And it is gratifying to find that the memory of this mythical personage is still preserved in the land where he wooed his bride. Noah's son-in-law (so we are told) was a giant of such prodigious stature that his attempt at "spoiling ta' flood by drinking up ta' water" may have had some initial success. Of course he could not get inside the ark, but he obligingly sat astride of it, and paddled it about with his feet. What became of him later the legend sayeth not. No doubt he carried off his wife to Scotland with him; and so passed beyond local ken. Time passed gradually at Amadia, till even the leisurely Ottoman processes were complete, and the imperial _firm[=a]n_ for the building of an "English house" at that centre was duly issued. All ill-feeling with our neighbours had practically died out before that date; and the last of it vanished with the document's arrival, every Sanballat and Geshem in the neighbourhood coming to call, and to explain how delighted he personally had always been to have us there, and how it was only "those others" who stirred up bad blood. It is true that one more consistent man observed, on the occasion of the public reading of the formal charter in the _diwan_ of the governor, "Poor Mohammed Reshid! _He_ has to do whatever these Franks tell him"; but he prudently kept that remark under his breath. A solemn festival marked the burying of the hatchet; after which the guests, having consumed more than one sheep between them, went home in procession with all the spoons of the household in their hats! This would have suggested at home that the wearers had dined not only well, but too well; but in Kurdistan it expresses no more than an unusual satisfaction with the banquet. NOTE. Much of the district of Bohtan (a region which lies to the westward of the Sapna valley) is practically unknown to Europeans; being inhabited only by wild tribes of Kurds, with a scattering of Christians mostly of the Nestorian Church, as their _rayats_. It is extremely rugged, and the gorges of the River Bohtan are among the very finest to be found even in that land. The following tale of one of its inhabitants is worthy of record, as showing the heroism and fidelity that can be exhibited at times by this downtrodden people.