As the road left the level we passed through the village of Anab, where, under a grove of willows, a group of Kurds smoked the morning cigarettes beside a great tank into which a brook bubbled. Here we were joined by an old man, who greeted us, asking where we were going. He spoke in Turkish, knowing no Kurdish, and said he was bound for Biara like ourselves, to visit the retreat of the Shaikh. He was a native of Roumania, and a Russian subject. On foot he had gone to Mecca, thence to Damascus and Bagdad. Now he had come to Kurdistan, and was visiting every one of its little shrines and holy places, after which he would walk to Roumania again. My name, which was one only encountered among the Persians--Ghulam Husain--gave him some difficulty, for he had never heard the first word of it, and so suited it to his own liking, and called me Husain Effendi. We climbed our way over a number of succeeding ridges till we came to a stream and a tree by it in the little valley. Here we halted awhile and shared our bread, making a frugal meal. The old man here became more friendly yet, and in return for a little cheese I had given him, presented myself and Hama with four little amulets, scraps of paper sewn in a triangular piece of cloth. These he had purchased in Sulaimania from a kind of hedge-priest with whom he had travelled, and he said he kept them, sometimes selling one to a villager, or giving in exchange for food or a night’s lodging. [Sidenote: A ROBBERY] Hama, whose edification at meeting so virtuous a man was considerable, accepted the amulets with a gratitude not quite free from a certain awkwardness noticeable about the simpler Kurd whenever he comes in contact with any of the stock-in-trade of religion.