One morning I received a polite note in Turkish from the postmaster—with whom I was not acquainted—asking me to come and see him. So I took my way along the dusty hot road, past the innumerable cafés full of hunchbacked, uniformed Turks, till I found the office. To-day not being post-day, the postmaster reclined in an armchair behind a table, smoking cigarettes. On my arrival, he saluted me very politely by my name, talking Turkish. It was, of course, not to be expected that he would state his business till after some small talk, so we conversed about various subjects till he worked round to that of antiques, upon which he was an enthusiast. “Antiques” in this country mean coins, and Assyrian cylinders, little cylindrical pieces of stone with images and figures carved upon them. He had invited me there to benefit by the opinion I must have formed upon the value of antiquities, for Ferangistan to him was a place where half the world sought antiques, and consequently anyone who had been there, as he heard I had, must know the value of such relics as were to be found near Kirkuk.
Having thus prepared me, he shut the door, and produced with empressement a small bag of coins and seals from his stamp-safe. These were for the most part early Muhammadan, a Parthian or two, and a few Assyrian pieces. The greatest treasure—to him—was a George III. five-pound piece, upon which he put a fabulous value. Beyond telling the probable date of his antiques I could not help him, but he pressed so hard—thinking my unwillingness to mention prices was due to an idea of purchasing—that at last I proposed some values which I was pleased to see highly gratified him. In these regions there is always a good market for antiques among the Turks and Christians, who buy them, gradually collecting a stock, and then take them to Constantinople in the hopes of selling for a fortune.
Coming back that morning I remember buying some lettuces of an old man, who cleaned and washed them for his purchasers. The price, which gives a good idea of the price of vegetables and fruit, was two lettuces for three “pul,” seven of which make a “qamari,” which is equivalent to three-farthings, so the lettuce worked out at about the twenty-fourth part of a penny each.
In this stands explained the tenacity with which two persons will haggle for an hour over fractional sums, for the acquisition of a farthing means a considerable part of a meal gained.
LEAVE KIRKUK
One morning early, the muleteer Rashid came along and woke me. The effendi under whose wing it had been arranged for us to go had suddenly made up his mind the day before, and was now ready. So hurriedly we loaded up, and barely getting time to bid farewell to Haji Rasul, who commended me to God and the saints, we filed out into the yet empty streets to the meeting-place outside the town. Just as we got there and saw ahead a collection of mules, foot-passengers, and soldiers, the day broke, and we bade farewell to this remote corner of Turkey for a time.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VI:
[22] The Hittites.
[23] The Mediterranean.
[24] Ragozin’s Assyria, p. 57.