CHAPTER V

THE TEMPLE OF THE DEVIL

(SHEIKH ADI)

We have long been partial to pilgrimage. Partly because we love all old habits. Because "it was so our fathers did in the days of old;" and because, quite apart from that intrinsically "excellent reason," we have yet another reason which may well be thought "good enough." We have found that the original promoters of that pastime were people of singular discrimination, and endowed with a positive genius for exploiting attractive resorts. The shrines to which they sent their penitents are so many realms of delight to the vagrant pleasure-seeker; and who could pick out for himself a more ideal holiday paradise than Lourdes or Monserrat or Covadonga or Rocamadour?

We have ranged in quest of palms and scallop shells through the length and breadth of Christendom, from the Holy Sepulchre in the east to Santiago de Compostela in the west; and nowhere have we been disappointed of receiving our temporal reward. Yet we feel it is rather hard measure to be grudged all ulterior benefits--to be told that, having roamed "without intention," our spiritual profits are _nil_.

However, such disqualification affords us some compensating latitude. If our gain be exclusively temporal we can run but little spiritual risk. The less respectable shrines may prove just as eligible as the orthodox, and we can visit Mecca and Benares with as much immunity as Rome. _Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo_; and a call on the witch of Endor will at least assure us a thrill. In which dangerous frame of mind it becomes an overwhelming attraction to a professed patron of pilgrimages, to find himself within easy visiting distance of the only temple extant which is specifically and avowedly dedicated to the Author of Evil Himself.

Nearly every form of religion which has yet been known to man seems at some time or other to have struck root in the soil of Mesopotamia; and there are but few of the number that have left no stumps or fossils to remind us of the days when they were yet flourishing in their pride. Some have bequeathed us the ruins of their temples, their sacrificial ash heaps, their votive tablets, or the images of their gods. Some survive but in fragments of fantastic folk-lore, still lingering on ineradicably as the parasites of more modern creeds. But one of the oldest and weirdest of all is still a living reality--the religion of the Yezidis or "Devil-worshippers" who congregate principally in the _vilayet_ of Mosul.

"Devil-worshippers" they are indeed; for they themselves do not scruple to admit that the Being whom they seek to propitiate is actually identical with the _Sheitan_ of the Christians and Moslems and Jews. But, fortunately for the morals of the neighbourhood, their homage stops short of imitation. Theirs is a religion of Faith, and not of Works. They are under no obligation to make evil their good according to the boast of Milton's Satan; but only to "respect the great place" of their Divinity, and see to it that he is "sometime honoured for his burning throne."

Thus, though they are accused of many enormities,[41] it does not appear that they are actually worse in theory, or half so vicious in practice, as many of the most blameless of their "true-believing" neighbours: and "good Christian men who are stable in the faith" may adventure themselves into their Vale of Devils with no more material misgivings than worthy Sir John Mandeville of old.

The Yezidis form one of the recognized _millets_, or subject religious sects, existing in the Turkish Empire. But recognition in their case by no means implies toleration. They are universally abhorred as outcasts--almost as "untouchables"--like the _cagots_ of the Pyrenees, or the lowest _pariahs_ of Hindustan. A Christian is a "dog" to a Moslem, and a Jew ranks many octaves lower; but there is no room on the chromatic scale to show the position of a Yezidi: he is the sort of human being that is less regarded than a beast.

A Yezidi crossed our path some five or six miles from Mosul. He gave us a very wide berth, keeping quite a hundred yards away. But it chanced that his line lay to windward; and our escort rode at him furiously, fairly bellowing with indignation. How dared he have the effrontery to intrude his unclean carcass "betwixt the wind and our nobility?"

And presently another Yezidi actually tacked himself on to our party, following us (at a very humble distance) for two or three hours along the road. "It would be a good deed to kill the dog," was our _zaptieh's_ muttered comment; "but while he is under the _Effendi's_ shadow, I suppose I must let him alone!"

Yet withal there is a spice of fear in the contempt which is felt for the Yezidis. They are "ower sibb" to the Devil to be quite safe subjects for abuse. They seem to be regarded in much the same light as witches used to be by our own seventeenth-century ancestors. It is virtue to revile and maltreat them: and by daylight, with a sufficient mob to back you, you may feel secure from their resentment. But it is another matter altogether to pass their door alone after dark!

