Old chivalrous rules of the obligation of hospitality still hold in the mountains; and a conspicuous instance of this was given by one of the Nestorian _maliks_ in the January of 1907. As a general rule, no effort is made to march troops through these hills, for it is at once toilsome, useless and dangerous. In that month, however, a company of infantry were sent through the gorge of the Zab, with orders to report at Julamerk, a seat of government to the north of it; the object probably being to show that the thing could be done. Being at best but half-trained men of Kurdish blood, and knowing that they had been sent where no troops had gone before, they naturally got more and more "jumpy" as they penetrated the gorge, and began to see an ambush behind every rock. Thus when they met a party of four Tyari men descending the road, they opened fire on them and shot down the lot! This was not, we believe, the cold-blooded murder that it seemed, but a pure fit of nerves on the part of undisciplined men. However, having done it, they were naturally more frightened than ever at what they had done; and fairly ran for it (so far as anyone can run on those roads, which is not very fast), to the house of a prominent Christian _malik_ of Tyari, Ismail of Chumba. They crossed the bridge to his house; and so demoralized were they that they did not even secure safety by breaking it down behind them, a result that could have been secured by ten minutes' work with a pocket-knife. They told the chief that they had killed his own clansmen without provocation, and asked him to protect them! It says much for mountain chivalry that he recognized the claim of the suppliant without hesitation, and promised to do his best, _if_ it was in his power to control his own tribesmen under the circumstances. Those tribesmen gathered very soon for their revenge, and came up the valley towards Chumba in force; and then the _malik_ went out and met them at the bridge, to urge that the thing had been after all an accident, so to speak, and not a butchery, and that it must be judged as such. A long and hot discussion followed; the tribesmen saying, with some force, that they did not care whether the thing was an accident or not; their men were dead, and they would have blood for blood. All arguments were tried in vain, till at last the mountaineers summed up, "It is no good, _malik_; you have done your best, but we must have our revenge, and that is our last word. Stand out of the way."