THE ANSAYRII, OR ASSASSINS.*

THE Ansayrii, or Nusayrii, have, by their identification with the "Assassins" of the Crusaders, their mysterious worship, their oft-misrepresented secret practices, and their unexplored mountain recesses, been, both themselves and their country, involved in all the interest of a semimystic obscurity. True that the Ansayrii themselves are scattered all along the coast of North Syria and Cilicia, and that they constitute in those countries a large portion of the agricultural labourers-that many have been employed as servants by Europeans residing in the Levant; true, also, that their own country is constantly traversed by Europeans journeying from Tripoli to Hamah, by their once great strongholds Kalah al Husn and Kalah al Masyaad, and from Latakia to Aleppo, by the Jibal Kraad; but still there remained a limited but unknown and unexplored tract of country between these two travelled routes, and little insight into the practices of the secluded mountaineers had ever been arrived at from the pliant and crafty denizen of the plain and the city.

We are indebted to Mr. Walpole for a first thorough exploration of the Ansayrii country, and a carefully-prosecuted inquiry into the habits and manners of this strange people. It was, he says, after he arrived at Bayrut, on his second trip, that he began to think of making a point of exploring the country of the Ansayrii more thoroughly than had been yet done. "I looked at the map," he says, in his sparkling narrative. "There was nothing to do; all was filled in Kasnian, Jerusalem, the Hauran. If I bought tape in a shop on Ludgate-hill, ten to one if the person who served me had not taken a return-ticket by the steamer, rushed in a fortnight over Syria and Egypt, and knew as much, at all events, as his dragoman thought he ought to know for his money. The compasses dropped from my hand in despair; there was nothing for it but to get a friendly doctor quietly to make me a Mussulman, and, joining the caravan, go on to Mecca. But no: here is a wild part, bare from Safyta to Nahr al Kabir, which Arrowsmith has never ventured to put on copper. I turned to Kelly-almost the only book that has survived my journey-and there actually in print saw: We have now skirted both flanks of the mountains inhabited by the Ansayrii, or Ansayrians, and Ismalys, without having made any intimate acquaintance with these strange tribes or their abodes, which all European travellers seem very shy of approaching.'

"Ten thousand thanks, fellow-traveller! Here was untrodden ground. I was off, and fixed my head-quarters at Latakia.

"In this journey, or rather in its first stage, others, far abler than myself, have trodden before me; but the reader will allow that I have not sought to copy or relate what they also saw. I came like a pilgrim, and put mortar in the interstices, and replaced stones broken through the lapse of time, thus endeavouring only to relate what others had overlooked. In this, I hope, the reader will find pleasure.

The Ansayrii, and the Assassins, with Travels in the Further East in 1850-51; including a Visit to Nineveh. By Lieutenant the Hon. F. Walpole, R.N., author of "Four Years in the Pacific." 3 vols. Richard Bentley.

"My travels in the Mountains of the Ansayrii are new, and many of the places were never before visited by Europeans. To this new route let me invite the reader, the traveller, the savant. The Ansayrii have long been an enigma; travellers have skirted, have beheld from a distance, but have never ventured among their hospitable tribes. Even Burckhardt slept only one night at an Ansayrii village. Pococke, I think, says merely that they make and drink abundance of good wine. The pioneer has been; he has returned safe. From what I know of them, I invite travellers among them, and, in the language of the Arab, say, 'Ta faddale eh mah salaami!' (Step in, and peace be with you!)"

We must avow at the outset our conviction that the political and theological importance of the Ansayrii and of their country has been enveloped in a good deal of unnecessary mystery, and, as a natural sequence, has been very much exaggerated. The Ansayrii Mountains, which occupy the limited tract between the valley of the Nahr al Kabir, at the northern extremity of the Lebanon, and the river of Latakia, which separates them from Casius and Anti-Casius, has not a length of above fifty miles by twenty-five in extreme width. Bounded on one side by the sloping littoral of Tortosa, Gabala, and Laodicea, well known to travellers cut through by the great roads to Hamah, by Kalah al Husn and Kalah Masyaad, to Jisr al Shughr (ancient Seleucus ad Belus), by the Jibal Kraad, the country of the scammony growers-and descending abruptly into the valley of the Upper Orontes (ancient Cælo-Syria)-accident, far more than any real apprehension on the part of Syrian travellers, has been the reason that these limited mountain-districts have been so little visited. Travelling along the coast-line, the wanderer finds little to tempt him away to these pathless mountain tracks. Following the valley of the Orontes, the temptations to climb the bluff green hill that breast that valley to the westward like a wall are still less felt. So, also, passing from Tripoli or Tortosa to Hamath, or from Latakia to Jisi al Shughr, the fame of few cities or ruins of magnitude attract the wan derer from the beaten road. As to the Ansayrii, they are, as before said scattered over the country; the mountains that bear their name can scarcely be called their stronghold. We shall subsequently see that they dwell only in the lower or hilly country. There are, probably, nearly as many villages of Ansayrii in Cilicia as in the Jibal Ansayrii; there are, we should suspect, two to one in the Jibal Kraad. The road through the latter country, and which the writer has traversed with a single muleteer -one that was also explored long ago by the veteran Maundrell-may, indeed, be said to lead through the heart of the country.