The Yezidis form a considerable community numbering in all some 150,000; for about 500 villages own allegiance to their _Mira_,[42] and there are many detached colonies residing in alien towns. These villages are widely distributed--isolated for the most part singly among the surrounding Kurds and Christians. Some are as far west as Aleppo; some as far north as Tiflis (where all the town scavengers are Yezidis); some as far east as Teheran. Their nucleus is in the Sinjar mountains, in the desert south-west of Mosul; where they are secured from invasion by the barricades of rock, and the waterless wastes which environ them. But the central shrine of their faith, the Jerusalem of their vows and offerings, is the cryptic Temple of Sheikh Adi, hidden just within the fringe of the northern mountains which overlook the great Mosul plain.

It was late on an autumn evening that we neared the last stage of our journey thither. We had quitted the plains about mid-day; and our course had lain for some miles along a sparsely cultivated valley, tucked in behind the outermost ripple which the mountains fling down upon the wold. On our right lay this barbican ridge, from the crest of which one might look forth across all the plain of Tigris; while on our left the hills rose higher, more rugged and more precipitous--a second, but still a subordinate, breastwork of the lordly Oberland behind.

Here and there the solitude was punctuated by a squalid Kurdish village whose inhabitants were thriftily using the tents which had served for their camps all the summer, to hood in their stacks of fodder against the expected winter snows. And one of these--Ain Sufni "Shipwell,"--perched on a traverse of high ground which is piled right across the valley is pointed out by Yezidi tradition as being the building place of the Ark. Here the main valley still trends forward; but, as we descended from the village, our guides doubled back to the left and dived into a masked ravine which had hitherto lurked invisible behind a shoulder of the heights.

Wide should be the gate and broad the way which leadeth to--the shrine of MELEK TAÜS; but the glen in question is shaggy and narrow and tortuous, tangled with clumps of tamarisk, and cumbered with water-worn boulders the jetsam of the winter floods. Since noon the sky had been overcast, and now a dreary drizzle had smudged all the landscape into a grey monochrome. Our jaded beasts sprawled and stumbled disheartedly over the wet and slippery stones.

Soon our path began edging up towards a _col_ in the ridge to the right of us, where a little Kurdish village hung limply over the saddle, and a curtain of lowering clouds trailed its ragged fringe across the gap. But just as we started the ascent, we perceived that the true end of the valley lay round an elbow in the opposite direction; and at its head, conspicuous against the dark hillside above the trees which lay matted in the hollow, rose the tall pale cone of a remote and isolated building--the "Great Mascot" of the Yezidis.[43]

How effectively the stage was set for that last mile of our Black pilgrimage! Not the least detail seemed lacking to enhance the eeriness of the scene. The dusk was rapidly lowering, the gorge grew narrower and deeper; and the gnarled boughs which overhung the pathway turned the twilight almost into night. A sodden carpet of fallen leaves muffled the clatter of the horse-hoofs; and no sound was heard but the bubbling of the rivulet, and the steady plash of the bloated raindrops that had gathered on the twigs of the trees. High overhead on our right towered the wan gaunt walls of the Satanic monastery: but not a voice nor a glimmer of light bespoke the presence of any inmates; and as we stumbled up the broken stairs, between crumbling walls and under ruinous arches, we felt like Sintram in his goblin valley or Childe Roland approaching the Dark Tower.

By the time we had reached the further angle of the building we had risen to the level of its terraces; and as we wheeled into the little fore-court, the general uncanniness of our surroundings received its finishing touch. The gates stood closed before us, and nowhere was there a sign of any living creature--but in every niche and crevice there flickered a tiny fairy lamp! The wandering tourist in County Wicklow who was taken to task by an infuriated landlord for trespassing in the "Devil's Glen," pleaded in extenuation that he "had never expected to meet the proprietor;" but to us at this particular juncture, the apparition of "The Proprietor" would have seemed the most natural event in the world!

Our retinue appeared less affected. Perhaps they were not so impressionable; or more probably they confided in our superior magic, and argued _a La Española_ that we "knew a point more than the Fiend." Our henchman strode boldly to the gates and hammered upon them lustily. For some time he woke only the echoes: and when at length a voice answered, the owner thereof was evidently none too anxious to open. In this land it is rarely an angel that one entertains unaware after dark![44] The magic word _Ingiliz_, however, proved a veritable "Open Sesame." "_Ingiliz!_" repeated the unseen janitor in a tone of delighted amazement. In a minute the gates creaked open; and a couple of priests in dirty white gaberdines with scarlet turbans and sashes, grinning all over their bearded faces, were amiably beckoning us in.

There is indeed good sound policy in the readiness with which the subject races of Turkey are disposed to welcome a European visitor. His presence under their roof will certainly secure them from raiding for that one night at any rate; and the suspicion that they have influential foreign friends will "increase their name" permanently among their truculent neighbours, and serve as a sort of protection for several weeks to come.

