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NIPPUR
OR
EXPLORATIONS AND ADVENTURES ON THE EUPHRATES
THE NARRATIVE OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA EXPEDITION TO BABYLONIA IN THE YEARS 1888-1890
BY
JOHN PUNNETT PETERS
Director of the Expedition
VOLUME II.
SECOND CAMPAIGN
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.—America and Return//
CHAPTER I.
AMERICA AND RETURN.
IN the previous volume I recorded my
embarkation oil a Turkish steamer bound to Constantinople from Alexandretta. My
first two days on board this steamer were spent in a sort of torpor, so
exhausted was I with the journey from Baghdad to the coast. After leaving
Mersin, however, I began to revive. We touched at all sorts of queer and
charming places. At Addalia, Rhodes, and Chios I landed and explored the towns,
in company with M. Berger, military attaché of the French embassy, and a
Turkish Colonel. At Addalia we called on the Wali, and he called on us later on
the steamer. Both this place and Rhodes were singularly fascinating.
At Smyrna I had rather an amusing, but very
uncomfortable experience, which delayed me in all nearly three weeks. The
captain had announced that we should spend two days there. I went on shore
toward noon of the first day and spent the afternoon with the consul, Mr.
Emmett, and the missionaries. On returning to the quay about ten o’clock I
found that my boat had gone. There turned out to be no cargo, so the captain
changed his mind and sailed a day earlier than he had intended. My letter of
credit, my money, my clothes, and my papers were all on board, and I was
stranded in Smyrna with about eight dollars in my pocket. It was a week before
the Gedeklir, a boat of the Mahsousse, or Turkish line of steamers,
which belongs to the Sultan himself, arrived at Smyrna on its way to
Constantinople, and I became a passenger. It was a small boat, and the deck was
crowded from stem to stern with khojas returning from their Ramadhan preaching
in the provinces. Directly in front of the cabin door was a harem, screened off
from the rest of the deck by curtains, through which I had to pass every time I
went in or out of my cabin. The only place on deck where I could find room to
sit was the captain’s bridge, and to reach that I had to step over and wind my
way in and out among women and men lying on the deck almost as closely packed
together as sardines in a box. We had one cabin passenger, a white-turbaned
mollah, who had his own servant with him and his own supply of rich Lesbian
wine, and mastic from Chios, which he insisted upon sharing with the captain
and me. I was rather surprised to see a Moslem mosque lawyer drinking openly,
especially on a vessel crowded with fanatical khojas. We took several days for
the voyage, running in and out among the gulfs and bays of Mitylene and the
Troad, and touching at various picturesque and most romantic towns.
Arrived at Constantinople, I found that all
of my effects, which the Mahsousse agency at Smyrna had promised to telegraph
to the company to hold for me at Constantinople, had gone on up the Black Sea.
I had expected to receive at Constantinople a financial report from Haynes,
which it was necessary to present to the Committee at home, but none arrived.
Letters were awaiting me, however, giving a very favorable but, as it turned
out later, incorrect account of the attitude of the Wali toward us, and what he
was doing to render our return possible.
Hamdy Bey was more than cordial. He expressed
great indignation and shame at what had happened, and apologized for the way in
which we had been treated throughout. It appeared that Bedry had extorted from
us some £180 beyond the amount really due him, and I was urged to make a formal
complaint against him. This I refused to do for two reasons: in the first
place, he was a protege of the Minister of Public Instruction, and I did not
care to embroil myself with that official; in the second place, I felt that the
fault lay almost as much with the Museum officials as with him, inasmuch as
they had failed to furnish written instructions which would have defined his
duties and his salary, and had, in fact, handed us over to him bound hand and
foot. What he had done was the natural outcome of their system. I furnished
Hamdy with a memorandum of payments made to Bedry, for all of which I had been
careful to take receipts, and then left the matter in his hands. I also made a
full statement to him of what I had done, and told him that it was the
necessary outcome of the way in which we had been treated, and that it was
impossible to deal honestly under such circumstances. He realized this, and
showed at once a desire to meet me half-way; and before I returned to Nippur
the next time we entered into an agreement of mutual confidence, I promising
him to guard the interests of the Museum as carefully as I would my own, and he
accepting my word and reposing in me full confidence. I told him of my visit to
Yokha and other places, and he suggested to me that I might under the law make sondations, or tentative explorations, at all such places, to determine whether scientific
explorations would or would not be profitable. He proposed also to allow me to
substitute for Birs Nimrud, which after my visit to it I no longer regarded as
especially desirable, Mughair, or any other place which I wished, without
compelling me to provide impossible maps. He called with me on Munif Pasha, the
Minister of Public Instruction, to arrange for my return to Nippur, and showed
himself anxious to do everything possible to insure the success of the
Expedition.
While at Constantinople I received a telegram
from Philadelphia advising me that continuance of the Expedition was
improbable, and a letter from the President of the Fund, asking for my
resignation. I could not but feel that the Committee was quite justified in
making such a request, but I feared that my resignation would be the end of
American exploration in Babylonia for some time to come. My effects returned
from Trebizond to Constantinople on the 22d, and on the same day I started for
Bremen, stopping at Dresden on the way to see my family. My wife’s
representations that my honor was at stake, and that I must carry the
Expedition through to success or perish in the attempt, fixed my resolution to
endeavor to secure the continuance of the work under my own direction.
I sailed from Bremen on the 2d of July,
reaching New York on the 12th. It was the 15th before I met any member of the
Committee. The first one whom I saw was of the opinion that the only course to
be pursued was to settle up our accounts and bring the Expedition to a close. I
was much hampered by the lack of a financial report from the business manager,
but from the papers in my possession and the books of the treasurer, I made up
a report of some sort before the meeting of the Committee. Before that meeting
I had an opportunity to go over the situation with Mr. Frazier and Mr. E. W.
Clark. They were favorably impressed with the results accomplished by the first
year’s campaign under great difficulties, and decided to advocate the
continuance of the Expedition. I was not prepared, however, for the extremely
favorable result of the Committee’s considerations. I merely presented to them
a report of the work done, a catalogue of the objects found, a statement of
moneys expended, and an estimate of the amount required to continue the work
for another year. They decided to send me back with carte blanche to
manage everything as I saw fit. The only condition which they imposed was that
they should engage no one, and deal with no one but me, and that they would
hold me, and me alone, responsible for everything. They also placed at my
disposal for the work of the ensuing year a sum larger by $3000 than the sum
provided for the first year. I doubt if a Committee has ever shown itself more
royally trustful and liberal than this Committee, and I left Philadelphia with
the determination that I would merit the trust. It was stipulated that I should
go at once to Constantinople. If I could arrange to return to Nippur, as I
believed I could, the Expedition was to continue. If not, I was to close the
matter and return home.
Stopping at Dresden to pick up my family on
the way, I reached Constantinople August 21st. Negotiations for our return to
Nippur had not progressed in my absence. Hamdy Bey was absent in France and
Switzerland. Our Legation had done nothing, and the Turkish authorities no
more. Our representative in Baghdad had been remiss about writing, and if it
had not been for the fact that Bedry was in communication with Diwanieh I
should have been quite in the dark as to the doings of the Baghdad Government
and the condition of the country. Since my departure a cholera epidemic had
broken out in the marsh region between Shatra and Nasrieh, and spread over the
whole country and into Persia. The country of the Affech had suffered with
particular severity, and both Mekota and his uncle Shamir were dead. In
Baghdad, it was reported, the deaths reached seventy-five a day. All the
consuls had left the city and were encamped in the open plain along the Tigris
above the town.
