'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎329] (438/496)

329
Hon, and in the society of tlio I aclia and his officers the day was passed
pleasantly enough.
Sulim ani^ eh, the capital of the Pachalic, is a collection of small and
ruinous houses, bearing a more mean appearance than, I believe, the
most wretched hamlet in England. This is, however, not attributable to
the poverty of the Kurds alone, but to the nomade habits of its occu
pants, who, in the spring, summer, and autumn, abandon the town, and
spread themselves over the country, either to superintend the cultivation
of their lands, or to enjoy the “ otium cum dignitate” of a pastoral life.
After its second foundation by Ibrahim Pacha, it gradually improved, and
in Rich's time boasted of about 1000 houses.* I believe, at the present
time, it scarcely contains half that number of tenable dwellings, and is,
moreover, considered unhealthily situated when compared with the more
salubrious and less confined region of the adjoining plain. Built on the
skirt of a low and barren range, which rises up immediately behind it, it
is either entirely shut out from the cooler breezes that sweep the plain,
or is visited by constant hot winds which blow from the east and N. E.
over the heated ridge during the summer months.
Ahmed Pacha is the present ruler of this part of Kurdistan, and w T ere it
not for the fettering instructions that attended his investiture by the Bagh
dad Pacha in 1842, his enterprize and perseverance would no doubt restore
the Pachalic to what it was in the time of Suliman Bey, the progenitor
of the Baban or Bebbeh family, from whom he was descended. To any
one acquainted with the present political hatreds existing between Per
sia and Turkey, it would seem a desirable object on the part of the Os-
manli Yizirs to strengthen the frontier provinces so as to form a bul
wark against the machinations of the Persian Court, and a threatened
invasion by a Persian army. A fitter individual, I believe, for this pur
pose, could not have been selected than Ahmed Pacha. With a liberal
education, and a taste for the new order of things, he foresaw the ad
vantages of a regular force, and in a few months after his investiture
succeeded in overcoming the scruples of his clansmen and subjects so
far as to persuade them to lay by the dress of their ancestors, and equip
themselves in the garb of the regular troops of the State. In a year he
had raised and disciplined, according to European tactics, a respectable
* Sulimaniyeh stands in latitude 35° 33' 1° N., and its meridianal distance
from Baghdad, by my observations, is 1° 2' 46" East. Rich, who remained here
some months, and observed many eclipses of the Satellites of Jupiter, makes the
town east of Baghdad 1° 2' 24".