I spent the morning bidding farewell to the numerous friends and acquaintances I had made during my stay in Sulaimania, and entrusted such affairs as were as yet unsettled to Matti. Then we had the usual “merchants’ lunch” of kebab and bread together, and on foot set out on the road to walk a little way together, and join the caravan outside. It was the first time for months past that any one had dared venture outside the town on the Chemchemal side, for, but a week before, the Hamavands had been scouring the plain right up to the gates of the town.
Matti had not informed the muleteer who I was or of what creed and nationality, and I did not propose to him to do so. I should be asked, and that soon, and I could give such answer as I felt inclined. Habib, I think, had a notion that I was not what I pretended to be, for he was of a prying nature, and he had professed it difficult to believe several of my assertions in the face of the English and French books, and the maps he saw at my house, which to him suggested disguises and intrigues, because he could not understand them.
We came up to the waiting animals—a little group of three or four, for the main caravan had not arrived—and here took leave of one another, an incident of no little regret upon my part, and I hope, too, upon that of Matti; and before we left the brow of the hillock, I looked my last upon Sulaimania, a cluster of flat roofs in a hollow almost invisible a mile away, so well did the old pashas hide their town from the view of Turk and Kurd alike. I gazed, too, for a moment upon distant Aoraman, a frowning wall, black now, the snows invisible from the distance—the frontier of Persia, from which I once more receded.
CHAPTER XIV
TO KIRKUK
Our caravan was a tiny one, and the muleteer, a long-legged Turkoman known as Ahmad Bash Chaush, was accompanied by a youth and a long-haired darvish, both natives of his town. This second was a quiet, cheerful man, short and stoutly built, as are many of the Turkomans, and he was the laughing-stock of many he met, for he had adopted the habit of wearing a Persian felt hat, which excited the ridicule of such of the local population as took him for a Persian at first sight.
We did not go far that day, but pushed along quickly till the village of Baba Murda, the inhabitants of which were encamped miles away in a pleasanter spot. Here upon a knoll we threw the loads, and while the youth took the animals to water, the darvish filled the jars at the spring, and Ahmad, as head-man, and entitled to ease first—though he had walked his twelve miles—sat with me and smoked.
It was hot this summer afternoon in Lower Kurdistan, though the heat was past its greatest, and we were glad to get that side of the loads where a light breeze played, and wait for the mules to be tethered, groomed, and finally given their barley, when the day’s work was done. Then the darvish and the lad joined us, and we shared the pears I had brought, for they would not keep; and these with bread made the evening meal.
One is soon tired and sleepy after the jolting of the mule and the heat and air, and it is not usual to sit up long after sunset The meal finished, we lay down where we were, upon a somewhat stony ground, and waited for the sleep that comes quickly. But the darvish sat upon his heels and commenced in a low voice chanting in monotone, “La allahu ill’allah,” in rising cadence, drawing deep breaths with a groan, till his voice rang out in the still night. His breath shortened, and the curious exhaustion that accompanies these exercises overtook him, and with a groan he sank motionless upon the ground. Then, after a few minutes he recommenced, “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar,” in sharp staccato, accentuating the last syllable of the word “akbar” so that it fell like a hammer-stroke upon the ear. Again till exhaustion he continued, and once more he rose and started the cry upon “Allah.” After this he lay prostrate and slept where he collapsed, and we slept too.
In the manner of caravan travelling it was yet pitch dark when we got under way in the morning, and the sun rose as we arrived at the foot of the ridge and pass, into Bazian—the now evacuated country of the Hamavands.
We struggled slowly and painfully up the long and stony ascent, and from the summit looked back again over Sulaimania—whose position was marked in the valley of Surchina by a white streak up the ridge of the opposite range—the road to Panjwin and Persia.