Bedry, in Hamdy’s absence from
Constantinople, attempted to extort more money, and foolishly committed himself
in writing. It turned out also that he had purloined two of our most valuable
tablets, and presented them to one of the members of the Expedition, who had
carried them away with him. They were ultimately handed over to the Museum in
Philadelphia, but the whole proceeding was of such a character that it left me
in great uncertainty as to the security of the other objects found by us. On
Hamdy’s return I made use of my information, not to have Bedry dismissed, but
to turn him into a faithful friend and assistant. He appreciated the fact that
he had put himself in my power, and brought my wife as a present a sampler with
this motto worked by his wife: “Reveal not your secret to your secret friend,
otherwise you publish your secret. If you are not secret to yourself, how shall
your secret friend be more secret?” It was only necessary from this time on
to refer to money matters, or to commence a search for the missing tablets, to
secure Bedry’s faithful cooperation. He proved himself invaluable from his
knowledge of his own government and people, and without him it would have been
impossible for me to have accomplished much that I did accomplish. Moreover, he
did it in no surly way, but heartily and kindly, so that I finally came to
regard him as a valuable friend. I could only wish that I had known and
understood him better the previous year. Hamdy assigned him to me for my
especial assistance, and all that Bedry did for me was done with his approval.
Hamdy himself did not return to
Constantinople until about the 25th of September. After that matters began to
move more rapidly. With Bedry’s assistance I unearthed a private telegram of
the Wali of Baghdad to the Minister of the Interior, informing him that it was
impossible for us to return to Nippur without a war. This was not meant for my eye,
and it was quite different from the information furnished to Haynes in Baghdad.
With the assistance of our Legation and of Hamdy Bey I caused peremptory orders
to be telegraphed him by the Grand Vizier to make immediate arrangements for
our return. Hamdy made every exertion to enable me to go back, taking much the
same view of the situation as I did myself. It was not, however, until
Thursday, the 10th of October, that I was actually able to sail from
Constantinople on my return to Baghdad. Those had been six weeks of great
anxiety and suspense. The Governor-General of Baghdad actively, and Munif Pasha
and the Minister of the Interior passively, opposed my return. I could obtain
no reliable information from Baghdad as to the action taken by the Governor-General
in relation to the burning of our camp by the Arabs, which the Wali still
persisted in treating as an accident. The cholera epidemic which was
devastating Irak was also urged as an argument against our return. Only Hamdy
Bey was on my side, and on his friendliness and activity depended my success or
failure. But even after I had left Constantinople my suspense was not ended,
for a promise in Constantinople, and its fulfilment in Baghdad are two very
different matters.
As already stated, I left Constantinople in
perfect agreement with Hamdy Bey, and enjoying his full confidence. I was
authorized to make recherches scientifiques, or tentative excavations,
at such mounds as I might wish, for the purpose of determining whether or not
it would be desirable to conduct fuller excavations there. This permission was
to have been given me in writing, but, after the Turkish method, at the last
moment, I was informed that no writing would be necessary, and that the verbal
permission would suffice. No commissioner was sent with me from Constantinople,
and it was arranged that I should receive in Baghdad a commissioner who would
be congenial to me, and whose presence would in fact be but a form to satisfy
the law. I had been promised the exchange of Birs Nimrud to Mughair, but this
was not effected before I left. A telegram was, however, sent to the
Governor-General of Baghdad, authorizing excavations by me at Mughair, provided
there were no obstacles in the way. Later it turned out that Mughair was in the
vilayet of Busrah, and not Baghdad, something which our maps did not show, and
I therefore never actually held a formal permission to conduct excavations
there.
Outside of the anxiety caused by the
uncertainty of our future, life at Constantinople was, as usual, intensely
interesting, although we all suffered from the dengue, which was raging at that
time. Musa Bey, a Kurdish chief from the neighborhood of Bitlis, in the
Armenian mountains, who had terrorized that region for several years, levying
blackmail on all the roads, treating the Christian Armenian population with
great brutality, and deflowering and carrying off their women at his pleasure,
had just come to Constantinople to be tried. Some six years before he had almost
murdered two American missionaries, Knapp and Reynolds, for which our
government has never exacted redress. Finally the English Government brought
pressure to bear, and so much was published about Musa’s enormities that he was
brought, or rather came, to Stamboul for trial. About fifty witnesses against
him, chiefly Armenians, also arrived and were lodged at the Armenian Patriarchate.
All mention of the matter in the press was forbidden, and my Turkish friends
told we that it was dangerous even to speak of it in private. The English
Government did not dare to push the matter vigorously, because of the use which
the Russians made of any such action on its part to persuade the Sultan that
the English were his enemies and they his friends. The Sultan himself declared
that Musa could not have committed the crimes attributed to him, because he was
a pious Moslem; and Musa, after being allowed to escape once and almost a
second time (in preventing which latter escape we all had a hand), was at
length acquitted.
The conditions in Armenia were at that time
entering upon the final stage of massacre which has since been reached. The Kurds
were killing and outraging at pleasure. The Russian Government had massed
troops on the boundary and seemed to meditate an invasion of Armenia. It was
encouraging the Armenians to be restless, and indirectly it was encouraging the
Turk to perpetrate atrocities which would give it ultimately the opportunity to
absorb Armenia. The English Government was pursuing a weak and futile policy,
occasionally protesting against Turkish outrages, but taking no active steps to
enforce its protestations. The Turkish Government had instructed at least one
of its governors, the Wali of Erzeroum, to do nothing against the Kurds for
their outrages upon the Armenians. The commander of the troops in that province
confided to one of his officers his hope that the Armenians would rise, for he
had everything prepared to serve them as the Bulgarians were served. He had
been prominent in the Bulgarian massacres. Crete was in a state of anarchy, and
England was supposed to be plotting to obtain possession of it. Arabia was in a
condition of ferment. There was also much discontent among the Turks
themselves, and severe criticism by them of the government. Something of this
discontent I saw myself; but while the Turks with whom I conversed in the
provinces almost without exception had spoken with great freedom of the
corruption of the government and predicted its speedy downfall, in
Constantinople their tongues were stilled, and they dared not speak of such
matters for fear of the ubiquitous police spies.
On the steamer to Beirout I met one of my old
acquaintances, Salih Pasha, with whom I had made the journey from Baghdad to
Aleppo the previous spring. He had been appointed Governor of Marash, which he
attributed to the fact that I had spoken favorably of him to the Grand Vizier, and
was grateful accordingly, insisting that our “harems” should make
acquaintance, and embracing me when he left the ship at Alexandretta. On our
way up the Euphrates I had found him a pious, God-fearing man. He was then
accompanied by a private imam, and was somewhat too much given to praying,
stopping our caravan daily in mid-route to attend to his devotions. Now he was
accompanied by another Pasha on his way to his post at Urfa, and the two of
them got drunk every evening. I regret to say that in my experience of Turkish
officials, outside of Constantinople at least, this is a frequent failing.
We landed at Smyrna, Mersin, Alexandretta,
Ladakieh, Larnaca in Cyprus, and Tripoli, spending generally a day at each
place. Along the coast of Asia Minor I noticed many ruin sites which had
escaped my observation on my first trip, such as Korghos, Ayash (Aleusia), Selefke
(Seleucia), Holmi, Pershendy, and several others for which I could find no
names either ancient or modern. During our stop at Mersin we visited
Pompeiopolis, or Soli, where a squad of workmen were digging for treasure among
the ruins under the direction of a Turkish official, who supervised the work
from the shade of an umbrella. This work was done by order of the Wali of
Adana, who had heard that the Arabs had found treasure there. The Arabs had, in
fact, found some gold coins, a couple of which I saw. These bore the names of
Theodosius and his daughter Pulcheria (408-457 A.D.). Farther inland, I was
told, a number of Polish silver coins had been found of the years 1400 to 1600 A.D.
The Arabs had also found at Pompeiopolis a leaden box with a Greek inscription,
which had once contained Church archives. Near an old castle a mile farther
north a badly effaced Armenian inscription had been exposed, dating presumably
from the period of the Rhupenian Armenian Kingdom (1064-1375 A.D.), which
embraced this region. But none of these things did I see for myself.
