Obedient to the summons I stopped, and turning, found myself face to face with an apparently outraged and obviously outrageous individual, who demanded in the fiercest tones the eleven krans I owed him. In the idiom of his native Kurdish, and with no excess of politeness, I denied the debt, and he advanced with half-drawn dagger; but finding that I neither fled nor paid, stopped, a little at a loss as to what his next step should be.
For a moment he glared at me, then with a contemptuous laugh, retired behind a pile of his tin bowls upon his booth, and stood lost in contemplation of the arched bazaar roof. I was told afterwards that this is but a little joke of the Sulaimanian, who occasionally, before the Turks frightened them away by their gross cupidity, would catch with the trick a meek pilgrim en route from Khorasan to Kerbela.
One of my first acquaintances in Sulaimania was a Syrian Christian of Mosul, one Matti Tuma. At that place I had experienced some difficulty in the matter of transporting the money I had brought with me, but finally found two Christians, known as Safu and Samu, who were prepared to give me a bill upon their correspondent in Sulaimania. This I took, having the draft made payable to Ghulam Husain, the Persian, under which name I was passing. This draft was at seven days after sight, but the first morning after my arrival an elderly man appeared, dressed exactly like the Sulaimanians, except for his small turban, and introduced himself as Matti Tuma, giving me the welcome information that he had the money ready waiting. His quiet manner, coupled with the assurance of his desire to assist me in every way, induced me to tell him more or less my plans, without, of course, hinting at my identity.
It was the first time he had met a Persian in Sulaimania since the Hamadan merchants had left. In order to facilitate my life in Kurdistan, where an aimless wanderer is but an object of suspicion, I had resolved, before starting, to open relationships with several firms, and was now in a position to talk about various samples, and enquire into the prices of local products.
Upon these points I found Matti very ready to inform me, at the same time giving me some sound advice regarding the purchase of whatever I might need, and inviting me to use his services and experience of Sulaimania—where he had been for twenty years—without hesitation. He strongly advocated my settling in Sulaimania for a time, for he said that there was yet hope of improved trade. As I expressed my intention of seeing more of Kurdistan, ostensibly with the idea of ascertaining what business was a profitable one, and where the commodities of the country were best purchased, he offered no further opposition, and even told me to leave in his hands the matter of finding mules for my journey.
He then took me to his office, which was at the caravanserai called the Khan-i-Ajam. The office was a long narrow room, opening upon the raised verandah of the serai courtyard. Round the walls were shelves bearing the usual wares of the Mosul merchant, packets of cigarette papers, cottons, prints, calico, Aleppo cloth, cheap tapestry; and two large bags of nails, which, imported from Europe, find here a ready sale.
NATIVE CHRISTIANS
The floor was carpeted with rugs of Hamadan, and Matti sat upon one by his doorway, in front of a big Russian iron box that opened with a key as large as that of a stage jailer, and rang a bell three times in the process.
As in most caravanserais in Sulaimania, the rooms are really nothing more than deep recesses across the front of which a wooden screen in three sections has been built. These sections open by sliding up, and are held in that position by a piece of iron hooked across the groove in which they travel.
Matti’s immediate neighbours were also Mosul Christians, and opposite—for the office was in a long arcade that entered the serai—were the rooms of three Kurdish merchants, to whom I was introduced by Matti. In the custom of the place they had boldly come to enquire who the newcomer might be, and I had to answer a string of questions. These people spoke Persian quite well, and fortunately accepted my own version of affairs as true, and I became known there and then as Mirza Ghulam Husain of Shiraz.