volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

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His Holiness Mdr Ignatius Peter III.
were not allowed to use. Two beautifully written and
ornamented Kur'§ns, one of the sixteenth and one of
the seventeenth century, had actually been buried in
the graves of the husbands of their present owners ;
these I purchased for myself, for the Museum possessed
several fine Kur'Sns of all periods, but each woman
swore me to absolute secrecy in the matter. Many
merchants and others came to thank me for doing
various things for them which I had promised to do,
and oddly enough they appeared to be grateful. And
they helped me much in return, for they introduced
me to owners of Persian and Araljic manuscripts which
otherwise I should never have heard of.
Before the close of November I was honoured by
receiving a visit from His Holiness Maran Mar Ignatius,
Peter III, Patriarch of Antioch, and of all the Jacobite
Churches of Syria and in the East. He sent a message
by one of his clergy saying that he was coming, but
remembering the mud in the streets of Mosul and the age
of His Holiness, which was then ninety years, I begged
the priest to ask His Holiness not to give himself the
trouble, and to say that I would wait upon him, which
was far more seemly. Whilst I was actually getting
ready to go the Patriarch arrived. He dismoxmted, with
some help, from his donkey, and when he straightened
himself in the doorway, and walked into the court
leaning slightly on one of his clergy, I saw that he was
tall, in fact, he must have been over six feet in height.
He wore a large, rounded, very full turban, covered with
some kind of dark stuff, a sort of dark-coloured cassock
which reached to his feet, and a thick black cloak. His
features were small, clean-cut and refined, and his long
beard was snowy white ;^ he moved with dignity, and
his whole bearing seemed to say, " I am a Prince of
the Church." As soon as he was seated, or rather
reclining, on the diwan, he began to talk, and wishing
not to lose a word I asked Nimrud Rassam to act as
interpreter. This the Patriarch refused to allow, saying
1 For a good photograph of him see Parry, Six Months, p. 62.