Kurtler--Kurds! No sooner have we crossed the frontier than we find ourselves in their midst. The mountains of Kurdistan are more than 100 miles distant; yet these parasites fasten upon the countryside. Still their presence is appropriate and is not unwelcome, so long as they are confined to alpine solitudes like those which surround the village of Chat. Tufts of grass, interspersed with an endless crop of stones, were the only pasture which we had seen for some time. Yet the shepherds were in possession of a considerable stock of hay, against the approach of a winter season which can scarcely lack rigour at an elevation of 6700 feet above the sea. Their habitations just protrude above the level of the ground; and, once within the doorway, you proceed through narrow passages into the very bowels of the earth. In the darkness you stumble upon the forms of cattle or wake a ragged child. We took up our quarters in one of the largest of the subterranean chambers, lit our candles, and spread our carpet on the bare soil. We were surprised to discover that the roof of the apartment was artificial--layers of mud and straw, held together by laths of wood, and supported by huge beams. The walls, too, were built up of rough stones, plastered together; it was evident that the room was only three-parts buried, and that it communicated directly with the outer air. In fact we could see an aperture, the rude counterpart of a window, above the opening to the winding passage through which we had come. On the side opposite this only entrance a square hole in the face of the wall nourished a smouldering fire. The smoke wreathed upwards to a vent in the roof, or was sucked inwards towards the tunnelled approach. When morning broke we were glad to issue from the fetid atmosphere of this human burrow into the pure mountain air. A few gaunt figures were standing upon the higher stages of the eminence which had provided a suitable site for these underground operations, and which rose like a large ant-hill from the waste of stone. Women squatted before the doors of the straggling tenements, weaving the bright rugs for which their race is famed. We proceeded down the glen, along the banks of a little stream. It finds an easy exit from the heart of the mountains, threading the trough of one of the meridional valleys. After riding for an hour and a half, we opened out the southern landscape from some high ground above the village of Amat (Fig. 108).