“Why,” I said, “in olden times, when there were Hamadan merchants here, you did not question them, and annoy them by such queries and doubts. They were buyers and sellers, and so would I be, were the country more secure. Meanwhile, what can I possibly do but wait the moment when peace will allow of commercial venture?”
“With what places would you trade?” he asked.
“With Saqiz and Bana, Keui and Kirkuk, Panjwin and Sina, as do others,” I said.
“How do you know all these places, if you are a stranger, and where did you learn Kurdish? I am afraid you do not tell the truth about your past, my brother; were it not better to tell me at once why you are here. Your passports are defective. I have no personal animosity against you, and should like to see you often, but there are strong suspicions, and if we cannot be satisfied of your harmlessness, we shall have to deport you to Mosul.”
“Good,” I said, “I am not enchanted with Sulaimania, and such a step would put me in your debt, for as I am a foreign subject, you would have to provide me with guards there, and on my arrival your Government would have to reimburse my commercial losses due to the abandonment of my business here, besides which, with the assistance of the Consul, I should be able to complain direct to the Vali of you and your methods.”
With this we arrived at the Serai, or Government house, and he took me into a little office where three or four Turks were seated upon a bench, idle. These saluted me, and having asked the reason of my visit, and having been informed by the policeman, looked upon me with suspicion, and while he retired to make an appointment, asked if I had not a passport. I explained that I had all necessary passports, but that the ignorance of their officials apparently involved them in difficulties. At this they looked serious and offended, and held their peace.
Anon the effendi returned, and took me down a dark passage to another little office where was a fat Turk called the “Tabur Aghassi,” and before him I was arraigned. Two or three Kurds were present, and as I knew one of them he took the opportunity to ask what the trouble was, while the policeman explained it in Turkish to the fat man. I suppose I expressed my disgust very freely, for the Kurds laughed heartily, and the policeman, who did not understand a word of Kurdish, turned sharply and asked what I was saying. Meanwhile the Tabur Aghassi was examining my English passport upside down, and looking grave. The various seals and endorsements upon the back interested him immensely, and at last he found a partially erased visé of the Turkish Consul in Kermanshah, which had been attached some time before I left that place for Bagdad.
The sight of a Turkish seal seemed to reassure him, so I pointed out the visé of the Turkish Consul in London, which he examined closely. These seemed to allay his suspicions, and in conjunction with the Turkish travelling passport appeared to put them at rest, and he told the policeman so. That individual—who had not been able to read the various endorsements—was somewhat chagrined, but thought to raise a difficulty by asking how I had got through Kirkuk without police inspection and seal upon my passport. I took the document from him and showed him the Kirkuk police seal, but he could not read it, and professed to believe it false; so I handed it to a Kurd, who with some gusto read out the inscription on the seal, at which even the Tabur Aghassi smiled, and the Kurds laughed, for I could not refrain from a complimentary expression upon the capabilities of a police commissaire who could not read the seals of his confrère and must rely on Kurds to do it for him. By now he had lost his temper, and I had too, for he continued to make fatuous remarks, and I commenced talking to him in a strain he was not used to hear, certainly not before Kurds, so he snatched up the passport and departed. The Tabur Aghassi was looking rather cross too, for he naturally did not approve of such procedure, but he sent a man after the policeman to tell him to seal and record my passports and let me get away, for I had done enough damage in the place already.
ACQUITTAL
In five minutes he returned the document passed and sealed, and demanded half a mejidie, a last attempt. I took the paper from him, bade farewell to the Tabur Aghassi, and as I left the room told him in Kurdish that I would pay him in Mosul when I was deported. By the time this was translated I was away.