One of the railroad officials at Mersin
showed me a statue which had been brought to him from some unknown place in the
interior, and which he hoped would possess some archaeological value. It was
Greek work barbarously executed. The same official told me of the difficulties
experienced by the management in selling railroad tickets. The natives wished
to haggle over the price, and would often come back day after day to try to
cheapen the ticket by bargaining, and at the end perhaps journey to Tarsus or
Adana by wagon or by camel at a higher price, because they conceived themselves
cheated, or their importance insulted in the refusal of the officials to
cheapen the price by bargaining. In every other matter of business the asking
price was not the real price, and they would not believe that it really was so
in the case of railroad tickets. Then, again, they could not conceive of
anything starting on schedule time, and were constantly being left, to their
great indignation. These inconveniences, together with the serious disadvantage
to the Turkish mind of the rapidity of service, made the railroad unpopular,
and camel caravans were still the preferred means of transport, so the manager
of the road told me.
At Mersin, Ladakieh, and Larnaca the Reformed
Presbyterians have schools and missions. Their work at Ladakieh lies
largely among the Nosairieh, one of those secret religious sects in which the
country abounds. The missionaries say that these people believe in the
transmigration of souls. They venerate the life-germ, even as it shows itself
in some plants. They reverence Ali as a divine incarnation, now existing in the
sun or moon. In the stars are other saints; and therefore the heavenly bodies
are worthy of worship. Like the Mohammedans, they venerate ziarets of the holy
dead. They have further secret doctrines and private rites, disclosed only to the
initiated. Whether they are Mohammedans with heretical beliefs, or have merely
adopted into another faith some of the doctrines of Islam is not clear. For
purposes of the military conscription the Turkish Government counts them as
Moslems; in the ordinary relations of life they are treated as non-Moslems.
They are said to have originated in the Euphrates region in the tenth century;
they now number about 200,000, inhabiting the mountains from below Ladakieh
northward to Aleppo, and from Adana to Mersin. They are divided into two main
sects. They are a low and degraded people for the most part, but not immoral,
so the missionaries assert, except that they sell their daughters to the Turks
as slaves; and that their religious heads or sheikhs are privileged to cohabit
with any woman, married or unmarried, and the husbands even urge the sheikhs to
honor them by the selection of their wives. They are robbers, and their country
unsafe; and they are all banded together to resist and outwit the Turkish
Government, especially in the matter of conscription.
There are some interesting remains of
antiquity at Ladakieh, or Lattakia, as it is also written. Besides those
mentioned in the guide-books, the most conspicuous of which are the Arch of
Triumph, ascribed to Septimius Severus, and the so-called Church of the
Pillars, I observed a broken column with an inscription of Diocletian, and in
an orthodox Greek church a handsome lectionary, written in capitals, and
ascribed to Theodosius, Metropolitan of Jerusalem, 492 A.D.
At Alexandretta I took on board the beds,
guns, and other paraphernalia left there by us on our way out. An American
concern, the Stamford Manufacturing Company, has a station at this point, which
is also the principal port for the export of licorice to the United States,
where it is used mainly, I was informed, to color tobacco. We took on a large
cargo here, chiefly of dhurra and barley. From Alexandretta onward we were
afflicted with mosquitoes, which came into the cabins of the steamer in great
numbers.
At Larnaca we visited the grave of Lazarus,
and I somewhat shocked our pious captain by suggesting to him that saints,
being the great ones in heaven, do, like the great on earth, have several
domiciles. So Lazarus presumably lay in this tomb at one season, and at some of
his other tomb abodes elsewhere at other seasons. Only thus could the fact be
explained that the same saints were in so many cases reverenced at several
tombs. Tripoli was a fascinating place, like Rhodes still redolent of the
Crusades. It is a mediaeval Italian city inhabited by Moslems.
We reached Beirout just before sunset,
Sunday, October 20th. Such a landing I never experienced before. Dr. Post, of
the Syrian Protestant College, met us and took us in charge, or I do not know
how we should have managed. At the landing-stage our boatmen quarrelled with
the boatmen of another boat about the right of way, and the two parties fell to
fighting with their oars. The dock and neigboring streets were filled with a
wild mob. A number of conscripts were being shipped to Constantinople, and
their women were fairly wild in consequence. The custom-house in Beirout is
said to be the worst in Turkey, and I can well believe it. The greater part of
our effects we did not receive until the following day. Everything had been
overhauled and maltreated, some things were stolen, and considerable damage
done. All my books were carried off to the Serai for examination, excepting
those that were contraband, and they, of course, were passed through the
custom-house at once, as well as our arms. It should be said that any book
which deals with the geography, history, or religion of Turkey is contraband,
including, therefore, all guide-books, and indeed everything that one specially
wants in the Turkish Empire.
I remained in Beirout until November 7th,
making purchases and waiting for the arrival of Hajji Kework and Artin, two of
our last year’s servants, for whom I had sent to Aintab, their home. Among
other things, I bought a horse from one of the medical missionaries, of which
purchase I can only say that in matters of horseflesh even missionaries are
human. I had purchased the greater part of the supplies for this year in
Constantinople and shipped them to Baghdad. The first year Haynes had no outfit
for instantaneous photography. To secure greater efficiency in this direction,
I procured in Constantinople appliances for his large camera. I also equipped
myself in America and Germany with two small cameras for snap shots, one of
them the Kodak Number 1, which had been placed on the market not long before,
and the other the Krugner Camera. I had endeavored in Constantinople to
purchase a supply of fireworks, feeling confident that I could use them with
great effect among the Affech. It proved impossible to buy any there, but in
Beirout I found a Greek who undertook to manufacture rockets without sticks
(which he told me I could supply by reeds cut in the marshes), Roman candles,
firecrackers, squibs, and some indescribable inventions of his own made in old
tomato cans. It had occurred to me that my magical powers might be construed as
responsible for the death of my old enemy Mekota and so many of his tribe as
punishment for their treacherous burning and plundering of our camp, and I felt
sure that fireworks, judiciously applied, would assure and confirm the
development of this idea, and protect us from such disasters in future. I wrote
to Noorian that if he came in contact with any of the men of Affech he would
probably meet some such sentiment, which he was on no account to discourage.
While in Beirout I received from him the information that Berdi, who had
murdered his two brothers as they slept, had himself been murdered in the same
manner by his uncle, a man whom I had doctored the previous year.
I had already received from both Haynes and
Noorian assurances that they would return with me to Nippur, their former
protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, and had re-engaged them for the
work. Through Dr. Post's assistance I engaged at Beirout Dr. Selim Aftimus, a native
of the Lebanon, and a graduate of the medical department of the Syrian
Protestant College, to accompany me as botanical collector and physician. I had
been anxious the previous year to make botanical and zoological collections,
and was provided with an outfit for that purpose; but I did not myself find
time to do any work of the sort, and no other member of the Expedition was
willing to attempt it. Now it seemed eminently desirable, in view of the
presence of cholera in the neighborhood of Nippur, and the possibility and even
probability of an outbreak of the same plague the succeeding spring, to take
with us a physician. I therefore sought to combine in one person the two
functions of physician and natural history collector, but, as will appear in
the sequel, poor Aftimus did not succeed in filling either part.
The Syrian Protestant College at Beirout, of
which Dr. Bliss is the President, is an admirably equipped institution, and its
most efficient and best-developed department is the medical. The physicians
graduated here, however, are not allowed to practice without receiving a
diploma from Constantinople. For this purpose they are compelled to spend about
a year in residence there, and to learn the Turkish language. The Imperial
Medical School in Constantinople is extremely inefficient, and its diploma
amounts to nothing whatever. The law serves merely as an engine of corruption
and oppression to hamper foreign institutions in Turkey, to keep out of the
country as much as possible foreigners wishing to practice, and when they
insist on coming in, to extort from them fees and subject them to annoyance.