A steep and crazy stone staircase turned down just inside the gateway; but our long-suffering mountain-bred beasts tripped down it as neatly as rope-dancers. Through a door on our right, as we passed, we caught a glimpse of the interior of a big vaulted guard room, where a party of Yezidi men and women were grouped around a blazing bonfire. The ruddy glare of the flames and the murky smoke-wreaths eddying overhead, suggested forcibly that these minions of Lucifer were sampling a model Inferno; but we slipped past their Malebolge unobserved. Our conductors led us along the lower terrace, and assigned us lodgings in a tower abutting on the wall of the temple--the chamber (as they informed us) which was always reserved for the use of the High Priest of their sect, Ali Beg himself, whenever he paid one of his periodical visits to his tribal shrine.

It was a good-sized lofty room, roofed with a pointed stone vault: but it boasted no window; and apparently no chimney, for the fire that was lit for our benefit soon filled all the space above the level of the door lintel with a dense and suffocating smoke. To us as we squatted on the floor this was no particular hardship; but a hand raised overhead reached into a warm smoky stratum, and if we rose to cross the room we had to bend double under pain of asphyxiation. The Yezidis seem more callous to smoke even than the Kurds and Syrians. The latter do generally provide a hole in the roof above the fire.

The young prior of the monastery, a nephew of Ali Beg, played the part of host. He had been preferred to his post by his uncle, to whom he pays a fixed composition (equivalent to £120 _per annum_) for the privilege of receiving the offerings of the faithful whom he entertains at the shrine. The entertainment which he provided for us consisted of the local pancake bread and a big dish of lentils; on which we supped very composedly, albeit we had no "long spoons." Then followed coffee served in a brazen jug with a gigantic spout like the beak of a toucan: and, after a cigarette or two, our host took leave of us; while we and our _posse comitatus_ disposed ourselves to sleep on the floor.

Our earliest thought the next morning was to inspect the Diabolical Temple; for the Yezidis, unlike their Mohammedan neighbours, are quite willing to exhibit their shrine. The sun was rising brightly as we emerged into the daylight; and the wakening glen in its rich autumn colouring looked a very different place from the gloomy gully up which we had crept the night before.

There is no village at Sheikh Adi. The place consists simply of the temple and its appurtenances, forming, in fact, a monastery, though it is not actually so called. The buildings hang along the steep brae-side which forms the left bank of the river; the uppermost tier being notched deeply into the slope, and the lower terraced out boldly above the margin of the burn. The temple rises in the centre of the upper tier, conspicuous for the fluted spires which form the roofs of the sanctuaries. These fluted conical spires are a distinguishing characteristic of Yezidi architecture, and their appearance, on any building is strong _primâ facie_ evidence of Yezidi origin.

All above and around the monastery the hillside is spangled with scores of rude little oratories, mostly in a ruinous condition. These were erected sometimes by individual worshippers and sometimes by communities. The founder of such a chapel is thought to acquire singular merit; and it is held that, at his death, his chantry will be transported with him to paradise and serve as his heavenly mansion in the life to come. A lamp is lit in each of them by the temple priests at sundown, and at the same time other lamps are lit all over the temple, thus forming the necromantic illumination which so startled us the previous night. They only continue burning for about half an hour; but we chanced to arrive just in time to get the full effect.

Within the main gateway of the monastery a flight of eight or ten steps leads down into a little sunken quadrangle; and the opposite side of this is occupied by the façade of the temple--a plain square wall of ashlar, unpierced by any window, but having a small arched doorway placed near the corner on the left. Many of the stones in this façade have queer cabalistic patterns, rudely incised in the surface so as to leave the device in low relief. The priests insist that these are all meaningless--mere bits of fanciful ornament introduced by the Christian builders:[45] but though it is likely enough that the original meaning of them is forgotten, it is manifestly absurd to pretend either that they never had any, or that none is attributed to them now. There are no Christian symbols among them; and the devices which recur most frequently represent a hatchet and a comb:[46] but the most ominous and the most prominent of all is the famous Snake, which is carved in relief on the door jamb, and which receives the peculiar attention of being kept carefully blacked.

Three or four Yezidi worshippers were making their round of the quadrangle, prostrating themselves before certain niches and at several other recognized points. They devoutly kissed the threshold of the door, and several of the stones in the walls (by no means always the carved ones), but we did not see any of them pay particular homage to the snake.

