'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎4v] (8/122)

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the high, rounded mountain of Kurtik Dagh. Two mountain-streams
enter the town, one from the south-east and the other from the south
west; the adjoining slopes are covered with vineyards. The climate is
healthy, but cold in winter, when there is sometimes a heavy fall of snow.
To the south are some well-wooded districts and fuel is plentiful. Bitlis
lies in the valley of the Bitlis Sn, about 15 miles from the south-west
corner of Lake Van; it is situated in a deep valley running from north to
south, being built mostly on the hillside. On the east side of the city is a
bare, steep, and rocky hill, about 1,000 feet in height; in the middle of
the town, on the right bank of the Bitlis Su, stands a ruined castle ; along
the west side of the castle flows the River Khosrov ; to the north is a flat-
topped spur, on which the Government buildings are built. Half-a-dozen
bridges of masonry span the Bitlis Su. The climate is rather hot in
summer, for the town faces the south ; in winter snow accumulates to
a great depth ; on the whole, it is a healthy place, though rheumatism is
said to be common. There are chalybeate and sulphur-springs in the
neighbourhood. Water is abundant, the best being conveyed in pipes of
earthenware from a stream in the Avekh Valley ; small springs also are
numerous. The main exports are grain, fleeces, wools, hides, skins, furs,
gall-nuts, and gum-tragacanth. Coarse red cloth is manufactured in the
town ; in the district of Sassun, to the west, are iron-mines, worked by
natives in a primitive fashion. Before the war about one-third of the
population were Armenians, and there was a small Jacobite community,
but deportations and massacres have reduced the numbers of the
Armenians. The rest are Mahommedan Kurds, who have a tendency to
become fanatical.
Of that corner of Kurdistan which lies to the north and north-east of
Lake Van little can be said. The country is exceedingly wild and rocky,
a mass of bleak mountains intersected by a few streams like the Murad Su ;
its inhabitants are scattered fragments of other tribes, very backward and
very ignorant.
It is the lower half of Northern Kurdistan which at present constitutes
one of the most densely populated regions of the whole country; it is the
home also of the most famous and influential of the Kurdish tribes. Its
inhabitants are more settled and less inclined to nomadic life than those
of Southern Kurdistan, more intelligent and industrious than those
who live in the vilaydt of Erzerum and Van. The country is hilly rather
than mountainous; the hills indeed rarely rise to a height of 900 metres,
except in the centre, where the highest peak of the Qarajah Dagh, between
Severekand Diarbekr, stands 1,850 metres above the sea, level, and between
Mardin and Midiat, where they reach in places a height of 1,200 metres.
The country is, in fact, a series of mountain-slopes running down on the
north side into the valleys between Diarbekr and the hills around Kharput
and Mush, and on the south to the low-lying plains of UpperMesopotamia.
This country roughly covers the area of the vildyah of Diarbekr; its