By noon we were very high up, in amongst the rolling hills, and suddenly coming upon a steep decline, we saw below us a large village protected by a strong castle upon a mound. This was one of the chief places of the Shuan tribe; and reaching it--by a devious and steep path--we threw our loads under some mulberry trees. This arrangement of breaking the journey half-way through the day is not unusual in Kurdistan, but I have never seen it done in Persia, where the stages are shorter. The effendi went to a banquet already prepared for him in the castle, for runners, taking short ways over the hills, had advised the head-man of his arrival, and a sheep had been killed and roasted whole. The rest of us, after foraging for “du,” lay down to sleep till the time should come to load once more. This village is in a very remote corner of the Shuan country, off any main track, and the natives were so impressed by the size of our caravan, that they all came out upon their flat roofs to watch us depart. Indeed, so small is the traffic, that there was no path beyond the village, and a horseman accompanied us to show the nearest way to our next halting-place. The track took us up the flank of a precipitous hill, and once there, down a long, steep spine. Here the slope was so great that it was impossible to sit even upon a donkey, and the women, unused to much walking and hampered by unhandy garments, were in almost as much danger when on their own as upon their steeds’ legs, of falling headlong down the steep to the stream that ran three hundred feet below. At the bottom we had to face the next ridge, and over that another and steeper one, on the opposite side of which was a beautifully situated village, almost hidden amongst trees, with a couple of torrents running down between the houses. This was about the highest point of the Shuan lands, and from its summit we could see all their country, miles of hills, green with the spring verdure, stretching away south and west. Before us lay the Zab valley, and the whole view, north-east and south-west, was shut in by range upon range of high, steep mountains, the Zagros. We camped in the open that night upon a steep hill-side opposite a village. Some of the villagers had migrated to our camping-place to be near some growing corn, and were living in palisades which they had erected upon the summit of the ridge.