Thickly inhabited by Aoramani tribesmen and Chaldeans, it possessed innumerable fruit and flower lands, had, and has still, a fine supply of sweet water, and cool breezes from the high mountains to temper the heat of the plain.[61]
But the Turks gained possession, and, blight that they are, killed everything, so that now its only people are the Jaf nomads, who pass and repass every spring and autumn. All this I had learned, and so looked with more than usual interest upon the scene till we were hurried up by the horsemen, who had descried a large body of Hamavand riders in the distance. With bustle and hurry we fled to the shelter of a cluster of tents, the residence of a tiny tribe—the Muan—whose village, deserted in summer, lay half a mile distant in a grove of willow-trees.
Here we threw our loads upon the plain, and each little party built about itself a barricade of its own belongings. Wheaten bread being unknown at this time of the year among the villagers, we had brought our own, and this we supplemented by a big pot of “du,” the national drink of Kurdistan.
With nightfall came rain, and unsheltered as we were, all of us became very wet. Scorpions, which abounded, having, too, an aversion to damp, took shelter under us, and what with wind, thunder, rain, scorpions, regiments of fleas, and intermittent firing, we slept very little, and were not sorry to load again in the cool early morning. The muleteer’s mother-in-law had fared worst, for she had acted as sentinel all night, her chief duties being to drag slothful pack-animals from off our bedding, upon which they would stand and stamp, adding another nuisance to the night. The soldiers, tired and disgusted with life, were very dismal this second morning. Drenched and footsore, stiff from their drubbing of the previous day, a walk of thirty miles through the heat of Shahr-i-Zur appeared a gigantic affliction indeed. Half-way across the plain, where the stagnant air soaked up warm vapours from the water standing in the depressions, we came to a great goat-hair canopy, surrounded by minor establishments of the same material. This was the encampment of Mahmud Pasha Jaf, the most powerful man in these parts, and the only signs of his magnificence were the glorious carpets, the rows of leather trunks, and the silk quilts hanging in the sun to let the fleas escape.[62]
A PASHA’S ENCAMPMENT
We reached Halabja in the afternoon, a little town set among gardens. It is distinguished by three great houses, those of Adela Khanum, whose name is best translated as “Lady Justice”; of Tahir Beg and Majid Beg, her stepsons. These, with a clean and well-built bazaar, give Halabja a distinction it totally lacked fifty years ago, when it was an insignificant village. The stranger in Halabja usually has to accompany his muleteer to the house where he stables his beast, for there is as yet no caravanserai, though one will be built soon. But I had made friends with a merchant of Halabja who knew, as all the inhabitants of Halabja must, Lady Adela, and he insisted that my “knowledge, learning, breeding, and politeness” would gain me a warm welcome from this renowned lady; and that were I to instal myself in a private house she would be offended when she heard, as she of course would do, of the arrival of a Persian, that rare traveller in that part of Kurdistan.
He told me to go boldly to the house of Tahir Beg, which was connected by doors and a bridge to that of Lady Adela, and state that I was a Persian scribe and merchant travelling through her lands, and relying upon her favour. This I resolved to do, and entering a great deserted courtyard, I rode up to the raised verandah and dismounted. A couple of servants strolled up, looked at me and my belongings, and asked who I was. I introduced myself as I had been advised, and they invited me to a seat while they informed Lady Adela, who was in the other house. Her they found just risen from a siesta, and returned shortly with a message expressing her pleasure at having the opportunity of meeting a Persian from Shiraz, the first ever seen in her country, and granting me an upper room in Tahir Beg’s house, whence I could look out over garden, plain, and mountain. Here carpets were spread, tea was brought, with cigarettes, by men who spoke a little Persian; and two saucy Kurdish maids, their turbans cocked at a rakish angle, submitted me to a cross-examination while they smoked cigarettes.
Lady Adela, shortly after, sent another message to say that she would see me next morning in private audience, a comparative term in this land of retainers and patriarchal custom. Dinner was brought in upon two great trays, pilau, sour meats, curds, a sweetmeat and sherbet, and followed by a man with a roll of new bedding, upon which I was glad enough to stretch and sleep.
Before proceeding with the narrative, it is advisable to give some note upon the family and tribe of the Jaf, and more particularly upon the extraordinary woman in whose house I was a guest—a woman unique in Islam, in the power she possesses, and the efficacy with which she uses the weapons in her hands.
The Jaf tribe is an ancient one, and has from the earliest history of Kurdistan been powerful, and renowned for the manner in which its chiefs agree and hold together. This trait of character—coherency—so rare among the greater Kurdish chieftains, has won for the tribe wealth and power, so that now various chiefs own such important towns as Panjwin, Halabja, and Qizil Rubat, besides numerous villages and lands, which they have acquired by purchase.