To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise — Reading Notes

Disguise and Linguistic Passing

Soane’s ability to pass as a Persian among Persians is a central enabler of his journey. He mentions a knowledge of Persian “extensive enough to enable the writer to pass among Persians as one of themselves,” a skill he invokes to explain several situations in the narrative. This linguistic disguise allows him access to communities and conversations otherwise closed to a European traveler. The prefatory note anticipates that this claim might seem boastful, but he insists the incidents demand its mention. Throughout the excerpts, the reader glimpses the practical effects: Soane moves through Sulaimania and Halabja, joining caravans and observing local customs, without the overt protection of a foreign identity. The disguise is not merely a gimmick but a methodological necessity, shaping the texture of his observations and the trust he earns from Kurdish informants.

Caravan Travel and Insecurity

The journey from Sulaimania to Halabja illustrates the constant negotiation with danger. Soane describes a road that, though one of three safe routes, was still “impossible for any but a large caravan to travel” due to robbers belonging to shaikhs. The caravan is a weekly affair, conducted by natives, and Soane’s party joins it at a graveyard on a hill. The scene is vividly particular: three women squatting with bundles, Jaf horsemen with cartridge belts, and a minute ass that “expressed its unwillingness to proceed by sitting down frequently, in streams for choice.” A military escort of twenty soldiers accompanies them, but their zeal for duty, Soane notes dryly, seems to “begin and end with a practical study of” something left unfinished in the excerpt. The insecurity is perennial, preventing improvements in Sulaimania’s decaying houses, which are built on the Persian model but now ruinous.

Historical Sources and Kurdish Testimony

Soane’s historical chapters rely on unique sources: letters from Kurdish leaders and conversations at Halabja and Sulaimania. He names Shah Ali of Aoraman, Shaikh Reza of Kirkuk, and several Begs of the Jaf tribe as correspondents. For Chaldean history, he credits M. Badria and his brother Habib Badria of Mosul, who gave him access to old histories. This method yields “entirely new matter” on Kurdish history, which Soane considers unique. The excerpts include a footnote about a Kurdish rebel, Ibrahim Pasha, and a reference to a bribe amount “variously put at five, six, seven, ten, twenty, and thirty thousand tomans.” Soane’s careful attribution and his willingness to cite oral testimony distinguish his work from armchair ethnography. He presents the Kurds not as a monolithic stereotype but as a people with complex internal politics and a history worth documenting from their own voices.

Readers should approach Soane’s account as a layered document: a travelogue, an ethnographic record, and a personal defense of Kurdish character. The narrative’s value lies in its specificity—the names of informants, the details of caravan logistics, the architectural observations. Soane’s partiality is declared, not hidden, and his use of disguise invites scrutiny of how perspective shapes knowledge. The historical notices, though based on sources he cannot fully verify, offer a rare contemporary Kurdish perspective from the early twentieth century.

In Soane’s hidden journeys, I found the ache of wearing a borrowed self. That same quiet hum of foreignness lives in My Spanish Year — Text and Context, where every observed custom feels like a letter never mailed. Two companions for solitary shelves, each whispering that place is a language we learn slowly.