"We now made straight for Sheik Mattie, whose green gorge we could discover high up the face of the mountain. The plain was a succession of low hills all brown with the summer; here and there a Koord village with its cultivated fields, cucumbers, and cool melons. The villages west of the river are nearly all Christian, but on to-day's ride we passed two Koordish ones. At one we halted, and regaled ourselves and horses on the fruit they pressed on us. "The old sheik came out, followed by two men with felts; these were spread in the cool, and we made kief. He begged the loan of Zea, (my Albanian greyhound,) whom he praised beyond measure for his extreme beauty, to kill hares. To hear him talk, his complaints of game, of fields, hares destroyed, &c., I could have believed myself once more in England, but that he closed each sentence with "It is God's will; His will be done," and such like holy words. His long, wide, graceful robes also brought one back to the East, to poetry and to romance." And here we find less happy accidents in a traveller's life, which must not pass unremembered. "At first, one of the greatest privations I experienced in Eastern travel, and one that half did away with the pleasure derived from it, was the want of privacy; and one can fully understand (as probably centuries have produced but little change in their habits) the expression in the Bible, of our Saviour retiring apart to pray; for, in the East, privacy is a word unknown. Families live in one room; men, women, sons, daughters, sons' wives, &c., and may be said never to be alone. This at first annoyed me, but habit is second nature. As soon as the traveller arrives he has visits; all the world crowd to see him; the thousand nameless things one likes to do after a tedious hot journey must be done in public. Before you are up they are there; meals, all, there they are; and there is nothing for it but to proceed just as if the privacy was complete.... "FRIDAY, 12th--I rose as well as usual: on one side of the tent lay the Doctor, dead beat; under one flap which constitutes a separate room, Abdallah perfectly insensible: the cook lay behind on a heap of horse-cloths, equally stricken. I sat down to write in the air: finding the flies annoyed me, I read, fell asleep, and remember nothing save a great sensation of pain and weariness for two days. It seemed as if a noise awoke me; it was early morning, and Mr Layard stood before me. Poor fellow! he had learned how to treat the fever by bitter, almost fatal, personal experience; and now he dosed us and starved us, till all but Abdallah were out of danger, at all events.