The march went on, and still Cecil heard and saw nothing. Across the desert, up the lower hills, over the sandy tablelands, wound the long cavalcade, headed by banners and guards, kettledrums and led horses, and escorted by bands of irregular horsemen belonging to the tribes whose country was traversed. From pleasant villages in fertile valleys the people came forth with professions of obedience to the Pasha, and gifts of provisions for his followers. They were a much finer set of men than the inhabitants of the plains, strapping Kurds in pink and black striped garments and preposterous turbans, and sturdy Nestorian Christians in pointed felt caps, the women nearly all well-dressed, and often very beautiful. At night a site for the camp was chosen close to some village, and the richer inhabitants gave up their houses to the Pasha and his immediate following, while the motley crowd of hangers-on bivouacked outside. The journey through these districts was very pleasant, but it did not last long. The lower hills, with their orchards and vineyards, their rose-thickets and fruit-gardens, were soon left behind, and the way now lay through the mountains, dark and steep and rugged, which form the outermost of the natural fortifications of Kurdistan. The Pasha’s tour was not intended solely as a pleasure-trip. It was meant to combine with this the functions of a triumphal march, for in the district which was now to be traversed there had lately been “troubles,” both with the Kurds and the Yezidis, and the Pasha was making this progress as a kind of outward sign of the restoration of order, now that the Mutesalim or lieutenant-governor had put down the disturbances by force. The Mutesalim came to meet his overlord on the borders of his district, bringing with him a large body of troops, and the march through the newly pacified regions began. The Mutesalim was not altogether happy in his mind, for he was conscious that his own exactions and bad treatment of the people, Moslems and Christians alike (to ill-treat the heathen, as the Yezidis were called, was a matter of course), had caused the disturbances. He was further afraid that they might prove not to have entirely ceased even now, when, by his glowing reports of the successes he had won, and the peaceful and prosperous state of the country, he had, quite unintentionally, tempted the Pasha into paying it a visit. His uneasiness was only too well grounded. As soon as the caravan was once embarked on the difficult mountain-paths, it began to be beset by bands of Yezidis, the survivors of the communities which the Mutesalim had broken up. He had carried off the children as slaves and murdered all the adults he could find, but the young and active men had escaped into the fastnesses of the hills, and were preparing a welcome for their oppressor. With them were a few Kurds, whose wrath against the Mutesalim had been sufficiently strong to join them with the