Ali Beg was rather a big man, as men go in the mountain districts; probably about six feet high, and about forty-five years of age. He wore a dark brown _abba_ with gold embroidery round the collar; but we could make out but little of his features, as he kept his face closely muffled in the folds of his red Yezidi turban. This, however, was not to be attributed to any desire to imitate the veiled prophet of Khorassan, but only to the fact that he had a bad cold; an indisposition which had prevented his intended journey to Mosul. His manner was melancholy and depressed, as befitted the chieftain of a persecuted people; but perhaps this also, more prosaically, may be partly attributed to the cold. He was attended by a Yezidi Sheikh, a very handsome man with a long black beard, wearing a white turban, and a gown and _abba_ of soft dove-coloured brown. The _Sheikhs_ are the second order of the Yezidi hierarchy; the _Cawwals_ or priests forming the third order, and _Pirs_, _Kuchaks_, _Fakirs_ and _Mollas_ being entrusted with various minor rites. The _Mira_ is virtually the Khalif of his _millet_; absolute both temporally and spiritually--a sort of combination of emperor and pope. No one dreams of questioning any order of his, or of breathing any complaint of him to the Government. The _Mira_ can do no wrong. All his followers' goods are at his disposal. If he claims a woman, she is yielded to him; if he kills a man, nobody objects. Nay, the very fact of the _Mira_ having killed him confers on the victim such holiness that he becomes automatically secure of immediate admission to paradise; and under such desirable conditions who has any cause to object? The office of _Mira_ is hereditary, as such offices are in this country; for the idea of sanctity running in families is common both among Christians and Kurds. Mar Shimun among the former, and the Sheikhs of Barzan and Neri among the latter, may be quoted as parallel cases; and the practice has at least a respectable precedent in the house of Aaron among the Jews.[59] Ali Beg is dead since our visit. Dead, by what (for a _Mira_ of the Yezidis) may be fairly described as "natural death;" for he was just "murdered by his successor" like any old Irish king. That the succession should be allowed to go out of the family would be a thing blasphemous to hint at; but that the rightful heir should seek to accelerate his accession is only a part of the game. It is a sporting game too; for if the adventurer fails, he dies himself by torture for sacrilege the most monstrous. But if he succeeds he is _Mira_, with all the _Mira's_ immunities. His predecessor is promoted to paradise, and he reigns absolute in his room.