Lady Adela asked the cause of this apparition, and the guard, with the air of one who relates a funny story, told how the captive had attempted to rob one of the villages of Shahr-i-Zur. It appeared that for some reason he had gone to Sulaimania with camels, and having become separated from his mates, was attempting to find his way back to the lowlands via the Khaniqin road. He had begged for, and been granted shelter and food at the house of a Kurdish peasant, and was put to sleep in a shed where a donkey was stabled. He had stolen from here a chain, and having no place to conceal it, wound it round his waist under his shirt, and made off in the dusk of the early morning. The peasant, spying his flight, on principle pursued him, when the accelerated pace and the weight of the chain together shook it from its place, and, falling about his ankles, tripped up the unfortunate Arab. The Kurd caught him, and finding nothing handier than the chain, bound his legs with it and left him to stew in the sun, till two of Lady Adela’s riders coming up, he handed over his capture, and he was brought into Halabja, running at the horses’ stirrups.
The chain, retained as an evidence of his guilt, they had hung around his neck; and as he fell upon the floor weeping and trying to crawl to the feet of Lady Adela to kiss them, the company failed to maintain their seriousness, even the stolid Majid Beg joining in the general laugh.
An interrogation of the culprit should now have taken place, but no one appeared to know Arabic, except the one word “Uskut” (“Be quiet”), which was used, and not without need, for the fellow’s wails and weeping filled the room.
The only remark Lady Adela felt called upon to make was one against her own people, and which was received in good enough part:
“What shall be the fate of him who would steal from a Kurd? Are not the Kurds supposed to be the worst robbers on earth? Take him away and loose him.”
As they hauled him to his feet and dragged him from the room, his wailing redoubled, for he must have thought he was going to execution instead of to liberty.
As he went out, Tahir Beg was announced, and everybody got up on his feet while he entered, slowly followed by a string of people, who found places somehow among the throng. Tahir Beg himself picked his way among them and took a seat upon the mattress near by, urbanely inviting me to a seat beside him, when he commenced a conversation about the merits of French and Persian.
After his arrival the divan did not last long. First Majid Beg left, then Lady Adela, rising, retired to an inner room, and the company was dismissed. Tahir Beg asked me to come to his evening reception upon the roof, which took place every night. Returning to my room, I found a caller in the person of a clerk or scribe of Tahir Beg, who was smoking one of my cigarettes and gazing out of the window. Like most of the inhabitants of this queer household he was a Persian subject, native of Sina, but wore the long Jaf dress and zouave jacket. He, however, refused to part with the Sina head-dress, and still wore the low skull-cap surrounded by fringed silk handkerchiefs. He had several matters to discuss. First to recommend a man who had applied for the post of personal servant to me—him I arranged to see in the morning; next, to ask me the right price of a Browning pistol, which he had purchased for seven liras; and lastly, to know if I possessed any books in Persian. I had an old torn copy of Saadi, and this I gave him, and he sat there reading it indifferently and going into rhapsodies over verses he barely understood, but whose sonorous syllables and broad vowels appealed to the Kurdish ear. It must also be remarked that among the more cultivated Kurds of the south it has always been the fashion to affect a passion for Persian, which is the reason of so many of the Kurdish poets writing almost solely in that language, and neglecting their own language, which lends itself to poetry of the ballad type very excellently.
A KURDISH LOVE AFFAIR
This young man, Hasan by name, had, I heard afterwards, the reputation of being the “blood” of the place, and a rhymester, doubtless in imitation of his accomplished master, whose verses it was his duty to write down at dictation. He had, it appeared, killed someone in a fight at Sina, and had fled to Halabja for Lady Adela’s protection till the affair could be settled. He had then fallen in love with a maid of his patroness, by name Piruza, a pert girl of Sauj Bulaq, of the Mukri—also a Persian Kurd. I had the pleasure later of witnessing their somewhat hoydenish flirtations. This is one of the most remarkable features of Kurdish life. Among other Muhammadan nations, whose women are strictly secluded, marriages can only be matters of arrangement by third parties; but among the Kurds, where the women are practically as free as in any European country—except that they do not go to the bazaar—free intercourse between the sexes is the rule, and the result is a large number of love marriages, which is all for the good of a race so simple in habits and life.