It is at the patriarchal _diwan_ that the real life of Qudshanis finds its centre. At this solemn gathering, which is held daily in the course of the afternoon, anyone may be present; and anyone may bring forward any conceivable business that he wishes to have discussed in public. Coffee and tobacco go round, and for picturesqueness the gathering is hard to beat. It is composed mostly of mountaineers who look as if they had stepped down from the Assyrian sculptures, clad in loose home-spun coats and trousers, gay cummerbunds that are wrapped round and round their waists, and high felt caps that have been their headgear since time immemorial. Below these hang the long, plaited pigtails that form the traditional arrangement of their long hair. A bishop, or so, in long dark robes, serves as a foil to the many coloured dresses of the men of Tyari and Tkhuma; and the wonderfully handsome face of the young Patriarch (for good looks are part of the inheritance of the men of his family) forms a centre to the whole. He has himself unfortunately departed from the tradition of his fathers, and wears semi-European dress, which is seldom becoming to the Asiatic. Any visitor at Qudshanis is expected to attend the reception; and indeed to be in the place and not to be sometimes at the _diwan_ of the Patriarch is a marked act of discourtesy and almost a proclamation of disloyalty. As far as the writer can make out, something the same line of thought governs the Oriental attendance at the services of his church. In attending the _Qurbana_, he is attending the _diwan_ of that Great Power to whom he certainly does not intend to be openly disloyal.