Friday May 7. [7 May 1909] Off at 6. 1850. At 7.5 we reached Avriva,
at 7.30 Musaka, 8.50 Ishkaftad (all these lying along the foot of the
hills). We passed a small Yezidi Mazar where the path goes up to
Sheikh Adi just after Ishkaftad. The latter is a Kurdish Kochar village -
they live here however in underground houses not in tents and there is
a square masonry mosque. It belongs to Hassan Jangir, a very much
dreaded robber chief, and 2 days ago it was raided by soldiers, a
man and 2 women were killed - the rest of the population driven up
into the hills. Hassan Jangir is a feudatory of Sheikh Hajji who is now
in prison in Mosul [Mawsil, Al]. He and Sheikh Nuri and another
robber Kurdish chief were encamped just above us in the hills last
night. At 10.30 we got to Baadri and went straight to 'Ali Beg.
Peacocks in his court yard. He and others with long pointed curly
beards, extraordinarily Assyrian. Charming little son Sa'ad Beg and
very attractive wife dressed in purple cotton, black jacket, white veil
and black cap, gold bracelets set with turquoises. Fattuh skilfully got
me out of staying in the house. There was a Xian secretary from Al
Kosh [Qosh, Al] who had travelled with the Chaldaean patriarch (who
lives in Mosul) to Rome [Roma] and Vienna [Wien] in 1868. I
explained to him that I wanted to go to Sheikh Adi that day. Ali Beg
sent me an enormous lunch piled on a huge tray and then gave me 2
guides to Sh. Adi. I took my 4 soldiers. We left at 12 and got there at
2.15. Rocky road up from the Mazar and then up and down over the
folds of the hills covered with balut (oak) and butsu and za'rur still
flowering, poppies and the last of the ranunculus and several kinds of
campanula. Baadri was 2100, Sheikh Adi 3150. Delicious place
buried in trees, some fig trees. We stopped by a spring and drank - it
flows through 2 chambers with a tank in each and then out into the
street if it can be called so. Before we got down to it the path was
covered with a vault. Ali Beg's sister met me in the first open court
where are the shops used at the time of the 'aid. Then into another
court with a tree in it and the ziarah at the E end. Built into the wall are
several inscrips in Arabic, one dated 1115 but of what era I don't
know. Scarlet ranunculus fastened over the door with a patch of mud.
Inside 2 aisles, the S. with a water tank into which a little stream flows
through the wall. In the N aisle a tomb "of a sheikh" they said. Arcade
of 7 piers. The aisles vaulted and I think about the same width. At the
E end of the N wall a door leading into a small chamber with a tomb -
it is covered by the smaller of the 2 spires. Then a square chamber,
quite dark with Sh. Adi's tomb in it. Very high dome on squinches.
The Khatun said prayers to Sh. Adi in Kermam. I lighted the place up
with magnesian wire. Then into a long vaulted chamber filled with oil
jars - all the door posts were oiled and the Khatun kissed them all.
Then into a long vaulted corridor which runs along the N side of the
inner court. We then went back to the first small domed room and she
took me alone down a little way into a chamber running from N to S
with water coming out of the rock on the N side and running into a tank
at the S end. To the E it was allowed to escape through a hole in the
wall into another longish chamber running E and W and so by a
winding vaulted passage (all was very dark) into another E and W
chamber. It passed through the E wall outside. The Khatun lives to
the S of the shrine and here 'Ali Beg lodges at the 'Id. There are bits
of continuous pattern decoration built into the W wall and a doorway
by the fountain in the village that look as if they might have come out
of a Jacobite church, but I do not think any of the present building is
part of a church: the aisles are too long and too equal in width. A
snake lengthways in the wall besides the big snake in relief standing
on its tail by the door and painted black. They will not kill a black
snake. We sat under the mulberry trees and drank milk and so rode
home. Tired, we did not get in till 6. Rested and Ali Beg sent me
dinner. After which I went with Sa'ad Beg and sat for a little with the
Khatun. I gather they drink a good deal. They said even Saad Beg
drank Arak and he certainly smokes too much.