So far does prejudice against the ass go, that when the Gospel for Palm Sunday has to be read, the priest (who usually translates the text as he reads from the "Old Syriac" of the Pshitta into the Vernacular) substitutes a word that means "colt" for "ass." One poor rector, who determined to be faithful to the text, found that sundry "aggrieved parishioners" were complaining of him to the Patriarch for a shameless falsification of the sacred Scriptures. Nor is there a prejudice only against the ass. Few mountaineers will eat the hare, or the pig, in that these come under Levitical prohibition. And as regards the eating of other animals, we remember this conversation with a certain trusted servant and steward, which speaks for itself. "Tell me O Rabbi; is the thing really true which they say, that the French do eat frogs?" "It is true, O deacon; and they say that they are good." "Rabbi; if we had a man who did that in Tkhuma, we should kill him." Hitherto, there has been no law in the land (as may perhaps be inferred from the foregoing paragraph), but tribal custom has ruled; and in consequence Hakkiari has been the home of good manners, and of that self-respect which comes from a sense of natural superiority to the plainsman! This last is strongly developed among them; "The greatest nation in all the world," said an _ashiret_ Christian one day, "is the English. Next to that comes the Tyari." (One may readily guess that this was the speaker's own tribe.) "Third, but a long way behind these, is the Russian. There are no other nations." This sense of congenital superiority brought the writer into rather hot water, when in the year 1904 he brought a select party of these wild Highlanders down to the city of Van, there to receive at his hand instruction that (it was hoped) would "soften their morals and not allow them to be ferocious." They came, they deposited their goods; they ate a meal. And forthwith went out into the street and began to thrash all the Armenians they could find! There was some sort of excuse urged, "The dogs dared to laugh at our long hair, Rabbi." But the real reason, as subsequently explained, was the general feeling that the sooner these inferior beings learnt to know their place, the better it would be for the comfort of everybody! Next day a complaint came in from an American mission, also established in the town. These _ashirets_ had caught the Armenian headmaster of their school, and were playing leap-frog over him in the street, greatly to the scandal of his pupils, who were, however, all too scared (or possibly too appreciative) to attempt a rescue!