'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎24v] (48/72)

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site to site. Of Mesopotamia as a whole the modern inhabitants r as has been seen above,
principally are the nomad Shammar, one of whose chiefs, the Abdu'l Kanm of desert
song and story, had his stronghold, till the Osmanlis hanged him about fourteen years ago,
in the ruined tower or " peel" of Ihyal passed to-day (5th January). After an easy march
the tents were pitched at Keer^n or Geer&n, consisting of about two hundred hovels, at the
mouth of a huge gorge, separating Sinjar proper from the spurs running eastward and
northward. The inhabitants were unmixed Yazidis, if possible more ignorant, and cer
tainly more squalid, than those nearer Mosul. At the sight of a European the children
roared with fright. For a time not even the near prospect of copfpers gave them power or
courage to move. By next morning they were rolling one over the other inside the tent,
fearlessly collecting any little refuse they fancied as toys. From the first the seniors had
been friendly. One old man, a " Kawwdi, " or leader of their sacred chants and dances,
insisted on coming on as guide. Soon after sunrise he was observed bowing down, and
kissing a stone, the first act savouring of worship any Yazidi had as yet been seen going
through. Was this essentially the same fetich as that of the Hajji when he kisses the
famous black stone of the Mecca shrine, originally, as is well known, a pagan temple,
Islam itself having been to some extent a direct graft on paganism ? To some extent yes ;
but it was impossible in this instance to tell whether the object of reverence was the stone,
or the rays of the sun falling on it, The rather formidable mountain pass receiving the
kdfila at Geer§.n is called Baloom. Within it, beside the Sheelu rivulet, were camped out
a colony from the Yazidi village of Samooga. On the right a pathway diverged to the
hamlet of Barah. After two hours' difficult going, which laden camels could scarcely have
managed, the open Mesopotamian plain was re-entered ; with the Abdu'l Aziz range, the
volcanic cone of Kawkab (some 300 feet high) and many other bold hill outlines, scarcely
distinguishable from cloud land in the remote distance. About noon it began to rain piti
lessly, and for a couple of hours the kdfila caught it. The gypsiferous soil, not free from
nitrous exudations, became in consequence very slippery.
The evening had brightened by the time the Muslim village of Khatuniya was sighted.
Lake and village of Khatuniya. ^ most picturesquely situated on a sheet of water
about four miles long by several broad ; or rather it carries
itself right athwart the lake, by means of a hilly peninsula running out from the mainland
into it. The water unfortunately is brackish and bitter. Till recently it swarmed with fish,
but these are said to have gorged themselves to death on putrid locusts. Wild fowl covered
it, safe from people who have no boats, and very little powder. The village greybeards
overflowed with hospitality; and scouted the idea of a tent being pitched. "What!" said
their half-blind spokesman, Shekh Suliman, a disciple of Kaka Ahmad of Sulimaniah, and
himself pretending to supernatural power, " is my roof accursed, that its shelter should be
refused ?" This was irresistible. Happily the same argument was not used, as a Bedouin
would have been sure to do, in the matter of food. That was allowed to come from one's
own resources, but a feast lasting far into the night was made for the party. The houses
mostly opening on to one another's roofs, the flat surfaces, or clear spaces, in the village
nearly all consisted of house tops on which animals could not be picqueted. The people
looked very ill and sallow, more than half-starved, and not half-clothed, and the air from
the lake smelt of ague. For a wonder not so much as a policeman represented the Gov
ernment. Barley and chopped straw are usually to be found in Khatuniya; but in buying
or hiring trasport there is the greatest difficulty. What poor supplies the inhabitants buy
they get from travelling pedlars, and their only traffic seems to be taking tobacco round
among the Shammar. There are no Yazidis in the village, and the remains of a large
mosque near it attests its Muslim character. But the only scraps of writing seen were the
texts of the I\.uran, or other cabalistic scrolls^ which meyi "women and children, and even
the mules and donkeys, wore on their bodies, to cure diseases, and avert the " evil eye."
Though it was near noon before a start was made, the north-east wind struck pierc-
Route continued. ingly Cold ' RiderS grew stiff ' and the onl y Potman, the
Bedouin guide Ishteywi, failing to warm himself by running
like a desert partridge, every now and then set fire to a tuft of grass, and put himself in the
middle of the flame like a martyr in a picture book! The night's halt was in the wilds, at
the spring of Lifrati, a black and reedy spot suggestive of throat-cutting. A strong flow
of water gushed from the ground at one place, and re-entered it at another, forming inter
mediately a stagnant pool, with a camp of cattle-feeding Arabs beside it. The women
coming to fill the waterskins had their lower lips much disfigured with tattooing. Next
morning there were several degrees of frost. The plain now being crossed, even at this