Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/424

Judges, are venal to a proverb, their Oolema are unalterably attached to the old policy, and their soldiers are devoid of one spark of true patriotism. Look, then, at the state of the eastern provinces of the empire; on reaching Idlib, three days from the sea coast, we found the governor expelled the palace by his own attendants, the neighbourhood of the town was infested with robbers, and the same was the case between Aleppo and the Euphrates. Just before we entered Birejik, fifty villages in the Serooj had been laid waste by the Bedooeen, and the road to Urfah was impassable. The district between Mardeen and Jezeerah was overrun by troops of marauding Arabs, who ravaged the villages on the banks of the Tigris, and approached even to the walls of Mosul. No efforts were made on the part of the local authorities to stay these freebooters, who daily plundered caravans, and committed several murders with impunity. The same unsettled state of things exists up to the present time, no property is safe beyond the city gates, and the villagers in the plain are driven to pay the Arabs black mail to purchase indemnity from plunder and bloodshed. In the more distant provinces bordering on Coordistan, such as Bahdinan and the Tyari, which are now supposed to be entirely under Ottoman rule, the Christians continue to be oppressed as usual without any means of obtaining redress. The poor Nestorians are the chief sufferers here, so that it is to be doubted whether they have profited much by their change of masters. The present political condition of the mountain Nestorians will be noticed more particularly in the sequel.