The priests were prepared for our visit, and were waiting at the door to receive us. They at once admitted us to the temple, first begging us to remove our shoes. This action is to be regarded as mere politeness, not as "bowing down in the house of Rimmon;" for it is customary to remove the shoes in Turkey, even when only entering a room.[47]

The body of the temple consists of twin naves, divided longitudinally by a pointed arcade, and roofed with two pointed barrel vaults. The general effect of the architecture is very similar to that of a rude early thirteenth-century church in the mountain districts of England. The naves lie due east and west; and possibly this Orientation was intentional, for certain traces of sun worship do survive in the Yezidi creed. But more probably the lines of the building were dictated by the nature of the site, for the longer axis would naturally run parallel with stream and hill. Moreover any significance that might be attached to the arrangement is altogether discounted by the fact that the sanctuary is placed, not at the eastern end, but in the centre of the northern side. This is a plan which is frequently followed in the more easterly Christian churches; and which indicates that the builders adopted as their model, not the Roman basilica, but the Persian Audience Hall.

The floor of the southern nave is three steps lower than that of the northern; and at its western end is a square tank of running water, sunk below the level of the floor. Ceremonial ablutions have a prominent place in the ritual of Yezidi worship. There is a second tiny tank in the quadrangle: and a third (evidently fed by the overflow of the tank in the nave) just under the south-western angle of the temple, on the level of the lower terrace. A dwarf wall between the arcade pillars fences off the central bays of the upper nave, thus enclosing a sort of presbytery in front of the opening to the sanctuary.

At the eastern end we turned to the left through a door in the northern wall, and entered the square chamber under the smaller and more easterly of the two conical spires. From this we passed back into the sanctuary itself; a larger square chamber, situated under the larger spire, and thus, placed practically in the centre of the northern nave wall.[48] A low doorway, closed with an iron grille, opens from the nave into this sanctuary; and immediately behind the opening stands a sort of ark, rather smaller than the shrine of St. Alban, and completely shrouded in red drapery. We were led up to it, but bidden not to touch it: so we stood round solemnly, and gazed.

"What is in it?" we asked our interpreter, the Syrian Deacon, Werda--a man of some education, who is generally superior to the superstitions of his race. But in this Domdaniel of Sorcery even his assurance was wavering--"I will tell you later," he replied nervously. "I cannot say it in this place." It was not till we were safe again in the quadrangle that he approached us with much circumspection, and confided to us in an awestruck whisper, "the King of the Peacocks is in that big chest!"

_Melek Taüs_, "the King of the Peacocks," is the Yezidi euphemism for Sheitan; who of course must never be referred to by the latter disparaging name.[49] His image in the form of a peacock is regarded as the Yezidi Palladium; and it was his principal image which was kept in that red-draped shrine.

There are seven images or _s[=a]nj[=a]ks_[50] in the charge of the Yezidi priesthood. One is always kept at Sheikh Adi; and the rest go on circuit in the villages, to be exhibited to the faithful, and to receive the temple tithes.[51] Their progress is somewhat precarious; for the Kurds (when they can) like to capture them, thus combining pleasure and profit with a parade of religious zeal. It is probably one of these _sanjaks_ which is now in the British Museum; and, "if he had guessed that King George would like it," Mar Shimun "would have been delighted to make him a present of another," which was known to have been straying about Tyari a year or two before. The Kurds themselves roundly assert that they carried off the actual headquarters image when they looted the temple in 1892; but the priests contend that it had been already placed in hiding, and that the plunderers found only a dummy. The Kurds would of course say they took it, even if they did not; and the priests would equally of course deny it, even if they did. Both alternatives are equally probable; and the image has always been secreted so jealously that any identification is impossible.[52] There is therefore nothing to prevent us from believing whichever we choose.

But although _Melek Taüs_ no doubt is the dominant guardian of Sheikh Adi, we feel that behind his presentment there broods an older tutelary shade. For when we quitted the larger sanctuary, and passed back again into the more eastern one, "Rabbi Mr. Wigram" headed at once for a small door in a corner, from whence a steep stone staircase plunged down into the bowels of the rock. A priest had planted himself in front of that door, making himself as broad as possible, and valiantly trying to mask it; and when he found concealment impossible, he pointedly bowed us away. They had shown us the shrine of _Melek Taüs_; but here was something which they could not show us. Here was one secret of Sheikh Adi which must be kept inviolate still.

