The Jacobite Church comprises about a quarter of a million adherents in Asiatic Turkey with--we believe--twelve bishops; and there are about the same number under British rule in Malabar.
Neither they nor their eastern neighbours the "Nestorians" hold now (if they ever did) the peculiar heresies which their names suggest, and which their enemies credited them with teaching. Each has now come to teach, and perhaps has always taught, all the doctrine that their Orthodox opponents sought to guard at the councils which these Separatists nevertheless continue to repudiate. The old division continues; but more as a matter of convenience than of principle, and the more intelligent bishops on both sides admit that all real differences have disappeared.
Yet no fusion is likely at present, for the rank and file are unreconciled, and fortify their mutual suspicion with all sorts of groundless ideas. "Is it really true," asked an old Jebel Tur monk in all simplicity, "that the Nestorians wash their altar with asses' blood before they celebrate the Eucharist?"
The Nestorian deacon who attended us, and who heard this amazing aspersion, could hardly be restrained from falling on the inquirer there and then!
From the eastern gate of Mardin the road decants itself plainwards in a skein of curves and zigzags--a vertical descent of 2000 feet, spinning out its gradients to a length of five or six miles. It is not at all a bad road. One could easily bicycle down it--and perhaps even bicycle up it if in specially strenuous mood. But it is, as it were, the swan-song of the modern Ottoman Telfords, and as soon as it reaches the level it reverts into a sheaf of footpaths. Henceforth to the end of our journey we saw no more metalled roads.
We had now, too, a further reminder of the fact that we were quitting civilization, for a couple of _zaptiehs_ rode with us to escort us over the stage to Nisibin. Hitherto such protection had been deemed needless: but in these remoter districts the Government prefers to have some tangible assurance of a European traveller's safety, seeing that it is liable to be held responsible if he is unfortunate enough to come to grief. Thus that modest intruder finds himself passed on from city to city with all the pomp and circumstance of an armed cavalry escort; and afflicted at every stage with the consciousness that he is passing current at a face value vastly in excess of his intrinsic worth.