguishable among the other particles on the ground. We were rapidly turning into stones ourselves. One seemed to be riding on a huge, dry river-bed, the waters of which had been drawn up into the heavens and were now being let down again by degrees.
The officer gave an order to a Zaptieh. The man tightened the folds of his cloak round him, wound the ends of his kafiyeh into his collar, and, digging his heels into the sides of his white mule, darted suddenly ahead. The crick in the back of my neck made it too painful for me to turn my head to look, but this must mean that we were near the khan and that he had gone on to announce our arrival. Visions of being otherwise seated than in a saddle faintly loomed in my brain; I hardly dared wander on to thoughts of a fire and something hot to drink. We turned at right angles off the track and plunged into a bed of mud, which led up to the door of a great, square, barrack-looking building with a low, flat roof and a general air of desolation. The Zaptieh stood grimly at the door. "Dollu" (Full), he said. Nevertheless we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with bare legs and feet and dripping, ragged cloaks. The officer laid about him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the khanji (the innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with great English Pashas." The khanji waved his hand over the seething, jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan. If we made way for the Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses. But they are welcome to what shelter there is."
We gazed with dismay at the reeking scene.
"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.
"Two hours," was the answer.
"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals, who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of approaching food and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast and driving rain.
The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones. One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and sure-footed beast who could be trusted to pick its own way. The hired Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left to himself he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it becomes so impossible that he stops and gazes in front of him in stupid despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the others. Weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.
"We must push on, Hanum" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by sunset."
"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate brute's skin.
He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb, petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.
Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was rushed away in the driving wind.
Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog, jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one did not care for how long.
The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."
"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.
"X?" I muttered interrogatively.
"Hm," came from the corner.
"Hm," I responded.
The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles, saddle-bags, wet cloaks, and muddy riding-boots.
Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively and giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other, where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let out the fumes; we opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down mercilessly.
Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow passage by our open door, on into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard, square boxes stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their owners' yourghans, quilts which form the native bed, damp and muddy in spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope which also fastened on a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs; mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright waistcoats; stern Mahomedans, wrapped in long, severe cloaks, gazed with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials stared at them with open-mouthed, grinning wonder. Our little captain sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner, deftly rolling up, with his delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes; a Zaptieh, with his face to the wall, bowed and murmured over the evening prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that disregard of his neighbour's presence which is so impressive in any crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent waiting of the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant, strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all; men and animals, side by side, are busy satisfying their bodily needs. It is a strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings and mode of life, savours of the beast; and the beast, with his outward aspect of patient and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements. We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hind-quarters backed into the room, upsetting the pot of water on the fire. We had been anxiously waiting for its boiling point with the open teapot ready to hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal; and pushed it back; they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses require anything?"
Hassan courteously returned his salute. He was now seated cross-legged by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. With the air of a king on his throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddle-bag: "Buyourun, Effendi, oturun" (Welcome; sit down). The man sat down, carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.
"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his inquiry and send many thanks. They have all they require."
The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterances seemed to dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as to the limitation of our wants and the methods of our Royal progress; he merely thought we were mad.
He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression.
"What will you have for supper?" he said.
"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long experience of limited possibilities.
"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in these places.
"Get a fowl," I said.
"There is not one left here," he answered.
"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humour of desperation.
"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority.
"Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.
"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.
"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of lobster salad and maraschino croûstades?"
Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held them. Everything was wet and slimy; a few bars of chocolate were soaked in Bovril emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting looking pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity. Could it be—yes, it had once been, protein flour, "eminently suitable for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly thought the matter out.
"X," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the Bovril thrown in, or to drink Bovril with the chocolate thrown in?"
"Don't talk about it," said X, "cook everything up together, and let us hope individual flavours will be merged beyond recognition."
We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein. The chocolate and Bovril were added, after carefully picking out the bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in triumph.
"Soan?" (Onion) we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling pot. The cook sat stirring it all together with a wooden spoon; he kept raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled slowly back again he murmured complacently:
"Pirinje war, chocolad war, Inghiliz suppe war, soan war, su war" (There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is onion, there is water).
