"استطلاعات في بلاد الرافدين وكردستان وشمال غرب بلاد فارس ولرستان في الفترة من أبريل إلى أكتوبر ١٨٨٨، كتبها المقدم ف. ر. مونسيل، فرع الاستخبارات. يوجد مجلدان. المجلد الأول: تقرير سردي ووصف للمدن الكبرى والطرق المؤدية منها. شيملا: فرع الاستخبارات، إدارة قائد الإمداد والتموين، ١٨٩٠" [ظ‎‎٧‎٠] (٣١٢/١٤٥)

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The villagers complained this was the fourth year they had suffered severely
from locusts, and in winter wheat had to be imported from the Mosul and
Akra plains.
The soil though rich is stony. Small terraces are formed, and the stones
picked off in heaps. Numbers of these were deserted and overgrown with
shrubs. The population was much larger before the power of the Zebari chiefs
was broken.
Water-supply in Begil is from small wells and it seems to sink in this
porous white rock and remain there. Good water was found about 6 feet
below the surface.
The slopes of the border hills are well wooded, with some isolated groves
of large oaks in the valley.
The rupee was readily accepted as currency even in these out-of-the-way
places. A few Russian roubles that 1 had got en route would not be accepted
in the Rawanduz bazar, while the rupee was well known and accepted.
The weather was very pleasant for marching : the nights much colder than
the days, with heavy dew. Temperature 84° at noon; 64° an hour after
sunset, and 53° at 5-0 a.m. Since leaving Koniatman my Baghdad servants
have been suffering from fever and ague.
. This is a feverish place in summer. Opthalmia very prevalent also.
The following is a precis of Layard^s journey from Mosul to Gavvar :
Leaving Mosul on the 11th of July, five hours’ ride over the plains brought us to the small
Turkman village of Birhillan, which stands on the south-east spur of the Maklub hills. After two
hours’ rest we continued the journey by night because of the intense heat in the day time, and
crossed the spur of the hills before morning dawned. The Jabal-Maklub is here divided into two
distinct ranges by a deep valley. The southern ridge, rocky and furrowed like the northern, is
called Jabal-Ain-es-Sufra (the hill of the yellow spring) from a discoloured fountain in one of its
ravines. It is a place of pilgrimage of the Yezidis.
Leaving the Jabal-Maklub we descended into a broad plain stretching from it to the first
Kurdish range. Crossed the Ghazir, a clear sparkling stream bordered by oleanders, and rested at
noon at small Kurdish village of Kainmawa. Left again in the afternoon, and, instead of striking
for the mountains by the direct path across the plain of Navkur, we rode along the foot of a range
of low hills forming its western boundary to the large Kurdish village of Bardaresh.
Having rested a few hours, we descended in the night into a plain receiving the drainage from
the surrounding highlands and during the rainy season almost impassable from mud. Scattered
over it are many flourishing villages inhabited chiefly by Kurds who cultivate the rich and fruitful
soil. Streams irrigate fields of cotton, tobacco, rice, and turn numerous corn mills. After we had
crossed the parched and burning plain, we entered a valley in the Kurdish hills watered by a stream
called Melik or Gherasin. We had to climb over much broken ground, rocky ridges, and ravines
before reaching the slope of the mountain covered by the garden
A ra * and orchards of Akra. The town contains nearly 600 families with
a Turkish Mutasellim or Governor and the whole district about 300 villages and hamlets forming
a considerable part of the revenues of the Mosul Pashalik. In summer the inhabitants leave
their dwellings and encamp in the gardens.
The town contains a few well-built stone houses rising one above the other, a mosque, a bath
and a ruined castle, and was formerly the stronghold of an independent chief who enjoyed the title
of Pasha.
A precipitous and difficult path leads up the mountain. From the summit of the pass the eye
wanders over the plains of Navkur and Shaikhan, the broken hill country about Erbil and the
windings of the Zab and the Ghazir, On the opposite side is a deep valley ^dividing the Akra
hills from a second and loftier range (the Piris Dagh). We now entered the region or dwarf oaks,
and stopped after a short day’s journey at the Kurdish hamlet
Hashtgah. 0 f Hashtgah, surrounded by gigantic trees and watered by numerous
strcR/ros.
Through the valley ran a broad, clear stream, one of the confluents of the Zab, called by the
Kurds Durusho or Bairaisho. We rode along its banks for nearly an hour, and then struck into
a narrow gorge thickly wooded with oak.
(These districts still contain several villages, and grow large crops of corn, &c., but not so many as here men
tioned.)
Another stony and precipitous pass was between ns and the principal district of Zebari.
From its summit the main stream of the Zab is seen winding through a rich valley, beyond
which rise the more central and loftier mountains of Kurdistan with their snow-bearing peaks.