Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/372

318 solitary Arab family, who gain a scanty livelihood by cultivating rice, which is raised in large quantities in this district. At 10 o'clock we forded a considerable stream running towards the south-west, and then re-ascended the high table-land which stretches southward beyond the Euphrates. The road was still very rugged, and strewed over with volcanic rocks; tells were scattered about in every direction, near to which we saw several Coordish villages and encampments. We were within a stone's cast of before we were aware of it, the town being situated in a deep hollow. The country in the immediate vicinity is covered with vineyards, from which a tolerable wine is made; the other staple products being wheat, barley, rice, tobacco, and honey. The remains of a fortress are still visible on a mound commanding the town, which from this elevation appears to consist of a few dozen houses, several dwellings being joined together under one roof, as in many of the Coordish villages already described. The town itself, however, contains a population of 500 Mussulman families, with four mosques. The Armenians number 120 houses, with a church and four priests, reckoned within the diocese of Urfah. There are also a few Greek Christians in the town, who are employed as builders; but they have no church or clergy nearer than Diarbekir. Sewrek is reckoned sixteen hours from Semsât, sixteen from Arghana, and forty from Kharpoot; it is considered within the pashalic of the latter place.

From Sewrek we had a good view of the Gerger Dagh, which has already been mentioned as inhabited by Syrian Jacobites. It is situated on the western side of the Euphrates, about twelve hours distant from Sewrek, and Mutrau Matta who visited the district to collect money for the Patriarch, informed me that there are no less than sixty Christian villages in this mountain, which are considered as forming a part of the diocese of Kharpoot. He also told me of many other villages peopled by the same community on the banks of the Euphrates between Malatiyah and Semsât (Samosata,) who, according to his account, (and being a Jacobite himself he was not likely to exaggerate their spiritual destitution,) retained little more than the bare name of Christians. The priests were in an equally degraded condition, scarcely knowing how to read the Syriac of their