Well, whither shall we direct our steps? Let it be to the Rushdiyeh—the Turkish official school. We are informed that the building is under repair. It is actually in a ruinous condition, and no such institution really exists. Then to the remains of the old castle.—There is no such thing as an old castle.—Well, to the site upon which it stood. The climb through the town is really quite worth while. The view from the summit of the hill is extremely pleasing—the bold walls of the valley expanding to the level plain, the mountainous background soaring upwards and white with snow, and in the folds of this expanse the little hill of Mush—a mere button upon which you stand. The neck which connects this eminence with the arm of the main valley is dotted over with the headstones of deserted graveyards, seeming from a distance like bleaching bones. You look down into the glen between the two elevations through which trickles the Garni Chai. In its lap lies a white edifice which is indicated as the barrack, and towards its head you admire the form of a second minaret, resembling its companion in the bazar. The summit of the hill is flat; and, although the houses rise up to the margin, the platform itself is still bare. The debris of the old castle are strewn upon the grass, but not one stone remains upon another. Most have been taken away as building material.
Let us proceed to the school of the Armenian Catholics.—Yes, certainly, if such be our desire.—We wind down the town towards the valley on the east, and arrive before the enclosure of a newly-erected church. That is the Catholic Church;—but where is the school? It is situated just opposite;—oh! but it is closed.—Certainly, the school is closed.—The church at least is open; let us pass in.—Certainly, and we enter the building. The first to enter is the commissary, followed by four policemen in military dress. The bleak walls of the brand-new edifice echo the clank of their boots. A single figure is present—the black-robed figure of a priest; and it crouches on the high altar, visibly trembling, such as we may imagine some male Hypatia of olden times. While I greet the priest from the doorway, a soldier walks across, and dares the wretched creature to address a word to us. On our part there is nothing to be done but to keep our tempers.
A very interesting church!—Now let us visit the remaining churches. That building close by is the principal church of the Gregorian Armenians; it is withal a very poor place. The door is open; we have been expected; not a soul is present. Pursuing our way, we meet an Armenian priest—a young, broad-shouldered, open-faced man. He seems inclined to speak, so we ask him how many churches there may be in Mush. He answers, seven; but the commissary had said four. A soldier addresses him in Kurdish; the poor fellow turns pale, and remarks that he was mistaken in saying seven; there cannot be more than four. I turn to the commissary and ask him to take us to the teacher in the school of the United Armenians—a philanthropic institution with some schools in the provinces and headquarters in the capital. The reply comes that he is absent from town. The school is enjoying a holiday. There can be no doubt that they have all received orders to close their schools; but it is not probable that many schools remain in such a place. The Protestants have closed theirs.
Such are a few of our experiences during our short sojourn at Mush. We were not merely shadowed by the police, but prevented from enjoying any of the profit and pleasure which a traveller seeks in return for all his trouble and expense. To protest to the Mutesarrif would have been worse than useless; and the policy of the British Foreign Office is so weak in these countries that we lose the advantages of our Consular system. When I called upon the chief official to take farewell, I congratulated him upon the possession of such an energetic commissary, and begged that he would recommend him in the despatch which no doubt he was preparing for a suitable reward. His efforts had, indeed, been completely successful; we had scarcely communicated with a single soul in Mush. I thanked him for the politeness with which our seclusion had been effected; and the old man rose, and accompanied me to the door.... What iniquities had they been committing and were desirous of screening? Terror, the most abject terror, was in the air. We drank it in from the very atmosphere about us—a consuming passion, like that of jealousy—a haunting, exhausting spectre, which sits like a blight upon life. Such a settled state of terror is one of the most awful of human phenomena. The air holds ghosts, all joy is dead; the sun is black, the mouth parched, the mind rent and in tatters.
Mush is the most mis-governed town in the Ottoman Empire. Ever since the inauguration of closer relations between Europe and these countries, the testimony of the few Europeans who have realised and noted such facts bears out this judgment almost to the letter. It is less easy to assign any definite cause. The disease has become chronic; and its symptoms are so familiar that the inhabitants have grown callous to their condition. It is only Damadeans, and such imported members of the community, that such deeply-rooted evils impress.
The Mussulman majority are probably almost all of Kurdish origin; and since the enrolment of the Hamidiyeh irregular cavalry they openly profess the name of Kurd. The slopes of the hills around Mush are covered with vineyards and gardens; and in each garden there is a small, two-storeyed house, resembling from a distance a scattering of bathing-machines. The Mussulmans retire to these gardens during summer, and superintend their cultivation. The whole winter through they sit idle in Mush. There they consume a great quantity of tobacco; and all this tobacco is contraband. It is their custom to buy their wives, the best-looking and best-born women sometimes fetching not less than a hundred pounds. All are obstinate in their belief that it was the Prussians who enabled the Russians to conquer Turkey in the last war. Their hope is that this assistance will not be forthcoming in the future, and they are therefore confident of success in the conflict which they foresee. And they pit their Hamidiyeh against the Cossacks.
The Armenian minority are artisans, smiths, makers of everything that is manufactured in Mush. They are carpenters, plasterers, builders. All the keepers of booths which we passed in the bazar plainly belonged to this race. I am unable to supply any reliable statistics for the town itself; but my impression was that the population was certainly less than 20,000 souls. In the cloister of Surb Karapet it was believed that Mush contained nearly 7000 houses, of which 5000 were occupied by Mussulman and 1800 by Armenian families. Although this estimate is certainly too high, it would appear that the population has been increasing. In 1838 Consul Brant speaks of 700 Mussulman families and 500 Armenian, which would give a total of not more than some 6000 or 7000 souls.[6] Thirty years later, Consul Taylor, who also visited the place, computed the inhabitants of Mush and the vicinity, not including the plain, as numbering 13,000 souls, 6000 Armenians and the rest Mussulmans.[7] In the plain of Mush the Armenians are in a large majority, the official figures for the caza allowing them a total of 35,300, as against 21,250 Mussulmans. Some 2500 of their number are Catholics and about 500 Protestants.[8]
The origin of the name of Mush is wrapped in obscurity.[9] It formed the capital of the old Armenian province of Taron under the rule of the princely family of the Mamikoneans.[10] At the present day it contains two considerable mosques with minarets, four churches of the Gregorian Armenians and one of the Catholics. The Gregorian churches are named Surb Marineh, Surb Kirakos, Surb Avetaranotz, and Surb Stephanos. None are of any size or of much interest. There are three fine khans in the neighbourhood of the bazar. Our host informed us that not less than thirty-six Hamidiyeh regiments had been enrolled in the sanjak; but he added that none had yet been constituted in the sanjaks of Bitlis, Sert and Genj. These four sanjaks compose the vilayet of Bitlis. The first portion of his statement was almost certainly false, even on a nominal basis.
[1] The Sources of the Euphrates, in Journal R.G.S. 1895, pp. 173 seq. Mr. Ainsworth conjectures that the water of this well, which he describes as a crater fountain having a basin 220 feet in circumference, comes from Lake Van. I should doubt it. The same careful observer is not quite right in speaking of it as “the source” of the Kara Su. It is no doubt one of the sources, but the Morkh Su, already mentioned, is the first of these westward-flowing streams. For further particulars in regard to the pool of Norshen see Chap. XVIII. p. 317 of the present volume. [↑]