volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

232 Turks and Yaztdts.
subsequently that Nimrud, who was a very strict " dry "
Nestorian (see p. 63), had begun to teach her the
history of the Syrian Church, and that he made her fast
twice a week regularly, and oftener in Lent.
Having settled the difficult question of board and
lodging, I reported my arrival by telegraph to Sir WUliam
White, and asked for news of the permit for Der. He
replied promptly, saying that imexpected difficulties had
arisen, and that it had been found impossible to extract
the document from the Porte, but that he would do his
utmost to send it off by the end of the month. I then
asked him if I should go on with the excavations at
Kuyunjik, which Nimrud had been keeping alive during
the summer, and he replied that as the permit for
Kuyunjik expired on December loth I had better not
attempt to dig there after that date. I took the earliest
opportunity of going to the Sarayah to see the Wall
Pelshi, and 1 found to my great regret that the Wali
I had known the year before had been recalled on
accoimt of his failure to suppress the Shammar, and
that a new and quite unknown man had become Wali
in his place. In due course I was admitted to his
presence, and I gave him the letter which I had brought
from the Ka'im Makam at Sinj&,r, who had shown himself
so friendly towards me. The WMi questioned me as
to what I had seen and heard of Ayub Beg and his
soldiers, and when he had heard what I had to say, he
merely said that if the Yazidls were murdered and illtreated
by the soldiers it was their own fault. He
continued : the Jew and the Christian escaped the
military service to which they were liable as Turkish
subjects by paying adequate fines, but the Yazidis of
the Sinj^, though very rich and prosperous, always
objected to pay their fines, and gave the Porte a good
deal of trouble. In his opinion the Yazidis of Sinjar,
being of Kurdish origin, were men of powerful physique,
and should be made to serve in the army ; if they would
not they ought to be shot. He was obliged to me for
bringing the letter to htm from his friend the Ka'im
Makam, and would at once despatch a company of