Kotranis is my last Syrian halting-place, and its miseries are well fitted to leave a lasting impression. It is included in the vilayet of Van, in which, according to the latest estimates, there are 80,000 Syrian Christians. The rayahs either own the village lands or are the dependants or serfs of a Kurdish Agha or master. In either case their condition is deplorable, for they have practically no rights which a Kurd or Turk is bound to respect. In some of their villages they have been robbed till they are absolutely without the means of paying taxes, and are beaten, till the fact is established beyond dispute. They are but scantily supplied with the necessaries of life, though their industry produces abundance. Squeezed between the rapacity and violence of the Kurds and the exactions of the Turkish officials, who undoubtedly connive at outrages so long as the victims are Christians, the condition of these Syrians is one of the most pitiable on earth. They have no representatives in the cities of Europe and Asia, and no commercial instincts and habits like the Armenians. They have the Oriental failings of untruthfulness and avarice, and the cunning begotten by centuries of oppression, but otherwise they are simple, grossly ignorant, helpless shepherds and cultivators; aliens by race and creed, without a rich or capable man among them, hemmed in by some of the most inaccessible of mountain ranges, and by their oppressors the Kurds; without a leader, adviser, or friend, rarely visited by travellers, with no voice which can reach Europe, with a present of intolerable bondage and a future without light, and yet through all clinging passionately to the faith received by tradition from their fathers.
As I have no lodging but a dark stable, I am utilising the late afternoon, sitting by the village threshing-floor, on which a mixed rabble of animals is treading corn. Some buffaloes are lying in moist places looking amiable and foolish. Boy is tied to my chair. The village women knit and stare. Two of the men, armed with matchlock guns, keep a look-out for the Kurds. A crystal stream tumbles through the village, over ledges of white quartz. Below, the valley opens and discloses ranges bathed in ineffable blue. The mountain sides are aflame with autumn tints, and down their steep paths oxen are bringing the tawny gold of the late harvest on rude sledges. But the shadow of the Kurd is over it all. I left English-speaking people so lately that I scarcely realise that I am now alone in Central Kurdistan, in one of the wildest parts of the world, among fierce predatory tribes, and a ravaged and imperilled people.
I bade the Patriarch farewell at six this morning, and even at that early hour men were seated all round his room. After shaking hands with about thirty people, I walked the first mile accompanied by Mr. Browne, who then left me on his way to seek to enlighten the wild tribesmen of the Tyari valley. From the top of the Kamerlan Pass, above Kochanes, the view was inconceivably beautiful. On the lovely alp on which the village stands a red patch of autumnal colouring flamed against the deep indigo and purple mountains of Diz and Shawutha, which block up the east end of the lofty valley; while above these rose the Jelu ranges, said to be from 12,000 to 15,000 feet in altitude, bathed in rich pure blue, snow-fields on their platforms, new-fallen snow on their crests, indigo shadows in their clefts and ravines,—a glorious group of spires, peaks, crags, chasms, precipices, rifts, parapets, and ridges perfect in their beauty as seen in the calm coloured atmosphere in which autumn loves to die. Higher up we were in vast solitudes, among splintered peaks and pasturages where clear streams crashed over rock ledges or murmured under ice, and then a descent of 1800 feet by steep zigzags, and a seven hours' march in keen pure air, brought us through rounded hills to this village.
Van, November 1.—There was a night alarm at Kotranis. A number of Kurds came down upon the threshing-floor, and the zaptiehs were most unwilling to drive off the marauders, saying that their only orders were to protect me. The Kurds, who were at least ten to one, retired when they saw the Government uniforms, but the big dogs barked for the rest of the night.
The next day's march occupied eleven hours. It was very cold, "light without heat," superb travelling weather. One zaptieh was a Moslem, the other an Armenian, and there were strong differences of opinion between them, especially when we halted to rest at a Christian village, and the Kurdish katirgi took several sheaves of corn from a threshing-floor without paying for them. The Moslem insisted that he should not pay and the Christian that he should, and it ended by my paying and deducting the sum from his bakhsheesh. The zaptiehs are usually men who have served five years with the colours. In Eastern Asia Minor they are well clothed in dark blue braided uniforms, and have ulsters in addition for cold weather. They provide their own horses. Their pay is eighty piastres a month, with rations of bread for themselves and of barley for their animals, but the pay is often nine months in arrear, or they receive it in depreciated paper. They are accused of being directly or indirectly concerned in many robberies, and of preying on the peasantry. They are armed with Snider rifles, swords, and revolvers. From the top of a high pass above Kotranis there was a final view of the Jelu mountains, and the remainder of the day was spent among hills, streams, and valleys, with rich fertile soil and abundant water, but very thinly peopled.
