When all were talking in friendly wise, and chaffing one another over the episodes of the feud, it was discovered that each party had brought down its local lunatic to provide amusement for them during the hours of waiting. Some one with a sporting soul suggested forming a ring,[{270}] and putting up a cock-fight between these two unfortunates. Mar Shimun did his best to dissuade them; having a well-grounded fear that if the two came to blows, each man of the forty would take sides with his own idiot, and that the whole feud would be re-opened with a particularly sanguinary fight. However, to his relief, though to the disappointment of others, the lunatics showed themselves possessed of more sense than any of their companions. Each was provided with a thick stick, and told that the other had insulted all his ancestry; but they fell to talk before proceeding to “lay on load;” and got on together so well that they spent the rest of that day in friendly converse. When they finally parted, each declared that the other was the most sensible man and the best company that he had met in all his life.
In all his work, both spiritual and political, Mar Shimun has had two helpers, one of whom is with him still. This is his sister Surma, “Lady Surma of the house of Mar Shimun;” a singularly cultivated and high-minded woman. She has been thoroughly well educated (e.g. she speaks English well, and is well read in such authors as Scott, Stevenson and C. M. Yonge, besides English devotional theology), she yet remains a thorough Oriental, and a devoted member of her own Church. She is a recognized authority in all the rites and services,[128] and the trusted adviser of her brother (whose senior she is by a couple of years) in all the work of his office. Lady Surma is a professed nun (rabbanta) of the Nestorian Church; but this does not imply a cloistered life, for monasticism in this land has developed in a very peculiar fashion. The monasteries and nunneries have practically all perished, though their endowments (or some of them) are still recognized as Church property; but monks and nuns—rabbans and rabbantas, still continue. Those who feel the “call to the religious life” follow it in their own families; living unmarried, abstaining from meat, and devoting themselves[{271}] to good works and the services of the church. They maintain themselves by their own labour, and (with the exceptions mentioned) follow no special rule. If they marry, for instance, they have departed from a high purpose, but have broken no solemn vow. Rather strangely, the system has thus fallen back to something very like what “the virginal life” was in the early days of the Church, before monastic rules were formulated. This has come about without the knowledge or intent of its present professors; but the parallel with the conditions of e.g. third century Africa is amazingly close.[129]
As bishop, Mar Shimun is of course a rabban also, and as such eats no meat. This, however, implies no great hardship in Qudshanis, where indeed the visitor may be recommended to consult his own comfort by following the same rule; for meat is both hard to come by and seldom good to eat.[130] The course of generations, however, has evolved quite a number of good vegetarian recipes, not indeed for the patriarchal table, for there is none, but for the patriarchal tray!
Mar Shimun’s other counsellor was an Englishman of most exceptional character; the late Doctor William Browne, of the “Archbishop’s Mission;” who for twenty-five years lived in this remote village as adviser and friend of this Church, and of two successive Patriarchs in it. In spirit a devoted fifth-century hermit, who somehow was born in nineteenth-century England, he applied himself whole-heartedly to the care of the Nestorian Church and its members, as their teacher, healer, and at times rebuker. He lived their life with them, and now sleeps in their midst. Many of the memories of one of the most picturesque and[{272}] romantic of modern lives were lost irrevocably at his accidental death in 1910; but one or two which the writer received from him are worth inserting, as throwing light both on the conditions under which he lived, and on the character of the man himself.
In January and February of the year 1900, the news of the “Black Week” in South Africa in the previous December filtered slowly through the glens of Kurdistan. Mr. Browne (as he then was) was in his room in the village of Qudshanis, when two visitors were announced; deacons of the Church both, and good friends of their host. In they came, appearing fully armed and equipped for a journey.
“Peace be to you, deacons,” said the Englishman, “Are you going on a journey at this season?”
“Upon you be peace Rabbi,” came the answer; “Could you tell us the way to South Africa?”
“To South Africa? Why on earth do you want to go there?”
“Well, Rabbi, we owe a good deal to you English; it seems from what we hear that you fellows don’t understand fighting behind rocks. Now we do know that here in Hakkiari if we know nothing else, and we thought we ought to go and help.”
They would certainly have been a picturesque reinforcement for Lord Roberts; but it came out on inquiry that there really was no way of getting to Africa without crossing the ocean, a prospect far more dreadful than battling with any number of Boers; and so the volunteers returned regretfully to their homes.