'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎25r] (49/72)

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season clothed with sheeh, hymri, and other shrubs or grasses, is the favourite hot weather
resort of the Shammar, When townspeople say of Shekh F&ris that he is "between
Butin and Sinjar, it is here he is to be looked for, Butin being a hill range not com
monly marked on maps. Watered by the two principal branches of the Khabur* river
(ancient Habor, or Khaboras), not wholly without shade, and of vast extent, this forms the
very cream of all the Mesopotamian pastures. One of the streams running through it, the
Ja-gha-jagh or river of Nisibin (Nisibis) was reached towards sunset. This is the
ancient Mygdonius. Its name at the present time has rather perplexed travellers and map-
makers.f Happily it proved fordable, at a pool called Isfaiyah, not much broader than the
first flight in England sometimes negotiates. Next morning a dark mist hung over the
partly frozen river as the kdfila followed it to its junction with the KMbur near Tal
Kawkab. After this the Khabur, a very considerable affluent of the Euphrates, flowing
generally S. S. W., became the guide. Towards noon it threw itself across the track, at
the ford of Ih-sih-cha. This was guarded by a strong military detachment, with barracks
on an adjoining height. A great volume of water flowed past. It looked as if a raft
would have to be made, involving at least a day's delay, with not a pound of chopped
straw procurable. The soldiers.declared they had none. Their mules it seemed mostly
shifted for themselves in the desert. The only civil population was nomadic. Presently
a long line of mounted infantry, riding mules, appeared on the further bank. This was
the relief, from Der, of the Ih-sih-cha garrison. Then for the first time signs of life
appeared among the soldiers on the hill top, and down came the commanding officer, in
his slippers, to meet the new comers. Piloted by the indispensable Bedouin, bare as a fish,
and up to his shoulders in water, these entered the river, in single file, without halting.
The way the mules followed almost in one another's steps was admirable. All got safely
over, and the baggage too. Among the latter, perched on a mule, was a small French or
Maltese lapdog, not very long ago perhaps an English or Parisian lady's pet, also several
deal boxes having on them a Bombay wine merchant's well-known trade-mark. Whether
these actually contained the Major's Glenlivat," or had merely been picked up empty,
perhaps somewhere near the Suez canal, and utilized as portmanteaux, they showed,
equally with the little dog, how things do get distributed now-a-days. After the military
had settled down the kdfila crossed the river.
West the Khabur the best maps show a more or less unexplored steppe stretching to
Across the KMbfir. the banks of the Bilikh, another important tributary of the
Euphrates which helps to collect the waters coming down
from the mountain range (Mons. Masius of Strabo) above Urfa, Mardeen, and Niseebeen.
To traverse this great block of desert pasture, and striking the Bilikh below Urfa (the an
cient Edessa) follow it southward to its embouchure at Rakkah (Nicephorium) was the pur
pose which had brought the kdfila to the spot now arrived at. It was said at Mosul that,
all along the course of the Bilikh (between one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles)
were settled Birazeeah Kurds, on the produce of whose fields the garrison of Der chiefly
depended for supplies. This it was desired to verify. The steppe itself is also roamed
over by, among other nomads, a warlike tribe called Jais (possibly the Najdian Kais) as to
whom but little information has as yet been collected. One circumstance was favourable,
and that was that the small Sinjar escort, after crossing the river, declared, and reasonably,
their horses could go no further. The Ih-sih-cha commandant, on being informed they
were going back, made no sign of sending on another guard. So at last, and in a strictly
legitimate manner, the kdfila had got rid of all official espionage or encumbrance. But the
supply difficulty was another matter. The muleteers declared their team would starve be
fore Bilikh was reached, while even there the chances were locusts had eaten up every
thing. The idea of visiting the Birazeeah, and seeing the Jais and Adw^n Arabs by the
way, had therefore most reluctantly to be given up ; and the kdfila's head held, not north
west towards Harran and Urfah, but nearly due south to Der. A beaten track now offered
itself, with Abdu'l Aziz and Kawkab still the principal landmarks, and, further off, Sinjar.
Although by chance the Kh^bur had now proved fordable, no one who approaches it after
it has been joined by the Ja-gha-jagh should calculate on finding it so. It is a deep and
sluggish, rather than a broad or rapid river, very sinuous, and navigable for a consider
able distance by steamers. Needless to say nothing of the kind plies on it at present.
* Not to be confounded with another river of the same name, rising in the Kurdistan mountains and joining
the Tigris above Mosul.
f The shot Layard makes at the name is " Jerujar." In one of Kiepert's maps it is written Djakhdjakha, and
in another Dschachdschacha! All this to represent an Arabic word of four consonants, i .e., two jims and two
ghains, having three (Jatha) vowel marks. Evidently a W. W. Hunter is required.
E