To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise

by Ely Banister Soane

While speaking, I was leaning over a saddle-bag of “run,” and he stood behind me. For two or three minutes he stood thus, and then muttering a goodnight, departed as swiftly as he had come. The muleteer afterwards told us that he had tried to induce him by every means in his power to abandon the idea of going, or refuse to let me have the animals I had hired. What his reason was for wishing to keep me I never discovered, nor could Hama, whose wits usually supplied a reason for everything, offer any solution of the affair.

So next morning early we rose, and collected our goods by the light of candles, conveying them to the edge of the wide verandah, whence we dropped them upon the mules’ backs. Mansur, who had consented to look after my interests, came as far as the gate and assured me of his diligence in my affairs; and at last when it was quite light we moved off. As we passed out of the main doorway, Hama directed my attention to the Shaikh ul Islam, who was standing upon the roof, where he had slept with Tahir Beg’s household, gazing down upon us. So we left Halabja.

As a mark of regard or from excess of politeness, Lady Adela had provided me with a guard of four horsemen, two stalwart fellows of her tribe under a little wiry man, one Rasul Ahmad, who was noted in Halabja for his bravery and integrity. His three underlings were big, well-set-up men, typical Kurdish horsemen of the south, with long tunics, which, as they sat their horses, shaded their bare ankles from the sun. Rasul Ahmad alone wore the scarlet riding-boots of these parts. I noticed that one of them had a very poverty-stricken appearance. His horse was a veritable Rosinante, and he matched it. A great hole was worn in his tunic where the butt of his rifle had rubbed as he carried it over his shoulder, the leather of his saddle-peak was sadly damaged by the gun, from long carriage across his knees. These are the two positions in which a Kurd usually carries the arm: the first when it is known that it will not be necessary at short notice; the second preparatory to carrying it almost upright, the stock resting upon the saddle. His bare feet, innocent of shoes, were thrust into rusty old shovel-stirrups. His rifle was an old Snider, not the smart Martini carbine as carried by the others, and his melancholy face seemed to reflect the seediness and unfortunate appearance of his gear. He had the heavy, square jaw and small blue eyes of the Kurds of the Shuan and Hamavand, and spoke little to any of his fellows. Once, however, one of them made a joke at his expense, and the sorrowful cavalier charged down at him with rifle aimed, but as he fired, Rasul Ahmad knocked the gun up, and as no harm was done, the incident was regarded in their rough manner as a joke.

Finding him riding alongside, I asked him concerning himself, when he informed me that he was of the Hamavand and not of the Jaf, though he had taken service with them, and he explained the reason. It appeared that after several raids upon caravans with his tribe, he had attempted to hold up some travellers unassisted. In this he had been unsuccessful, and a bullet through his horse’s shoulder had brought him to earth, to be caught. To make matters worse, he discovered that his victims were themselves Hamavands, and relations of his chief. Stung by their ridicule, for the affair was regarded as a joke, and urged by the fear of ultimate retribution, he fled on foot to the Jaf country, and took service as a mounted messenger and guard.

AN EXILED HAMAVAND

His melancholy, he averred, was due to his separation from his own hills, and his wife and family, and the loss of loot that he suffered by his absence from the tribe. He drew a pathetic comparison between himself scorching in the heat of Shahr-i-Zur, while his wife sat upon her roof in the hill village, clad in silk and satins, under her the finest of Persian rugs, round her a wall of rolls of cloths and stuffs from which she chose new garments, the while she listened to the hissing of the tea samovar and held her face to the cool breeze.

By such talk we whiled away the time, and made Sulaimania in one stage, halting during the night for a few hours to rest the animals, and snatching a nap on the hard ground.

A little excitement was caused during the afternoon, by a skirmishing party from a tent village discovering our presence and mistaking us for robbers, and we saw the spectacle of village Kurds calling to horse. We saw the village calm and quiet in the heat of the afternoon, and next instant, men—a moment ago asleep—darting forth at a gallop in twos and threes upon horses kept ever saddled and bridled, to take up positions around us and prevent attack. Rasul Ahmad was able to convince them at a distance that we were but the Pasha’s people, and they came down and invited us to tea.

As Lady Adela had put me in the charge of Rasul Ahmad, I was fain to bide by his counsel for a resting-place in Sulaimania during the night, and adopted his suggestion of staying at the house of a woman, Piruz, a relation of his, who possessed a small house. This, too, was conveniently placed upon the edge of the town, and afforded a resting-place for him when in Sulaimania.

As this was a type of the humbler houses of Kurdistan, it may be well to describe it briefly here.