CHAPTER X.

Preparation for the Desert.-A sad Tale.-Arab Village.-Scene at Evening.- Our Company.-The Desert at Night.-Nisibin, site of ancient Nisibis. Its present State.-Guard.-Route over the Desert.The Orphan.-Moral Effects of the Famine.-Indifference of the Governors. Journey by Night.-Depredations on the Villagers.-Search for Water.-Salt Lake.-The Heat.

We prepared ourselves for the desert with about thirty pounds of bread, a goat-skin of water, and large felts to shield us from the sun when we halted by day. Weary of waiting for post-horses, we engaged the jaded animals of a muleteer who had just arrived from Mossoul. We were to depart before daylight, and of course did not depart till after sunrise. If we had told our muleteer we should leave at midnight, we might have started at the time actually appointed. It is always necessary, in Eastern travelling, to predate in this way.

On

The horses with which we travelled had brought from Mossoul a Turkish Bey and his harem. They were from Bagdad, on their way to Constantinople. At present I had hardly the curiosity to inquire who they were, but a few weeks gave me an interest in them which has never ceased. my return from Mossoul, while sitting one day in my room in the Monastery of Zafran, near Mardin, a woman entered, dressed in the style of a Turkish female of Constantinople. Her appearance at once attracted my attention, for I had

never seen the yashmak' south of the Euxine. After a very respectful obeisance, she spoke in the pure and sweet Turkish of the Capital. She said that she was a Syrian by birth, of the village of near Jezireh, that she had been taken captive six or seven years before, by Rahvandouz Bey, in his sack and pillage of the country north of the Tigris. By him she had been sold at Mossoul or Bagdad, and had finally come into the hands of Ali Pasha, in whose palace she had served as a maiden of the harem several years, and was finally released when the Pasha heard that a firman had been issued for the recovery of all the Christians taken captive by the Kurdish Bey. Among them, besides herself, was a young sister of ten years, who had been sold to a Bey of Bagdad, and had now become an inmate of his harem. The Bey was the same whose horses I had taken from Mardin. As I was now going to the capital, the good woman begged that I would interpose for the release of her sister, saying, with many tears, that she was her only surviving relation, and that if she could not come back to her, she would herself go to Constantinople for the sake of being near her. I did not forget the commission, but my efforts were unsuccessful. The girl had been induced to profess Mohammedanism, and had become the wife of the Bey and a mother. After this change no firman could be obtained for her release, nor was there any hope that she would accept it if it could have been effected. What has become of the elder sister, I know not. I sent her intelligence of my want of success. Whether she is still mourning the loss of her nearest and dearest relative, or has sought her out among the thousands of the great city, I have never heard; but the incident of her sudden appearance before me at the monastery, and her message of sadness, have remained in my

1 Turkish veil, worn by the Turkish and Armenian women of Constantinople.

memory among a long array of similar tales of distress which I have heard at different times in Turkey, and which often come back to remind me how many hearts in this broad world pine in secret, and how many sorrows remain untold in the history of our race.

At 8 A. M. the heat was so great that we were obliged to stop at Kherin, a Mussulman village three hours from Mardin. Along the road the peasants were reaping their barley, and in one place we passed a field of melons just transplanted, which covered about ten acres. At Kherin, which, when I passed three years before, was entirely deserted, I now found a thriving village of fifty families, all of which, with the exception of a solitary Chaldean, were Arabs. The women, as is common in the villages, were uncovered, and most of them were ornamented with a line of blue spots from one corner of the mouth to the other, passing over the chin.

As the day declined, the little village, which had been quiet under the noontide heat, presented a lively and bustling scene. The herds were driven in from abroad. The women, with their faces bare, and displaying the tin and bead bracelets on their wrists, were running to and fro, some engaged in culinary preparations for the evening meal, some bringing water from the village well, and some tending the babies. The old men were assembling on the roofs, where each family was spreading its beds for the night, for even at this early season (the 8th of June) it was more comfortable there than within doors. The houses were all of sunbaked earth, the roof consisting of timber covered with oakboughs, straw, and earth, in successive layers. Out of doors was the oven, lined with burnt clay and heated with straw and sheep's dung; the baking being effected by plastering the thin cakes of dough upon the rounded roof and sides within.

We did not stop to partake of the good cheer which the

din of preparation promised, but packed up the remnants of a lamb which we had roasted, and started about an hour before sunset. Our company was now a large one. A few had come with us from the city, and others, who had been watching our departure for several days, followed us as soon as we passed the gates. Among the company was a Mussulman family, who marched a very little in our rear, closely attended by the master in person; and when we stopped, always encamped a few rods away from us.

Still and quiet we pursued our way over the desert, saw the sun go down into the plain just as it sinks into the calm ocean, and the daylight go silently out. Hour after hour stole by, and still we went on, on, on, with a measured, sober tread, over the boundless level. Several times we lost our way, and great was our astonishment when we came to a village that we thought was far behind us. Many leagues distant towards the Tigris, the plain was all on fire, the flames of which now rose and writhed and soared, and now gave place to a dark cloud of smoke, rising and rolling away in endless convolutions.

As the day broke, we found ourselves near Nisibin, where we halted till night came round again. This little village, the site of the famous city where James of hallowed memory lived, and the school of Christian sages attracted students from the distant East, is now a den of thieves. Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Jews, the offscouring of the cities and refugees from justice, have all taken shelter in Nisibin. Its great attraction is that it is free from taxes, (an exemption established by Hafiz Pasha, for the sake of enticing settlers,) and is too unhealthy for an honest man to live in. Such a spectacle of filth and ugliness as its one hundred and fifty houses presented, I thought I had never seen, even in the miserable villages of Turkey. Close by our tent lay a dead man, swollen and rotting in the hot sun, and there, to all appearance, he was to lie, like the carcass of a

horse, till the dogs devoured him. The villagers were passing to and fro, but no one noticed him. Where he lay when we arrived, he lay when we left.

We wished to have started at evening, but our guards were not ready till three hours after sunset. They came at last, fifteen stout men, armed with spear, and gun, and sword, and with them an unarmed guide, a black, fiercelooking Arab, that spoke hardly a word to the end of the journey. We had come thus far from Mardin alone, but the rest of the way was accounted dangerous. A quarrel had arisen between the Bey of Jezireh and certain soldiers of the Pasha, which compelled us to avoid the road, which lay in part through the country of the former, and strike for Mossoul, straight through the desert, where there was no path, nor water, nor signs of life. This would carry us into rather a dangerous proximity to the Yezidees of Sinjar, whose old habits of plunder it could hardly be hoped, were entirely abolished and forgotten in four years of professed but very doubtful loyalty.1 There was also a report that a famous Arab chief, Soufouk Bey, had been plundering in that part of the desert, and might at any moment appear in our path. I suppose it was reports of this kind which chilled the courage of our party, for, when we started, not a man of all who had accompanied us from Kherin made his appearance, and, like the Pilgrim, we went on our way, and saw them

no more.

We were destined, however, to have female society in our rude journey over the desert. One of our guards, who bore only a spear, had, in the place of other accoutrements, a Kurdish girl of 16, whom he carried behind him on his horse. He had found her in Nisibin perishing with famine,

1 These inveterate robbers of the desert were subdued in their own mountains by Hafiz Pasha, during the summer of 1837. See Narrative of a Tour, &c., II. p. 266.