“So I must tell you that I am neither Persian nor Turk, nor Kurd nor Chaldean, but an Englishman, born of English parents in England, and brought up in that land; and that fact will perhaps in itself go to partly explain my presence here, for you must know that people of my race are given to wandering over the face of the earth with no other reason than to see it and the people it supports. I have spent nine years of my life in Persia, and there acquired the language and a knowledge of the habits and customs. To gain an intimate acquaintance with the people of that land, I turned Musulman—ostensibly—and passed through a long course of theological training. Two years ago I found myself in Kermanshah, of south-eastern Kurdistan, and finding the people and language an interesting study, resolved to pursue it whenever possible. So, after having been in England last year for some time, I found the fascination of Kurdistan and its mountains upon me, and resolved to visit it once more for a time. But as a European it was impossible and undesirable; for, as you know, a European would be an alien, a stranger without acquaintance, in an isolated position and a dangerous one, hampered in his movements, and often enough not allowed to go from place to place. Moreover, had I desired to travel thus I could not have done so, for I possessed but little money; so you see, everything pointed to the fact that if I wished to see Kurdistan again, I must go humbly, and as a native. So from Constantinople I set out, disguised, and came away gradually here, where I had wished to remain, in order to learn the language of Sulaimania, which up to the present has been unknown to the Europeans. I have now accomplished this, and want to leave Kurdistan again for a while. But I cannot look over the months I have passed here, Matti, without realising that had you not been here, with your help, your sincerity, your advice, and brotherly friendship—all extended to a man of whom you knew nothing—I should have fared much worse, have fared hardly perhaps, instead of living comfortably with a feeling that when anything went wrong there was always Matti to go to. So, brother, you know now what I am, and why here, and all that remains is to ask your forgiveness, and to tell you that I am, like yourself, a Christian, and no Musulman.”

“Allahu akbar!” cried Matti, using a Musulman phrase in his astonishment, “see the works of God, how inexplicable they are! Ghulam Husain, thou who art not Ghulam Husain, all that you tell me of being an Englishman I know to be true, for I see the truth in your eyes; but what matter it, if the friend be English or Russian, Turk or Kurd. What gives me greater joy than ever I felt before, is to think that he, in whom I found a friendly spirit, is of ourselves—of a Christian nation.

“Yet, had I known it before, how much more help I would have given you, for what I have done has been nought but the calling of mere courtesy, and the hospitable spirit incumbent upon all to the stranger, of whatever faith or race he be. Now, if you are resolved to go, I will give you letters to Khwaja Salim, my agent in Kirkuk, and to Matlub in Bagdad. But I place upon you an obligation, by your soul! that you will not, with the European clothes, put off the thoughts and remembrances of Kurdistan, nor let our names slip from your memory. For we are rough and savage, our ways are not yours—though you know ours, and follow them here like ourselves—what we deem comfort you deem savagery, and the European (I know this, for I have been in Beyrout and Aleppo and met the European) ever scoffs at the Eastern land; but we are still men, and if our lives are spent in a gloom of uncivilisation, it is not because we have refused to emerge from it, but because we cannot; perhaps we should lose our few good points in the strong light of Westernism, and, taking to its comforts, spurn its obligations and become worthless—as I have seen so many become, who have been to Europe and returned. So you have taken us all by surprise; like an enemy in disguise you have penetrated the walls of our strongholds, and I for one am not going to tell the bazaar who has been amongst us.”

Then he went on to ask details of my former life in Persia, and the way I had acquired sufficient knowledge of the land and life to pass in bazaar and mosque as I was doing.

During this conversation, one came to inform us that they were about to inter the body of Mustafa Beg. So, following him, we went outside to the graveyard on the southern hill, where on a bare stony slope three or four mulberry trees, bent double by the fierce “rashaba,” find a footing among Sulaimania’s dead. Here we met the coffin-bearers, who brought the coffin and without ceremony laid it in a shallow grave, covering it with stones and earth. There were but a few of us present, the master of the Military School, Matti, and myself, besides the people hired to bury him; nor could we stay, for the Hamavands were circling about on their ponies not far away.

The town surgeon had paid for his funeral out of the various almost worthless odds and ends he had possessed, together with his clothing, so that all that remained of the estate of the old Mustafa Beg was the four liras he had entrusted to my care. These I guarded, and would take to Bagdad, whence I could send them safely by postal remittance to Tripoli, and be reasonably certain of their getting to their proper destination.

The few of us who had seen the body buried were much affected by the death of the old man, though he was neither of our race nor countries; he was a stranger, and his horrible death in a place where he had lived an unhappy and lonely life, showed at once in a vivid manner the insecurity, and brought home to both Matti and the master of the School the danger in which they lived, and made them compare involuntarily their own positions in the town with that of Mustafa Beg. For though they were nothing like so friendless, they were equally unprotected, and above all they were strangers in the land. The sympathy of the Kurd and the people of Persia and Kurdistan generally for the stranger is a lively one; in these lands, to be away from home means more than in countries where communication is rapid and intercourse between distant points is frequent. The native place is very dear indeed to the Turk, Persian, and Kurd. It is an innocent enthusiasm that prompts the dweller in a pestilential and fever-ridden village with salt water, to extol it as little less than Paradise itself, for the discomforts of life in a strange land, far from his own language or dialect, make the place he left appear far superior, and distance lends an enchantment to his view that leads him to make the most flattering descriptions of his native place. How often had old Mustafa Beg told of the beauties of his Tripoli, its fruits, its busy sea-coast, its climate, the hospitable nature of its inhabitants; and how often had he sighed to go back, and counted the months to the time when he should have sufficient money to return; and all his eulogies had ended with a hope, expressed fervently, that at least he might die among his own people; but here we were burying his remains in a land which he hated, whose people he hated, and of whose language he knew not two words.

