"The inhabitants do very odd things," said the Consul. "For instance, a short time ago there was an official in this town who was extremely unpopular. He died, and you would have thought that the matter was over; but no, six months after the man's decease, some of the townspeople went to the cemetery, exhumed the body, and hacked it to pieces. This was done by way of revenging themselves upon the official. There was a robbery in the bazaar," continued the speaker. "A man was taken up on suspicion of being implicated in the theft; he swore that he was innocent, but accused another man. The latter had nothing whatever to do with the robbery, but was unpopular in the town. Some people belonging to the bazaar went to the governor, and said to him, 'The man last arrested is the thief; you must order the executioner to cut his throat.' The governor was weak enough to consent, the innocent person was put to death. Soon afterwards the governor repented of what he had done. However, he was in need of money at the time, he determined to turn his repentance to some account. He ordered fifty of the richest people amongst those who had pressed him to execute the innocent man, to be imprisoned, and he kept them in gaol until such time as they had paid him a large sum of money."
I now walked round the fortifications of the town. They consist of a wall about thirty-five feet high, built of clay, with a brick foundation, and a dry ditch, which can be filled with water if necessary. There were sixteen old cannon on the ramparts. The Kurds and the inhabitants think that the place is impregnable. A battery of nine-pounders would be quite sufficient to destroy the fortifications, which are much out of repair. Any properly equipped force ought to take the city, which contains 7000 houses, in about half an hour.
The soldiers in the different guard-houses ran outside the buildings. They presented arms to the Consul as he walked with me through the streets. Presently we came to a place where two sentries had been posted. The men had put their flint muskets on the ground, and were engaged in gambling with each other—small balls of dried clay, something like marbles, taking the place of dice.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The bazaar—Recumbent Persians—Carpets—Cutlery—Russian calicoes—The houses in Khoi—The schools—A class of lads—The pedlar—The schoolmaster chastises him—Pillaff—Bonbons—Persian ladies like sweetmeats—Articles of native manufacture—The mosque—The Russian officials in Erivan—We leave Khoi—Kotoor Boghaz—The Turkish captain who was taken prisoner by the Persians—His explanation of the affair—The Russians are our fathers—The defile—Magnificent positions for defence—A mineral spring—The change of temperature.
I arrived at the bazaar. It is a very large building, arched over in many places, and here and there is constructed of bricks. It was a hot afternoon. The bazaar was delightfully cool, many of the inhabitants had gone there merely with the object of lying in the shade. At almost every step we took, we came upon the forms of some recumbent Persians. It was rather dark. The idlers' ribs must have suffered. A muttered curse would be the only sign of the men's disgust; they would turn over and be asleep again in another minute.
The bazaar was better arranged than any of the market-places which I had visited in Anatolia. The shops belonging to men who sold one kind of article were all side by side, and not mixed up with the stalls belonging to traders in other merchandise. Some carpets were very beautifully designed, and could have been purchased for one-fourth of the price they command in the London market. The cutlery mostly came from Erivan in Russia. An immense quantity of gaudily-coloured Russian calicoes were exposed for sale.
We came to a samovar (tea-urn) shop. The owner, a sleepy-looking Persian, was very wide awake, so far as his interests were concerned. He was engaged in a wordy warfare with a Kurd who wanted to buy an urn for his house. The conversation became so loud, and the gesticulations of the Kurd were so energetic, that I thought he was about to attack the merchant. However, a minute later the affair was settled, and the purchaser was drinking a glass of tea with the salesman.
Most of the houses in Khoi are built of a sort of brown clay. If it were not for the numerous mosques which are painted blue and green, the town would be very sombre in its appearance. Many of the doors to the buildings were supplied with massive iron knockers—a rarity in Asiatic Turkey—and the many windows on the ground-floors, which were guarded by iron bars, rather reminded me of Cordova.
Streams of muddy water ran through the streets. Hundreds of women were busily engaged in washing the domestic apparel.