A very ingenious plough has taken the place of the primitive implement hitherto used. The share is big and heavy, well shod with iron, and turns up the soil to a great depth. The draught is from an axle with two wheels, one of them two feet in diameter and the other only ten inches. The big wheel runs in the last furrow, and the little one on the soil not yet upturned, the axle being level. Some of these ploughs were drawn by eight buffaloes, with a boy, singing an inharmonious tune, seated facing backwards on each yoke. After the ploughing, water is turned on to soften the clods, which are then broken up by the husbandmen with spades.
There is a great charm about the scenery as seen at this season, the glorious colouring towards sunset, the fantastic forms and brilliant tints of the rocks, and the purity of the new-fallen snow upon the heights; but between Kotranis and Van, except for a little planting in the "Valley of the Armenians," there is scarcely a bush. If I had warm clothing I should regard the temperature as perfect, nearly 50° at noon, and falling to about 25° at night. After a severe march, a descent and a sudden turn in the road brought us in the purple twilight to Merwanen, the chief village of Norduz, streamily situated on a slope—a wretched village, semi-subterranean; a partly finished house, occupied by a newly arrived Kaimakam and a number of zaptiehs, rising above the miserable hovels, which, bad as they are, were all occupied by the Kaimakam's attendants. Zaptiehs, soldiers, Kurds, and villagers assured me that there was no room anywhere, and an officer, in a much-frogged uniform, drove my men from pillar to post, not allowing us standing room on the little dry ground that there was. I humbly asked if I could pitch my tent, but a rough negative was returned. A subterranean buffalo stable, where there was just room among the buffaloes for me to lie down in a cramped position, was the only available shelter, and there was none for the servants. I do not much mind sharing a stable with Boy, but I "draw the line" at buffaloes, and came out again into the frosty air, into an inhospitable and altogether unprepossessing crowd.
Then there was a commotion, with much bowing and falling to the right and left, and the Kaimakam himself appeared, with my powerful letter in his hand, took me into the unfinished house, at which he had only arrived an hour before, and into a small room almost altogether occupied by two beds on the floor, on one of which a man very ill of fever was lying, and on the other an unveiled Kurdish beauty was sitting. The Kaimakam, though exceedingly "the worse of drink," was not without a certain dignity and courtesy. He apologised profoundly for the incivility and discomfort which I had met with, and for his inability to entertain me "with distinction" in "so rough a place," but said that he would give up his own room to so "exalted a personage," or if I preferred a room outside it should be made ready. Of course I chose the latter, with profuse expressions of the gratitude I sincerely felt, and after a cup of coffee bade him good-night.
The room was the justice or injustice room over the zaptieh barracks, and without either door or glazed windows, but cold and stiff as I was after an eleven hours' march, I was thankful for any rest and shelter. Shortly my young Kurdish katirgi, a splendid fellow, but not the least "tame," announced that he must leave me in order to get the escort of some zaptiehs back to Julamerik. He said that "they all" told him that the road to Van was full of danger, and that if he went on he would be robbed of his mules and money on the way back. No transport however, was to be got, and he came on with me very pluckily, and has got an escort back, at least to Merwanen. In the morning the Kaimakam rose early to do me honour, but was so tipsy that he could scarcely sit upright on his chair on a stone dais amidst a rabble of soldiers and scribes. We were all benumbed with cold, and glad that the crossing of an expanse of frozen streams rendered walking a necessity. A nine hours' march through mountains remarkable for rocky spires and needles marvellously coloured, and for the absence of inhabitants, took us to the Armenian village of Khanjarak, finely situated in a corrie upon a torrent bank; but it is so subterranean, and so built into the hillside, that a small square church and conical piles of kiziks are the only obvious objects, and I rode over the roofs without knowing what was underneath.
All the women and children, rabbit-like, came out of their holes, clothed in red rags, and some wore strings of coins round their heads. The men were dressed like Kurds, and were nearly as wild-looking. They protested against my tent being pitched. They said the Kurds were always on the watch, and would hack it with their swords in half an hour to get at its contents, that they had only three matchlock guns, and that the Kurds were armed with rifles. I felt that I could scarcely touch a lower depth in the matter of accommodation than when they lodged me in a dark subterranean stable, running very far back into the hill, with a fire of animal fuel in the middle giving off dense and acrid fumes. A recess in this, with a mud bench, was curtained off for me, and the rest of the space was occupied by my own horses and baggage mules, and most of the village asses, goats, cows, calves, and sheep. Several horses belonging to travellers and to my own escort were also there, and all the zaptiehs, servants, travellers, and katirgis were lodged there. There were legions of fleas revelling in a temperature which rose to 80° at midnight, though there were 5° of frost outside. In the part of the roof which projected from the hill there were two holes for light, but at night these were carefully closed with corks of plaited straw.