A peace was concluded at last; and the Sheikh was pleased to attribute it very largely to the friendly offices of the British; though really the principal factor was the intervention of a level-headed Vali at Mosul.[84] We did little more than insist that the Sheikh’s wives ought to be set at liberty and treated with fitting distinction; and that, when the “conspiracy” of which he was accused had been officially admitted to be non-existent, there was no longer any valid reason for keeping the “conspirators” in jail. But the Sheikh is “easy with them that have shown themselves easy with him,” and those who take the trouble to “‘gree wi’ Rob” are usually gainers on the deal.
We traversed one of the battlefields in the course of our journey westward: a crater-like hollow in the wilderness, environed by steep stony hills. Here one of the Government regiments encountered the Sheikh and his army; for the[{141}] Sheikh was present in person, though he left the actual conduct of operations to a certain Abd-’l-Kadr who acted as his “chief of the host.” It was the first regular pitched battle, and the tribesmen were somewhat awed at the prospect of engaging the Hukumet; for which cause, in order to inspirit them, the Sheikh himself fired the first shot. In Kurdistan the firing of a gun constitutes an appeal for assistance; and the Sheikh, with fine dramatic instinct, fired his gun straight towards heaven, appealing to Allah Himself. The event of the day—the capture of the entire regiment, with three pieces of mountain artillery—was thus a prodigious enhancement of his Holiness’s[85] personal prestige. Not only had he scored a valuable point in his secular and temporal capacity, but he was held to have signally vindicated his spiritual pre-eminence as well.
The Sheikh, in the eyes of his followers, is not merely a great tribal chieftain. They believe in his hereditary sanctity: and his clansmen are also his devotees. This fact is strikingly exemplified by an incident which had occurred a little earlier, and which was related to us by Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Christians, who himself inspires equal veneration among his own adherents.[86] A column in pursuit of the Sheikh caught a small boy who had dropped behind the party, and demanded of him with menaces which way the fugitives had gone. But the child was as staunch as steel. “By the Holy Name of the Sheikh I will not tell!” he answered. And that was all they could get out of him either by coaxing or threats. The Turkish Captain was fortunately a kind-hearted fellow, and did not ill-use his small captive; but he did not omit, in releasing him, to draw a moral from his pluck. “We shall not make much of this war,” he observed, with a smile to his officers. “You can judge from this example with what sort of folk we have to deal. This child is in my power utterly. None would call me to account if I killed him. And yet, knowing this, he defies me; and swears by his Sheikh as by a god![{142}]”
It was on the evening of the second day after we had quitted Barzan that we drew near to the hamlet of Suryi, planted in the re-entering angle formed by the confluence of the Oramar river with the Zab. It is a mean little place, consisting of some twenty cabins which spill themselves down the face of a steep brae a little way back from the river; and at the top of the bank stands the castle of the village Agha—a rudely built fortified residence like a second-rate border peel tower. It was here that we looked to meet the Sheikh, for it is a recognized halting-point between Amadia and Barzan; and, crossing the Oramar river, we bent our way towards the tower.
It was about five o’clock in the evening that we reached the first house in the village, and the crowd of men and horses which was grouped around the castle was a proof that the Sheikh, “with his tail on,” had already arrived from Amadia. News of our approach had preceded us; and we were met by an embassage from his Holiness bearing an invitation (or should we say “command” under the circumstances?) to partake of his hospitality for the night. We dismounted at the castle door amid a throng of wild retainers, and at the top of the rude stone staircase we were greeted by the Sheikh in person; who led us into the “belai”[87] (or belvedere), which served him as his temporary audience hall, and motioned us to seats on a mattress spread immediately opposite his own.
It was a prodigious condescension from so great a man that he should have come to the stair head to meet us. Most great chiefs will contrive to be absent from the room when European guests are admitted, that they may not have to rise to receive them, and so seem to admit inferiority. But presently the Sheikh vouchsafed us a still greater honour—one that perfectly staggered his followers—by even condescending to sup with us. To think that a man of his holiness should actually eat with two giaours!
Abdul Selim, Sheikh of Barzan, is quite a young man of[{143}] about twenty-eight years of age. Like most mountaineers he is of medium height, with a slight and active figure and a grave but pleasant face. He was dressed in a white fez and turban, white shirt and trousers, a black gown trimmed with red, and a green cloak over all. His retinue consisted of between thirty and forty retainers—“Boys of the Belt,” distinguished by their red turbans, and positively festooned with bandoliers. Many of these fellows must have been carrying quite two hundred rounds of ball cartridge, and their rifles—Sniders and Martinis—were piled around the walls of the belai. All showed most obsequious deference towards their young chieftain; and it may give some adequate conception of the reverence which they entertain for him to record the fact that he himself, in his own proper person, is a ziaret or place of pilgrimage “within the meaning of the Act.” By his own immediate followers his commands are obeyed instantly and without question; and we have not the least doubt that had he ordered us to be shot, instead of entertaining us graciously, the sentence would have been executed unhesitatingly, Europeans though we were.
An instructive example of their diligence occurred shortly after our visit. A long-standing feud between the Christians of Tkhuma and some of their Kurdish neighbours had recently blazed into activity; and the latter, rather unsportingly, were endeavouring to persuade their co-religionists to join them in a jehad or “holy war.” A jehad is an ugly business: and we were much relieved when the Sheikh of Barzan interfered strongly to quash it; refusing himself to sanction it, and prohibiting his vassals from joining in. He was moved to this action, we verily believe, partly by a wish to oblige us, and partly by his own prejudices in favour of law and order; for he had no particular cause to show favour to the Tkhuma maliks, since they had refused to shelter him when he was a fugitive in the war.
Deprived of the Sheikh’s countenance the jehad proved a rather damp squib. But for a moment it seemed just possible that some of his vassals would break out in spite of him. And scenting insubordination in a certain Tettu Agha, who[{144}] was about the biggest recalcitrant, the Sheikh dispatched one of his henchmen in order to emphasize his commands. The envoy entered the Agha’s castle and was duly received in audience. He delivered his chieftain’s message, but the Agha proved sullen and obstinate. He reiterated his remonstrances, but the Agha refused to give way.
“The Sheikh’s word must not be broken,” concluded the plenipotentiary. “The Sheikh has sent me to you to tell you to stop at home.”