To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise : $b with historical notices of the Kurdish tribes and the Chaldeans of KurdistanSoane, Ely Banister
History
To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise : $b with historical notices of the Kurdish tribes and the Chaldeans of Kurdistan
Soane, Ely Banister
Iraq -- Description and travel; Kurdistan -- Description and travel; Tigris River Valley -- Description and travel
He was very keen for me to accept the invitation of the Mudir of the
Military School to a great rejoicing to be held by the Turkish part
of the population in honour of the anniversary of popular government
in Turkey, and he showed me copies of telegrams received by various
officials. There were orders for no less than one hundred and twenty
guns to be fired; five hundred liras from the revenue were to be
expended on a feast and upon decorations. All loyal subjects were
called upon to place lamps upon their roofs at night, and flags over
their doors by day.
The bazaar was to be closed, and a band was to play from morning till
night, when the fireworks were to be let off in the big open space in
front of the Serai. The band played, I remember, by fits and starts;
but it was somewhat defective, for the bandmaster, whose pay was
irregular and small, had pawned several of the brass instruments. Some
ten guns were fired, the Tabur Aghassi, who was temporarily responsible
for the affair, having abstracted the full amount of gunpowder from the
armoury and sold the bulk to the gunmakers of the town. So the affair
was a little ineffective, particularly as the Kurds refused to close
the bazaars or decorate.
Mustafa Beg, however, did not foresee this, and imagined it was going
to be a very fine affair, and his disgust afterwards was as loudly
expressed as his praise before.
A night or two after this we were awakened, as we were nearly every
night, by shots, but this time they were very close, and an uproar
accompanied them. Two or three dark figures could be discerned running
along the roof of the bazaar, and they ran the gauntlet of all the
fire of the surrounding population, that was sleeping on the roofs
with its guns beside it. Like all these affairs, however, it died down
without anyone being the wiser, and we slept again. In the dusk of
early morning I heard a voice calling from the street, “Agha Ghulam
Husain!” and looking over the roof edge saw Matti, who had run from the
caravanserai, and who was still doing up his waistbelt.
[Sidenote: DEATH OF MUSTAFA BEG]
“Come quickly!” he said.
Snatching up my abba, I ran downstairs and joined him in the street.
He was very agitated, and in reply to my questions could only gasp out
“Khan-i-Ghafur Agha”--the Ghafur Agha caravanserai--towards which we
were proceeding almost at a run.
Round the door a little crowd had gathered, and at the far side, near
the room I had once stayed in, next door to Mustafa Beg, a knot, among
whom I recognised the municipal and regimental surgeon, a little Greek.
As I approached they beckoned, and I ran forward to see what they
surrounded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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