What would they have said, we wonder, had they been told that one of their visitors had already actually penetrated into that Holy of Holies? Would they have hailed him as a prophet? Would they have murdered him for sacrilege? Or would they have compromised matters by flatly refusing to believe? We discreetly kept our own counsel; but the thing had been done notwithstanding. And the story of how it happened needs a few explanatory remarks.

In the year 1892 there came a new _Vali_ to Mosul--a sanguine and active "Reformer" whose name was Osman Bey. He had set out from Constantinople equipped with a Radical "Program" and his programme (as is usual with programmes) was planned on an extensive scale. He had to do just three things--to cure the Arabs of Nomadism; to make the Kurds pay their taxes; and finally to induce the Yezidis to discard their heathenish superstition. The first problem floored him promptly, for the Arabs decamped to the desert; and the Kurdish chiefs eyed him pretty blankly when he proceeded to propound Problem II. But when he got to "thirdly and lastly," and invited their co-operation, the worthy fellows cheered up amazingly and found things looked feasible after all. Taxation was much less intolerable when viewed in relation to its context, for the "Peaceable Persuasion" of the Yezidis would leave them a profit on the deal.

Accordingly all through the _vilayet_ the unhappy Yezidis were attacked and plundered; their women were carried into captivity, their men were tortured and slain. And while the Government troops were ravaging the plain villages, Sheikh Adi itself (hitherto immune from such visitations) was completely ransacked by the Kurds. It was not till after sixteen years that the poor proscribed Yezidis were reinstated. Until the general amnesty at the revolution they remained in exile from their shrine. Consequently when "Rabbi Mr. Wigram" visited the place in 1907 he found it only tenanted by the Moslem Mollah in charge.

The Mollah allowed him to go anywhere, scoffing valiantly at Yezidi superstitions; and through that gloomy doorway the investigator accordingly went. But afterwards the sceptic admitted that _down there_ he had never ventured; and had never in the least expected to see his visitor come up again alive!

Unfortunately at the time the searcher failed to realize the unique nature of his opportunity and consequently did not push his explorations as thoroughly as he otherwise would. It was very dark down the staircase, and he was only provided with matches. But it seemed to him that he had penetrated into a vast natural cavern, teeming with rills of trickling water--the birthplace of the sacred spring, which feeds the temple tanks, and forms the main source of the rivulet which flows down the glen below.

And here, perhaps, we have the key to the time-honoured sanctity of Sheikh Adi. It was primarily a seat of that fountain worship which is one of the earliest of all known cults. _Melek Taüs_ himself was but a later accretion, though now he has usurped pre-eminence; and even yet his worshippers are half-conscious of a god behind their god. Sacred fountains by the dozen, and sacred trees by the score, may still be met with in these outlandish regions. But in Christian and Moslem villages they are reverenced somewhat shamefacedly. Among the followers of a lower religion the old superstition has retained a firmer hold.

The Yezidis possess no systematized religion woven by some great teacher into one harmonious whole. They make shift instead with a bewildering agglomeration of superstitions pieced together into an amazing patchwork. The central article of their creed is that propitiation of the Evil Principle which was originally the conception of the Persian dualists; but with this is incorporated the world-old Nature worship of trees and fountains and fire and of all the host of heaven; upon it are grafted innumerable later doctrines derived from the Jews the Christians and the Moslems; and apparently it was by the Gnostics that the whole medley was finally moulded into something approaching its present form.

Their reverence for _Sheikh Shams-ed-din_, the sun, is evinced by the fact that they daily kiss the ground at the spot where his rays first rest; that they adore him at rising and setting, and sacrifice white oxen at his shrine. A somewhat similar homage is also paid to the moon; and they always bury their dead facing towards the north star. Their reverence for fountains of water appears in their ceremonial lustrations, including the baptism of their children in the temple tank at Sheikh Adi. Fire they so far honour that they deem it impiety to spit into it; and perhaps a survival of serpent worship may be traced in the famous black snake.

From the Persians they borrowed the conception of a good and an evil principle; and probably also their belief in the transmigration of souls. From the Jews they learned to identify Ahriman, the evil principle, with Satan; to practise circumcision, and blood offerings, and other points of the Mosaic ritual;[53] and to reverence the writings of the Old Testament, which they consider equally authoritative with the New Testament and the Koran. They share our Christian belief in the divinity of the Founder of our religion, albeit they consider _Melek Taüs_ a greater divinity than Him. They respect the Sign of the Cross; but perhaps not exclusively as a Christian symbol, for the use of that sign was established even in pre-Christian days. Other tenets they have borrowed from Islam; for they regard Mohammed as a prophet, and Mecca as a holy place; and texts from the Koran are engraved on the walls of their temple. Moreover they hold that their sacred spring is derived from the well Zemzem, whose waters Sheikh Adi miraculously conducted to their present fount.