When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Choc ehe, choc" (Very good—very), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X swallowed a few mouthfuls.
"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology, as she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread and started chewing it.
"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I had been following with some interest for several days. It was always turning up, and I recognised it by a black, burnt mark resembling a figure 8. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken legs and dried figs, and with wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy fingers, but being unsatisfied with the consistency they had thrown it, along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our diminishing supply and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various articles not calculated to increase the savouriness of its flavour. I was determined to see its end, and when X laid down half—no doubt meaning it for my share—I threw it on the fire.
"It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.
The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.
"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one side.
"Jarin" (To-morrow), he said.
And so we sit; a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in or what dirt we have been eating.
We roll our rugs round us and lie on the sodden earth floor. Hassan turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan, men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.
In the middle of the night I wake with a start; something had hit me on the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was; a piece of plaster had fallen off the walls, and the plaster, like the fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.
PART II
DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
"The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away, another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."
"The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away, another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."
CHAPTER IX
AFLOAT
We rode into Diarbekr on Christmas Day, arriving just in time to share the plum-pudding at the house of Major Anderson, the Vice-Consul.
They say of Diarbekr that its houses are black, that its dogs are black, and that the hearts of its people are black—and they say so truly. The first moment that one catches sight of it in the distance one is impressed by the blackness of its walls, built of a black volcanic stone. When one gets inside, the people look dourly at one, and the Zaptiehs ride closer together. But this may be because they have no other choice, the streets being often only four feet across. It is quite easy to cross a street from on high by jumping from one roof to another; and it is certainly cleaner, for down below we are ankle deep in mud, in which great boulders are embedded—relics, presumably, of ancient pavement or fallen houses. If you want to take the air at Diarbekr you walk round and round the flat roof of your house and watch the life of your neighbours on adjoining roofs; or else, closely accompanied by armed cavasses, you ride out into the bleak, stony country, and follow up some mud stream in the hopes of getting a shot at wild duck and snipe.
A week later we sat on the banks of the Tigris by the Roman bridge which spans the river just below the black walls of Diarbekr. The raft on which we were about to embark was moored to the shore and the men were loading our belongings. A dancing-bear stumped about to the tune of a bagpipe made of the skin which answers so many purposes in the East. When inflated they can be used either for carrying water for people inside, or for carrying people on water outside. We were using 260 of them in this latter way. They were tied on to two layers of poplar poles put crossways, forming a raft about eighteen feet square. At one end were two small huts made of felt stretched across upright poles; the fore end was weighted down with bags of merchandise laid side by side across the poles to form a rough floor.
The two kalekjis (raftsmen) waded in and out with a great seeming sense of hurry but without appearing to accomplish anything.
"Can't you hurry the men up?" said X.
"No," I answered, "we are in the East."
"You might try," she said; "you always leave me all the talking to do."
"They do not understand my Turkish," I said apologetically.
"It would not take you long to learn enough for that," went on X.
"I do know the swears," I answered humbly, and I stood up amongst the men and delivered myself of them.
"Quick! quick! the Pasha is angry!" said the men.
Our crew had assembled; there were our two personal attendants, Hassan and Arten. Hassan was now our interpreter, for, although he could only talk Turkish, he could interpret our signs to other Turks until we learnt the language. Arten, we found, was more Armenian than cook, and sang us Christian hymns in his native language when we felt low after meals. Then there were two kalekjis in charge of the raft; they were Kurds; we had yet to discover their qualifications. Two Zaptiehs forming our escort made up the number. We did not yet look upon them as individuals, but as part of an abstract régime in the country with which we now felt tolerably familiar; the outward aspect of it was a ragged uniform and an antiquated rifle, which served many useful purposes but had forgotten how to eject bullets.
"Hazir dir, hazir" (Ready, ready), shouted the kalekjis. The owner of the dancing-bear hurriedly thrust his fez under our noses.
"Don't give him anything," I said, "a bear has no business to be dancing in this country; he ought to be trying to eat us in a cave."
"The demoralisation of the bear comes from the West," said X, who was studying the primitive habits of the natives, "we must pay for it."
