Next morning we were clear of the volcanic district and pursued our way up a winding and fertile valley, which was threaded (for a marvel) by a very presentable road. But over the col at the head there was no road whatever, and our horses had to scramble up a mountain side, rugged with earth-fast boulders and the roots of stunted trees. But this was the last of our obstacles. The road now revived intermittently; and though but half finished and hilly, it held on to the end of our stage. Towards evening we climbed the long zigzag ascent to the top of a 3000 feet mountain, and, crossing the ridge, wheeled immediately into the streets of the city of Mardin.
Mardin occupies a superb situation at the summit of one of the eminences which are ranged like a wall along the northern border of the Mesopotamian plain. All trace of an intervening plateau has here been completely eliminated; and from the foot of the declivity the ground stretches away to the southward in one illimitable level. The furthest identified landmark, a huge tel rising conspicuously in the far distance, was pointed out to us as Tel Kokab nearly eighty miles away.
These mountains are the Jebel Tur, the Mount Athos of the extreme east. They are a wild and barren district, containing very few villages, but thickly studded with ancient Christian monasteries; some of which date back to the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, and most of[{43}] which are still occupied by small companies of Syrian monks.[30] Mardin is situated at the western extremity of this region; and the northern and eastern boundaries are formed by a loop of the Tigris, which flows behind the upland from Diarbekr to Jezire ibn Omar and issues there on to Mosul plain.
The hill on which the city stands is of a form which is not uncommon among the Kurdistan highlands, It rises from the plain in a single steep slope, unbroken almost from base to summit; but it culminates in a cresting of precipitous rock, so even and vertical that it looks like an artificial wall. Immediately behind the city this cresting forms an isolated knoll, cut off at the back and ends as abruptly as along the front, and thus forming an immense table with a perfectly level top. Many of the hills adjoining are of similar conformation; and another, almost a replica of it, may be seen in the mountains further eastward, forming the site of the town of Amadia.
Amadia is built entirely on the level top, and the encircling line of precipice serves it instead of a rampart: but at Mardin the space on the summit is only sufficient for the citadel, and the town lies just at the foot of the precipice, sprawling down the southern slope of the hill. The houses look forth across the plain, each over the roof of its neighbour; and as even the lowest rank must be fully 1500 feet above plain level, they form a conspicuous assemblage visible for scores of miles away.
The town is some two miles in length and perhaps half a mile in width, and is reputed to contain about 80,000 inhabitants. It is built of a warm-coloured stone similar to that employed at Urfa; and, like Urfa, is largely composed of good substantial buildings, which can sustain a certain amount of dilapidation without lapsing altogether into squalor. The streets are narrow and tortuous, and run for the most part longitudinally; thus it is evident that the cliff which overhangs them cannot (like the Amadia cliff) be in the habit of dropping fragments down the slope[{44}] beneath it; otherwise the lanes would run vertically, and be a good deal wider than they are! Some of the principal mosques possess considerable architectural pretensions, with Arabesque stalactite corbelling inserted in the coves over the doorways, and a certain amount of good carving introduced here and there on the facades. They are generally covered with fluted domes—a rather unusual feature, but one which is very conducive to the general effectiveness of the design.
Mardin is a walled city, but its walls were never very formidable and are now mostly ruinous. They consist but of broken fragments even on the citadel rock. The place was no Roman fortalice like Urfa or Diarbekr, and the part that it played in history was not of any great note. For some time it was the capital city of a petty dynasty of little independent Sultans; and the tomb of one of the most powerful of these forms a graceful adjunct to one of the chief mosques. One unique distinction, however, belongs to its rock-perched citadel. This is said to have held out successfully against the invincible Timour himself.
Mardin is in these days best known to us as the residence of the Patriarch of the Jacobites—Mar Ignatius, the modern inheritor of the throne of Antioch, that earliest of all Metropolitan sees. He resides at Deir el Za’aferan, the “Monastery of the Yellow Rocks,” which is situated about five miles eastward upon the southern slope of the mountains, in a position very similar to that of the town itself but on a separate hill. Deir el Za’aferan is a very ancient foundation dating from the fifth or sixth century; and certain fragments of its original structure still survive to this day, incorporated in the existing buildings. They are of pronouncedly classical character, and display a strong similarity to the admittedly Roman work in the Church of St. James at Nisibin: but the major part of the monastery is of much more modern construction; for it has been almost constantly occupied ever since the date of its erection, and subjected to many vicissitudes, being frequently ruined and rebuilt.
The Syrian “Jacobite” Christians are a poor remnant[{45}] now, but they were once the dominant Church in that group of old Roman provinces that we style loosely, “Syria and Palestine,” but which Romans called “The Orient,” Praefactura Orientalis.
Syriac (i.e. Aramaic) was the vernacular of these lands, whose capital for both ecclesiastical and political matters was Antioch. Their use of a separate language gave a national tinge to their Christianity; and they resented the Greek uniformity which the Emperor of Constantinople for political reasons sought to impose upon them. They fought this battle on the doctrinal field, refusing to accept the “Constantinopolitan” council of Chalcedon, and finding in that refusal a rallying-point for their own desire for independence.