Through Five Turkish Provinces

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...the monotonous flat country behind and comes into the rocky and wooded mountains of Kurdistan, the great snow peaks of Mount Jiidi appearing when you reach the summit of the Zakhii pass. At Zakhu I was visited by the Chaldean catholic bishop who spoke French very well. He told me that he had seen no European there for the last four years excepting the superior of the dominicans who had passed that way about five months before. From Zakhu to Nahrawan we had a short ride in pouring rain and crossed two swollen rivers with great difficulty. At Nahrawan the officer who was with us told us that it was a dangerous place so we had rather an uneasy night; I slept in my clothes and my servants did not sleep at all. That day we passed a camp of the Yazidi, or devil worshippers, and I rode into it greatly to the disgust of the officer. As it happened all the men were away; only the women and small children were in the camp. They are an evil race and look every inch as bad as they are said to be. Their tents are very curious; they are surrounded with a kind of reed thatch, and the roof is made of the black Bedouin stuff. From Nahrawan we started for Jezirah and after two hours riding we came to a river which was utterly impassable on account of the heavy rains. We were therefore obliged to wait two days until it had to some extent subsided; and even then we had great difficulty in crossing. One man was actually carried off his legs and borne a hundred yards down the stream; but luckily he was caught and pulled out none the worse for his ducking. That day thirty villagers accompanied us for the protection of my escort, which consisted of three zaptiehs and a lieutenant. On our way we crossed a bridge which spanned a roaring torrent; it was only a yard in width, there wa...