volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

62 The Beggars of Mdsul.
Soon after we had set up house we found that chickeiis
belonging to our neighbours, the families in the inner
court, flew over into our court and settled there and
lived on the grain which they found in the stables.
Then several cats arrived, and whenever the door into
the street was left open the dogs of the town came in
and fought with the cats, and stole our meat and anything
else they could find. Sometimes they hunted the
chickens round the court and often killed one, and claims
for payment were made upon us ; we never paid and so
were greatly disliked by our neighbours.
The beggars who thronged to our house were a great
nuisance, chiefly because I did not like to send them
away hungry. When the Pasha who had lived in the
house was alive, every hungry person who came that way
went into the inner court and knocked at the panel in
the opening by the door "in the wall already mentioned,
and stood there and cried out, " Ya Allah al-Karim "
(O Allah the Gracious !) . The panel was withdrawn and
some food was handed out to the beggar who then left
the court ; it was the Pasha's order that no beggar
should be allowed to go empty away. When the beggars
found out that we were living in the court they came in
whenever the door was open, and stood under our windows
and cried, "Ya Allah al-Karim." All of them were very,
very poor, and some of them were blind, and some had
loathsome sores on them, and some had horrible deformities.
White and I felt that though we could not
afford to copy the dead Pasha and give to everybody
at all times we must do something for the beggars, and
I consulted a native of whom I shall have more to say
presently, Jeremiah Shamir. His advice was to buy, or
have made daily, a number of flat bread-cakes each
weighing about four ounces, and to distribute them once
a day. We therefore arranged for a hundred breadcakes
to be supplied to us daily and White and I shared
the cost. These were delivered to our Hanna, who
seemed to know every beggar of Mosul, and he gave them
away at his discretion every morning whilst we were at
breakfast. The beggars soon realized that there was