WE have long been partial to pilgrimage. Partly because we love all old habits. Because “it was so our fathers did in the days of old;” and because, quite apart from that intrinsically “excellent reason,” we have yet another reason which may well be thought “good enough.” We have found that the original promoters of that pastime were people of singular discrimination, and endowed with a positive genius for exploiting attractive resorts. The shrines to which they sent their penitents are so many realms of delight to the vagrant pleasure-seeker; and who could pick out for himself a more ideal holiday paradise than Lourdes or Monserrat or Covadonga or Rocamadour?
We have ranged in quest of palms and scallop shells through the length and breadth of Christendom, from the Holy Sepulchre in the east to Santiago de Compostela in the west; and nowhere have we been disappointed of receiving our temporal reward. Yet we feel it is rather hard measure to be grudged all ulterior benefits—to be told that, having roamed “without intention,” our spiritual profits are nil.
However, such disqualification affords us some compensating latitude. If our gain be exclusively temporal we can run but little spiritual risk. The less respectable shrines may prove just as eligible as the orthodox, and we can visit Mecca and Benares with as much immunity as Rome. Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo; and a call on the witch of Endor will at least assure us a thrill. In which dangerous frame of mind it becomes an overwhelming[{88}] attraction to a professed patron of pilgrimages, to find himself within easy visiting distance of the only temple extant which is specifically and avowedly dedicated to the Author of Evil Himself.
Nearly every form of religion which has yet been known to man seems at some time or other to have struck root in the soil of Mesopotamia; and there are but few of the number that have left no stumps or fossils to remind us of the days when they were yet flourishing in their pride. Some have bequeathed us the ruins of their temples, their sacrificial ash heaps, their votive tablets, or the images of their gods. Some survive but in fragments of fantastic folk-lore, still lingering on ineradicably as the parasites of more modern creeds. But one of the oldest and weirdest of all is still a living reality—the religion of the Yezidis or “Devil-worshippers” who congregate principally in the vilayet of Mosul.
“Devil-worshippers” they are indeed; for they themselves do not scruple to admit that the Being whom they seek to propitiate is actually identical with the Sheitan of the Christians and Moslems and Jews. But, fortunately for the morals of the neighbourhood, their homage stops short of imitation. Theirs is a religion of Faith, and not of Works. They are under no obligation to make evil their good according to the boast of Milton’s Satan; but only to “respect the great place” of their Divinity, and see to it that he is “sometime honoured for his burning throne.”
Thus, though they are accused of many enormities,[41] it does not appear that they are actually worse in theory, or half so vicious in practice, as many of the most blameless of their “true-believing” neighbours: and “good Christian men who are stable in the faith” may adventure themselves[{89}] into their Vale of Devils with no more material misgivings than worthy Sir John Mandeville of old.
The Yezidis form one of the recognized millets, or subject religious sects, existing in the Turkish Empire. But recognition in their case by no means implies toleration. They are universally abhorred as outcasts—almost as “untouchables”—like the cagots of the Pyrenees, or the lowest pariahs of Hindustan. A Christian is a “dog” to a Moslem, and a Jew ranks many octaves lower; but there is no room on the chromatic scale to show the position of a Yezidi: he is the sort of human being that is less regarded than a beast.
A Yezidi crossed our path some five or six miles from Mosul. He gave us a very wide berth, keeping quite a hundred yards away. But it chanced that his line lay to windward; and our escort rode at him furiously, fairly bellowing with indignation. How dared he have the effrontery to intrude his unclean carcass “betwixt the wind and our nobility?”
And presently another Yezidi actually tacked himself on to our party, following us (at a very humble distance) for two or three hours along the road. “It would be a good deed to kill the dog,” was our zaptieh’s muttered comment; “but while he is under the Effendi’s shadow, I suppose I must let him alone!”
Yet withal there is a spice of fear in the contempt which is felt for the Yezidis. They are “ower sibb” to the Devil to be quite safe subjects for abuse. They seem to be regarded in much the same light as witches used to be by our own seventeenth-century ancestors. It is virtue to revile and maltreat them: and by daylight, with a sufficient mob to back you, you may feel secure from their resentment. But it is another matter altogether to pass their door alone after dark!