"Certainly, _Qasha_," said the Englishman; "gather the boys of your village and teach a school; I will find you books enough." [Illustration: QUDSHANIS CHURCH OF MAR SHALITHA] "Nay Rabbi, that is quite beyond me. It is as much as I can do to read the services. But, if there was anyone whom you wished shot now, I should be delighted to undertake the job!" Mar Shimun is accustomed to think of himself rather as Chief of his nation than as Patriarch of its Church (or to be accurate, not to separate those two offices in his mind); but it is as Patriarch notwithstanding that he appeals to the imagination of outsiders--Patriarch of one of the most interesting and picturesque Churches in the world. We give a picture of his Cathedral, which like most of the mountain shrines is very small in size, and resembles a border "peel-tower" rather than a church of the type we are accustomed to.[131] Orientals are not troubled with any desire for pews and either stand through the service, or kneel or sit upon the floor during the Lessons and sermon, and thus a very small nave will accommodate a very fair congregation. Though the Church of Mar Shalitha at Qudshanis measures at the most a scant thirty feet square, we have seen a congregation of about 400 accommodated in it; and that without more crowding than was advisable to keep people warm before the dawning of a Kurdistan winter's day. Once only, we may mention, have the Christmas day services been postponed till after sunrise; and that was on an occasion when a wild snowstorm, of the sort known by the expressive name of the "white darkness," made it a physical impossibility for any person to win his way over the 200 yards that divide the church from the village. Internally the church is divided into nave and sanctuary; the latter being partitioned off by a fairly solid wall, and raised on three steps above the nave level. Outside the sanctuary door two solid "tables" of masonry carry the book of the Gospels, and the Cross which is kissed by every person who enters the building. Curtains and small votive offerings form the decorations, the latter being chiefly bunches of aromatic herbs, which are suspended from the tie beams; but in these matters the Nestorian is of more than evangelical severity, and will allow no picture, far less any image, to be brought into the church. Even a stained glass window would excite his prejudice, if it contained any figures; a fact which is no doubt due to his desire to escape any reproach of "idolatry" from his Mohammedan neighbours.[132]