Bashiqa

As we rode through [Bashiqah], marks of the late onslaught were traceable on every side. Heaps of stones and plaster, and here and there a broken wall, were all that remained of the Yazidi shrines and houses. The chief feature that former travellers remarked in these villages, the little clusters of conical white shrines, the Yazidi Shaqs, was gone; and in their place stood a new white-plastered mosque, looking ghastly out of the ashes from which it had risen. Thirty or four soldiers lounged about the village, reminding the people how noble a thing it is to be a Moslem, and slay professors of a foreign creed. Even the Christians did not seem happy, but looked at us in a cowed way, while Yazidis, thinking it was some government inspector, slunk away into the shelter of the houses. The Syrians, who number about thirty houses in this village, were busy building a new church. They were very proud of it, and pressed me to stay a night with them, saying how much their landlord, Abdunnur, did for them, and that a friend of his would be doubly welcome. But thinking that I should do neither them nor myself any good by remaining in the village, filled as it was with soldiers, I mounted and made my way on towards the Deir. Parry 1895, p 265-266