Many points of this weird belief have no doubt been adopted piecemeal, in the hope of obtaining toleration from their Mohammedan lords. But if such was their hope it was futile. Their admitted reverence for Sheitan constitutes an abomination which neither Moslem nor Christian can condone. Thus their lot has been always oppression and often the bitterest persecution. How can such a strange compound superstition have inspired them with their heroic fortitude?

If the truth of a creed can be gauged by the number and constancy of its martyrs, then the place we should yield to the Yezidis must be one of the highest of all. Small as their sect has always been, they can count their martyrs by hundreds of thousands. And seldom indeed has any Yezidi of full age been known to abjure his religion, either under stress of torment or through fear of death. The massacre of 1892 was but the latest (and one of the mildest) of a long list of similar inflictions. Less than fifty years previously all the Yezidis of the Sheikhan were driven from their villages by a great irruption of Kurds under the Beg of Rowandiz, and fled for refuge to Mosul. The flooded Tigris cut them off; and so many thousands were massacred by their pursuers upon the site of Nineveh that the principal mound over Sennacherib's palace acquired the ominous name of Kouyunjik--"the shambles of the sheep." The tale of earlier massacres runs back to the very dawn of their history. Even Sinjar has not always proved a sanctuary, though there they have been less hard pressed.

But still the sect lives on; and (what is stranger yet) it occasionally attracts proselytes! Why a Christian should turn Moslem, we can understand--at least he ensures worldly advancement. But what conceivable benefit can he look to acquire by turning Yezidi? Unless indeed he is tired of life, and has a conscientious objection to suicide.

One peculiar privilege, however, has recently been conceded to the Yezidis. They have gained that exemption from military service which Kurds and Christians earnestly desire. This was done not exactly in kindness to them, but more for the comfort of the army. For, about a dozen times a day, every Moslem is accustomed to "take refuge with Allah from Sheitan the stoned:" and a Yezidi who hears such blasphemy has a choice of just two alternatives; either he may kill the blasphemer, or he may commit suicide himself!

Mohammed in the Koran draws a very emphatic distinction between those unbelievers who are "men of a book," and those who are not; between the Christians and Jews, who follow a written revelation; and the idolaters, who follow tradition alone. The former may be admitted to tribute; but the latter are expressly condemned to extermination.

Now the Yezidis also are in fact "men of a book;" though this would not probably be considered much extenuation for "worshipping Sheitan." But for a very long period they guarded their book so jealously as actually to invite the pains and penalties of being supposed to have none. Two sacred books, however, they have; the _Kitab el Aswad_, or Black Book,[54] dating from about the tenth century; and the _Kitab el Jilwa_, or Book of Enlightenment, which dates from about the thirteenth; and from these we are able to gather some of the principal articles of their creed.

The Yezidis believe in a Supreme Being--Yazdan, "the Most High." But to Him they pay no worship. He is the Lord of Heaven, and takes no account of earth. From His name in all probability they derive their own appellation of Yezidis; though the Moslems (or at least the Shiites) declare that they inherit it from Yezid ibn Mo'awiya, the murderer of Hosein, and see in it an additional argument for persecuting them.[55]

From _Yazdan_ emanated seven Great Spirits, of whom _Melek Taüs_ was the first and most powerful. To him was committed the creation of the world; and the governance of it for 10,000 years, of which 4000 still remain to run. _Melek Taüs_ is an evil and a fallen spirit; but not fallen beyond redemption. He is a sort of celestial Absalom--vicious, tyrannical, rebellious; but secure of ultimate pardon and rehabilitation. "Shall there not at length come a time when the Chief of the Archangels shall be restored to his first pre-eminence? And will he not then be mindful of the poor Yezidis, who alone of all mankind never cursed him in his disgrace?"

There is something distinctly quaint in this picture of a reclaimed Satan, still cherishing a faint grudge against those who denounced him in his unregenerate days.

_Melek Isa_ (Jesus) is the second of the Great Spirits; and He too shall reign for 10,000 years when _Melek Taüs'_ reign is done. The story of His incarnation and passion is accepted as told in the Christian scriptures; but it is held that this, His first, coming was premature and that so He failed to break the power of evil. He did not, however, die upon the Cross, _Melek Taüs_ snatched Him away, leaving only a phantom in His room.[56]

The Yezidis render to _Melek Isa_ a sort of secondary worship. His reign is not yet; and being good He is not so formidable as evil. Thus at their great feast they sacrifice one sheep to Him, while to _Melek Taüs_ they sacrifice seven. _Melek Isa_ is merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, but _Melek Taüs_ is a jealous and exacting god.

