Of all feathered fowl, however, none are more brilliant in colour than the bee-eater and the golden oriol. A gold-coloured body and black wings distinguish the latter; but we have never been able to satisfy ourselves as to how many hues go to the livery of the small and quick-flying bee-eater. Gold, red, green, and blue all form part of it we know; and a flock of them flying in the sun is at least a beautiful sight, though not one that is too welcome to the keeper of hives. If only they would turn their attention to flies of other varieties, one would afford them unstinted praise; as it is, one pardons their iniquities for the sake of their good looks. Page 275. NOTE. We add a note to make this matter clearer, for the benefit of liturgiologists. Two sorts of leaven are put into the dough to leaven it, and both are called "melka" (King, cf the Spanish title for the Host "Su Majestad.") One of these is a portion taken, before consecration, from the loaf prepared for the last celebration, and reserved for this purpose. The other consists of a mere pinch of flour, or of bread reduced once more to the consistency of flour, which is kept in a special vessel in the sanctuary. The tradition concerning this is as follows. When the Lord distributed the elements at the first Qurbana in the upper room, he gave a double portion of the bread to St. John. The Apostle consumed one part and reserved one, which he moistened with the blood of Christ on Calvary, and divided, after the Ascension, into twelve portions. One was given to each Apostle when they went forth to preach, that the act of mingling particles of it with the dough to be consecrated at every Eucharist, might connect the bread used on each occasion with that used at the first. This Melka is supplemented as needful, either with pulverised bread from the Qurbana or with fine flour, (our informant was not clear on this point), and is held to contain particles of the original, or at least to have been put into connexion with it. CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT CAÑONS (THE NESTORIAN "ASHIRETS" OF HAKKIARI) Qudshanis is probably a spot that is unique on the world's surface; but on leaving it for the south, the traveller soon finds himself in a land that is fascinating enough, though plenty of parallels might be found for it, even in the present orderly world, and numbers in the history of every nation in the past. This land is the country of the Nestorian "_ashirets_" of Tyari, Tkhuma, Diz, Baz, and a few other wild mountain cantons; men who live under the peculiar conditions described in an earlier chapter.