Sulaimania lies on the lower slope of the hills between two spurs, between which an abundance of excellent water flows. The town is totally insignificant, possessing no large buildings nor anything conspicuous, except a minaret recently erected. From outside it appears but a homogeneous mass of flat mud roofs, relieved here and there by an upper room of a larger house. It possesses no walls nor fortifications, and one entered it abruptly from the desert, its outskirts being small one-storied houses, in the courtyards of which may be seen the idle, handsome women engaged in their constant and only occupation--smoking cigarettes. The proximity of Persian Kurdistan is very evident here, the style of building in the poorer dwellings is that of Sina and Sauj Bulaq, and in the better houses that of any western Persian town. We threaded our way through some open bazaar streets to a caravanserai, where I had resolved to put up. This was constructed entirely in the Persian style: a row of rooms round a courtyard, which opened on to a low verandah. I secured a room, and throwing into it my goods, dismissed the muleteer, who was demanding a present for having conducted me safely through the Hamavands to Sulaimania. FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VIII: [48] Kurdish “shuan”--a shepherd. [49] In the opinion of the Sulaimania Kurds the word Bazian means in Kurdish “the place of defeats,” but they have overlooked the fact that the word “bazi” and “bazian” is a common one in Kurdistan, with the significance “prominent hills.” CHAPTER IX SULAIMANIA Sulaimania, from which the Aoraman range that marks the frontier may be seen, lies actually about sixty miles from the nearest point of Persia, and one hundred from the Aoraman peak, which is visible from the town. It lies at the foot of the Azmir system of mountains, which support the Persian plateau at this point. It is also the largest Kurdish town of southern Turkish Kurdistan, but despite the importance, commercial and political, that it once possessed, it is a place without any noteworthy history. It owes its origin indirectly to one Mulla Ahmad, who 350 years ago assisted the Turks in a war. This person, a Kurdish priest, was a native of the village of Dara Shamana, in Pishdr, north of Sulaimania, and a member of the Nuradini branch of the Baban tribe. For his services he was granted certain lands and villages by the reigning sultan, and established himself at the village of Qal’a-i-Chwalan, now called Qara Chulan, a village north of the Azmir range, a day’s journey from Sulaimania. Here he reigned till his death, and his successors became powerful rulers, semi-independent, ruling over Surchina, where Sulaimania is now situated, and the lands about Qal’a-i-Chwalan. These chiefs were, like so many of the frontier chiefs of Sulaimania, by no means too faithful to the Turks, and transferred their allegiance to Persia when it suited them. [Illustration: AORAMAN.]