Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/320

266 Beg, he became a joint confederate in all the cruel and sanguinary measures which were afterwards planned and executed upon the unfortunate Nestorians.

Ziner Beg, who had committed so many depredations in the Berwari, and on whose account the Patriarch visited Asheetha, as has already been related, was also a refugee among the Artushii Coords, under the fostering wing of Noorallah Beg.

Fearing to bring down upon themselves the vengeance of the Pasha of Mosul, the Nestorians of Asheetha had listened to the advice of Mar Shimoon, went against this outlaw, and entirely routed his followers. He was afterwards raised to the chief command of Bedr Khan Beg's troops, which he headed in their several attacks upon the Tyari. The circumstance of his having been thwarted and defeated in his designs by the Nestorians, sufficiently accounts for the bitter hatred which he manifested towards them on the occasion of the massacre.

But the most powerful associate of the Hakkari Emeer was Bedr Khan Beg himself. An innate hatred of Christianity, combined with a restless anxiety to prevent as far as possible the extension of Osmanli rule in Coordistan, made this bold and bigoted chieftain a ready confederate against the Nestorians. Had it not been for his powerful co-operation, there is every reason to believe that the attack upon the Tyari would not have been made, or if attempted, would have been successfully met and repulsed by the hardy mountain Christians. I shall now leave these infidel conspirators to ripen their nefarious schemes, whilst I give some farther account of our missionary proceedings at Mosul.