volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Population and Language of MSsul. 47
but thinks that it was larger. Mr. J. Shamir spent two
days in working out the matter, and was convinced that
in February, 1889, there were 63,000 people whose
homes were in Mosul. To describe the tenets and
dogmas of the various Christian sects of Mosul, notwithstanding
their surpassing interest and importance
historically and socially, does not fall within the scope
of this book, and for information about them the reader
is referred to the works of Badger,^ Sandreczski,*
Fletcher,' Parry* and others.
The language most commonly spoken in Mosul was
Arabic. A large number of the people of the town
spoke " FaUehi," i.e., the " peasant " or " farmer
dialect, which contains many old Syriac and Kurdish
words. The American Missionaries in Urmi by Lake
Wan were the first to print any portion of the Bible in
this difficult but most interesting dialect, and copies of
the whole Bible in Syriac in which the ancient and
modem versions are printed in parallel columns are now
very rare and valuable. I found the FaUehi weekly
journal Zahrire dke Bahrd, which was also edited
and published by the American Missionaries at Urmi,
most useful in any attempt to become acquainted with
the local dialect. In the villages to the north and east
of Mosul they speak Kurdish mixed with Persian.
It is perhaps impertinent for any stranger who passes
a few weeks or months in an oriental town to criticize
its government, but it seemed to me that the municipal
administration of Mosul was as bad as it could be.
Formerly, so merchants told me, when Mosul was
governed from Baghdad there was some stability in
town affairs, but since 1878 when Mosul was taken
from the Walayat or province of Baghdad and made
into a separate Walayat, everything changed for the
worse. The Wall Pash^, or Governor, was changed
' The Nestorians and their Rituals, 2 vols., London, 1852.
^ Reise nach Mosul, 2 vols.
' Notesfrom Nineveh, 2 vols., London, 1850.
* Six Months in a Syrian Monastery, London, 1895.