volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

i8o The Jacobites of KaryaUn.
and beautiful ; these are watered by many wells which
yield a supply of most refreshing water. In the cool
of the afternoon I went into the town with Muhammad,
and the people received us kindly. The mosque was
said to be about 300 years old, but many parts of it
seemed to me to be several centuries older. In due
course we found the quarantine official and presented
our letter from the Wali of Damascus. He read it
carefully and said he would pay us a visit that evening.
We walked through some very pretty gardens and
vineyards and then went back to our tent to make
preparations for our visitor. I gave a man a bashlik
(five piastres) and asked him to buy me some grapes,
and he returned with two large baskets filled to overflowing
with fine large clusters of purple grapes ! The
quarantine official came about 6.30 and shared our
dinner, and turned out to be a very agreeable Turk.
As a sort of afterthought he told us that he had received
orders some days before to allow no one to enter or leave
the town, and that we must therefore consider ourselves
to be in quarantine. This news was disconcerting, but
I replied that he must, of course, carry out his orders.
In answer he said he would come again in the morning,
and meanwhile begged us not to make any attempt to
depart during the night ; as we and our beasts were far
too tired to travel that night I agreed cheerfully to
this, and after drinking more coffee he left us with very
friendly words. After he left us some of the Jacobites
came to see us, and in the course of our talk I enquired
if they had any Syriac manuscripts at Karyaten, and
they told me that there were some in the hands of their
co-religionists who lived near Der al-Elyan to the west
of the town. Der al-Elyan was an old monastery, and
it was possible that some of the books from its library
might exist in private hands, but their information was
of a vague character and I decided to do nothing. They
told me also that several years before a Franji had been
to Karyaten and made copies of some inscriptions which
had since disappeared, and I thought they must be
speaking of Sachau. They said there were several