Monday May 10. [10 May 1909] Off at 6.5 2400 and rode to Za'feran
which we reached at 6.30. It was a very difficult place to make
anything of. All that remained were the enclosing walls of the town,
built of masonry, about 170 thick, outer and inner sides faced, big
rubble and mortar between. The wall runs up to the top of a rocky
spur where there is no room for a citadel but this spur is divided from
the town by a cross wall. The ground between the top and the cross
wall falls very sharply. The town wall stretches out in an irregular
elongated semi arch. About the centre there is a big mass of
featureless ruin in which however I made out a door in the E wall and it
is therefore not a church. Some rock hewn sarcoph. near it and the
central road through the town passes by it and runs down to the S
gate which was quite narrow, not more that 200 wide. A similar gate in
the E wall and probably in the W. Lintels and door jambs with niche
for door but no inscrips. From the top fine view over the fertile valley
and the Tigris. Birds calling among the steep rocks behind.
Asphodel. We left at 8, got into the entrance of the pass at 9.25. A
very fine and well graded road leads up it - the top 3050 - but breaks
off shortly after the summit. The work was carried on the last 2 years
but not this year. Got to Zakho at 11 - 1800, Murray makes it 1400 and I
am therefore 400 ft out all the way from Mosul [Mawsil, Al] here. This
makes Mosul about 600. Kiepert calls Zakho 400m, ie 1316 ft. Got
into camp, lunched and went to sleep for 2 hours - it was very hot 92?.
When I woke it was clouding over for a thunder storm. Zakho castle
and most of the village stands on an island. A small bridge leads
across the S branch of the stream. Just S of it is the tomb of the Father
Soldini. The castle I take to be late Arab. Octagonal tower of very
fine masonry on the SE side. Chambers within with engaged columns
and caps on either side of doors and niches worked with fine Persian
patterns in low relief. A good inscrip in the main room, Arabic in a
pattern which I cd not read. Vineyards on the hill sides. The pass
was very lovely, thick with flowers. The great bank of the Kurdish hills
across the valley to the N, snow covered. Thunder storm and cooler.
M. Maurel of the Ottoman Debt came to see me before dinner. He
says the fathers at Mar Jacub told him that the villagers in the plain
below, as soon as the grass is ripe, set fire to the whole plain so that
the nomad Kurds may not come down to pasture their flocks - they
steal and ravage so much. The smoke and heat of the fires is
intolerable.