It was a good-sized lofty room, roofed with a pointed stone vault: but it boasted no window; and apparently no chimney, for the fire that was lit for our benefit soon filled all the space above the level of the door lintel with a dense and suffocating smoke. To us as we squatted on the floor this was no particular hardship; but a hand raised overhead reached into a warm smoky stratum, and if we rose to cross the room we had to bend double under pain of asphyxiation. The Yezidis seem more callous to smoke even than the Kurds and Syrians. The latter do generally provide a hole in the roof above the fire.
The young prior of the monastery, a nephew of Ali Beg, played the part of host. He had been preferred to his post by his uncle, to whom he pays a fixed composition (equivalent to £120 per annum) for the privilege of receiving the offerings of the faithful whom he entertains at the shrine. The entertainment which he provided for us consisted of the local pancake bread and a big dish of lentils; on which we supped very composedly, albeit we had no “long spoons.” Then followed coffee served in a brazen jug with a gigantic spout like the beak of a toucan: and, after a cigarette or two, our host took leave of us; while we and our posse comitatus disposed ourselves to sleep on the floor.
Our earliest thought the next morning was to inspect the Diabolical Temple; for the Yezidis, unlike their Mohammedan neighbours, are quite willing to exhibit their shrine. The sun was rising brightly as we emerged into the daylight; and the wakening glen in its rich autumn colouring looked a very different place from the gloomy gully up which we had crept the night before.
There is no village at Sheikh Adi. The place consists simply of the temple and its appurtenances, forming, in fact,[{94}] a monastery, though it is not actually so called. The buildings hang along the steep brae-side which forms the left bank of the river; the uppermost tier being notched deeply into the slope, and the lower terraced out boldly above the margin of the burn. The temple rises in the centre of the upper tier, conspicuous for the fluted spires which form the roofs of the sanctuaries. These fluted conical spires are a distinguishing characteristic of Yezidi architecture, and their appearance, on any building is strong primâ facie evidence of Yezidi origin.
All above and around the monastery the hillside is spangled with scores of rude little oratories, mostly in a ruinous condition. These were erected sometimes by individual worshippers and sometimes by communities. The founder of such a chapel is thought to acquire singular merit; and it is held that, at his death, his chantry will be transported with him to paradise and serve as his heavenly mansion in the life to come. A lamp is lit in each of them by the temple priests at sundown, and at the same time other lamps are lit all over the temple, thus forming the necromantic illumination which so startled us the previous night. They only continue burning for about half an hour; but we chanced to arrive just in time to get the full effect.
Within the main gateway of the monastery a flight of eight or ten steps leads down into a little sunken quadrangle; and the opposite side of this is occupied by the façade of the temple—a plain square wall of ashlar, unpierced by any window, but having a small arched doorway placed near the corner on the left. Many of the stones in this façade have queer cabalistic patterns, rudely incised in the surface so as to leave the device in low relief. The priests insist that these are all meaningless—mere bits of fanciful ornament introduced by the Christian builders:[45] but[{95}][{96}] though it is likely enough that the original meaning of them is forgotten, it is manifestly absurd to pretend either that they never had any, or that none is attributed to them now. There are no Christian symbols among them; and the devices which recur most frequently represent a hatchet and a comb:[46] but the most ominous and the most prominent of all is the famous Snake, which is carved in relief on the door jamb, and which receives the peculiar attention of being kept carefully blacked.