Besides the Protestant college there is also
a large Jesuit college and medical school at Beirout. This institution has a
press which has done valuable work in publishing Arabic texts. The Bible
Society also has a press at Beirout, and all of the Arabic Bibles and mission
books are printed there, while the Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian, and Armenian
books are printed in Constantinople. There is a considerable foreign colony of
merchants and artizans here.
We all suffered in Beirout from the Abu
Rekab, or Father of the Knees, another name of the dengue, which affected the
whole country at that time, in some places bringing all business to a
standstill.
Kework and Artin arrived from Aintab on the
5th, and I should have started on the same day for Damascus, had it not been
for the delay in passing through the custom-house some goods of Haynes’s which
they brought with them. On the 6th I sent them and the higgage to Damascus by
mule. Aftimus and I left on the diligence at 4.30 A.M. on the 7th, reaching
Damascus at 6 P.M. the same evening. Here I was detained until the 18th,
securing a caravan. Through the instrumentality of Mr. Neshaka, our consular
agent, who was also interpreter at the British Consulate, I at last made a
contract with Mohammed-er-Reshid, who held the contract for the desert mail
between Baghdad and Damascus, to furnish us with fifteen dromedaries, two of
them being dhelul or riding dromedaries, which we could use instead of our
horses, if we saw fit; the proper number of attendants, and an extra guard of
two armed men. For forty liras he was to transport us by way of Palmyra and the
Euphrates valley, landing me in Baghdad within twenty days, if I wished to go
through without stopping, by the regular road over Palmyra and Deir, but giving
me the option of making a detour from Palmyra to Resafa, or in such other
direction from Palmyra as I might see fit, or permitting me to stop for the
purpose of exploration at such places as I should select, provided that the
total delay did not exceed ten additional days. It was my intention to take
advantage of the permission to conduct sondations, and I took with me a
few implements for that purpose. I wished also to explore the roads between
Palmyra and the Euphrates. The theory was an admirable one, and the contract
was well drawn; but from beginning to end Mohammed never did anything as agreed
upon. We were unable to explore any new routes, we had no opportunity to make
any sondations, and it took the entire thirty days to go straight to
Baghdad.
There was another man, a certain Munsur
Abdullah, who was introduced to me by the proprietor of the Hotel Dimitri,
where I stayed, who was also anxious to secure the contract. He called himself
Sheikh of Palmyra, which he was not, and offered a bribe to both Neshaka and
Aftimus to influence me to give him the contract. When we finally made an
arrangement with Mohammed, Munsur told us that we would do well to hire a man
to protect us, as our lives were no longer worth anything, which was, however,
only braggadocio to frighten us into taking him.
With the exception of the arrangements for
our journey, the purchase of a horse for Aftimus, and a couple of tents, we had
no business in Damascus. Nevertheless, we were compelled by Oriental
obstructiveness and dilatoriness to stay there eleven days. It is a most
interesting city, far more Oriental than Aleppo, and more fanatical than
Baghdad. In the bazaars one little lad spat at me, calling me a giaour. Not a
few pious Moslems would sell me nothing whatever because I was a Christian.
Many more scowled savagely as I passed their booths, and all raised their
prices on me to such an extent that I was compelled to purchase by indirection.
I ultimately succeeded in getting all that I wanted, at native prices, but I
could not buy anything myself.
The most interesting portion of Damascus, to
me, was the Maidan, a panhandle extension of the town along the Mecca pilgrim
road. Here you find the bedouin in great numbers purchasing at the booths, or
wandering up and down the streets. Here also you find numbers of Druses from
the Hauran. Next to this the Jewish quarter was most interesting. There are
large numbers of Jews in Damascus, and I was much surprised at the freedom of
their women. Passing through the Jewish quarter on the afternoon of the
Sabbath, when the people were free and in the streets, the girls and young
women chaffed me almost as boldly as would the operatives in one of our factory
towns. The houses in this quarter arc miserably poor to look at. From the
outside you would suppose them to be mere mud hovels, but within some of them
are quite luxurious. I visited one with a fine inlaid reception hall, baths,
and courts. This house contained a considerable library, which is open to the
public. I offered an old Jew who was employed there as librarian a small
backsheesh for his consideration and courtesy in giving me information. As it
was the Sabbath, he could not receive it, but told me to put it under the rug
on the divan, and he would find it on the following day.
There are no antiquities worth speaking of in
Damascus. You are still shown the “street called straight,” but the house of
Ananias has left this street and gone to another part of the town. The House of
Naaman the Leper is the name given to a so-called leper hospital maintained by
the Christians just outside of the walls. There were about forty lepers there,
of whom the greater part were out begging when I visited the place. Apparently
they have a domicile in this leper house, and are expected to feed and clothe themselves.
Almost all of them were fellaheen from the neighboring villages. In one room I
found three lepers playing cards with two visitors, a man and a young woman
from a neighboring village. There is another similar leper house for
Mohammedans. But Damascus is a place which is well known, and its sights have
often been described, including the ancient walls, and the great mosque, which
latter was destroyed by fire after my visit.
We were informed in Damascus that the road to
Palmyra was extremely unsafe, the mountains being infested with brigands.
Neshaka, therefore, applied for a zaptieh escort for us. This was refused, for
which refusal we were given various reasons, being told, among other things,
that a Russian prince had lately gone through that country distributing arms to
the bedouin, on which account the government did not wish to allow any one
having official protection to travel by the Palmyra route. Another statement
was to the effect that the brigands in the mountains between Damascus and Palmyra
paid the Governor-General of Damascus protection money to leave them
undisturbed, on which account he was unable to send over that road any one
furnished with government protection. The Director of the Imperial Ottoman Bank
was of the opinion that by unofficial application we could secure that which
was refused when officially applied for, and in company with him I visited the
Chief of Police to ask for an escort. He refused it, and informed me that I
would not be allowed to go by the Palmyra road, but must travel northward to
Aleppo, and so down the Euphrates, and that if I attempted to go by the
straight road to Palmyra I would be arrested and turned back. My camels, which
had arrived a day late from the Hauran, where they had been employed, were already
at the gate, and the greater part of my baggage had been carried out to their
camp on the backs of porters. My contract with Mohammed was made and all my
plans laid for the route through Damascus. The route which the Turkish
authorities proposed involved an extra journey of two weeks, and proportional
additional expense. For that journey, mules would have been the beasts to
choose rather than camels, since there was water at all the stations; whereas
on the Palmyra route camels were preferable on account of the lack of water.
By the assistance of Mr. Syufi, the Director
of the Bank, and the Lieutenant-Governor, who seemed to be a sensible man, I
finally forced my way into the Govcrnor-Gencral’s presence in my riding
clothes, equipped for the journey, with my spurs on my heels and my whip in my
hand, and demanded of him an escort. Although governor of an Arab-speaking
region, he was unable to speak one word of Arabic. The Turks treat the Arabs as
a conquered race, and put over them not infrequently men like this man, Ahmed
Pasha, as completely a foreigner to them as a Russian would be to us. He was,
moreover, notoriously corrupt. As he could not speak Arabic, Mr. Syufi was
unable to interpret for me, and the official interpreter of the vilayet was
sent for. I preferred, however, to speak directly to the Governor-General in
such poor Turkish as I could muster. I told him that the whole thing was
preposterous and an outrage; that I had informed the Grand Vizier and the
Minister of Public Instruction of my intended route, and that both of them had
approved of it; and that I did not propose to be turned back at the last moment
for no reason. I finally told the Wali that I proposed to start by the route
which I had stated to him, and that if the Chief of Police had me arrested and
brought back I should make an official complaint through our minister at
Constantinople. Finally he sent for the Chief of Police and ordered him to let
me pass unmolested, assuring me at the same time that my blood was on my own
head, and that he could not give me any escort or guarantee me protection
through that unsafe region. I think I told him that it was his business to make
it safe. At all events I told him that I should go, and that he would be
responsible just the same if anything happened to me. He did not offer me a cup
of coffee, nor did we part with any excess of courtesy. However, I had gained
my point. Mohammed assured me that there was no real danger, and in
consideration of a couple of liras more promised to provide two additional
guards, Ageyli Arabs like himself. But after what I had said to the
Governor-General it was considered probable that the police would inform the
brigands that I must not be touched.