And as we saw the last shovelfuls of earth placed upon his grave, the watchers on the hill-top cried out to us to get away to town quickly, for over the valley came a small party of horsemen, the Hamavands, shooting at targets as they galloped; and we had to hasten back lest the living should follow the new-buried dead.

At the house I found Hama, looking wretched. He had not succeeded in finding the stolen “run,” and had called in the police, who were more disposed to work up a case against him than help; for they heard whose servant he was, and had some hope of getting out of this business what they failed to get out of the passport affair—some money. I am afraid I did not care much, for I was resolved to leave very soon, and knew that it would be impossible to get satisfaction. But as he urged, I went to the acting Mutasarrif, whom I found in a little garden, surrounded by several colonels, all drinking coffee. Once more I had to go through the nuisance of introducing myself, hearing the same comments upon Persia, and answering the same questions regarding my native country, my travels, trade, and aims. Three or four spoke Persian, and were glad of the opportunity to display their knowledge to their more ignorant fellows, so with a few compliments upon their knowledge, I became friendly with them. In the middle of it the police commissaire came in, and seeing me upon the right hand of the deputy-governor, approached with smiles and compliments. The usual course of such things followed. The deputy-governor gave orders in a fierce voice that the stolen property should be immediately forthcoming. The commissaire assured him that that was the only aim in life of his four men, all at work on the affair, and bowed himself out to complete their operations. A soldier was sent to the scene of action, in town, “to make sure the stuff was produced immediately,” and I took my leave perfectly satisfied that nothing would be done—as it most surely was not.

During the next two or three days I began to think how I could get away, and had almost settled a contract with a Shuan Kurd to go by donkey through the villages, and by making a detour to the Zab River, come at Kirkuk from the north. But hardly had I provisionally settled with him, than news and a caravan came direct from Kirkuk. The Hamavands had moved south, across the Bagdad road, and the Turks, who had not dared to come out of Chemchemal while they still remained in their country, were now scouring Bazian and its hills, and for the first time since March the road was passable; it was now the end of July.

The caravan was to go back in a day or two to bring some of the merchandise that had accumulated during the four months of insecurity. So I made haste to avail myself of this opportunity, and arranged to hire a mule from one Salih, a long-limbed Turkoman of Kirkuk. I paid the rent of my little house, and bade farewell to the various people with whom I had made friends. Asima Khan, the lady who had been instrumental in ridding me of the trouble caused by Sayyid Nuri, came with a number of the other neighbours’ wives, and made the occasion of a call upon the old house-dame an opportunity for bidding me good-bye.

I was sorry to part from Gulchin, for she was the freest, most frank, and candid character of all, and her light-hearted ways and open sincerity had done a great deal to make the life in Sulaimania pleasant. She was looking very serious to-day in the company of her aunt Asima Khan, and presented the subdued and humble appearance due from a divorced girl in the presence of her seniors and superiors. So, since it would not be etiquette, even in free Kurdistan, to have held long conversation with the assembled company of women, I returned their farewell compliments and retired again to the house where I was settling with Hama, who tried to induce me by every means in his power to take him. But this I did not wish, for I intended, once clear of Sulaimania, to declare myself Christian, and see how one of that religion fared among the people of these parts, and Hama’s attachment to me was greatly due to my piousness as a Musulman. Besides, he had sworn to my orthodoxy before Uthman Pasha and the assembled company, so I could not undeceive him, quite apart from the fact that did I ever return, I hoped to be welcomed again as Mirza Ghulam Husain.

In the custom of Sulaimania, we were to leave in the afternoon; not like the Persian habit, which enjoins rising in the cold, dark dawn. I had therefore to buy some food to last at least three days, for we were not going to Chemchemal, and between Sulaimania and our first inhabited stopping-place it might be three days. Gulchin had made me some road bread, sheets the size of a sheet of brown paper, and little thicker, of white, crisp bread. This with some pears was all I took, and all that would be considered necessary by any ordinary person in these parts. A little bowl for drinking-water completed the road outfit, with the exception of a cotton quilt, which served both for a cover at night and a softener over the hard pack-saddle.

I spent the morning bidding farewell to the numerous friends and acquaintances I had made during my stay in Sulaimania, and entrusted such affairs as were as yet unsettled to Matti. Then we had the usual “merchants’ lunch” of kebab and bread together, and on foot set out on the road to walk a little way together, and join the caravan outside. It was the first time for months past that any one had dared venture outside the town on the Chemchemal side, for, but a week before, the Hamavands had been scouring the plain right up to the gates of the town.

Matti had not informed the muleteer who I was or of what creed and nationality, and I did not propose to him to do so. I should be asked, and that soon, and I could give such answer as I felt inclined. Habib, I think, had a notion that I was not what I pretended to be, for he was of a prying nature, and he had professed it difficult to believe several of my assertions in the face of the English and French books, and the maps he saw at my house, which to him suggested disguises and intrigues, because he could not understand them.

We came up to the waiting animals—a little group of three or four, for the main caravan had not arrived—and here took leave of one another, an incident of no little regret upon my part, and I hope, too, upon that of Matti; and before we left the brow of the hillock, I looked my last upon Sulaimania, a cluster of flat roofs in a hollow almost invisible a mile away, so well did the old pashas hide their town from the view of Turk and Kurd alike. I gazed, too, for a moment upon distant Aoraman, a frowning wall, black now, the snows invisible from the distance—the frontier of Persia, from which I once more receded.