This old man, who had spent his life in an occupation we should deride as hypocritical—for he was a guide to Mecca, and while overcharging the uninitiated, achieved spurious merit—had yet in his old heart a spot where the poetry that lives in the Aryan breast yet lurked, and emanated, ascribing everything to that fearful Omnipotence that the Muhammadan worships.
In the Persian I have often met this dual personality—the hard, cautious man, who descends to any trickery and deception, even crime, for the meanest ends, and in a revulsion of feeling reviles himself, sees himself as others see him, in the purest poetry of language and thought expresses the most beautiful sentiment, and falls to earth again.
PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE
The mountains, always the mountains, held the old man’s gaze. There is a fascination about them that it is not necessary to be a Kurd or a Persian to be able to acquire. The impassive monuments of old-time glacier and volcanic upheaval, relics of convulsions that rent continents, that rise straight up from the flat, broad plains, may well seize upon all that is impressionable in anyone, and inspire the dullest with that craving to penetrate the mysteries of their deep valleys, and view the world from their blanched heads.
Truly, Diarbekr, that looks out from its fine bluff upon the lands of four old empires—Assyria to the south, Armenia to the north, Media to the east, and Rome to the west, might have much to meditate upon, were it allowed time for meditation between the continual rebellion and persecution that tear it.
Sunset, that meant gates closed, forced us to return, and once within the gates, Haji forgot his mood, and recommenced his talk of the journey, of the prices of our various purchases, of the unscrupulousness of Armenians, and the exaction of the Turks, who sent up the price of everything.
Next morning early we roused up, and while I went out into the streets to find a porter, Haji busied himself arranging the goods for carrying. A sturdy Kurd, whom I found in a mosque yard, arranged to carry our things for five piastres (10d.), and we loaded him up with a box and the saddle-bags, upon which we cast our bedding. The rest we must carry ourselves, for Haji, who would spend as little as possible himself, would not allow me to waste a coin where it could be saved.
It took us a little while to convince the Armenian keeper that a couple of shillings was enough for five days’ occupation of his room; but this once done, he helped to load us up, and at length we departed. Haji’s load was the sack of charcoal, and a bag containing the rice and some sundries, while I shouldered the bread and suspended from myself bags containing tea and sugar loaves, odds and ends of all descriptions, and a charcoal brazier that picked pieces out of me wherever it struck its many sharp corners. The whole length of Diarbekr we struggled, for the south gate was our first objective, and not till then did I realise the size of the place. The straight street ran on as it seemed to infinity, but the gate (so like the gate from Winchelsea to the Romney marshes) did appear at last, and by some extraordinary providence the police did not worry. The sun was getting up at the pace he always does in the East, which I am sure is greater than anywhere else, and we sweated and panted as we waddled along, bent double under our loads. The porter, with the strength of his kind, outdistanced us, and with his steady march was soon lost among the trees that border the winding road. Haji’s breath gave out here, and we had to rest, but at last we did get to the bank of the river, and threw our loads down upon some bags of apricots that were to go to Mosul.
And now, since we are arrived at the kalak, a description of the ingenious craft is necessary. Briefly, two hundred inflated goatskins arranged in the form ten by twenty, are bound to a few thin transverse poplar trunks above them. Over these again seven or eight more tree-trunks not more than 7 inches thick, are placed crosswise, and upon these, to form a deck, is placed a layer of bales. Between two pairs of these bales a basket-work affair is fixed, which, with a stake, forms a rough thole-pin. A pair of enormous sweeps swings on these, and the oarsmen, standing upon one bale, build a bridge of twigs across to the next row, and wield the sweeps standing. Under the sweeps an empty space is always left across the raft, where the skins are visible between the rafters.
The raft, from its shape and construction, cannot be propelled, and the raison d’être of the oars is for turning, by which the kalak is directed into the right currents, and to pull the craft out of the danger that rocks standing in the stream often threaten. In the upper river, between Diarbekr and Mosul, particularly during the springtime, progress at night is impossible, for the side-currents which sweep round the rocky banks at the velocity of a galloping horse would hopelessly smash the raft. Wind, too, naturally exerts a great driving force upon a craft that draws but three inches of water, and its strength, too much for oars to fight against, often compels a halt.