I had intended to leave Damascus Saturday,
the 17th, but owing to Mohammed’s delays, it was late in the afternoon of
Sunday, the 18th, before we actually set out.
My object in starting on that day and at that
hour was to prevent the delay which would have ensued had I waited until the
following morning, for a caravan never succeeds in departing from a large city
without the loss of half a day. We therefore went a couple of hours’ journey to
a little village called Harasta and encamped there for the night, to secure an
early start on the morrow. There was a bitter cold wind, but we found a
sheltered nook by the side of a dung heap, on top of which our cook’s tent was
pitched, and part of which was mixed with our dinner that evening, to Aftimus’s
great disgust. He, Mohammed, and I had reached the place a half an hour ahead
of our men, and while we were waiting for them to come my newly acquired horse
attempted to work the destruction of us all, but only succeeded in putting one
of my fingers out of joint and wrenching it so that it was lame for some weeks
and has never quite recovered its normal condition. A Turkish Bey to whom the
dung heap belonged invited us to come and lodge in his house, which I refused,
but later in the evening, as we heard him singing with a party of roystering
friends, we found our way through a filthy court of camels and barking dogs,
and up a dilapidated and dangerous outside staircase, and joined the merry
company.
The second night we spent at the village of
Domeir (the Obair of Kiepert’s map), where there was a ruin of an old Greek
temple. Neshaka had sent ahead of us one of the cawasses of the English
consulate, whose home was at this place. That made us, as it were, masters
of the town. Life here seemed to be conducted principally on the roofs.
There the women spun, rocked thieir babies, and made their visits, and there
the men loafed. By virtue of our relation to the English cawass I was
permitted to walk over the roofs at pleasure and pry into all the household
affairs. Domeir is not on the road to Palmyra. Mohammed had taken us there,
a day’s journey out of the way as it proved, in order to meet his incoming
post from Baghdad, this being the station at which the postman comes out of the
desert, six days’ journey from Koubeitha, near Hit. It was the English who
originally started this camel postal route across the desert, under Mohammed’s
father. A few years since the Turks established a rival route, and finally, as
owing to the Suez Canal this road had ceased to be of use to the Indian
administration, the British service was abandoned, and now only the Turkish
post across the desert is in use. From the incoming postman we learned that
some, of the Arabs were on a ghazu, and that the country was disturbed.
Our next station was ’Atne, near Jerud, the
ancient Geroda. About an hour from Domeir we passed a Greek ruin, for which I
could obtain no name. At Atne we saw the remains of a large building of the
Arabic period. Near ’Atne are large salt deposits, in which the salt assumes
many fantastical shapes. The people of the surrounding country connect with
this locality the story of Lot’s wife, and call the saltrocks opposite Atne,
Medain Lot. The region from ’Atne to Kurietain was said to be particularly
dangerous, the hills to the east harboring robbers, about whom Mohammed told us
many stories. Se’id Abdullah, a merchant of Baghdad, and Abu Gheni of Sidon,
had attached themselves to our caravan at Damascus, so that we numbered in all
nineteen camels, two horses, one she-dog, and twelve men. All kept close
together, and arms were held in readiness the whole day. About seven hours from
’Atne we passed a ruin called el-Quseir, apparently an Arab military khan. We
encamped near this in the desert. At night no fires were lighted, although it
was so cold that water froze solid. On the hills we could see Arab camp-fires
here and there, but on what any one lived in that barren desert it was hard to
conjecture. We carried fodder for all our beasts, even for the camels. The
latter were fed each evening on meal balls, and during the day they browsed as
they marched.
The next day, two hours after starting, we
passed a heap of stones, said by Mohammed to be a bedouin place of prayer. At a
quarter before two we reached Kurietain. This must have been some ancient
Kiriathaim, in Syriac, the Nezala of the Greeks. It is the most important station
on the direct road from Palmyra to Damascus. Here there is plenty of water,
including hot sulphur springs, and a town of some importance has always
existed. I found several fragments of inscriptions built into the walls, one
inscribed stone with the name of Zenobia on it forming the lintel of the
gateway to a courtyard. Not far from the present town is an ancient tel, called
Ras-el-Ain. The Wakil, or Head Priest of the Syrian Catholics at Kurietain,
showed me an old and fine-appearing Syriac manuscript of the Gospels, but said
that it was not for sale. He told me that the priest in Deir, who had tried to
palm off forged antiquities upon us, was his “brother”. He himself did not
appear to be interested in antiquities, or in religion either, for that matter,
but was very anxious to sell me some native wine for use on my journey. By his
directions one old priest took me into the church and sang part of the service
for my benefit.
The next night was spent at Kasr-el-Hair, the
ancient Heliaramia, seven hours and a half from Kurietain. Kiepert’s map
incorrectly represents a chain of hills as partially crossing the plain near
this point. In reality, from a point below ’Atne on to the very gates of
Palmyra there is an unbroken plain, rising gradually toward the northeast, and
bordered by hills on both sides. At Kasr-el-Hair there are the ruins of a tower
some fifty feet in height, and originally forty feet square at the base. The
construction is characteristically Palmyrene, and on one of the corner-stones
half-way up the tower are two sun
The following night we were encamped upon the
plain, between the ancient well of Ain-el-Bweida and the mountains southward.
At Ain-el-Bweida an ancient road column still stands, but no inscription is
visible. The well at this point is very deep and evidently ancient. In
Zenobia’s time there was a road station here, and to-day the Turks still have a
miserable little garrison, with two or three gendarmes stationed by the well in
rude barracks.
Four hours and forty minutes beyond
’Ain-el-Bweida, and two hours and twenty minutes from the mouth of the little
pass through which one enters Palmyra, almost in the middle of the plain, are
the remains of a large building, by which is a column similar, except for its
lack of inscription, to the Diocletian milliaria which are found on the road
from Homs to Palmyra, and Palmyra to Erek.
The hills on the east of the plain, all the
way from ’Atne to Palmyra, are called Jebel Tadmor, those on the west from
’Atne to Kurietain are called Jebel Kaous. The former have a bad reputation.
The vegetation in the neighborhood of ’Atne, what little there was, was almost
entirely a species of kali, called by the Arabs ’odhu, which is also the common
vegetation on the Damascus plain, south of Domeir. At ’Atne there was running
water. From that point on to Kurietain there was no water whatever. After we
began to rise above the salty deposit in the neighborhood of ’Atne the vegetation
of the valley was stunted tamarisk. The ground throughout the whole plain was
burrowed by countless marmots (jerdheh), large black lizards, and rabbits.
Gazelles were numerous. I saw also some specimens of a curious creature, called
ghereir, which has the color of a skunk, the tail of a beaver, the claws of an
armadillo, and the size and pluck of a racoon. The men killed one, which made a
brave fight. The dog was afraid to touch it. We saw a few camps of the Ahalu
Anazeh, of whom Mijwel, husband of Lady Digby, was once chief. It will be
remembered that this eccentric Englishwoman married an Arab chief, she spending
half of the time with him in his camp in the desert, and he half of the time
with her in Damascus. She acted as a sort of Lady Bountiful to his tribe. They
were the guides to Palmyra, and it was considered impossible to go there except
under their guidance, and by paying a large backsheesh. These Ahalu Anazeh have
large flocks of sheep, but where they found water for them I could not
understand.
