Thursday May 14 [i.e. 13 May 1909] Off at 4 with Selim and the
donkey, Abdul Mejid (one of my soldiers) Kas Mattai and Shim'un to
Judi Dagh [Cudi Dag]. We walked for about 21/2 hours up through
oak woods acanthus and along the upper slopes of the hills under
precipitous crags. Then I climbed to the top and found alpine
uplands with snow wreaths and a high rocky peak. The blue cushiony
thing flowering everywhere and yellow ranunculus. But we had to
come down again and joined the donkey below the crags. A giant
forgetmenot, very sweet smelling, almost as big as a borrage, and a
lovely unknown asphodel, many geraniums. We sat down for {a
quarter of} half an hour and eat chocolate; then on over the rough
slopes convered with yellow fennel. At the bottom of the crags we left
the donkey with Mejid and climbed up for half an hour to the sefinah
which we reached at 8.35. The scarlet tulip still in flower round it.
There is a good deal of ruin, rough chambers which have all been
roofed with boughs and tree trunks and a tank built below where a
snow wreath lay. One of the buildings is of very large stones and may
be old. A little below on the S side are more ruins on a platform - this
may have been the plan of the old monastery. The actual ziarah
consists of an open walled round space with some roofless
chambers to the W. I think it is Moslem. In one of the chambers and in
the enclosure there is a small niche to the S - mihrabs? The view very
fine and rugged but extraordinarily desolate. In the great valley to the
N I saw only 4 villages, the largest was Shandokh which is the seat of
some Kurdish aghas. We lunched and slept and left at 12.15.
Shim'un went down to join Mejid and the donkey and we walked
along the hilltop. We met some Moslem shepherds 1/2 an hour from
the top. They showed us a small ruin with the following history: A man
came a month's journey to visit the Ark and when he got to this place
the Devil met him and told him he had still as far to go, so in despair
he made himself a house and here lived and died. On the N slopes
we found a pale blue hyacinth and a pale blue scilla. The sheep
were standing on the snow wreaths. These shepherds were
Moslems who had come up with their flocks to escape the sheep tax.
Presently we met some who took us for soldiers and carried on an
angry shouted conversation accompanied by shots. I got off my
snow wreath and sat down on the rock so as not to offer so good a
mark. All was explained and we went on our way to the wood path. I
ought to have gone down another way by Noah's tomb, a ruined
monastery and a ruined castle, but it was hot and I preferred the high
path. We rested by the lowest little spring and Kas Mattai told us of
his troubles. How the Kurds from Shandokh come over the pass and
claim hospitality from him and make him feed them and take
everything down to his bed and his coat. This year the govt has
levied the sheep tax twice - once for last year's arrears. But the
aghas want[?] levy much more than the govt. and every now and then
they descend on the village, plunder, burn and kill. We got down to
camp at 4 and I bathed in the stream. The Nestorians of the Tiari are
themselves ashuret and hold out more or less against the Kurds.