All the male members of a family bring their brides to live under the parental roof, and one "burrow" may contain as many as three generations of married couples with their families. On becoming an inmate of her father-in-law's house, each Armenian bride, as in the country districts of Persia, has to learn the necessity of silence. Up to the day of the birth of the first child she is the family drudge, and may not speak to any one but her husband, and not to him in the presence of his parents. Maternity liberates her tongue; she may talk to her child, and then to the females of the household; but she may not speak freely till some years of this singular novitiate have passed by. She then takes a high place in the house, and eventually rules it if she is left a widow. The Armenian women are veiled out of doors, but only in deference to the Moslems, who regard an uncovered head as the sign of a bad woman. The girls are handsome, but sheepish-looking; their complexions and eyes are magnificent.
Sunday was windy, with a gray sky, and the necessity of getting over the Ghazloo Pass before the weather absolutely broke was urged upon me by all. On the plain of Norullak, not far from Yangaloo, I forded the Euphrates,—that is, the Murad-chai, a broad, still, and deep river, only fordable at certain seasons. The fine mountain Bijilan is a landmark in this part of the country. Leaving the Euphrates we ascended for some hours through bleak uninteresting regions to Kara Kapru, and on the road passed thirty well-armed Kurds, driving a number of asses, which the zaptiehs said had been driven off from two Christian villages, which they pointed out. I was interested in the movements of some mounted men, who hovered suspiciously about my caravan, and at one time galloped close up to it, but retired on seeing the Government uniforms, and were apparently "loafing about" among the valleys. The zaptiehs said that they were notorious robbers, and would not go home without booty. Towards evening they reappeared with several bullocks and asses which they had driven off from the village of ——, the headman of which came to me in the evening and asked me to report the robbery to "the Consul," adding that this was the third time within a week that his village had been robbed of domestic animals, and that he dared not complain.
At Kara Kapru, the best-looking Armenian village I have seen, while I was looking for an odah, Moussa, in spite of Murphy and the zaptiehs, dashed off with his horses at full speed, and never stopped till he reached Ghazloo, three hours farther on. This barbarous conduct was occasioned by his having heard that two of his forty horses ahead had broken down, and he hurried on to replace them with two of mine! I was so tired and in so much pain that I was obliged to lie down on the roadside for a considerable time before I could proceed, and got a chill, and was so wretched that I had to be tied on my horse. It was pitch dark, the zaptiehs continually lost the way, heavy rain came on, and it was 9 p.m. when we reached Ghazloo, a village high up on a hill-slope, where Mirza and Murphy carried me into a small and crowded stable, and later into my tent, which was pitched in the slime at the stable door. Moussa was repentant, borrowed a kajaveh, and said he would give me his strong horse for nothing!
Torrents of rain fell, changing into sleet, and sleet into snow, and when the following day dawned dismally my tent was soaked, and standing in slush and snow. My bed was carried into the stable, and I rested while the loading was going on. Suleiman, my special zaptieh, said that the khanji was quadrupling the charges, and wanted me not to pay him anything. The khanji retorted that I gave the zaptieh money to pay, and that he gave only a few coppers to the people—a glaring untruth, for Murphy pays everything in my presence. Thereupon Suleiman beat the khanji with his scabbarded sword, on which the man struck him, and there was a severe fight, in the course of which the combatants fell over the end of my bed. So habituated does one become to scenes of violence in this country that I scarcely troubled myself to say to Murphy, "Tell them to fight outside."
It was a severe day's march over the Bingol Dagh, and I know little about the country we passed through. We skirted a bleak snowy hillside, first in rain and then in a heavy snowstorm, made a long ascent among drifting snow clouds, saw an ass abandoned by a caravan shivering in the bitter wind, with three magpies on its back picking its bleeding wounds, and near the summit of the Ghazloo Pass encountered a very severe "blizzard," so severe that no caravan but my own attempted to face it, and sixty conscripts en route for Bitlis in charge of two officers and some cavalry turned back in spite of words and blows, saying, "We may be shot; better that than to die on the hillside"! Poor fellows, they are wretchedly dressed, and many of them have no socks. The "blizzard" was very awful—"a horror of great darkness," a bewildering whirl of pin-like snow coming from all quarters at once, a hurricane of icy wind so fearful that I had to hold on by the crupper and mane to avoid being blown out of the saddle; utter confusion, a deadly grip at my heart, everything blotted out, and a sense of utter helplessness. Indeed I know of no peril in which human resources count for so little. After reaching the summit of the pass the risk was over, but we were seriously delayed in forcing a passage through the drift, which was fully seven feet deep. The men were much exhausted, and they say that "half an hour of it would have finished them." All landmarks were lost in the storm, and after some hours of struggling through snow, and repeatedly losing the way, the early darkness compelled us to take refuge in a Kurdish village of bad repute on a bleak mountain side.
The odah was not only the worst I have yet seen, but it was crammed with handsome, wild-looking Kurds, and with the conscripts who had turned back at the pass, some of whom were suffering from fever, and with cavalrymen and their horses, every man trying to get near the fire. I cannot say that any of them were rude, indeed the Kurds did their best for what they supposed to be my comfort. I spent the evening among them, but slept in my tent outside, in two feet of snow, 100 yards from the stable, in spite of the protestations of the zaptiehs. In fact I trusted to Kurdish watchmen, who turned out faithful, and when an attempt was made to rob my tent in the night they sprang on the robbers, and after a struggle got two of them down and beat them with their guns, both sides yelling like savages. When I left the odah for the tent two Kurds gripped my arms and led me to it through the deep snow. It was better to run some risk than to be suffocated by the heat and overpowering odours of the stable, but it was an eerie place.
November 21.—The weather considerably delayed my farther progress. The days were severe, and the nights were spent in a soaked tent, pitched in slush or snow. Mist and snow concealed the country, and few travellers were stirring. We marched with the powder caravan for the sake of the escort and for its services in beating the track, and Moussa and his men watched at night. The going was very bad, and both Moussa and I fell down hill slopes with our horses, but the animals luckily alighted on their feet. Moussa's jollity was very useful. He is a capital mimic, and used to "take off" Mirza in the odahs at night, and as Murphy lost no opportunity of showing up the poor fellow's want of travelling savoir-faire, he would have had a bad time but for his philosophical temperament and imperturbable good-nature. I suffered very much from my spine, but the men were all kind, and tried to make things easy for me, and the zaptiehs were attentive and obliging.
Kurdistan is scarcely a "geographical expression," and colloquially the word is used to cover the country inhabited by the Kurds. They are a mysterious people, having maintained themselves in their original seats and in a condition of semi-independence through all the changes which have passed over Western Asia, though they do not exceed numerically two and a quarter millions of souls. Such as they were when they opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand they seem to be still. War and robbery are the business of Kurdish life.