This is the sort of procedure that fills a Consul with despair. It is hard enough to get a disciplinary or reforming order out of the central Government; and when you have got it, what better are you? There is no possibility of getting the thing executed. Every Jack-in-office in the Ottoman service knows what is meant by a "watery command"--an order extracted by foreign pressure which he is meant to disregard. They know when the authority means business, and then they answer the rein at once; but they also know when it does not, and then they do nothing. Foreign influence cannot possibly see to it that there is a Consul in every place where oppression can arise. No Power can keep one in every mudirate; and nothing short of that would be effective. If Turkey is ever to be reformed, it must be by foreigners who have executive as well as advisory authority; power, that is, to hang an official who does not obey orders, or a chief who breaks the peace. Half a dozen such men would have Kurdistan as safe as Hyde Park inside a year, for if there is one chance in twenty of trouble ensuing, the Kurd does not raid. Reshid's only rival in Berwar is the Agha of Châl,[142] an old man who is the government _Mudir_ of his district. He is also a _Sufi_ by religious profession; and both of these circumstances should make for respectability; for the _Mudir_ is put there to keep order, being lowest on the scale of local governors, and _Sufis_ are usually supposed to be quiet mystics. Many of them are so in fact, and most interesting religious philosophers to talk with; but this man is noted for being on the whole the most crafty murderer in the country-side. It is of course something to rise to eminence in a profession so crowded as that peculiar one is locally; but perhaps that is not the most remarkable thing about this particular Agha. He is the only man of the writer's acquaintance who keeps a really large herd of domestic Jews. Châl village is largely populated by men of that race; and they are to all intents and purposes the serfs of the Agha--his tame money-spinners. The writer was even offered full rights in one of them for the sum of five pounds; and if the bargain would have held in more civilized districts (and the vendor, to do him justice, did not realize that it would not), it might have been as profitable an investment as is ever likely to come his way! A Jew of one's very own, bound to put all his financial skill at your disposal, and to use it solely for your benefit, would be a most valuable property.