Tergawar has always been a land of war, even when it was not a debatable land between Turkey and Persia. Here are several villages of Nestorians--as ever a good fighting stock; and these being tolerably well armed are chronically at feud with their Kurdish neighbours, a small broken clan recognizing no one head, and known as the "Begzadi." The principal Christian chief, a man of the name of Bajan, had a reputation as a warrior even among those who were men of war from their youth. His absolute fearlessness had brought him triumph repeatedly against the longest odds, and his enemies even esteemed him invulnerable. One day, in the heat of a fight, he forced his way single-handed into a house where five Kurds had gathered; and they surrendered to him in a body. When their friends chaffed them afterwards, saying, "Bajan is a good fighter, no doubt; but still he was but one, and you were five"; they simply replied, "Well, what could we do? We fired at him, and the bullets flattened on his coat." Even to this day old men who have served under John Jacob in India will say that they have seen him shake the bullets out of his tunic after a skirmish. Tough old Bajan is dead now, we regret to say; but dead in a way befitting. He went to help a Kurdish friend in battle, just from sheer love of a fight; and a bullet that took him behind the ear and came out at his forehead was too much even for his invulnerability. The Christians of the Tergawar villages (Marwana, Kurana, Balulan, and others) were good fighters, as has been said, but fairly good average Christians withal; though one owns sorrowfully that fiery old Bajan was "not so good a Christian as so good a knight should be." They were undeniably rowdy and turbulent, however; quarrelling among themselves almost as much as they did with the Kurds! Grazing rights and boundaries were usually the _casus belli_; a fruitful cause of bad blood, whether among the Dandie Dinmonts of Liddesdale or the borderers of Persia and Turkey. As Christians, they have, of course, their clergy; but these are peasants like themselves, living as they do, and hardly better taught. The _qashi_ or priests may indeed be able to read the services, and it is not the thing for them to take part actually in the tribal battles. But this disability does not apply to the deacons (_shamashi_), who in the Nestorian Church form a regular grade in the ministry, with regular duties of their own, and are not merely candidates for the priesthood. These may go out to fight if the case requires it; and more than one reverend deacon among them leads the fighting as efficiently as he leads the prayers. One prominent Kurdish Agha, a certain Bedr Khan Beg, takes out his Christian village to battle, as readily as his Kurdish one: and the village deacon is his second in command.