Water was becoming scarce too; the river, which had run fairly full as we entered the town, was now the merest trickle, and all the water was obtained from wells. To waste such a valuable would have called upon the stranger the wrath of all in the caravanserai, so a scanty rinsing of hands and face was all that could be attempted, and that only when I could by stealth draw a potful and convey it unseen to my room. There are public baths in Kirkuk certainly, but even the natives, bound by tradition and custom to extol all indigenous institutions, admitted that they were not very nice. Nevertheless it surprised them that I did not patronise the “hammam”; but what upset my neighbours was the fact of my shaving myself, which I had attempted to do in private, knowing the prejudice against it. For the East reckons a barber as a very mean fellow, and to perform upon oneself, if it be the beard, a transgression of the Quranic law, and if it be the head, a dangerous folly. And whether it be the result of this repugnance to the trade or a naturally despicable nature that consents to the odium, it is a fact that Oriental barbers are as a class very mean fellows indeed. Through the offices of my friend the consular watchmaker, I was taken one day to see a notable of Kirkuk, one Reza, called by the Muslims Shaikh Reza, and by the Christians, who hate him, Mulla Reza, an inferior title. This worthy is the principal priest of the place, and though a Sunni, and a fanatic at that, has no objection to seeing and being polite to the dissenters of Islam, the Shi’a, among whose ranks both myself and the watchmaker were classed. [Sidenote: A KIRKUK PRIEST] He inhabited a house adjoining the mosque wherein he officiated, one of the best houses in Kirkuk. His courtyard was laid out in flat beds in the Persian fashion, and a few mulberry trees veiled the bareness of the high walls. He received us in a long room, well carpeted, and was alone. A very reverend seigneur this indeed; the frown of sanctity sat blackly upon his brow, unlightened by his white turban. At his elbow on the floor was a gramophone, from whose trumpet a raucous Arab voice had just ceased to shriek verses of the Quran--to such uses are European abominations adaptable! Hearing that I was from Shiraz, he at once began to quote Hafiz and Sa’di, for he spoke excellent Persian; and then, producing a manuscript book, read some of his own poetry. He versified in four languages--Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish; but preferred Persian to all of them, having a just contempt for the majority of Turkish verse, consisting as it does nearly all of Arabic and Persian.