"Does this abuse of the hat emanate from the same source?" I inquired, as she dropped a coin into the fez.
"That would be an interesting point to inquire into," said X, and she made an entry in her notebook.
The worst of X was that you never knew whether she was laughing at you. It is a most uncomfortable position, which men as a rule resent. But I was another woman, and took it philosophically, especially as X accused me of the same failing, and we never see ourselves as others see us.
We boarded the raft: the coil of rope which had fastened it to the shore was hauled in, and we drifted slowly out into the centre of the muddy stream. We were followed by another raft, laden up with bags of merchandise, which was coming with us to share the protection of our escort.
We went into the sleeping-hut to ascertain the length of its possibilities. Boards had been nailed across the poles to form a floor, and on this was spread a thick native felt mat. Dwellers on land little know the feeling of luxury recalled to my mind in writing these words:—the luxury of being able to drop all the things addicted to dropping, especially when dressing, with the knowledge that they would not disappear for ever in the depths of the Tigris waters; the luxury of being able to walk in the ordinary biped method of placing one foot in front of the other.
This was not the case in the open part of the raft, where the floor, formed of poles and sacks, exhibited a network of rounded interstices. The water gurgled and spluttered below them: one's foot invariably slipped into them when cautiously manipulating a journey across the raft by hopping from a slippery pole to a sliding sack; and unattached articles dropped through them on to the skins below, and were occasionally rescued in a dripping condition before they were washed away altogether. The water showed spiteful discrimination in its washing-away proclivities. I recall certain chinks in the more roughly boarded floor of the hut where we had our meals, through which the cook had a habit of brushing his cooking refuse, and where, if one was rash enough to look, there could be seen an accumulation of tea-leaves and bones and bits of decaying delicacies which one associated with meals of past ages.
The felt walls of the hut were lined on the inside with white cotton tacked on the poles. There were two small glazed windows, one of which opened. The door was a single width of felt tied with tape. There was just room inside for our two camp-beds—with a space between, which would admit of one of us occupying it at a time. At the foot of each bed stood our two Eastern sacks, which contained all our worldly goods. I feel constrained, on mentioning this form of luggage, to say a word of warning concerning it. In one sense it is easy to pack, because you need not fold anything up, but can simply stuff it in and give the bag a shake; and it is easy to unpack, if you do it in a wholehearted manner—standing in the centre of a large room or a vast desert where you can turn it upside down and spill everything out on the ground. But under ordinary circumstances the bundle of hay with the needle in it is nothing to this sack with your clean handkerchief in it. X and I had a mutual understanding owing to which we never attacked a sack while the other was within hearing; but whenever she appeared in a half-fainting condition and asked the cook why on earth tea was so late, I knew what she had been doing. She had asked me, as a personal favour (the only one I've ever known her ask) not to attack my sack in the morning, because it was a pity to have the whole day spoilt, and if I did it in the evening to go to bed before she did.
But to return from this digression. Having examined our quarters, I arranged a rug on the open part of the raft and sat down to take in the surroundings.
Arten was unpacking cooking-pots in the second hut, and the other men sat about on the sacks smoking silently. The boatmen sat on a pile of sacks in the middle and manipulated the oars which served to steer the raft and keep it in the fast part of the current. The oars consisted of single young willow-trees, with short strips of split willow bound on one end with twigs, forming the blade; they were tied on to rough rowlocks made of twisted withies wound round heavily-weighted sacks. The Tigris at this point is singularly hideous. There was not a single blade of vegetation to be seen anywhere; the country was a stretch of mud hills and stony desert, and the mud banks of the river were only relieved by the hosts of water-birds that darted in and out or waded in the shallows. The high black escarpment, crowned by the massive black walls of Diarbekr, and fringed by a swampy tract of willow gardens, rose up sharply above the mud flats. As we were carried along the winding course of the sluggish river a higher mud bank shut it altogether from our view, and I felt we had severed that link with the world which one feels so strongly on arriving in any town of a distant uncivilised land, where a European mail occasionally arrives and a telegraph wire eliminates the isolation of its natural position.
We were drifting into an unknown world at the mercy of these unknown Kurds. We were alone with the birds and the mud banks and the rippling waters.