We quitted Sheikh Adi in the course of the forenoon, the young prior accompanying us to the monastery gate in order to bid us farewell. He would accept no payment for our entertainment, representing that it was the custom of the monastery to keep open house for its visitors;[57] but "out of love for us he could not refuse" the gift that we proffered instead. We followed a very steep and rugged pathway, clambering out of the glen up the hillside immediately opposite; and from the notch at the summit we got our last view of that unhallowed Hoodoo House, and saw once more to the southward the ocean-like levels of Mosul. Being now so deeply entered in devilry we had resolved to top off our orgy by paying our respects to the Satanic Pontiff, Ali Beg the _Mira_ of the Yezidis, whose home lay close to our road. A descent even rougher than the ascent led us down to the terrace of heath land from which the mountains arise; and here, on a sort of cape jutting out over the lower plain country, we came upon the _Mira's_ castle--a large defensible house with a walled courtyard. A beautifully clear little river issues from a spring just above it, and girdles the base of the hill on which the "castle" stands; and along the banks of the stream lies the Yezidi village of Baadri, one of their principal settlements in the district of Sheikhan. The castle seemed pretty well garrisoned; for plenty of men were in evidence when we dismounted in the courtyard. But it is only constructed of _jess_ work; and the cracks which showed conspicuously in the walls of the _Mira's_ reception room suggested that repairs were getting a bit overdue. This _diwan khana_ is a good-sized vaulted chamber; and its whitewashed walls were scrawled all over with rough pencil drawings of steam-boats and locomotives; as though the _Mira's_ visitors had been trying to explain to him the nature of these monstrosities, neither of which can be seen within a journey of ten days. The room was empty when we entered, but the _Mira_ appeared almost immediately, and seated us beside him on the dais at the end. The High Priest of the Devil is a pronounced Anglophil,[58] a fact which will doubtless be deemed significant by our country's continental friends. He is also on terms of traditional amity with Mar Shimun, the Catholicos of the "Nestorian" Christians; for though the Christians abhor the "Devil Worshippers" most piously, both _millets_ are driven into sympathy by the common oppression of the Kurds.