Amadia is the only seat of Ottoman Government in the neighbourhood; and for this reason it was in its vicinity that a "Station" of the Archbishop's Assyrian Mission was established when it was desirable to find some centre reasonably accessible for the mountaineers of Tyari and Tkhuma. This establishment caused a most natural fluttering of the dovecotes in that respectable and old-fashioned neighbourhood. That the Kurds should feel eminently disgusted was only to be expected. Good respectable brigands as they were, and had been for generations, and having a vested interest in the perpetuation of conditions that made their ancient trade profitable; what else could they be expected to feel, at the advent of a Frank who was not only unraidable personally, but whose mere presence made it appreciably more difficult to raid others? Formerly if there had ever been questions about the appropriation of sheep (which did not happen often), it was always easy to persuade the _kaim[=a]k[=a]m_ to do nothing, and report nothing. An Englishman, however, was in touch with his Consul, (accursed institution), and that Consul with the _Vali_; and _Valis_ have a way of not sympathizing with a Kurdish gentleman's necessities, unless you purchase that sympathy rather expensively. Furthermore, there was the Roman Catholic bishop of the district; and he also objected (and again most naturally and rightly from his point of view) to the coming of an institution that might put backbone into the "heretical" church which he was in process of annexing gradually to the one true fold. We must own that his lordship's methods of going to work in the matter were perhaps a little crude; but the fact is, that it is the grossest injustice to judge the modern East by a twentieth-century standard. If you choose to go and live in mediæval times (somewhere in the thirteenth century let us say), you must not complain if the people act in fashion reminiscent of that age. It is best to cultivate a sense of historical perspective instead, and enjoy the picturesqueness of things. The bishop in question was not a European himself, but a native of the country, and a member of the Chaldæan Church; and there is not the slightest reason for thinking that his tutors (the Dominican Fathers of Mosul) were aware of his rather mediæval methods. He would not be likely to report too definitely to them (if he had any direct correspondence with them at all, which is not probable) on the broad principle, familiar in that land, that there are things which a Frank can never be got to understand, and which for the sake of his peace of mind he had better not know! His immediate superior, the Chaldæan Patriarch, may have been better informed. He is an Oriental and so of an understanding mind; a vigorous mind withal, and not troubled with needless scruples.