“Wa khair hatin, wa ban i cho, ahwalakitan khassa shala.” (“You are welcome; your service is upon my eyes; your health is good, please God.”)
And it was in the peasant tongue of Sina, her native place, not the sloppy, mouthing dialect of Sulaimania; and I replied in the same, grateful to hear the language with which I had grown familiar a year before in Persian Kurdistan.
Her tones were peculiar, not those of a woman, and though not deep, were clear and decisive, and abrupt. Persian she understood perfectly, though a little shy of speaking it before one whom she only knew as a Persian. After asking me particulars of my journey, and news of Shiraz and its people, that she knew of by repute, she asked me to read her a letter in Persian that had just come from Teheran, and was so taken with the accent of Shiraz, that she was not satisfied till I had repeated the epistle three times, remarking to her servants:[68]
“Bravo! that is the true Persian speech, the sweetest of all God’s languages.”
After that she refused me permission to speak Kurdish, and insisted upon Persian, exacting long explanations of any Shiraz idiom new to her.
For an hour or more the interview lasted, then she rose and earnestly desired to know if I was quite comfortable, gave orders for new carpets and better bedding for me, and then retired, and for the first time spoke Persian as a farewell, bidding me return to the official “divan,” which she held every afternoon.
I was returning to my room, when a serving-man told me that I must go and call upon Tahir Beg, second son of Uthman Pasha by his first wife, who lived in the other end of the big house wherein I had my room. This chief, who owns some land at Halabja, has acquired a reputation for considerable literary skill, and speaks besides Kurdish, Persian and Turkish, in the former of which he writes a good deal of poetry. He has also a slight knowledge of French.
As is the habit among such people, he keeps open house, and callers arrive at all times of the day and interview him.
I found him in a great three-sided room, or summer portico, which opened upon the roof of the entrance lobby and some rooms attached thereto. From the open side a magnificent view of Shahr-i-Zur and the Azmir Mountains spread before one, clear and rose-coloured in the morning light. Round the portico were ranged wide, high benches, upon which it is possible to sit, dangling a leg that does not reach the ground, or to squat in the Oriental fashion. Carpets were spread upon the ground and over the benches, and just outside, on the roof, a number of armed Kurds stood in attendance. Tahir Beg sat meditating, upon a bench covered with a fine rug, apparently oblivious of an old sayyid, a scowling priest in a great turban, and a Turkish bimbashi in full uniform. He was a wild-looking man. His heavy eyebrows shaded the bulging blue eyes of an opium-smoker, but the vacillating expression was mitigated by the strong aquiline nose and firm chin. His mouth was concealed by a heavy, fair moustache. He wore the usual Kurdish garments—long, flowing, striped silk robes—and in his belt carried a Colt repeating pistol and a great dagger. His headgear was that of a Jaf chief—fringed silk handkerchiefs wound in a turban broader at the top than at the base, and the fringes hung about his ears and forehead, giving him a wild and ferocious appearance.
A JAF CHIEF