Morning brought us no relief, and indeed made our case worse, for had we stayed at the village we could have taken shelter in its houses. By an irony of the elements, the wind held off at sunrise, and despite the rain we cast off. An hour downstream, where it narrowed among the hills and ever-rising cliffs, the wind swept down again, and we tied up by a strip of beach under a precipice, and so cut ourselves off from any chance of shelter. For three days and nights it rained and blew. Even our bread, the only thing we had to eat, became sodden. Haji developed rheumatism, and a temper so irritable that I migrated to the bales outside, and slept two nights upon the apricots, covered by soaked and clammy things that, while they kept the wind off, were so chill as to make their advantage problematical.
STORMY WEATHER
The fourth morning, however, broke fine, and in half an hour the clouds had torn to rags, the wind had gone overhead, driving the rack at a tremendous pace; but below, the river ran blue between its yellow cliffs, now a good two hundred feet high, and we steamed in the welcome warmth; and now we saw how the three days’ torrent had altered the condition of affairs. Our mooring-stakes were a couple of feet under water, and the river, which from here runs in a gorge through the mountains—a gorge ever narrowing—was flying along at express speed. Our courageous skipper cast off, and we commenced to race along. The river pursues a remarkable course here. The reaches are straight and short, and owing to the similarity in colouring of the opposite banks it is impossible to see the turn—often less than a right angle—till right upon it. Huge hills rise up beyond their lower slopes covered with trees, and above all we could see snow-capped peaks. In these wild gorges, of a beauty of spring verdure, of a magnificence indescribable, we felt—as in all effect we were—but a chip swept along the great river. At every turn the current, setting towards the far bank, would sweep round, roaring against the vicious-looking rocks, and all hands were called to the oars to keep the raft from dashing upon them, and being torn to pieces. The river, narrowing between points sometimes, or running over submerged rocks at others, breaks up in high curling swell, and the current doubles its speed. Here we would experience the greatest excitement in guiding the raft to the exact centre of the converging ridges of waves and shooting through between them at a tremendous velocity, to rush upon the boiling commotion where they met. The raft would undulate, its non-rigid construction prevents its rocking, and waves would roll up, drenching us and our goods, and our half-dried garments, while the raft cracked ominously. At such points Haji and the Arab merchant, grasping the nearest firm object, would ejaculate fervently, “Ya Rebbi! Sahl! Ya Rebbi!” (“Oh God, help! Oh God!”), and passing the danger spot, utter equally fervent thanksgiving. As we proceeded, the hills and cliffs got higher and steeper, great mountain sides rose at a slope apparently impossible to climb, to dizzy heights. Here and there would occur a narrow point of land, around which the stream curved, and upon every such was a little Kurdish village, the house of the head-man, well built of stone, with a loop-holed tower standing up on slightly higher ground. Once or twice shots were fired, but our pace took us far beyond the reach of the sportsmen, almost before they could reload. Seeing these great hills, these constant precipices, it was easy enough to understand why the armies of the old Powers of Mesopotamia in their marches northward always took the westerly plain roads, and left these hills to the tribes that have inhabited them ever since Central Asia poured out its hordes of Aryans far back in the years before history, to people the Western world.
One afternoon, when we were favoured with good weather, we turned into a long reach, and had before us one of the most remarkable sights the Tigris has to offer. The right bank of the river rose in a vertical cliff to a great height, and was faced across the broad stream by fellow cliff not so high, but honeycombed with cave-dwellings. The right hand cliff (which was the result of a hill-side cut off by the river) was broken at one place and continued again, the ravine—but a few yards across—coming down to the water’s edge. Upon the summit of this continued portion we could see a considerable town, so high up that human figures looked minute. Behind all, rose precipitous hill-sides, between whose gorges and valleys could be seen yet wilder crags and peaks. In the village or town two or three towers, narrow and tall, of the dimensions of a factory chimney, rose, looking more slender and high from the eminence upon which they stood. But most remarkable of all were the great piers of a once colossal bridge, that, springing from a lower point of the cliff, or rather from a spot upon its slope down to the foreshore, spans the space to the opposite cliff, bridging the Tigris further south than any existing stone bridge. Here the stream is broad and deep, and the mighty piers that tower above and shadow the passer-by in his humble kalak, speak volumes for the perseverance and talent of people past and gone, and, by comparison, the qualities of the Ottomans. And on both sides, on the left or east bank, where the cliff growing ever lower still hedges the river, and on the west, where receding it leaves a fertile foreshore, the faces are pierced with cave-dwellings, rock forts that communicate with one another. Curious chambers, open at the river-side, mere eeries, looked down upon the stream, and it is only a near approach that reveals the mode of access, a passage diving into the rock. From the village above a staircase has been cut, zig-zagging down the cliff-face to where the river laps the solid rock wall.
