We have given in a previous chapter the "rules to govern the conduct of a gentleman in case of feud;" and the only occasion when these do not hold, is when a _Jehad_ is proclaimed by Moslems. When you go to war in the name of Allah and religion, you are naturally entitled to commit any atrocity you like, and usually do so. The old courtesies, too, were further abrogated as the result of the Armenian massacres of 1895. The systematic outraging of the women then was part of the Turkish plan, and seems to have been the deliberate order of Abdul Hamid. When such acts had been once authorized by the Khalif, it was natural that the lower type of Kurd should not readily return to the better ways of his fathers in more ordinary raids. Speaking generally, however, feuds are carried on with great lightness of heart, much gaiety, and very little malice. The writer has known men who were at open feud with one another meet in the household of the English Mission (where of course, truce was observed), and chaff one another in most friendly wise as they shared tea with the English "apostles." In war time even "booby traps" (or something like them) were not unknown; and once the men of Tyari rejoiced in a score gained over an opponent, who feared to make any attack upon a position held in truth by a dozen men and boys, because they suddenly found themselves confronted with a formidable battery of artillery which they had not credited the Tyari men with possessing at all. As a matter of fact, the cannon were mere dummies; and were neither more nor less than beehives (the local beehive is a long narrow thing, in shape much resembling an old-fashioned eel-trap), which had been artfully faked for the occasion and plastered all over with black mud! The heroes of this exploit were so delighted with their score, that they set to work to make a cannon of their very own. A hollow poplar trunk formed the barrel this time, and it was wrapped round with bands of iron on a system not unlike that on which a modern "wire-wound" gun is made at Elswick, though the materials were hardly such as Messrs. Armstrong's inspector would have approved. The engine was only meant to bluff their enemies, and did that well on at least one occasion; but the temptation to see what it could do got too much for its possessors, and they (with the wonderful courage of ignorance) charged the thing and fired it! Of course, it burst; but the providence that guards schoolboys guarded these boys too, and nobody was hurt.