In the meantime one goes off to the village--if there be any near--to find provender, which in the Kurdish country is a commodity called “du,” the Persian “dugh.” This is curds and whey watered to the consistency of milk, slightly sour, and always cool, for they keep it in porous skins--it is the most refreshing drink possible. Among the Kurds it is considered a mean action to sell such a thing, and this village was no exception to the rule. I undertook the task of getting for our party, and set off, entering the village through a broken courtyard wall, for there were no streets. After poking my head into several houses I found a good woman who was pouring out “du” into a wooden bowl, and demanded some, saying that there were several of us to share it. Without a word she handed me the skin, a bowl, and a deep spoon, and with all this a handful of flaps of new bread, answering my thanks with the Kurdish “Khwashit bi” (“May it pleasant to you”). Among the Kurds no one thinks of objecting to strangers walking into their houses, nor seeing the women, who walk about unveiled; indeed, they possess no veils. Perfect freedom of intercourse exists, and the womenfolk pause in their journeyings to and fro to chat and joke with all and sundry, beggar and effendi alike. In the early morning, long before daylight, the sound of people moving woke us, and we rose to find marching orders already issued, and half the caravan loaded. One of us ran off to fill the water-pots at the stream, where the village women were already similarly engaged, while the rest of us fell to and loaded, and after a few minutes the caravan started. Dawn found us just topping a ridge, and at the fork of two footpaths. Expecting to take that leading east, and towards Sulaimania, we were headed off by the soldiers to the northerly track, which eventually led us round the tops of some high hills, and along a steep ridge from which the ground sloped away with almost the gradient of a precipice. Beautiful gullies with running water and groves of trees branched off down below, and gave upon a broad plain where we could see the broad stream of the Lower Zab River flowing. Sulaimania now lay almost due south, and we could see its position by the great landmark of the Pir-i-Mugurun Mountain that rises to its north, a precipitous bluff about ten thousand feet high. Amid all these beautiful glades and this verdant pasture-land we saw nobody but a couple of parties of distant horsemen patrolling their country. [Sidenote: THE SHUAN COUNTRY]