The writer was anxious to visit the Nestorian villages of the district and had arranged with the Patriarch that he should do so; but found the scheme vetoed by the British Consul of Van, on the ground that "I have been speaking to the _Vali_ on the matter, and he says that two companies of soldiers would not be enough to guard you there." Under these circumstances he abandoned the journey; but Rabban Werda, a deacon of the Nestorian Church, already mentioned in these pages, then volunteered to go alone into the district and see what he could do for the people there. He volunteered with, of course, full knowledge of the fact that, though there would at all events be questions asked if the Englishman got shot, nobody would trouble about such a trifle as the death of a mere _rayat_ like himself. He went and he returned safely; and in the course of his journey he visited a village called Shernakh, where he received hospitality as usual in the house of the Agha, but was surprised to find himself treated with more consideration than is the general lot of a Christian wanderer under the circumstances. While he was at supper, one of the Kurdish servants came to him to say: "Sir Priest, if you have finished, the Lady would wish to speak to you." "The Lady?" said the deacon, in natural wonder at the Lady of a Mussulman house asking to see a Christian guest who was not even a Frank doctor. "The Lady. Our Christian Lady," said the Kurd; and in absolute bewilderment the deacon allowed himself to be led to the women's part of the house, and to a private room in it. Here an aged woman rose to greet him, saying: "God has given me my prayer at last, and, after sixty years of captivity, I see a Christian priest before I die." Her story was as follows: When a girl in her 'teens she had been carried off from her home as part of the spoil in some raid, like the little maid who waited on Naaman's wife; and had been assigned as a portion of his share to the grandfather of the then Agha of the village. The date was fixed in her mind, by the fact that the first task given her in her captivity was the baking of bread for the Kurds who were going on a great raid against her own kinsfolk--the raid of Bedr Khan Beg in 1845, which is an episode from which men date still.