We left our friendly Kurds on the following day at noon. At taking my leave I told the chief that I should be happy to make him some acknowledgments for the hospitality shewn to me, whenever he should visit Aleppo. He excused himself for not having been able to treat us according to his wishes, and begged me to send him from Aleppo a few strings for his guitar; which I gladly promised. These Kurds have been for some time past at war with the Janissaries at Aleppo, which prevents them from going there.
On our road back to Mohammed Alis tents, through Bokatur and Immature, we met halfway a poor gypsy, or as they are called here, Kurpadh; these Kurpadh are spread over the whole of Anatolia and Syria.
The Kurds have spread themselves over some parts of the plain which the Afrin waters, as well as some of the neighbouring mountains. They live in tents and in villages, are stationary, and are all occupied in agriculture and the rearing of cattle. They form four tribes, of which the Shum, who live in the plain, are the most considerable. The Kurds seem to be of a more lively disposition than the Turkmans; the Aleppines say that their word is less to be depended upon than that of the Turkmans. My hosts at Deir Samaan asked me many questions relative to European politics. I found the opinion prevalent among them which Buonaparte has taken such pains to impress upon the winds of the continental nations, that Great Britain is and ought to be merely a maritime power. This belief, however, proves very advantageous to English travellers in these countries. A Frenchman will every where be taken for a spy, as long as the French invasion of Egypt and Syria is in the memory of man, but it seems never to enter into the suspicions of these people that the English can have any wish to possess the countries of the Levant. I was astonished to find that all the Kurds spoke Arabic fluently, besides the Turkish and their own language, which latter is a corrupted mixture of Persian, Armenian, and Turkish. On the other hand, I only met three or four Turkmans who knew how to express themselves [p.647] in Arabic, though both nations are alike in almost continual intercourse with Arab peasants and Aleppines.
Besides the ruins just described, there are many others dispersed over the Turkman territories; which, to judge from the prevailing architecture, are of the same date as those already mentioned. Tisin, Sulfa, Kalaa el [B]ent, Jub Abiad, and Mayshat, all of them at two or three hours distance from the tent of Mohammed Ali, are heaps of ruined buildings, with a few remains of houses. Kalaa el Bent and Jub Abiad contain each of them a square tower about sixty feet high. They have only one small projecting window near the top; the roof is flat. Tradition says that Kalaa el Bent or in Turkish Kislar Kalassi, (the castle of girls), was formerly a convent; probably of nuns. At Mayshat, a Turkman encampment on the top of a hill, at the foot of which is a large deep well, with a solid wall, I was shewn a subterraneous chamber, about twenty feet long and fifteen in breadth, hewn out of the rock, at the entrance to which are two columns; there are two excavations in the bottom of it, like the sepulchral niches which I saw in the Deir Samaan. I have been told that near Telekberoun, a village situated at the foot of the hills which encircle the plain of Khalaka, there are remains of an ancient causeway elevated two or three feet from the ground, about fifteen feet broad, running in the direction from Aleppo to Antioch; it may be traced for the length of a quarter of an hour. In the plain of the Afrin, about three miles from Mursal Oglus residence, and half an hour from the Afrin, stands an insulated hillock in the plain with the ruins of a Saracen castle, called Daoud Pasha; four miles to the N.E. of it is situated another similar hillock, with ruins of a castle, called Tshyie. The sight of these numerous ruins fills the minds of the Turkmans and Kurds with ideas of hidden treasures, and they relate a variety of traditionary tales of Moggrebyn Sheikhs, who have been once on the point of getting out the treasure, when they have been interrupted by the shrieks of a woman, &c. &c. Having provided myself at Aleppo with a small hammer to break off spesimens of rocks, the Turkmans could not be pursuaded that this instrument was not for the purpose of searching for gold. Several Turkmans pressed me to do them the favour of working for a day in their behalf. I endeavoured to persuade them that the hammer was to assist me in procuring medicinal herbs.
[FN#1] Tshay is the Chinese word for tea; and our word is corrupted from it. The word Tshay is used all over Tartary and Turkey, where the dried herb, which is brought over land from China, is also well known. In Syria and Egypt, where the word is better known than the herb, real tea is generally distinguished by the name of Tshay Hindy (tea of India). Ed.
APPENDIX. No. II.
On the Political Division of Syria, and the recent Changes in the
Government of Aleppo.
THE political division of Syria has not undergone any changes, since the time of Volney.
The Pashaliks are five in number. To the pashalik of Aleppo belongs the government of Aintab, Badjazze, Alexandretta, and Antakia. Damascus comprehends Hebron, Jerusalem, Nablous, Bostra, Hums, and Hama. The Pashalik of Tripoli extends along the seacoast from Djebail to Latikia; that of Seide or Akka, from Djebail nearly to Jaffa, including the mountains inhabited by the Druses. The Pasha of Gaza governs in Jaffa and Gaza, and in the adjacent plains. The present Pasha of Damascus is at the same time Pasha of Tripoli, and therefore in possession of the greater half of Syria. The Pashalik of Gaza is at present annexed to that of Akka.
Such is the nominal division of Syria. But the power of the Porte in this country has been so much upon the decline, particularly since the time of Djezzar Pasha of Akka, that a number of petty independent chiefs have sprung up, who defy their sovereign. Badjazze, Alexandretta, and Antakia have each an independent Aga. Aintab, to the north of Aleppo, Edlip and Shogre, on the way from Aleppo to Latikia, have their own chiefs, and it was but last year that the Pasha of Damascus succeeded in subduing Berber, a formidable rebel, who had fixed his seat at Tripoli, and had maintained himself there for the last six years. The Pashas themselves follow the same practice; it is true that neither the Pasha of Damascus nor that of Akka has yet dared openly to erect the standard of rebellion; they enjoy all the benefits of the protection of the supreme government, but depend much more upon their own strength, than on the caprice of the Sultan, or on their intrigues in the seraglio for the continuance of their power. The policy of the Porte is to flatter and load with honours those whom she cannot ruin, and to wait for some lucky accident by which she may regain her power; but, above all, to avoid a formal rupture, which would only serve to expose her own weakness and to familiarize the Pashas and their subjects with the ideas of rebellion. The Pashas of Damascus and of Akka continue to be dutiful subjects of the Grand Signior in appearance; and they even send considerable sums of money to Constantinople, to ensure the yearly renewal of their offices. (The Pashaliks all over the Turkish dominions are given for the term of one year only, and at the beginning of the Mohammedan year, the Pashas receive [p.649] their confirmation or dismissal) The Agas of Aintab, Antakia, Alexandretta, Edlip, and Shogre, pay also for the renewal of their offices. There are a few chiefs who have completely thrown off the mask of subjection; Kutshuk Ali, the Lord of Badjazze openly declares his contempt of all orders from the Porte, plunders and insults the Sultans officers, as well as all strangers passing through his mountains, and with a force of less than two hundred men, and a territory confined to the half ruined town of Badjazze, in the gulf of Alexandretta, and a few miles of the surrounding mountains, his father and himself have for the last thirty years defied all the attempts of the neighbouring Pashas to subdue them.