Diarbekir

Diarbekir, a town of Asiatic Turkey, capital of a province of the same name, is situated on the right bank of the Tigris, 390 miles NW. of Bagdad. The town is surrounded by high strong walls, and commanded by a citadel built on a high basalt rock, against which the flat-roofed houses rise above each other in terraces. The population has dwindled to 40,000, mostly Kurds and Armenians. The city is the residence of a pasha, and the seat of a Greek bishop, as also usually of the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch. It has 27 mosques and 12 churches, and numerous bazaars, fountains, baths, and caravanserai, although the last are now falling into decay. Indeed, only in the centre of the town are any of the buildings handsome; elsewhere ruins meet one at every step. Stagnant pools, weeds, and filth combine to produce fevers. Diarbekir had formerly extensive manufactures of silk and cotton goods, and an active commerce with Aleppo and Bagdad; and it still has considerable trade in raw products. The roads to the coast are equally bad and insecure, and the traffic with Bagdad is mostly by raft. The principal exports are wool, mohair, sheep and goats, copper ore, butter, gall-nuts, goat and kid skins, and furs; the imports include cotton and woollen goods, indigo, coffee, sugar, buffalo-hides, petroleum, and soap. Diarbekir occupies the site of the ancient Amida, which was fortified by the Emperor Constantine. It was captured by the Persians in 359, and retaken by Justinian; but in 502 the Persians once more became masters, and put 80,000 of the inhabitants to the sword. In 640 it fell into the hands of the Arabs of the Bekr tribe, whose name became identified with the district; but the Turkish official title is still Kara Amid ('Black Amid,' from the colour of its basaltic walls). After many vicissitudes, the town passed into the hands of Sultan Selim in 1515.