[77] The malmudir of Akra supervises the taxation of about 150 villages, and about £10,000 in taxes pass annually through his hands. His salary is about £120, while that of a kaimakam is £500 to £800, according to the importance of his district. These are not exactly princely (even when they are paid regularly), but it is, of course, possible to increase them by well-recognized, if not quite legitimate, means.
[78] We spent the night in equally brotherly fashion, our beds being spread out for us side by side on the floor of the room. Our host even wished us to take turn and turn about with the hubble-bubble with which he solaced his last waking moments; but we pleaded that this was a taste which we had not acquired.
[79] The prevalent opinion in Mosul was that the Tripoli, where the war was raging, was the Asiatic Tripoli. The comet which was visible about this time presaged destruction to the Italians, “because you will observe that the tail points towards Italy”—the aforesaid comet standing vertically in the north-eastern quarter of the sky.
[80] Tuesday, it may be added, is esteemed inauspicious by Christians, because on that day Judas Iscariot made his covenant with the chief priests. Wednesday is the Yezidi Sabbath; but apparently anyone may work on Thursday. Thursday will probably be early closing day when reform is inaugurated in the land.
[81] The Imaum is virtually a sort of parish clerk, leading the Responses in the public services at the mosque; and our friend was as gravely self-important as any English parish clerk could be.
[82] The Sheikh tried to purchase peace honestly; but his enemies outraged even local morality by accepting his bribes, and persisting in their machinations.
[83] They were mostly half-trained Kurdish levies, who were not quite easy in their consciences at fighting such a Holy Man as the Sheikh, and had moreover a pretty shrewd suspicion that they were being employed in Sabonji’s interests and not the Hukumet’s. The Sheikh used merely to disarm his prisoners, and then release them on parole. As he had nowhere to keep them, his only alternative would have been to kill them; and this would have meant a war of extermination, which he did not wish to provoke.
[84] This was Nazim Pasha, then Vali of Baghdad, who was subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman army in the Balkan War, and was assassinated by the partisans of Enver Bey during the negotiations for peace. He so entirely exonerated the Sheikh as to award him £1000 indemnity—on paper: but the Sheikh had suffered heavily from the plunder of his villages, and gained nothing but prestige.
[85] The correct title to use in addressing the Sheikh is “Corban”—“Your Holiness.”
[86] The regular oath of a Tyari Christian is: “By the head of Mar Shimun.”