Since then, she had been a captive and slave in the Mussulman house, the only Christian in the place. She had begun, as might be expected, as the fag and drudge of all the other servants; but had raised herself by sheer force of character and her own integrity till she was now manager of household and farm: and she had been, by the Kurds' own admission, "a blessing to the house" since the day that she entered it. Further (information again volunteered by the Kurds themselves) she had not only kept her Christianity in her solitude, but in a household where all lived in common nobody had ever known her to neglect her daily prayers or her Friday's fast, or to do needless work on the Sunday. One request only she made of the deacon. Finding that he was not the priest she had thought, and therefore was not able to give her the "_qurbana_" she had hoped to receive, she asked him to give her some of the "blessed bread" which her memory told her he would be likely to have with him. This is bread blessed, but not consecrated, at the Eucharist, and often carried with them by Nestorians on a long journey. This he was able to do, and she declared that she would keep it to be her "_viaticum_" when the time of her release should come. Surely one may seek through a good many of the "Acta Sanctorum" before finding a nobler confession of Christ than that made by this nameless Nestorian woman. CHAPTER XVI THE GRAVES OF DEAD EMPIRES (MOSUL TO BAGHDAD) The road from Amadia to Mosul is tolerably easy, by comparison, as the successive ranges sink gradually toward the Mesopotamian level. We had timed our journey craftily; it being now fairly hot in the lowlands; for we wished the moon to be full on the night that we emerged from the mountains, so that we might travel by her light across the plain to Mosul. A journey by day across the Mosul plain is not to be undertaken too lightly in summer, when the thermometer registers 120° in the shade. By night it is comfortable enough, and the moon makes the journey easy; though we own that it is very sleepy work at times. On this occasion the writer accomplished a feat that had previously been always beyond him, viz. that of sleeping in the saddle as the horse walked on. The nap can hardly have been a long one, but he achieved a real dream, and it was not terminated by a collapse into the dust.