Or there might come a mild protest on the part of the Persian Governor, anent the arrival of some two hundred armed Kurds, "to pay their respects to Tahir Pasha." "What is the meaning of this armed invasion of Persian territory, your Excellency?" "Well, well, these Persians are hard to deal with. We let their pilgrims go over our frontier to Kerbela in droves, and say nothing; and when a few good peaceable fellows come over to pay their respects to the Sultan's representative you have these complaints at once. So unneighbourly, you know." To drive a wily old Australian cow may be hard; but it is child's play to getting an old Turk to do business when his instructions are to waste time. So the frontier dispute dragged on _ad infinitum_ till the British Consul left it to settle itself, and went back to Tabriz. The Russians could not allow a country where they had large interests to go to rack and ruin through anarchy, and the present practical occupation of northern Persia was the result. CHAPTER XI A LAND OF TROUBLE AND ANGUISH (URMI TO VAN) The country between Urmi and Van is easy, as travel goes in Kurdistan; and, speaking normally, safe. High hills, rising to as much as 11,000 feet, cover the country; and one great mountain saddle, the Chokh range, has to be crossed. But the hills are rounded, and grass-grown in summer; and the valleys wide and fertile, though for the most part uncultivated, and carrying a scanty population. A long winter and heavy snowfall are natural at such an elevation, and a journey at that time of year is always a toilsome experience and may be a dangerous one. It is not pleasant, for instance (as once happened here to the writer), to find oneself in a position where baggage-horses can get neither forward nor back; and where the whole party has the duty of "humping" the loads and carrying them for some hours in deep snow. That too zealous reformer, Mejid-es-Sultaneh, owns much property among these lower hills; and this fact is responsible for the development of a new type of village, the invention of that English gentleman to whom he assigned his property. It will be understood that "a good head of labour" is as necessary for a Persian estate now as it was for a mediæval manor in England; but conditions may make it difficult to maintain that desirable thing. Hence, when the Englishman found himself charged with a large depopulated estate, he bethought him of settling upon it the dispossessed Christians of Tergawar. They were put there upon the usual terms of the Persian village system, which deserves a word to itself.