Absolutely any business may be discussed, or any subject brought forward at these gatherings. Who is to be _malik_ of such and such a district; what villages stand in need of clergy; what terms of agreement can be suggested for the settlement of some grazing dispute. And though these questions may be settled _in camera_, the meanest man has his chance of making his opinion heard. If there is no special business to talk over, other subjects crop up; and a good fund of general information is a desirable possession for any Englishman who may be present, for strange questions are put before his wisdom. Thus, he may be asked why it is the case that some wild animals take so much more killing than do others; or invited to pass an opinion as to whether it is really the fact that shooting stars are the javelins cast by the Seraphim at the Jann, when they see them come up from earth to the lower courts of heaven for the purposes of eavesdropping. Once, a worthy old priest started the problem whether the angels kept the Fasts of the Church; and this was discussed with much learning and in true scholastic style. The theory propounded that they could hardly fast because they did not eat was scouted on the authority of the text, "Man did eat angels' food;" this proving that they certainly ate something! "Then they eat but do not fast" said some; but that seemed unlikely, for of all sorts of men known to these present, whether Christian, Mussulman, Jew or Devil-worshipper, the only folk who did not fast in some way were the American Missionaries, and there was a general feeling that this was not quite a conclusive precedent![134] Finally the meeting somehow hammered out the very sensible conclusion that laws made for fallen creatures like man did not necessarily bind unfallen beings; and the matter was left at that. Occasionally some queer anecdote is related by one of the visitors; and one of these sticks in our memory as exemplifying the exceeding toughness and callousness of the Kurd. A gentleman of that race was riding his mule along one of the mountain paths when he was caught by an avalanche, which carried him down some distance, and then (in the sportive way that avalanches sometimes have) flung him on one side with his leg broken, but with his mule unhurt. He was ill enough off even so; for the spot was very lonely, and it was near nightfall. There was frost in the air already, and the temperature would be somewhere about zero before dawn. But by great good luck another traveller passed, and that traveller the victim's own brother. This model of fraternal affection rode off with the mule "lest it should get stolen," and left his brother in the snow till morning! But the latter was little the worse for his experience after all!