Sheikh Adi is a semi-mythical personage who may be described as the Yezidi Prophet. He is sometimes identified with Mar Adai (St. Thaddeus) the Apostle of the Christians; but there seems some historical evidence that he lived in the tenth century, and that he was originally a Magian who had fled from Aleppo when the Magian cult was suppressed. He was probably the author or compiler of the sacred books; and is said to have been the first who taught disciples. According to some traditions he is considered almost divine; and at the Last Day he will carry all the Yezidis to heaven in a tray on his head, and pass them through unquestioned. But according to another legend he was a mere mortal, who had in life bitter experience of the devilment of his peculiar deity. For while he was gone on pilgrimage to Mecca, _Melek Taüs_ personated him among his disciples; dwelling with them, instructing them, and at last ascending visibly to Heaven. Thus when poor Sheikh Adi returned he was promptly slain as an impostor; and then _Melek Taüs_, reappearing, confessed the trick that he had played, and gave orders that the ill-used devotee was henceforth to be honoured as a saint.

The Yezidis have a regular hierarchy of seven orders of priesthood. They hold a great annual feast at Sheikh Adi in October; which is continued for eight days, and is attended by all the faithful who can come. Layard was present on two such occasions, and shared in the feasting and merry-making; but no unbeliever has ever been permitted to witness the rites and ceremonies enacted within the temple itself. Pilgrimage to Sheikh Adi is incumbent on every Yezidi; but he is not commanded to pray; and he leaves that duty to his priests. Fasting can also be performed by deputy; and a group of Yezidis will select one of their number to do all their fasting for them, confessing to him the acts which need expiation, and paying him a capitation fee for carrying out the corresponding penances.

The Yezidis understand the nature of an oath, but the oath must be properly administered; and, lest any of the sect should appear as witnesses in our own courts of justice, it may be convenient to state exactly how the thing is done. A circle is drawn round the man to whom the oath is propounded, and he is told "All within that circle is the property of _Melek Taüs_. Now answer falsely if you dare!" One would have thought that to the Father of Lies falsehood would be the one thing most pleasing. But apparently when you are put to your purgation it is most emphatically otherwise. So we may conclude that the Prince of Darkness is really a gentleman after all.

The distinctive costume of the men consists of white tunic, trousers and jacket, with a scarlet turban and sash. The women wear the same costume, except that the tunic is longer and reaches nearly to the ankle; and they also have an oblong red mantle, draped from the left shoulder under the right arm.

We quitted Sheikh Adi in the course of the forenoon, the young prior accompanying us to the monastery gate in order to bid us farewell. He would accept no payment for our entertainment, representing that it was the custom of the monastery to keep open house for its visitors;[57] but "out of love for us he could not refuse" the gift that we proffered instead. We followed a very steep and rugged pathway, clambering out of the glen up the hillside immediately opposite; and from the notch at the summit we got our last view of that unhallowed Hoodoo House, and saw once more to the southward the ocean-like levels of Mosul.

Being now so deeply entered in devilry we had resolved to top off our orgy by paying our respects to the Satanic Pontiff, Ali Beg the _Mira_ of the Yezidis, whose home lay close to our road. A descent even rougher than the ascent led us down to the terrace of heath land from which the mountains arise; and here, on a sort of cape jutting out over the lower plain country, we came upon the _Mira's_ castle--a large defensible house with a walled courtyard. A beautifully clear little river issues from a spring just above it, and girdles the base of the hill on which the "castle" stands; and along the banks of the stream lies the Yezidi village of Baadri, one of their principal settlements in the district of Sheikhan.

The castle seemed pretty well garrisoned; for plenty of men were in evidence when we dismounted in the courtyard. But it is only constructed of _jess_ work; and the cracks which showed conspicuously in the walls of the _Mira's_ reception room suggested that repairs were getting a bit overdue.

This _diwan khana_ is a good-sized vaulted chamber; and its whitewashed walls were scrawled all over with rough pencil drawings of steam-boats and locomotives; as though the _Mira's_ visitors had been trying to explain to him the nature of these monstrosities, neither of which can be seen within a journey of ten days. The room was empty when we entered, but the _Mira_ appeared almost immediately, and seated us beside him on the dais at the end.

