'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎15v] (30/72)

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The stoniness of the ground could hardly be surpassed, and here and there it was
most precipitous. The view generally took in vast ex-
Treasures of country. pauses. Snowy peaks, perhaps 5,000 feet high, belong
ing to the great Zagros chain which shuts in on the east the Mesopotamian plain,
commingled with sunlit ranges of red sandstone ; rounded hills of limestone, green with
pasture ; and low strata of calcareous gypsum, which, from being greatly used for architec
tural purposes at Mosul, is known as " Mosul marble."
Straight through all, despising curves or deviations, runs a recently constructed road.
This having been made chiefly by the throwing down of
big stones is used, if at all, only by Ottoman officials.
Still it is a creditable military work in its way.
Water was everywhere; and, for a country in the main pastoral, the population
scarcely seemed over-sparse. Kurdi villages, consisting of
Peo P le - a f ew oven-shaped mud hovels hidden against some rising
ground, were not unfrequent. Here a couple of armed peasants, draped from head to
foot in the seamless, and singularly ungraceful, white felt cloak of the country, drove
their primitive plough alike over valley and acclivity. There a family of herdsmen fed
their sheep and shaggy black cattle high up a mountain. The first thing asked for by
everyone on the road was tobacco. People from a distance who had joined the kaflla
having that with them, seemed to be thinking more of " mashrubat, literally drinks.
The idea plainly was one's mules carried unlimited brandy. One man, a cattle-dealer
from Mosul, enquired if John Exshaw was a real person ; and, if so, what country he be
longed to! The excuse given for this thirst after the forbidden liquor was that the " world
had grown so cold." One casuist, or rather physiologist, a red-faced " Bimb^shi" (Major)
of Cavalry, even maintained that if the Kur&n had come out anywhere else than in the
latitudes of the Red Sea, comforting drinks would have been included in it!
The first march ended at the foot of an artificial mount, at least 200 feet high,
called Chamchamal,* standing in the middle of a plain.
Turkish military post. Xhis is topped by a rude fort said to belong to the
Ham&wands. At present it is held by a strong Ottoman garrison. The Kaim Mak&m
commanding not only came down to welcome the kdjila^ but had an entertainment prepared
atop, to which there was nothing for it but to climb. The mules in their lines below the
leafy huts of the soldiers, and the general attitude of preparation, with the mountain
scenery lying round, recalled some of our own posts in Abyssinia.
The following morning—a dark and wintry one—saw the kdfila as deep as before
among the mountains. In the course of the afternoon, the
A Ham&wand Shekh. ChamchamS.1 commandant, at the head of a couple of hun
dred soldiers, armed with Martinis, and mounted on galloping mules, overtook it by way
of additional escort. With him came,riding a Bedouin mare 7 a Hamawand Chief called
Mahmud Agha. While his kinsman Fakka Kadir takes the field against the Government
troops, this member of the family stops at home, and plays with them', almost like an
Afghan. The commoner Kurdi dialects, as is well known, are more or less based on, or
mixed with, Persian ; but Mahmud Agha spoke Persian itself. More interesting than
anything he had to say, especially with his friend the Kaim Makclm so near, was the way
he kept skimming over the mountains at speed on his bay mare. Loading and firing
without drawing bridle, no civilised soldier in such a country could have touched him,
except perhaps on foot, with a double-barrelled gun and slugs. The Ottoman cavalry,
or mounted infantry, was good in its way; mules, the property of Government, and very
fit; men's arms, saddlery and clothing efficient, though far from uniform ; and all ranks
practised in mountain formations. At close order, the mules were hardly inferior to
horses ; but when scouts or skirmishers were required, their stubborn nature came out.
Troops of this description can at all events hardly run away, unless a common panic
chance to seize their chargers also. One glance at Mahmud Agha, and then another at
the Chamchamal garrison, took away all surprise at the Ham§.wands being so irrepressible.
* Tumuli of this kind, generally artificial, are dotted all over Kurdist&n, the local term for them being
" Tappa." This, when a compound name ends in it, is like the " Garh" in Hindustani, in which language, by the
way, though possibly only par coincidence, " tappa" means (i) the space covered by a round shot between two
ricochets; (2) one stage in a postal line ; and (3) especially in Southern India, the post, or post office itself. The
"city set upon a hill " of Scripture perfectly describes these Kurdi Tappas, some of which such as Arbtl, have
fortified summits, and are surrounded by a ditch, while others present but a smooth conical or cylindrical outline.
Such occur all over Asia Minor, from the Mediterranean to the Caspian. When travellers ask the name of one
of these mounds, whether with or without ruins on it, and the peasants merely answer "tappa," it does not follow
that the spot bears no other name, which, if traced, might lead to historical discoveries.