

644 Tlie Bight Eon. Earl Percy [May 17, 



Last, but by no means the least important in point of numbers, 

 come the Christian population whom we in Europe generally call 

 Nestorians, but who describe themselves as the Syrians of the East. 

 It is impossible to make any confident assertion about their origin, 

 but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, there is no reason 

 why we should reject their own traditional claim to Babylonian and 

 Assyrian descent. The Babylonians are believed to have been of 

 shorter stature and darker colour than the Assyrians, and there is a 

 similarly marked distinction between the physical characteristics of 

 the Nestorian tribes at the present day. 



The men of Tiyari who inhabit the main valley or gorge of the 

 Great Zab from Julamerk to Lizan, and those of Tkhoma, who 

 occupy the valley branching off to the east of Lizan, are for the 

 most part short, thick-set men with light olive complexions, eagle 

 noses, dark eyes, flowing beards, and coal-black hair, which they 

 plait in a multitude of long thin pigtails, and let fall over their 

 shoulders and bare chests from under tall, conical hats of white or 

 black felt. The inhabitants of the central valleys of Baz and Jelu, 

 on the other hand, are of taller, thinner build, their complexions are 

 almost as fair as those of Europeans, they often have blue eyes and 

 short red hair, and their head-dress is the low, rounded cap of the 

 Kurd swathed in dirty strips of red or black linen. Otherwise the 

 dress is the same in all cases and for all weathers. The feet are 

 either bare or cased in thick woollen socks and felt sandals, which 

 are indispensable for keeping a footing on the slippery mountain 

 paths. A short jacket is worn over the loose open shirt, which is 

 tucked into pyjamas, and confined at the waist by a broad sash con- 

 taining a churchwarden pipe or " kaluna " of rosewood, and an ebony- 

 handled dagger cased in a sheath of wrought silver. In Jelu most of 

 the men are well armed, besides, with modern rifles which they 

 smuggle in from Persia ; whereas in Tiyari and Tkhoma they rarely 

 have anything better than an old rusty flint-lock. 



Although it is probable that the Christian population of Hakkiari 

 received large reinforcements of their numbers at a later date, and 

 more especially during the terrible invasion of Tamerlane in the 

 fourteenth century, the original nucleus of immigrants were an off- 

 shoot from the primitive monastic settlements of Mesopotamia, 

 founded, on the model of those of St. Anthony in Egypt, by Mar 

 Awgin, a native of the island of Clysma, near Suez. Taking up his 

 abode in the mountains near Nisibis, he found a zealous friend and 

 supporter in St. James, the famous bishop of that See, who proceeded 

 to found a monastery on Mount Kardo, the modern Jebel al Gudi 

 near Jezireh, where, with the assistance of an angel, he had discovered 

 a wooden plank ; thus verifying the traditional claim of the mountain 

 against the rival pretensions of Ararat and Sippan to have been the 

 first resting place of the Ark of Noah. Other monasteries like that 

 of Mar Mattai on Jebel Maklub, near Mosul, sprang up soon after, 

 and Mar Awgin is said to have obtained a pledge for their protection 



