Diyarbakır

“ The chance of being attacked by Kurdish tribes, of catching some disease owing to the lack of all hygienic conditions in the country, the primitive nature of the accommodation, sleeping on the bare floor side by side with camels, buffaloes, oxen, horses, and dogs all in a state far removed from cleanliness, lastly the unaccustomed food: these were all matters for consideration.
5. The term vilayet is derived from the Arabic ejalet, and signifies a governorship—an area—a district such as would be administered by a pasha; thus a so-called “pasha tik,” or staathoudership. ”

“ They were pitched near Harouna, whose Nestorian [Pg 313] inhabitants were too poor to furnish us with even the common coarse black bread of barley.
We had now quitted the semi-independent Kurdish valleys, and had entered the newly created province of Hakkiari, governed by a Pasha, who resides at Bash-Kalah. The adjacent plain of Ghaour is, however, exposed to the depredations of the Herki Kurds, who, when pursued by the Turkish troops, seek a secure retreat in their rocky fastnesses, beyond the limits of the pashalic. ”

“ The enclosure, besides the private residence of the pasha, comprises a mosque, several sumptuous tombs, and the ruins of an ancient church which now serves as a magazine.
The same cause which has turned the current of trade from Tocât has also operated to deprive Diarbekir of much of its former importance as a commercial city; nevertheless it appeared to be in a thriving state. Provisions of all kinds are cheap, and fruit abundant, especially melons, which attain to so large a size that two sometimes form a mule-load. ”

“ Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue!—that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the Plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”
The city of Diarbeker itself is situated in a delightful plain on the banks of the river Tigris, and nearly at its head; it is one of the richest, most trading, strong, and populous cities in Asiatic Turkey ”

“ Men of that nationality exist everywhere; and no “shadrach” in a blast furnace refuses more obstinately to melt and become assimilated to the rest of the iron ore, than they refuse to assimilate themselves to their neighbours. They are found elsewhere only in colonies; but even in this their original home, massacre, oppression, and the deliberate planting of counter-balancing colonies of Kurds in villages whence the original owners have been expelled, has reduced them to something less than half the present population.
As a people there are few who have a good word for them. ”

“ This village of only 200 houses owns 7000 sheep and goats, 60 horses and mares, and 400 head of cattle, and its tribute is only 230 tumans. It and very many other villages belong to Haidar Khan, Governor of Achaz, of whom the villagers speak as a lenient lord. Apricot and pear orchards abound, and on a piece of grass in one of these I found my camp most delectably pitched. The ketchuda and several other men came to meet me; indeed, the istikbal consisted of over twenty Kurdish horsemen. The village was absolutely crowded with men and horses, 200 pilgrims being lodged there for the night. ”

“ But not satisfied with this addition of territory, Mohammed Pasha found means to prevail upon the Porte to place Buhtân also under his sway. This province, which comprises the whole of the district west of Bahdinân as far as Jezeerah, and stretches northward to the west of Tyari, was under the immediate jurisdiction of Bedr Khan Beg, and, in a late reform attempted by the Turkish government for regulating the condition and political relations of the Coordish and other mountain tribes in this part of its dominions, had been annexed to the pashalic of Diarbekir. ”

“ A city notable for its size, and yet more for its menacing aspect:—a grim black row of massive towers and curtains, with the slender stems of a dozen minarets shooting up into the sky behind the ramparts like reeds behind a dyke of stone. The snow peaks on our left stretch beyond it, and fade off gradually into the distance; and as we draw nearer we perceive that on our right the town is guarded by the deep ravine of the Tigris. Such is Diarbekr—Black Amida; whose classical name is not yet disused entirely, and which owes its inseparable epithet to the basalt of which it is built. ”

“ No Power can keep one in every mudirate; and nothing short of that would be effective. If Turkey is ever to be reformed, it must be by foreigners who have executive as well as advisory authority; power, that is, to hang an official who does not obey orders, or a chief who breaks the peace. Half a dozen such men would have Kurdistan as safe as Hyde Park inside a year, for if there is one chance in twenty of trouble ensuing, the Kurd does not raid.{317}
Reshid’s only rival in Berwar is the Agha of Châl, [142] an old man who is the government Mudir of his district. ”

“ By break of day they arrived on the banks of the Diala, a river which discharges itself into the Tigris; and here, in spite of their impatience, they were detained till noon, there being but one boat at the ferry. In six days they reached the southern branches of the mountains of Kurdistan, and found themselves suddenly in the midst of that wild and hardy race, which, from the remotest ages, has maintained possession of these inexpugnable fastnesses, which harassed the ten thousand in their retreat, and still enact a conspicuous part in all the border wars between the Persians and Turks. ”

“ To approach it from any side except Diarbekr, by river, one must pass several days of the almost waterless desert road. Only to the south-east is the land fertile, and one understands why it is in that direction that Assyria proper lay. To-day the distant Zagros Mountains and their unknown and feared Kurds form a barrier as unconquerable as ever the ancients found them; and to them it was my purpose to go.
We put up in an upper room of a khan or caravanserai called Hamad Qadu, and as our ways lay together, at least as far as Erbil, we thought to continue in companionship. ”

“ DOWN THE TIGRIS TO MOSUL Diarbekr at first sight strikes the stranger as a remarkably clean, bright, busy city, with streets unusually broad for the East, enormous bazaars, not roofed as in other Oriental cities, but merely rows of windowless shops lining the ways. ”

