CONSELA.D EXPEDIENCES IN TURNEY. 
437 
the Kurds thought it time to go home and the whole force rapidly 
melted away and dispersed. Next year the Turkish Government 
somehow induced Sheikh Obeydullah to go to Constantinople, whence 
he was ultimately deported to the Red Sea and there died. 
From Sheikh Obeydullah I proceeded on a visit to Mar Shimoun, 
the Patriarch of the Nestorians, who lives at a village called Kochannes, im ‘ 
which lies on a small tributary of the Zab, in the mountains near 
Julamerik and close to the entrance to the almost impenetrable 
district of Tiyari, where certain Nestorian communities maintain 
themselves in prosperity and practical independence, neither Turkish 
officials and troops nor Kurds being able to penetrate the country. 
Returning over the plain of Gevver to Diza, the seat of the 
Kaimakam of the district, we turned westward from there and on the 
second day from Diza reached Kochannes very finely situated among 
groves of trees on a shelf in a narrow valley hemmed in by rocky 
heights. 
Mar Shimoun received us hospitably and I pitched my camp in one 
of the groves of trees near a babbling stream and a waterfall. The 
village lies about 7000 feet above the sea and the trees, mountain air 
and water were most refreshing after the stifling plain of Gevver. 
Mar Shimoun was then a man of about 30. The title is always borne 
by the Nestorian Patriarch, who is both political and religious head 
of the nation, if it may be so called. The succession is peculiar. Mar 
Shimoun is not permitted to marry, but the office is hereditary in his 
family and when I was there his nephew, a youth of about 18, was 
being brought up to succeed him. The system is naturally not always 
productive of good results. The present holder did not bear a very 
good moral character and his authority was by no means secure over 
his people, and his nephew, who had nothing to do but dress gorgeously 
and swagger about, seemed in a fair way to be spoilt. 
I arrived at Kochannes on Thursday and remained till Monday. On 
Saturday I rode over to Julamerik to call on the Kaimakam. We had 
to cross the ridge south of the Kochannes Valley between it and the 
Zab Valley and from the summit had a splendid view of the Jelu 
mountains, the highest in any part that I visited. They rose just 
beyond the deep trench of the Zab Valley some 3000 feet lower than 
the ridge on which we stood and lifted themselves'some 5000 or 6000 
feet above our standing point. 
On Sunday I attended service in the church at Kochannes, a small, 
very plain building of stone, standing on an isolated rock. The door 
was so low that one had almost to crawl in. The service was very 
plain indeed, a great contrast to those of the Armenian Church, which 
resemble much those of the Greek Church in their ornateness and in 
the robes of the priests, though, I believe, the actual liturgy is quite 
different. 
One afternoon Mar Shimoun organized a bear hunt. The hillside 
opposite Kochannes was covered with scrub oak, so a certain number 
of sportsmen with guns climbed about half way up and then we spread 
ourselves out and hid ourselves in the scrub at the edge of an open belt, 