As to the Ansayrii themselves, they are well known as the most industrious, peaceful, open-hearted, honest race of mountaineers in Syria. They are calumniated by the Muhammadans, who hate them because they will not pay due reverence to their Prophet, and by the Christians, who abominate them because they do not acknowledge their Messiah. "In that part of the mountains above Jibali," said old Maundrell (a.d. 1697), "there dwell a people, called by the Turks Neceres (Nusayrii, or Ansayrii), of a very strange and singular character; for it is their principles to adhere to no certain religion, but, chameleon-like, they put on the colour of religion, whatever it be, which is reflected upon them from the persons with whom they happen to converse. With Christians they

profess themselves Christians; with Turks, they are good Mussulmans ; with Jews, they pass for Jews; being such Proteuses in religion, that nobody was ever able to discover what shape or standard their consciences are really of. All that is certain concerning them is, that they make very much and good wine, and are great drinkers."

This last statement is fathered by Mr. Walpole on Pococke. The latter learned traveller says of the Ansayrii, "The Noceres, who live north-east of Latichea, are spoken of by many. Their religion seems to be some remains of Paganism; they are much despised by the Turks, and these people seem rather fond of the Christians. I could not learn anything particular concerning their religion, only, that once a year they hold a sort of feast by night, which very much resembles the ancient Bacchanals; it is possible they may be the descendants of the people called Nazerini, mentioned by Pliny.

Similar prejudices have been handed down from traveller to traveller, few taking the trouble to inquire for themselves; for who has been among the Ansayrii, and not received the most favourable impressions of their character ?-(See a paper on the Ansayrians, or Ansayrii, in Ainsworth's Magazine, vol. iii., p. 582.) But there was supposed to be something secret, something mysterious and hidden in their doctrines and practices, and that was quite sufficient that it should be rendered a hundred-fold more obscure and mysterious by speculations innumerable, and additions in almost the same ratio.

No sooner had Mr. Walpole taken up his quarters in an old, tumbledown Mussulman's house at Latakia, than he began his inquiries. Though previously acquainted with many Ansayrii, high in their degree, he had not yet discovered one trace of their belief, all his inquiries being met by, "I am of your faith," or the equally common answer of, "Your faith, my lord frankmason" (freemason). But at Latakia our traveller thought he had a lever which would work, and that was, to learn religion, as some people learn languages-through the medium of fair lips. But, alas! this notable project was soon blown to the winds, for some sullen Ansayri assured him that they never taught their religion to their women. "Would you have us teach them," he said, "whom we use, our holy faith." No, the Ansayrian ladies were left to go to heaven their own way. Being thus defeated in his project of obtaining information at Latakia and the Ansayrian villages in the immediate neighbourhood, Mr. Walpole determined to start for the interior:

"To-morrow, dear reader, I had intended to have taken my leave of you, among the orange-blossoms of my court; but, if you will, we will yet journey on; and tread where none of European race have ever yet roamed. I take your consent; the servants furbish up their arms; the hadji is off to the bazaar, to a secret store, whence he draws hashish; he would die, he says, without it, and feels sure those bookless dogs, the Ansayrii, never heard of the holy weed.* So, Inshallah! to-morrow shall see us on the road."

Our traveller's way lay by Basnada, up the Nahr al Kabir-the river of Latakia. Thence to Shulfatiya, most travellers' first station on the road to Jisr al Shughr and Aleppo, and "here," says Mr. Walpole, his first ordeal

*Yet are they the Hashishin or Assassins of old.

had to be passed, "the whole male population poured out; his hand was kissed, his horse much bored-half inclined to kick-was borne along till we reached the open space in front of the village. The women, doomed to toil, all soulless as they are, hang timidly back. Felts were spread on a rising ground, and there we sat. The spot was very pretty; the flatroofed hovels, each with an affair like the tilt of a waggon, made of twigs on the roof in these the natives sleep during the summer." It seems to have been Mr. Walpole's intention to have gone on at once to Kalah al Siyun, or Sion as he writes it; but no sooner at Shulfatiya, than, he says, his companion showed so many causes why that he most unwillingly gave up his own route, and they agreed at once to go to the southward.