The High Priest of the Devil is a pronounced Anglophil,[58] a fact which will doubtless be deemed significant by our country's continental friends. He is also on terms of traditional amity with Mar Shimun, the Catholicos of the "Nestorian" Christians; for though the Christians abhor the "Devil Worshippers" most piously, both _millets_ are driven into sympathy by the common oppression of the Kurds.

Ali Beg was rather a big man, as men go in the mountain districts; probably about six feet high, and about forty-five years of age. He wore a dark brown _abba_ with gold embroidery round the collar; but we could make out but little of his features, as he kept his face closely muffled in the folds of his red Yezidi turban. This, however, was not to be attributed to any desire to imitate the veiled prophet of Khorassan, but only to the fact that he had a bad cold; an indisposition which had prevented his intended journey to Mosul. His manner was melancholy and depressed, as befitted the chieftain of a persecuted people; but perhaps this also, more prosaically, may be partly attributed to the cold.

He was attended by a Yezidi Sheikh, a very handsome man with a long black beard, wearing a white turban, and a gown and _abba_ of soft dove-coloured brown. The _Sheikhs_ are the second order of the Yezidi hierarchy; the _Cawwals_ or priests forming the third order, and _Pirs_, _Kuchaks_, _Fakirs_ and _Mollas_ being entrusted with various minor rites.

The _Mira_ is virtually the Khalif of his _millet_; absolute both temporally and spiritually--a sort of combination of emperor and pope. No one dreams of questioning any order of his, or of breathing any complaint of him to the Government. The _Mira_ can do no wrong. All his followers' goods are at his disposal. If he claims a woman, she is yielded to him; if he kills a man, nobody objects. Nay, the very fact of the _Mira_ having killed him confers on the victim such holiness that he becomes automatically secure of immediate admission to paradise; and under such desirable conditions who has any cause to object? The office of _Mira_ is hereditary, as such offices are in this country; for the idea of sanctity running in families is common both among Christians and Kurds. Mar Shimun among the former, and the Sheikhs of Barzan and Neri among the latter, may be quoted as parallel cases; and the practice has at least a respectable precedent in the house of Aaron among the Jews.[59]

Ali Beg is dead since our visit. Dead, by what (for a _Mira_ of the Yezidis) may be fairly described as "natural death;" for he was just "murdered by his successor" like any old Irish king. That the succession should be allowed to go out of the family would be a thing blasphemous to hint at; but that the rightful heir should seek to accelerate his accession is only a part of the game. It is a sporting game too; for if the adventurer fails, he dies himself by torture for sacrilege the most monstrous. But if he succeeds he is _Mira_, with all the _Mira's_ immunities. His predecessor is promoted to paradise, and he reigns absolute in his room.

Wherefore, as might well be expected, the _Mira_ is wont to take precautions; and keeps his potential successors rather studiously at arm's length. But the heir (in this case his nephew)[60] had this time taken precautions also; and had escaped across the Russian frontier, there to watch and bide his time. In the summer which followed our visit he stole back again from his exile; and fortune favoured his enterprise, for the _Mira_ fell by his hand. So now there is another _Mira_, the legitimate ruler of all the Yezidis; and no one will question his authority--until the end of his reign.

All unsuspicious of the coming tragedy we bade farewell to Ali Beg at the door of his _diwan khana_; having duly tasted of his hospitality, and assured each other of our mutual good will. One of his _Leichtach_ escorted us to a point about a mile from the castle, and thence we soon gained the pathway by which we were to return to Mosul.

We finished this nefarious excursion by lodging in a Yezidi village; for the whole stage was rather too far to be accomplished in a single day. And the normal state of relations between "True Believers" and "Devil Worshippers" was disclosed to us rather instructively when we began inquiring for bread. Our host denied categorically that there was so much as a crumb in the village--until (with a good deal of trouble) we convinced him that we proposed to pay! Apparently it is quite unusual for anyone to pay anything to a Yezidi. It is a "work of supererogation" and consequently of the nature of sin. The sight of our money produced lots of things; but our sulky host was quite spoiled by it. He proceeded to take offence with us because we did not invite him to dine![61] Thus Yezidis would seem by nature to be as wicked as workhouse orphans, and no doubt a little barbarity is essential to keep them in hand.

The fruit of our three days' transgression was revealed to us a little later, when we found that two of our followers (Moslems too, to make the crime more heinous) had been obviously indulging in _raki_[62] to celebrate their return to Mosul. "It is all your fault _Effendim_" they pleaded when we began to scold them. "It was you who betrayed our innocence into the abode of _Sheitan_. And lo, this thing has befallen us. We have touched pitch and are defiled."