Erdil is a tiny derelict Christian village situated in the Oramar valley a little above its confluence with the Zab. All the surrounding villages are inhabited by Kurds and Moslems; and as from year's end to year's end it is hardly ever visited by any outside Christian, Rabban Werda had begged us earnestly at least to give it a call. Moreover we might make discoveries. Erdil was reputed to possess some "old books" which it was willing to show to Rabbi Dr. Wigram, and had sent us one Ibrahim, an Erdilite, who promised to lead us to the _cache_. "Old books," in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, are apt to prove not worth the seeking. But a scholar would never forgive himself for missing the hundredth chance.
The Oramar river is a noble stream, not inferior to the Zab in volume, gushing forth from a grim rocky portal which notches the Zab's mountain wall. We were assured that no European had ever yet traversed its gorges; and the assertion is certainly corroborated by the fact that the best map of these regions leaves this corner perfectly blank. In view of the repute of the road we felt half inclined for an instant to leave our animals at Suryi, and call again for them on returning. But we thought this would be too great a temptation for even a friendly Agha, and finally resolved to take them along.
Crossing the Oramar by the ferry, and keeping up the left bank of the river, we entered almost immediately a magnificent rocky ravine. On either hand rose gaunt and tawny precipices fully two thousand feet in altitude, scored all over their upper faces with the lines of the contorted strata, and thinly clothed near the bases with gnarled and stunted oak scrub. A deep, green, rapid river filled the whole of the narrow invert, and this channel was thickly cumbered by a selection of some of the very largest boulders that we have ever seen. Apparently there are many deep pockets just behind the faces of the precipices; and the water collecting in these, splits away the outer wall when it freezes, and sheds the gigantic fragments into the chasm. Not a few of these fallen masses must have been as big as the Marble Arch.
The pathway did not belie the report we had heard of it at Suryi. It scrambled along the steep bank above the river; narrow, broken, and half strangled among blocks of fallen stone. Three times that morning we had to unload the mules, hand the packs across the obstructions, and load again on the further side. Our red-turbanned cateran, who still led us, would pause now and then in the pathway, indicating the landscape at large with a flourish of his arm like a showman, and regarding us with a triumphant grin. But whether he wished to express his admiration of the romantic scenery, or his appreciation of its defensive capabilities, or merely to apprise us that Erdil lay absolutely on the summit of everything--as in fact it did--we were not quite able to decide.