They accordingly proceeded next day south and by east over an undulating plain to the district of Mahalbi. Here the good and much calumniated Ansayrians came out and pressed them to remain the day with them. "It is our right to-day to have you." But our travellers continued onwards over low rounded hills, covered with myrtle and rhododendron, (oleander?) passing the Nahr Shubar, or Stamar, to the district of Kaldahha, whence Volney derived his Kalbia, the residence of the Ansayrii shaikh Ismaal al Osman. Along the road they passed many ruined villages, and kubbahs, or tombs of shaikhs and holy men, as in other parts, with neatly whitewashed domes. Beyond Kaldahha was the district of Bani Ali, one of the best cultivated of any. This was directly east of Jibali, ancient Gabala. Beyond this they came to the village of Ain al Shughr, "the sweet, or sugar spring," which Mr. Walpole calls Ein el Sakarr, and where they were received at the house of Shaikh Sukkur, a real Ansayrian and a notorious bon vivant. They did not avail themselves, however, of the proffered hospitality of the shaikh, but proceeded over a more hilly but wooded country to Matua, the residence of Shaikh Habib, one of the religious heads of the Ansayrii nation, and having a revenue of about 1000l. a year. Much of this, however, is property left to his ancestors by pious persons, and the proceeds of which he is bound to spend in hospitality. All who come are fed, and remain as long as they please. After death he will be canonised, and his tomb will add to the number of holy stations that dot the hills all around.

From hence Mr. Walpole diverged a little to visit the castle of Bani Israal, or the children of Israel, situated on a high conical hill in the middle of a deep gorge. This is a ruin of some extent, including a castle of Saracenic origin, (?) with a modern outer wall of rubble, and a village in ruins. A little scene, characteristic of mountaineer mistrust, occurred at this spot, whither Mr. Walpole had repaired, partly on horseback, partly on foot, accompanied by fifteen armed Ansayrii:

They led me to the entrance of a subterraneous passage, which they told me was the Prison of Blood (meaning the prison for great offences rather). Except the wonders of this spot, its depth, and the vast treasures contained in it, they had no traditions of the place. However, as we were there, they surrounded me and begged me to be seated, requesting to know what I wanted with Shaikh Habeeb. Stoutly maintaining the truth, that it was but to make his friendship, they were much vexed at my, as they fancied, not wishing to confide to them also the secret. After awhile, they resumed their civility, and we proceeded back to the sheik's house. One of the brothers of the sheik, who, as I before said, had accompanied me, spoke both warmly and well of their condition. "Think not that the Christians," he said, "are more loved by the

Turks than we are. They are more numerous, and the Frank protects them; but for us, who have none to protect us-none to speak-we are a ready prey for the Turk; and, being weak, a fair spoil for the Christian. While the one takes by force, the other sucks the remainder by fraud. Why should we toil when those we hate reap? Why should we improve, to better our enemy? Ya Wallah! we hate them, their faith, their race, their name; and they know it. Did a Turk ever do good to one of us? if he did, it was as a man gives corn to his beast, to keep him alive to work."

Shaikh Habib said to Mr. Walpole, that he would grant protection and a house to any teacher that kind philanthropists at home might send out to the Ansayrii; but he insisted that the school must be under the supervision of one of themselves; that no means might be used to convert the boy, whose youth and undergrown intellects would render him liable to such perversion.

The next village, Zama, was in a state of insurrection, and, worse than all, much addicted to brigandage; our traveller, however, was not only allowed to pass unmolested, but hospitality was proffered, which, for reasons of discretion probably, was declined. Beyond this was the village of Kaffir Dabin, on the Nahr Shubar, the taxes of which are a perquisite of the Sultan's mosque at Jibali (a common arrangement in the East), and whose unfortunate shaikh had been in prison for two months for arrears of dues incurred by his predecessors. But might is right from Paris to Pekin. These poor prostrate tributaries to a Muhammadan mosque were so abased in morality as to proffer a girl about fourteen years of age, as also a boy, as a servant to Mr. Walpole, to induce him to obtain the release of their shaikh. Happily, our traveller was subsequently enabled to effect this without robbing the village of a portion of its youthful population. Mr. Walpole reached Kaldahha, the seat of Ismaal Osman, the same evening. From this place he visited, in a north-easterly direction, Kalah, or Castle Mahali, the more ancient name of which is said to have been Blackness, or Bethlehem. This castle was like the others in the Ansayrii country, situated amidst rugged yet beautiful mountains. The ruins appear to have been of Muhammadan origin, comprising what is called the Harim, and some still perfect rooms, called the Divan al Malik, or the king's apartments a lofty arched gateway, with large vaulted guard-rooms on each side, an inner wall and outer walls, built of large stones and defended by towers. On returning to the village, the strange admixture of hospitality and cupidity, which is so characteristic of the Arab, again manifested itself among the Ansayrii:

On returning to the village, the people had prepared a feast ample for twenty, and pressed me to eat. On my complimenting my host on the extreme beauty of his daughters, he said "In your country would they fetch two thousand piastres ?" "But have the mountain youth no taste; will they not give two thousand for such angels ?" "Yes, Ya Beg, they would, but then they cannot; they have it not. They pay ten now and twenty then; perhaps the whole is not paid before ten years; then he gives a sheep to-day and a felt tomorrow, but I want two thousand down. Come marry, Ya Beg; why waste your youth in wandering over old mountains, looking at ruined stones. Marry and live long? Kishmet, kishmet!"

On leaving Kaldahha for the lower country, whither Mr. Walpole says. he was forced to return from the sickness of an attendant, several shaikhs joined him, and the poor left their work to kiss his hands: his march was