Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/242

188 provinces. He had already begun to feel that the existence of a British Vice-Consul at Mosul, acted as a restraint upon his proceedings generally, and that he could no longer exercise his former tyranny and despotism with the same recklessness and publicity; and he could not brook the idea that any foreigner should have the opportunity of acting as a spy or reporter upon his projected rule over the Nestorians. He had written frequent complaints against Mr. Rassam, hoping to get him removed from the consulate, and there is good ground for believing that he actually directed Khaled Beg, his Persian secretary, to write to his brother Tatar Beg, the governor of Nerwa, in Bahdinân, to put Dr. Grant out of the way, first by decoying him to a place of safety, and then by murdering him in cold blood with as much secresy as possible. The unsettled state of the Tyari, and rumours of a projected attack upon the Nestorians by the Coords, induced the doctor to leave Asheetha before this nefarious scheme could be put into execution, and he returned to Mosul in December, 1842, bringing with him all his moveable property which he did not consider safe to be left in the mountains. The treacherous Pasha welcomed his arrival, and shortly after requested him to attend him professionally.

About this time Bedr Khan Beg and Ziner Beg, the generalissimo of the Buhtân army, accompanied by Ismael Pasha, the ex-governor of Amedia, marched to the frontiers of Berwari, and invited the Coordish chiefs of that district to join them in an attempt to throw off their subjection to the Ottoman government. They also sent a message to Mar Shimoon, calling upon him to take part in the same league; whereupon the Nestorian patriarch lost no time in forwarding an account of this confederacy to Mohammed Pasha of Mosul, disclaiming any participation in the insurrection, and expressing a sincere desire to act in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan. The Pasha, who saw in this fresh outbreak a valid ground of complaint against the Coords, was highly delighted that he had been referred to by the patriarch, and was now led to hope that the government of the Tyari would not be withheld from him much longer. For the present, at least, his anticipations were destined to be disappointed. The Pasha of Erzeroom, who was nominally the governor of the Hakkari and Tyari tribes, having laid several