It provides an easy passage practicable in the depth of winter, from Armenia to Kirkuk and Baghdad. And it was probably for this reason that the Ottoman Government so coveted the possession of this district; for it afforded[{189}] them the means of moving the Baghdad army corps to the Russian frontier, without making the long detour to the west that would otherwise be necessitated by the mountains of Kurdistan.
Tergawar has always been a land of war, even when it was not a debatable land between Turkey and Persia. Here are several villages of Nestorians—as ever a good fighting stock; and these being tolerably well armed are chronically at feud with their Kurdish neighbours, a small broken clan recognizing no one head, and known as the “Begzadi.” The principal Christian chief, a man of the name of Bajan, had a reputation as a warrior even among those who were men of war from their youth. His absolute fearlessness had brought him triumph repeatedly against the longest odds, and his enemies even esteemed him invulnerable. One day, in the heat of a fight, he forced his way single-handed into a house where five Kurds had gathered; and they surrendered to him in a body. When their friends chaffed them afterwards, saying, “Bajan is a good fighter, no doubt; but still he was but one, and you were five”; they simply replied, “Well, what could we do? We fired at him, and the bullets flattened on his coat.”
Even to this day old men who have served under John Jacob in India will say that they have seen him shake the bullets out of his tunic after a skirmish.
Tough old Bajan is dead now, we regret to say; but dead in a way befitting. He went to help a Kurdish friend in battle, just from sheer love of a fight; and a bullet that took him behind the ear and came out at his forehead was too much even for his invulnerability.
The Christians of the Tergawar villages (Marwana, Kurana, Balulan, and others) were good fighters, as has been said, but fairly good average Christians withal; though one owns sorrowfully that fiery old Bajan was “not so good a Christian as so good a knight should be.” They were undeniably rowdy and turbulent, however; quarrelling among themselves almost as much as they did with the Kurds! Grazing rights and boundaries were usually the casus belli; a fruitful cause of bad blood, whether among[{190}] the Dandie Dinmonts of Liddesdale or the borderers of Persia and Turkey.
As Christians, they have, of course, their clergy; but these are peasants like themselves, living as they do, and hardly better taught. The qashi or priests may indeed be able to read the services, and it is not the thing for them to take part actually in the tribal battles. But this disability does not apply to the deacons (shamashi), who in the Nestorian Church form a regular grade in the ministry, with regular duties of their own, and are not merely candidates for the priesthood. These may go out to fight if the case requires it; and more than one reverend deacon among them leads the fighting as efficiently as he leads the prayers.
One prominent Kurdish Agha, a certain Bedr Khan Beg, takes out his Christian village to battle, as readily as his Kurdish one: and the village deacon is his second in command.
This Bedr Khan Beg is no relation whatever to his famous (or infamous) namesake of Bohtan, of whom we make mention elsewhere. He is a chief of the Begzadi Kurds whose prowess and activity have won him much local reputation, but who can boast no such formidable following as the Sheikhs of Neri or Barzan. For ourselves, we feel bound to speak well of him; for did he not once offer, out of pure goodwill, to make proclamation in the district that if we or any of our servants had to complain of any molestation, “I, Bedr Khan Beg, will hang at least two Kurds every time!” It is true that we scrupled to lay ourselves under such an obligation to him; but Bedr Khan Beg (like General Robert Craufurd) had a reputation of being uncommonly likely to carry out his threats.
He adopted a similar expedient with conspicuous success a little later. Some citizen of Urmi owed him money, and refused to discharge his just debt. Accordingly he published his intention of killing one Seyyid a month until such time as he received payment. Urmi Seyyids are mostly Shiahs, whereas Bedr Khan Beg is a Sunni; though it may be doubted whether this was a point to which he attached much weight.[{191}]
The unfortunate Seyyids, of course, had no concern in the debt whatever; but they are the most influential caste in Urmi. And now, to save their own skins, they began to apply pressure to the debtor: which was exactly what Bedr Khan Beg had calculated upon all along![108]