Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/27

Rh with the object of our mission, and with the nature of the researches contained in the following volumes. Not that they are confined to these topics; for it was judged that even way-side information respecting countries and people as yet but little known would not be devoid of interest to the general reader, and could in no way contravene the ends proposed by the Societies. In these volumes, therefore, will be found many occasional notices of the different places visited, the political, social, and religious condition of the inhabitants interspersed with a narrative of the usual incidents of travel, which, as when they occur, often serve to relieve the tedium of a journey, so when told frequently attemper the dryness of more important details. Moreover, in order to render a portion of this work serviceable as a guide-book to those whom business or pleasure may hereafter bring into Mesopotamia and Coordistan, the diary form has been adopted, and the distance from one locality to another recorded with an ever-recurring precision, which the fire-side reader may deem tedious, but which the actual traveller will often refer to with eagerness and satisfaction.

A melancholy interest will attach itself to the following pages on account of the details which they contain respecting the repeated massacre of the Nestorians by the barbarous Coords, the flight of the Patriarch Mar Shimoon, the captivity and sufferings of many of the Christians among the Moslems, their rescue, and the means adopted to restore them to their homes, and the venerable Patriarch to his ancient diocese. The part which the author was called upon to take, in relieving the necessities of the refugees and liberated captives, and in supporting the cause of the unfortunate Nestorians in various other ways, as also the full confidence which was placed in him by Mar Shimoon, who deputed him to transact the most important affairs touching the welfare of the whole Nestorian community, put him in possession of many facts relative to these disasters which have never yet been made public, and gave him a full insight into the political relations existing between the Patriarch and the Coordish Emeers of Hakkari, and into the intrigues which were set on foot by the Ottoman Porte to compass the subjection of the independent tribes.

Further, as the author resided in Mosul nearly a year after