HASAN KAIF
This remarkable place, far off the track of any road, removed from even the feeble influence of the Turk by its surrounding mountains, is called Hasan Kaif. The name is modern, and tradition says that Hasan Kaif[8] was a Kurdish brigand who established himself there and levied toll upon all river passers, fortifying himself in a place that hardly needs any artificial protection, so well has Nature fenced it about. The bridge is said by most people to be Roman, but later experts than those who started the theory—for want of a better—state that it is Venetian, a relic of the old road to the East. In fact, I believe traces of Venetians have been found also in the town, where there are ruins. It is probable that the Venetians knew the place by reputation and history before they ever established themselves there. The population has probably been always Kurd, the Armenians that existed there before the Armenian massacre having immigrated. Now the Kurds have the place to themselves once more, and under the superlatively corrupt and feeble government of to-day, its old reputation has returned. Here, too, are some Yezidi, those ingenuous souls that, instead of attempting to curry favour with the Almighty, regard the evil power as more potential in this life, and seek to appease Satan, which perhaps comes to the same thing in effect upon their daily lives. We did not stop here, but allowed ourselves to be swept past, down a wide reach where the hills opened out, and at nightfall tied up where the river grew tremendously broad and turned sharply to the right.[9]
With night rain came on again, once more drowning us in our garments and coverings. So much water had the cargo absorbed that the raft had apparently sunk. At the start the skins were half out of water and had to be constantly sprinkled with a spoon-like instrument of leather, to prevent drying and cracking, but the last two days they had been invisible, and now even the covering beams began to disappear. The apricots, soaked by the first rain, had swollen and grown pulpy, a day’s sun had partially dried the outsides of the sacks, and induced a most unpleasant effluvium. Now everything became full of water to its saturation point again, and on this occasion a freezing wind arose, the reason for which we perceived at daybreak, for the hills were covered with new snow.
We cast off at the second hour of daylight, and floated out into a lake of swift-rushing eddies, crashing commotions of meeting streams. Here the Buhtan Su—the largest of the streams that go to make up the full Tigris—enters at a broad place, a bay among some abruptly rising hills. For a mile or so the reach of the combined rivers sweeps along broad and deep, then is forced to take the only possible outlet through a narrow gorge, between where the speed is positively giddy. As we approached the turn, a number of Kurds appeared, running down a valley to the river, and as they neared opened fire upon us, hitting nothing but a bale or two; but their attention was diverted most opportunely by another party, which, appearing on high, commenced a lively fusillade directed at our assailants. Very unfortunately we were not in a position to stop and watch the developments, but as we were hustled round a bend we saw that a brisk fight was in progress. It interested me very much to note the behaviour of my fellow-travellers. The crew seemed to think the affair very ordinary, and never ceased rowing; in fact it would have been impossible to relinquish control of the raft in this corridor full of rocks. The Arab and Haji, too, while very careful to take shelter behind bales, knowing that we must soon be carried beyond reach of danger, were very little perturbed, only the Kurdish blood of the older man boiled to think that he had not a gun to respond. The Turkish soldier disappeared at the first shot, having wedged himself in among the apricot bags and the rafters, whence he at length emerged wet and muddy.
JAZIRA IBN UMAR
We were not to go far that day, for rain and storm came on again, and we had to tie up; but the morning came fine, and despite the precarious condition of the raft, which was now floating under water, we resolved to go on as far as Jazira, a small town at the foot of the mountains, and reached there completely water-logged, and sinking deeper every minute, a little after noon.