It may be remembered that in the first chapter reference was made to a Kurdish priest I had met in Constantinople, and whose talk of his native land had resolved me upon taking my journey. During the time I was making my way across Turkey, I had not forgotten him, and had news of him in Kirkuk, where I heard that he had been robbed by the Hamavands. At Sulaimania I again made enquiries, and had indeed expected to hear that he was there, but was told that he had gone back to Sina of Persian Kurdistan. This news gave me very considerable relief, for I had begun very seriously to consider a matter which I could not put off, namely, the explanation of my identity should I meet him and be recognised. When in Constantinople he had told me, in conversation, that should I as a Christian come to Kurdistan and there turn Muhammadan, he could find me a pretty livelihood in photography, quack surgery, and medicine and teaching; but this was only the style of inducement typical of the priest, and meant nothing more than a nicely put compliment. If he were to encounter me now, passing as a Musulman, and a Shi’a at that (he would have made a Sunni of me), the situation would have been extremely difficult, and all his distrust would arise at seeing before him one in a guise so different from that which he bore in Constantinople, and who had so strangely chosen exactly this spot to journey to for no particular reason, and that after enquiries concerning trivial affairs which had been made in Constantinople. [Sidenote: A RETROSPECT]