As is the case with many half-wild races, Assyrians regard the bear as half-human, or at all events nearer to man than other beasts; and are convinced, among other things, that he understands human speech. In one instance known to the writer, a girl went down to the fruit-orchards one summer evening with the reprehensible purpose of helping herself from trees that did not belong to her family. As she peered up the tree in the dusk, she saw the soles of a pair of feet above her, and called to the supposed boy to throw her down a share of the fruit. She got no answer, and so went on: "Then I'll go and tell Abraham that you are stealing his fruit, and he will come out with a gun and a stick." At that word, a half-grown bear dropped out of the tree beside her, and she perceived that the feet had been his, and not those of a boy. (The resemblance between the footprint of a bear and that of a man, in snow, is remarkably close.) It would be hard to say which party was the most scared, for they ran away in opposite directions; but, naturally, nothing would persuade the girl that the bear had not understood her. Wild boar is fairly common in the lower hills, which are forest-clad; but the sportsman must reconcile himself to shooting them, for orthodox "pig-sticking" is out of the question in that land. Some of the Christian tribes (though they keep no domestic swine) will shoot and eat these beasts; and at times play unkind tricks on their Mussulman neighbours, inviting them to a banquet and putting pig before them. Kurds are not too particular under these circumstances, though they will not eat the meat knowingly. Still, if trapped thus, they salve their consciences with the remark: "The Christian had the sin, and I had the good dinner." It is, however, only men of Tkhuma who act thus. The good folk of Tyari might not be above scoring off the enemy in that or any other way, but they will never themselves eat either pork or hare. They do not realize, however, that the rule is not peculiar to that elect people, their own tribe. A good lady of that valley once expressed to the writer her disgust at hearing that Christians were to be enrolled in the army in future. "How can I endure to have my sons set to eat pigs' flesh among the Mussulmans?" Nothing would persuade her that they were not likely to be exposed to that horror at any rate.