From Kurietain onward, Fem-el-Mizab, the
great mountain of Tripoli, was visible behind us, and a bitter cold wind swept
the plain. At the upper end of the valley the hills come together, or rather
there is a small cross line which joins the two ranges. Through this there is a
natural pass into Tadmor. On the hills on both sides, and in the valley, are
abundant ruins and tower tombs. On the left, as one enters the pass, are the
remains of an aqueduct. It was almost one o’clock on Saturday, November 23d, when
we came to camp just to the north of the great temple of the sun god. The old
temple contains the modern town, and the effect of the miserable mud shanties
among the grand walls and columns is very incongruous. At one time the place
was a fortress, and the great western wall of the present day is built of old
remains, ancient columns in some places acting as binders. The principal
industry of Palmyra, if there can be said to be any industry there, is the salt
works, which are now in the hands of the Commission of the Public Debt. The
people of the town are, by all odds, the laziest I ever saw, and miserably
poor. I saw no man do a stroke of work, although the women were busy enough.
One of the occupations of the women throughout the country is to collect camels’
dung, and cow dung where it may be had, and dry it for fuel. It is not a
graceful avocation.
Sunday I spent wandering over the roofs of
the houses, exploring the old mosque, and photographing the people, but most of
all wandering among the great streets of columns, and the temples which are
still standing on the plain. Seeing women with water-jars going in and out of a
hole in the ground, I was about to descend to ascertain what was within, when a
number of women rushed out and warned me off, telling me that it was their hot
bath. While I was engaged in photographing on the plain, a zaptieh, Ahmed by
name, who had escorted us one day’s journey on the Euphrates the year before,
came with a comrade and told me that the Kaimakam wished to see me. Like the
Governor-General of Damascus, he proved to be a Turk who could speak no Arabic,
although set over an Arabic community. He demanded an account of me and my
party, and insisted upon visaing my passport. He also inquired curiously as to
the meaning and use of my Kodak camera. The Turks are very jealous of
photographing, drawing, and taking notes, and all photographing in the
neighborhood of fortresses is positively forbidden. This is the same rule which
prevails in European countries, but the Turks designate as fortresses many
places which we should count as nothing but interesting old ruins, like St.
Jean D’Acre and Rhodes. Sometimes jealous officials extend the prohibition to
Baalbec, Palmyra, and other ruins of the interior. I thought it well, therefore,
not to be accounted a photographer if I could avoid it. When the prefect asked
me the meaning and use of my camera, I at first forgot my Turkish altogether.
When he repeated his question in another form, asking whether that were a
telegraph machine (a confusion between telegraph and photograph is very common
among Turkish officials in the interior), I replied that it was not. When he
pressed me further for the name of the machine and an account of its use, I
told him that it was a “remembering machine”; that when I wished to remember
anything that I had seen I fixed the machine so, and touched this little button
in this way, whereupon the scene was written down upon a piece of paper, and at
my leisure afterwards I could take it out and recall to my memory what had
interested me there. A remembering machine was quite a new instrument, and
excited much interest, and no objection whatever was made to its use.
Palmyra has been so well and often described
and depicted that it seemed to me almost like a place I had seen and known
before. The Turks strictly forbid the removal of antiquities; but illicit
digging continues, and almost every traveller buys and removes a few busts and
mortuary inscriptions. The natives themselves occasionally use these monuments
of antiquity for gravestones for their own graves, and in the mosque within the
temple precinct I observed one newly made grave on which stood a tombstone with
an ancient Palmyrene inscription. There are visible at Palmyra ruins of the
time of Zenobia, Diocletian, Justinian, and the Caliphate. To the west of the
city on the hills there is a most picturesque castle. This I visited with an
escort of two zaptiehs furnished by the Kaimakam, who told me that it was not
safe to go there without an escort. The castle is surrounded by a deep moat cut
in the rock. The depth of this moat was forcibly brought home to me by an
escapade of my gentle missionary steed, who was inspired to stand upon his hind
legs on the very edge of it, so that we all but rolled down to the bottom
together. This castle is unlike any other Arabic or Turkish construction at
Palmyra or elsewhere in that region. Both in its situation and architecture it
resembles the castles of mediaeval Europe. As stated, it is surrounded by a
deep dry moat, cut in the rock. The whole of the island thus formed is occupied
by the massive walls and dungeons of the still towering fortress. The
drawbridge is broken, and access to the interior is obtained with difficulty by
scrambling up the precipitous sides of the moat to a hole in the southwestern
corner of the castle wall. The outer walls of the castle are of stone, but the
interior work is chiefly in brick. All space is most carefully utilized.
Battlement rises above battlement, three tiers of defences in all, while down
into the solid rock beneath vaults and dungeons have been cut. There is a
tradition that it was built by a powerful Druse chief, but there are no
inscriptions to determine either its date or its origin. Had the crusaders ever
reached this point, I should suppose it to be their work. The castle of Rehaba,
on the Euphrates, resembles it more closely than anything else, but even that
is different.
The natives brought to my camp, or offered to
bring, many antiquities of the common Palmyrene type. They brought also
hundreds of coins, chiefly copper, with Roman and Byzantine dates. I observed
as ornaments on a woman’s head-dress two silver coins which the owner said had
come from Erek, or Rakka, beyond Palmyra, one of which was a coin of Charles
VIII. of France, and the other of Maurice of Saxony.
It was Tuesday. November 26th, when we left
Palmyra on our way to the Euphrates. The Kaimakam, on the strength of my last
year’s buyurultu from the Wali Pasha of Aleppo, sent with me one zaptieh, my
old friend Ahmed, as escort. Three hours beyond Palmyra I found an inscribed
milestone of Diocletian, indicating this to be the road from Palmyra to Arakka,
VIII. mile. Near this lay another large milestone of a different sort. Both of
these were noticed and described by the Wolfe Expedition. Professor Sterrett,
in his report of that Expedition, has published four milestone inscriptions
found between Rakka, or Erek, and Tadmor, with a notice of three other
fragments from the same stretch of road. I can add to this one more stone,
found three hours and eighteen minutes beyond Erek on the road toward the
Euphrates. Unfortunately, the inscription on this stone was so broken that it
is only possible to conjecture what it was. The late Professor Merriam of
Columbia University suggested that it was a stone of Septimius Severus, and the
eighteenth milestone from Palmyra. Almost all of the other milestones found to
the east of Palmyra belong to the time of Constantine.
Our course for the first five hours and a
half was over the plain, north eighty-five degrees east, with a hill line at
our left. Then we turned north sixty degrees east, and entered a country of low
and barren hills. Six hours and twenty minutes after leaving Palmyra we reached
Rakka, or Erek, ancient Arakka. Here there are at the present day a Turkish
zaptieh station and a small village of mud huts. There is running water, but it
is strongly impregnated with sulphur. We discarded our zaptieh at Erek, and at
Mohammed’s desire did not take another. He assured me that now that we were
among the bedouin he could protect us more satisfactorily without zaptiehs than
with them. Moreover, we should be hampered by the presence of a Turkish escort,
which would compel us to stop at the zaptieh stations and follow the regular
Turkish route. We encamped in the desert an hour and a half beyond Erek, having
passed some time before a large camp of Anazeh Arabs. On the hills to the north
of our camp I noticed a few butm (pistaccio) nut trees which were, as I
afterwards learned, the outposts of a considerable forest. In their
inscriptions, Ashur-bani-pal and other Assyrian conquerors describe this as a
forest region. The greater part of these forests has long since disappeared,
but some part still exists to the north and east of Palmyra. Through this part
of the country, and indeed until we reached ’Anah, we found everything
suffering from drought. Along the road were carcasses of quantities of sheep
torn by jackals and hyenas.
Mohammed now requested me to discard my pith
helmet and wear an Arabic kcfieh, as I already wore an Arabic cloak or abbayeh.
His intention was to represent me as a Turkish official on his way to his post.
