In the manner of Kurdistan this was a private interview, so I found no more than twelve servants, retainers, and armed men standing at the door. The room was long and narrow, two walls of which were pierced with eight double doors opening on to the verandah, the other walls being whitened and recessed, as is done in all Persian houses. The floor was carpeted with fine Sina rugs, and at the far end stood a huge brass bedstead piled high with feather quilts. Before and at the foot of this lay a long, silk-covered mattress, and upon it sat the Lady Adela herself, smoking a cigarette. The first glance told her pure Kurdish origin. A narrow, oval face, rather large mouth, small black and shining eyes, a narrow, slightly aquiline hooked nose, were the signs of it; and her thinness in perfect keeping with the habit of the Kurdish form, which never grows fat. Unfortunately, she has the habit of powdering and painting, so that the blackened rims of her eyelids showed in unnatural contrast to the whitened forehead and rouged cheeks. Despite this fault, the firmness of every line of her face was not hidden, from the eyes that looked out, to the hard mouth and chin. Her head-dress was that of the Persian Kurds, a skull-cap smothered with rings of gold coins lying one over the other, and bound round with silk handkerchiefs of Yezd and Kashan. On each side the forehead hung the typical fringe of straight hair from the temples to the cheek, below the ear, and concealing it by a curtain of hair, the locks called “agarija,” in the tongue of southern Kurdistan. The back hair, plaited, was concealed under the silk handkerchief that hangs from the head-dress. Every garment was silk, from the long open coat, to the baggy trousers. Her feet were bare, and dyed with henna, and upon ankle and wrist were heavy gold circlets of Persian make. Upon her hands she wore seventeen rings, heavily jewelled, and round her neck was a necklace of large pearls, alternating with the gold fishes that are the indispensable ornament of the Persian Kurd, and of many of the Persians themselves. [Sidenote: A GREAT LADY] A woman fanned her, while another held cigarettes ready, and a maid waited with sherbet and rose-water. As I entered, Lady Adela smiled and motioned me to a seat beside her on the mattress, and gave me the old-fashioned Kurd greeting: “Wa khair hatin, wa ban i cho, ahwalakitan khassa shala.” (“You are welcome; your service is upon my eyes; your health is good, please God.”) And it was in the peasant tongue of Sina, her native place, not the sloppy, mouthing dialect of Sulaimania; and I replied in the same, grateful to hear the language with which I had grown familiar a year before in Persian Kurdistan.