But the Turks gained possession, and, blight that they are, killed everything, so that now its only people are the Jaf nomads, who pass and repass every spring and autumn. All this I had learned, and so looked with more than usual interest upon the scene till we were hurried up by the horsemen, who had descried a large body of Hamavand riders in the distance. With bustle and hurry we fled to the shelter of a cluster of tents, the residence of a tiny tribe--the Muan--whose village, deserted in summer, lay half a mile distant in a grove of willow-trees. Here we threw our loads upon the plain, and each little party built about itself a barricade of its own belongings. Wheaten bread being unknown at this time of the year among the villagers, we had brought our own, and this we supplemented by a big pot of “du,” the national drink of Kurdistan. With nightfall came rain, and unsheltered as we were, all of us became very wet. Scorpions, which abounded, having, too, an aversion to damp, took shelter under us, and what with wind, thunder, rain, scorpions, regiments of fleas, and intermittent firing, we slept very little, and were not sorry to load again in the cool early morning. The muleteer’s mother-in-law had fared worst, for she had acted as sentinel all night, her chief duties being to drag slothful pack-animals from off our bedding, upon which they would stand and stamp, adding another nuisance to the night. The soldiers, tired and disgusted with life, were very dismal this second morning. Drenched and footsore, stiff from their drubbing of the previous day, a walk of thirty miles through the heat of Shahr-i-Zur appeared a gigantic affliction indeed. Half-way across the plain, where the stagnant air soaked up warm vapours from the water standing in the depressions, we came to a great goat-hair canopy, surrounded by minor establishments of the same material. This was the encampment of Mahmud Pasha Jaf, the most powerful man in these parts, and the only signs of his magnificence were the glorious carpets, the rows of leather trunks, and the silk quilts hanging in the sun to let the fleas escape.[62] [Sidenote: A PASHA’S ENCAMPMENT]