There are better precedents for his lack of learning, too, than mediæval England can furnish. The "Apostolical Constitutions" (a fourth century composition) distinctly contemplate the existence of illiterate bishops as a very possible phenomenon. "If the bishop cannot write, he should be at least possessed of native shrewdness," says the author of the compilation. Is not the age of Nicaea a good time for precedents, O purist in matters ecclesiastical? Mar Dinkha would pass the test proposed there; and his discipline, if of the roughest, is perhaps for that reason the better suited for his flock. Once he came to his friends of the Archbishop's Mission with a request for a new pastoral staff. The old one (a stout stick of oak) had "become broken" over the back of a village _qasha_ (rector) whom he found ploughing on Sunday! In the year 1903 the chronic trouble among these disorderly elements blazed up in a notable conflagration. Grazing quarrels started it, as usual; but it must be owned that the hotheads among the Christians did their best to aggravate matters. They had a trick of ridiculing the differences between _Shiah_ and _Sunni_ among the Mussulmans, by labelling one dog "Ali" and another "Mohammed," dressing them up as soldier and _mollah_, and then setting them to fight; and this might well have angered more peaceable people than their Begzadi neighbours. It was not surprising that a confederacy was formed to attack the guilty village of Mawana, which was then at open feud with its Christian ally of Balulan, and so appeared an easy prey. If the men of Mawana had gone out of their way to provoke the quarrel, at least they fought it out stoutly. Finding how formidable was the confederacy against them, they gathered together--some fifty fighters in all--and went up in a body to the church of the village. There each and all kissed the cross, as a solemn committal of their cause to God, and then commenced the fighting. Though outnumbered seven to one they beat back four assaults in the course of seven days. "And in that time," as they told proudly after, "not any of the houses of our village were burnt, save one; and that belonged to a man of the Protestants, who had refused to come and kiss the cross with the rest of us." Still, as their cartridges ran low, the matter began to look ugly; for if the Kurds should ever be able to close, numbers must tell their tale.