“ The officer said: “If we take this child with us to Diarbekir, the authorities will take him from us, and he will share the fate of his people in being killed. It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move one of the Kurds to compassion, that he take him and bring him up.” None of us could say anything to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leaving the child as we found him, without speech, tears, or movement. Who knows of what rich man or Notable of the Armenians he was the son? He had hardly seen the light when he was orphaned by the slaughter of his parents and kinsmen. ”

“ As a matter of fact, it was discovered at Pir Hussein, a small village built beside a low tell, and situated about four and a half hours to the N.N.E. of Diarbekr, on the Ambar Su, a stream which rises in the lower slopes of the Taurus, and, after running [Pg 245] parallel to the Sebene Su, joins the Tigris below Diarbekr. It was found by the villagers some nineteen years ago when they were digging for building materials on the site of the ancient city below the tell. ”

“ The plain, bounded by the Tigris, the great and lesser Zab, and the Kurdish hills, is renowned for its fertility. It is the granary of Baghdad, and it is a common saying amongst the Arabs, “that if there were a famine over the rest of the earth, Shomamok (for so the principal part of the plain is called) would still have its harvest.” This district belongs chiefly to the Tai Arabs, who wander from pasture to pasture, and leave the cultivation of the soil to small sedentary tribes of Arabs, Turcomans, and Kurds, who dwell in villages, and pay an annual tribute in money or in kind. ”

“ The old constitutional mode of government and taxation in Turkey favours the formation of a number of agricultural settlements. The Divan declares how much tribute each village or district has to pay, leaving the principal inhabitants to apportion the contribution of each individual and holding them responsible for the whole. The same parties exercise the internal police of their community, subject to the surveillance of the higher authorities. ”

“ Abd-l-Kadr agreed to accept a liberal allowance from the family funds; and to live in Stamboul, the city he knew, rather than set up as a savage chief in Kurdistan.
A day’s journey from the Sheikh’s house at Neri brings the traveller to the land of the Christian “ashirets” of Jilu and Baz.
Ashiret is a word that strictly means “tribe” or clan; but as descriptive of status it is contrasted with “rayat” or subject; and means that the bearers of the name pay tribute (when it can be got out of them) and not taxes. ”

“ In the summer of 1909, when Urmi plain was in the condition of anarchy mentioned in the last chapter, some of the Christian villages protected themselves by enlisting parties of exiles who belonged to the fighting clans of Tergawar; men who loved a battle for its own sake, and who also had a very special personal grudge against the Kurds who were most obnoxious to their hosts. Hence it came to pass that when the Kurds of a certain district came down to plunder the village of Ardishai, with their usual insolent confidence, they met with a most unexpectedly warm reception. ”

“ I can understand that in Kurdistan proper with the lowlands about the course of the Tigris the shepherd problem presents some difficulty; it must always be a task of some magnitude to control a people whose migrations extend over so wide an area and whose country conceals within its countless recesses such inaccessible retreats. On the tableland the case is quite elementary: the pastoral Kurd belongs to a village, and that village is situated in the neighbourhood of the pastures from which he is driven by the winter snows. ”

“ There was a fresh briskness, a hearty feeling in the air of Diarbekr, that took the fancy. The new springtime exactly achieved that mean of temperature wherein man feels at his best in the Mesopotamian plains, that scorch the life out, and make the strongest languid during the long summer.
The place was crowded and busy; the Kurds, released from their snow-bound mountains, were coming in to buy summer clothing; the Armenians, who are the craftsmen of Diarbekr, were enjoying a period of immunity from the terror in which they often exist. ”

“ Given a village of Christians, with Kurds in the neighbourhood: a party of Kurds (men who have probably made their own village too hot to hold them, or who have quarrelled with their chief) come and settle at free quarters in the place as “guests.” The villagers cannot turn them out; for the intruders are armed,{178} and they are not; and stingless worker bees can hardly expel sting-bearing drones. If they appeal to the Government for redress, the official is bribed by the intruders to do nothing (the bakhshish being extorted from the villagers) ”

“ It would comprehend a considerable area, from Kirkuk and Sulimanieh on the south-east to Diarbekr and the confines of Kharput on the north-west. Mosul, Jezireh and Diarbekr would be the bases of the administration, these cities on the lowlands being situated in convenient positions to serve as centres from which to control the necessary winter migrations of the Kurdish tribes from their mountains to the agricultural regions bordering on the left or eastern bank of the Tigris. Strong military posts might be [434] established within the mountainous area in the principal towns of Kurdistan. ”

“ A spot has to be chosen which is reasonably safe from avalanches; else the poor farmer may find, some spring morning, that not only his crop, but his whole field, has been swept away in the night.
Men of Jilu have a harder life than even the average mountaineer of Kurdistan; and hence it is, no doubt, that they have developed the wanderlust, which is far more strongly marked in them than in most of their fellow countrymen. They wander everywhere in search of work, though they always drift back to this strange little canton at the end. ”

“ Kurds are not too particular under these circumstances, though they will not eat the meat knowingly. Still, if trapped thus, they salve their consciences with the remark: “The Christian had the sin, and I had the good dinner.” It is, however, only men of Tkhuma who act thus. The good folk of Tyari might not be above scoring off the enemy in that or any other way, but they will never themselves eat either pork or hare. They do not realize, however, that the rule is not peculiar to that elect people, their own tribe. ”

“ But the weight of this agricultural element lies in the scale of peace; it is otherwise with those Kurds who retain to the full their tribal organisation and who pasture their flocks on the lofty highlands which extend to the plain of Erzerum. It is possible that from a remote period the nomads of Kurdistan proper may have advanced the limit of their summer journey beyond the plain of Mush, to return at the approach of winter to the neighbourhood of Diarbekr. ”