A stormy wind, bringing with it splashes of rain, swept us next morning over the wet uplands. About an hour from Bâb we were joined by a Circassian wrapped in a thick black felt cloak, which, with the white woollen hood over an astrachan cap, skirted coat with cartridges ranged across the breast, and high riding-boots, is the invariable costume of these emigrants from the north. His name was Maḥmûd Aghâ. His father had left the Caucasus after the Russians took the country and had gone with all his people to Roumelia, where they settled down and built houses. And then the Russians seized that land also, and again they left all and came to Manbij, and the Sultan gave them fields on his own estates. “But if the Russians were to come here too,” he concluded, with the anxious air of one who faces an ever-present danger, “God knows where we should go.” “Their frontier is far,” said I reassuringly. “Please God,” said he. I asked him about the recent elections and found that he took a lively interest in the politics of the day. He knew the names of the deputies who had been returned for the vilayet of Aleppo, and said that a thousand people had given their votes in the Manbij district, though there should have been many more if all had been on the register. But they would not trouble to have their names placed upon it. “Wallah, no,” observed Ḥâjj ’Alî. “Do you think that the fellaḥîn of all these villages wish to vote? If they knew that their name was written down by the government, they would take to their heels and flee into the desert, leaving all that they have. So great would be their fear.” This was a new view of the duties and privileges of citizenship, and once more I had to shift my ground and look at representative institutions through the eyes of the Syrian peasant. “Then none of the Arab vote?” I asked, when I had accomplished this revolution of the mind. The Arab are the Bedouin. “God forbid!” replied Ḥâjj ’Alî. “Where is Aleppo and where their dwelling-place!” “We are all equal now before the law,” said Maḥmûd Aghâ inconsequently (but he was thinking of townsfolk, not of the Arab), “and all will be given an equal justice. We shall not wait for months at the door of the serâyah before we are given a hearing--and then only with bribes.” “I have heard that all are equal,” said I, “and that Christian and Moslem will serve together in the army. What think you?” “Without doubt the Christians may serve,” he answered, “but they cannot command.”