The next afternoon, after a ride of six hours and a quarter, we reached the
town of Sukhnc, the ancient Cholle.
I spent the afternoon exploring the bedouin
tents and the sulphur springs of Sukhne. In one hot spring, which had been
anciently walled in, apparently as a bath, a number of men and boys were
disporting themselves.
That evening several Shammar prisoners came
to our tent and asked to be permitted to accompany us on the morrow. Some
Anazeh also appeared to give Mohammed messages and letters for Baghdad and
various points, and one of them entrusted to him money to be paid. Aftimus and
Se’id Abdullah went to the zaptieh station to present my buyurultu and ask for
Turkish Government protection. The corporal in charge of the station was unable
to read, and believed that the document was a forgery. He argued that if I were
entitled to Turkish protection, I should have brought a zaptieh with me. He
would only agree to give us an escort on condition that we paid to him a
blackmail at least as large as that which the Arabs were demanding. After I had
retired to my own tent Mohammed came to me in great trepidation to tell me that
Ferhan and Fadhil were both very angry because they had not received a present,
that is, blackmail as a ransom for me, and that it would be impossible for us
to proceed unless I would pay them something. I told him that it was his part
to do that, and that if he did not do it and I were robbed, he would be
responsible, according to his contract; and turned him out and went to bed. The
next morning things were still in the same condition, and Mohammed was afraid
to proceed. I ordered the camp struck and the animals loaded without delay. The
other caravan, which was waiting to see what I would do, at once began to make
preparations to go out with us. After breakfast I mounted, took Hajji Kework
with me, and rode to the door of the zap-tieh station. I reprimanded the
corporal and rated him soundly in bad Turkish for his impertinence, showed him
my buyurultu, and ordered him to furnish an escort without delay. He treated me
with great deference, but still showed some signs of hesitancy, perplexed by
the fact that I had arrived without escort. Hajji Kework took him around the
corner, told him what a great and powerful man I was, and presented him with
ten cents. He returned, made most humble salaams and apologies, and ordered a
Circassian zaptieh, named Ahmed, to accompany me to Deir. A few of the Anazeh,
those who had entrusted messages and money to Mohammed, gave us escort through
the camp and one hour beyond. The Shammar prisoners (with the exception of the
black slave, who, it turned out, had blood upon his hands, and to save his life
had been compelled to take refuge in the tent of Ferhan) and the other caravan
attached themselves to us and we proceeded on our way.
That night we encamped on the plain near a
large, deep, dry well, about midway between Sukhne and Jubb Ka-bakib. There is
no water between these two points, and this well was one of several futile
efforts which had been made to find it. I was told afterwards that they had dug
one hundred and fifty feet without finding a trace of water. The next night we
reached the zaptieh station at Kabakib, which lies in a curious bowl-shaped
depression several miles in diameter. The well at Kabakib is ancient, and there
are remains near the zaptieh station of an ancient reservoir and aqueduct. In
the Palmyrene and Roman period this was a road station, and water was stored in
the reservoir. The plan adopted was something like that followed in the Moabite
region, where they collect the water pouring through the wadis in the rainy season,
and store it in a large reservoir for future use. This reservoir was
supplementary to the well, the supply of water from which is inconsiderable.
From Kabakib to Deir is a very long station,
and Mohammed insisted that it was impossible to perform the march in one day. I
declared that it must be done, and that we must start early in order to do it.
By way of proving that it was impossible to make the journey in one day and
compelling me to encamp again in the desert, Mohammed made such delays at the start
that it was eight or nine o’clock before we actually found ourselves under way.
I made amends for this by riding behind his camels and prodding them on, so
that we travelled at a much faster rate than usual, in spite of all Mohammed’s
protestations. Whether it was owing to this rapidity of locomotion or not, I do
not know, but one of the camels went mad on the march and came near killing a
muleteer. It was long past dark when we finally reached Deir. Here we rested
one day. I found a new use for the Kodak, turning it into a weapon to scatter
the mobs of rude boys. The mystery of the unknown overawed them.
My intention in taking the route from Beirout
to Deir had been, as already stated, to explore the roads between Palmyra and
the Euphrates. I had intended to turn from Sukhne northward through Tayibeh to
Resafa, which is known to have been a line of Roman frontier stations, or else
southward, from Sukhne to Salahieh, between which points a route was
represented on Kiepert’s map. Owing to the hostile attitude of the Arabs at
Sukhne I failed to accomplish my purpose. At the time I congratulated myself on
my ingenuity in extricating myself from their clutches without paying
blackmail. Now I perceive that my course was a foolish one, and that it would
have been far better for me to have placed myself in the hands of Ferhan or
Fadhil, paid a small backsheesh of two or three liras—for I am sure that I
could have bargained with them for that amount—and obtained escort from them to
the places that I wished to visit. I had hoped that even though I had failed in
exploring one of these two routes I might have been able to take the road from
Kabakib to Rehaba, thus saving myself two or three days, and exploring a new
road, but this had also proved impracticable, as the zaptieh could not
accompany us over that route, and Mohammed was unwilling to take the
responsibility of guaranteeing our safety, there being so many hostile Anazeh
and Shammar in the neighborhood. I have no doubt that the old caravan road from
Palmyra reached the Euphrates, not at Deir, but at Rehaba; and Mohammed and
others assured me that that is the road regularly followed by native caravans
at the present day. Kiepert’s map of the region between Palmyra and Deir proved
to be so far incorrect and misleading that it represented a natural valley
running from one of these places to the other. There is no such valley in
existence, except in the immediate neighborhood of Sukhne. From Erek to a point
some distance beyond Sukhne the country is first hilly and then undulating.
After that it is level, with occasional low hills visible in the distance.
From Deir to Baghdad my route differed little
from that of the preceding year. We found cholera cordons in existence between
Deir and Meyadin, and again at Abu Kemal, but were informed that the cholera
had long since ceased in the Baghdad vilayet, and that the cordons were only
maintained for the purpose of levying blackmail on unfortunate travellers. The
whole country was in a somewhat unsettled condition, and more than once we
found our zaptieh escort not only desirable, but necessary to prevent us from
being plundered. At Abu Kemal one of the zaptiehs of the station informed us
that the bracelets of the wife of Faris, Sheikh of the Shammar of the Khabor,
were in the hands of the Kaimakam of that place, that is to say, he had
received them as a present from Faris, in return for which the latter was
permitted to rob travellers at his pleasure.
I did not on this trip stop at the barrack
stations, but, as a rule, encamped at convenient points along the river between
stations, which I found to be far pleasanter than the method pursued on our
first trip. We also followed the river somewhat more closely, visiting the
island towns of Alus and Jibba. I had intended to stop a day or two at Salahieh
and Jabrieh to make sofidations, but our progress had been so slow and
the delays so many that I could not afford to take the time for this purpose,
but was forced to hurry on as fast as Mohammed and his camels could go. The
weather was very dry until we reached ’Anah. After that it became rainy and
uncomfortable, and at Hit Mohammed proposed to me to cross the river and go
down on the other side, which is the regular postal route of the desert
camel-post between Damascus and Baghdad. According to him, in the rainy season
the country between Hit and Ival’at Feluja, on the south side of the river, is
almost impassable, owing to the mud. Camels can walk on anything but mud. On
mud they slip and slide, and fall down and injure themselves. Mohammed told me
that in a similar season he had lost some thirty camels on that road. I was
quite ready to consent to the change; in the first place, because it would
enable me to see a new country and explore a new route; and in the second
place, because I had learned that Mustafa Assim Pasha, the Governor-General of
Baghdad, had been removed, and was now between Kal’at Feluja and Hit on his way
back to the coast. It was currently reported that his removal was due to
complaints made against him by me at Constantinople, and I feared that he might
believe this to be the case and have an unfriendly feeling toward me. In
reality he was removed on account of a conflict with the religious leaders of
the Baghdad vilayet, and with the Jews of that place. One of the Jewish
chief-priests had died and the Jews wished to bury him in the tomb of Joshua,
son of Jehoze-dek. Their attempt to do this resulted in a conflict with the
Moslems, who, as I have already stated, claim this tomb as the tomb of a saint
of theirs, named Yusuf. The Jews succeeded in forcing their way in and burying
the priest where they wished. The Moslem authorities undertook to force them to
remove him, and the Jews refused to do so. A number of them were thrown into
prison, and then began what they claimed was a persecution on the part of the
Government. It was impossible for me to get at the bottom facts in the matter.
