'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎6r] (11/122)

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take refuge in case of necessity ; it is said that more than a year’s wheat
supply is stored in them. There are also several large reservoirs which
are filled with fresh water from the Tigris by means of underground
channels. There is a perennial spring outside the barracks, which stand
one-and-a-quarter miles outside the north gate. The population before
the \Var was considered to be over 50,000, but at present there are not
more than 40,000 inhabitants ; these include 11,000 Armenians, Chaldieans,
Greeks, and Syrians; the remainder are Turco-Kurds. The Christians
here, as elsewhere, have a monopoly of the industries, whereas the
Mahommedans are farmers, small shopkeepers, and government officials.
There is an Armenian silk factory An East India Company trading post. and some soap factories. The soil, as
well as many of the neighbouring villages, is owned by the local magnates,
who employ on the farms Kurdish and Armenian peasants. The latter
receive utensils and animals for ploughing and keep half the produce as
wages; consequently the inequality of wealth between the rich and the
poor is very marked. Diarbekr is famous for its wheat, rice, and sheep,
which are especially numerous on the slopes of the Qarajah Dagh ; its
butter is also well-known. Lentils, raisins, sesame, rice, cotton,
pomegranates, melons, grapes, apples, apricots, figs, almonds, and olives
are also grown in the neighbourhood of the town ; in the hills gall-nuts
abound, which the Kurds gather and sell to dealers at Mosul, Kowanduz,
and elsew here, for export to Bombay and London ; they are of three kinds,
blue, green, and white, of which the blue variety is most in request. The
climate is rather warm, mosquitoes are rampant, and the severity of the
malaria in this district has given it a bad reputation. The winter is not
as severe as might be expected, although snow falls yearly. The road
between Diarbekr and Mardin is metalled and in good repair; the road to
Arghana Ma‘den has recently been repaired, having been badly damaged
by German motor-lorries during the war; the road through Severek to
Urfah, though unmetalled, is fairly good, and can be used by heavy traffic;
the road to Tell Ermen and Arada is moderately good, though liable to
become very muddy in wet weather.
Midiat is a small but prosperous town, standing high up on the
southern slope of the Tur-el-‘Abdin ; it is, however, dependent for its
prosperity on a precarious water-supply, which is obtained entirely from
rain-water stored in cisterns. Sometimes, it is said, it is bought and sold
in summer, and in 1901 the supply failed entirely. The crops are barley,
wheat, millet, rice, and grapes in plenty. Usually the supplies are only-
enough for local consumption, and in bad years food lias to be bought
from other places. The inhabitants are chiefly Jacobite Christians; there
are also some Moslems.
Nisibin stands on the west bank of the River Jaghjagha, which is
crossed by an old, but strong, bridge of stone, in the plain below the
Tur-el-‘Abdin. Whereas, therefore, it belongs geographically to Southern
Kurdistan, its political connection with the Kurds of the Tur-el-‘Abdin,
demands its inclusion in Northern Kurdistan. The town itself is small.