volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Ay^b Beg and the Yaztdis. 221
met us from the Ka'im Makam, who invited me to
become his guest whilst I stayed there ; I accepted
his hospitality and we rode straight up to his house.
He received me very kindly and gave orders about
feeding the beasts, and did everything he could to help
me and make me comfortable. He enquired my name
and my business, and said that it was a fortunate day
for him that had brought me to his house. Over our
cigarettes and coffee he told me about the conditions
which prevailed in the town, and his narrative did not
add to my comfort. He said that Ayub Beg was in
the town with a company of soldiers, and that he had
joined himself to the military officials, and was doing
all he could to provoke a rising in the town with the
view of getting him {i.e., the Ka'im Makam) dismissed in
disgrace. Ayub's mission was to force the Yazidis to
embrace Islam, and that while he treated poor Yazidis
with terrible cruelty when they rejected Islam, he allowed
those who were well-to-do to remain in peace provided
they bribed him adequately. News had already reached
Ayub that an Englishman was travelling in the Sinjar,
and he had heard how the women had stopped me and
told me about the murder of the two girls in the village
close by. The Ka'im Makam warned me that Ayub
would make an attempt to prevent me from reaching
Mosul, because he knew that if the Wall of Mosul heard
of his proceedings he would send troops from the garrison
of Mosul to arrest him. I told the Ka'im Makam what
I had seen at 'Iran, and what 1 had heard from the
villagers on my way to Sinjar, and he said that nothing
had been overstated, and that he thought the facts
ought to be made known to the European Ambassadors
to the Porte and to the Walt at Mosul. He asked me
to take a letter from him to the Wall of Mosul and I
agreed to do so, and then he told me that if I would
write a letter to the British Ambassador to the Porte
he would manage to find means to deliver it to him.
I then wrote to Sir William White a plain statement of
what I had seen and heard, adding the names of the
murdered persons and their villages, and I ended my