Both parties seem to have acted unwisely, and after popular indignation had
been aroused I have no doubt that the Jews were abused. The British
Consul-General, referring to the matter later, seemed to feel little sympathy
with them, however, and asserted that they had contrived to turn the
persecution in Baghdad to their own advantage.
The contest with the Naqib, or Najib, as the
word is pronounced in Baghdad, was of a different character. This office was
created originally for the purpose of investigating the claims of the Se’ids,
that is, descendants of the family of the prophet, and registering those who
were entitled to wear the green turban. At a later date the Naqib contrived to
secure control of the immensely rich shrine of Abd-ul-Kader, and little by
little made himself a power in the vilayet second only to the Wali Pasha, if
even second to him. Mustafa Assim attempted to curb the Naqib’s power and
deprive him of some of his prerogatives and gains, with the result that he was
himself removed from office.
The river was much lower than in the
preceding year, but it took us a half a day to cross it, ferried over in the
pitch-smeared boats of Hit. Then Mohammed insisted on camping for the remainder
of the day at Turbah, opposite Hit, to rest and dry in the faint sunshine the
things which had been wet by the rains of the last few days. This gave me an
opportunity to explore Hit somewhat more thoroughly, and as Dr. Aftimus was
asked to give medical advice, I was able to penetrate the houses of some of the
natives, and even to sit upon their roofs. All the work of the town seemed to
be done by the women, and at two points there was a constant procession of them
the whole day through, going to the river and back, carrying water in wicker
baskets smeared with bitumen. The men and boys were very idle and extremely
fond of playing marbles with the knuckle-bones of sheep. That and sitting still
seemed to be their principal occupations. Nevertheless, the town appears to be
thriving, as towns on the Euphrates go, and a considerable number of new
palm-trees are set out every year. I inquired diligently for antiquities. The
people assured me that they found “idols and gold coins” in digging for earth
and stones in the hill by the Serai, but they were able to bring me nothing but
silver and copper coins, Parthian, Byzantine, Kufic, and Arabic.
We started from Turbah the next morning at
five o’clock, and after travelling for eleven hours and a half, most of the
time on the edge of the pebbly hills which stretch back in great grassless
prairies, but part of the time on the alluvial surface of the river bottom,
fifteen feet or so below the desert plateau, we reached some miserable shallow
wells with troughs by the side of them, called, we were told, Umm-el-Jemali, or
Mother of Camels, where we encamped for the night. There were a couple of
caravans of Anazeh here, about whom Mohammed felt very uneasy, the more so as
our zaptieh had left us to cross the river to the next station, Ramadieh,
promising to send us another zaptieh thence. The only thing of interest which I
had observed during that day’s journey was a naphtha well, not very far from
our starting-point. So far as I could ascertain, the only use which the natives
make of the crude oil is medicinal. It is considered good for the sore backs of
camels. I presume that borings anywhere in the neighborhood of Hit, on either
side of the river, would find abundance of oil. The same is true of Samawa,
lower down, and probably of the neighborhood of Haditha, as well as of several
other localities along the Euphrates.
That night a violent storm broke upon us, and
toward morning the east wind became very violent. The rain poured down in
torrents, and there was loud and incessant thunder with no lightning, a curious
phenomenon which I had observed in the case of another storm the preceding
year. The water poured into our tents, and we were obliged to cover everything
with rubber. It was impossible to start the next day, and we remained in camp.
There was not a constant downpour of rain, but a succession of violent
windstorms, accompanied with deluges of rain and lightningless thunder. The
barometer was irregular, rising to 76.30, and sinking suddenly to 75.90. All of
our things were huddled together in the middle of the tent. Cold and half-wet,
we could do nothing but sit still, not even read or write. Our two servants
were drenched, but cheery, active, and serviceable. Every now and then one or
two of the tent-pegs pulled out and the tent almost blew away. Then the dam
about the tent would break and a stream of water come pouring in. Every
half-hour or so we had to rush out and make repairs. Our Arab camel drivers and
guards were huddled together about the baggage hopelessly demoralized, lying on
the ground wrapped in their abbayehs, so motionless and bundled up that I could
not tell which were men and which bales of goods, except by stirring them with
my foot. Guns, shoes, and narghilehs lay about. in the mud. Mohammed’s tent was
almost wrecked. Once we heard a loud shouting. The wind had torn a large hole
in the roof, and Se’id Abdullah was holding on to the cloth and crying that the
end had come, and praying vehemently thus: “O Lord! O Lord! The wind has torn a
great hole in our tent, and we have not even a rag to patch it with! O Lord!
what shall we do ? O Lord, help us! The end has come!” I believe that the
Arabs are really more afraid of the fury of the elements than of the dangers of
war. They are entirely helpless and useless in the face of such a storm. I
wandered over to the Anazeh camps near by and found the poor Arabs without
tents, lying like dead men on the ground. An enemy could have murdered the whole
camp without a man stirring. No one would turn a finger, and even the camels
were left to care for themselves. After the storm I learned that these Anazeh
were on their way up from Irak, their camels loaded with dates. Their chief was
Turki Bey, who was killed the next year in a battle with the Rowali. They had
suffered severely from the cholera. The only places, so far as I could learn,
which had been free from the ravages of that plague were Hit, where the
sulphur, so abundant in both the atmosphere and the water, seemed to have acted
as a disinfectant; and Nejef, where I could only suppose that the people who
were alive had become so indurated to infection of all sorts that they were
impervious, which was the conclusion reached also by Dr. Bowman, the Residency
surgeon at Baghdad. The cholera is, I believe, endemic in the Euphrates valley.
Formerly the bubonic plague, or black death, was also endemic there. The last
outbreak of this plague was in 1875, and it is claimed that it was completely
stamped out at that time. Certainly there has been no revival of it since,
unless the present outbreak in Bombay can be traced to the Euphrates marshes.
The next day, damp and wet, we pressed on to
Sakla-wieh, more than eleven hours from our camp at Umm-el-Jimali, at the slow
rate of Mohammed’s camels. A couple of hours after starting we passed a small
square enclosure surrounded by mud-brick walls, which we were informed was
called Umm-er-Rus, or Mother of Heads; and Mohammed related an apocryphal story
of a terrible battle which had taken place there between the Sham-mar and the
Anazeh. Outside of the fortified square there were a couple of small mounds,
and the neighborhood was intersected by canals, two of which were large, and
had been important. Across these canals from the fortification there was a
small tel called, we were told, Tel Mohammed. Inside the fortified square no
remains of houses were visible, but potsherds in abundance were scattered
everywhere. I have no idea what the place may have been. The remains which we
saw were presumably Arabic. I had intended to telegraph from Sakla-wieh to
Baghdad, but had the same experience as the year before, finding the telegraph
wires broken. The next day I endeavored to find at Saklawieh a guide to take me
to the ruins of Sfeira, which must be, judging from the name, some ancient
Sippara, but no one in the place could guide me thither, neither was there a
person to be found who knew where the ruins of ’Anbar were. As I was in a hurry
to reach Baghdad, I concluded to forego Sfeira for the nonce; and Aftimus and
I, leaving the caravan to follow in two days, pressed through to Baghdad,
reaching there by hard riding over the muddy roads just before dark.
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