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xii of his warlike followers. This blow, from which the Coords inhabiting the district to the south-east of the Nestorian territory have hardly yet recovered, together with other political intrigues set on foot to that end, had a powerful influence in inducing Noorallah Beg, the Emeer of the independent Coords of Hakkari, to sue for an appointment under the Pasha of Erzeroom, and to be officially recognised by the. Noorallah Beg already boasted of having reduced the mountain Christians to his obedience, so that the surrender of his own independence virtually comprised the subjection of the Nestorian tribes to the Ottoman sway.

Another event which gradually opened central Coordistan to the researches of the traveller, and to the labours of the Christian missionary, was the appointment of Mohammed Pasha, surnamed Injé Beirakdâr, to the government of the Mosul. This individual, who from being a groom had risen step by step to the high dignity of a provincial governor, was as famous for his vigorous efforts to reduce to order the unruly tribes comprehended within the limits of his jurisdiction, as for his grasping ambition, and the tyranny with which he oppressed all the subjects of the Sultan placed under his immediate authority. The Osmanlis, fully bent upon establishing Turkish rule over the whole of Coordistan, found in Injé Beirakdâr a fit instrument for effecting the object aimed at, and in furtherance of their purpose placed under his control the hereditary Pasha of Bahdinân, who had hitherto been nominally dependent upon the Pashas of Baghdad. It did not require any very great exercise of political intrigue, at which Mohammed Pasha was a perfect adept, to persuade the Porte that Ismaeel Pasha, then governor of Bahdinân, was disaffected to its interests, and upon this plea he was allowed to expel him from the strong fortress of Amedia, and to extend the limits of his jurisdiction to the foot of the Tyari mountains,—the border-land of the Nestorian tribes.

These machinations eventually led to a direct communication between the government at Mosul and the Nestorian Patriarch, who now placed between two enemies, the Emeer of Hakkari, and Mohammed Pasha, both alike busy in fomenting divisions among the Christians, in order the more easily to seize upon their inheritance, was obliged to refer and submit sometimes to