We banked it with Matti, who locked it with the rest of my money in his iron box, and then we sent for “kebab”--scraps of meat cooked over charcoal--and with these and bread, made what is called the “merchant’s lunch.” All the afternoon I sat outside the office making the acquaintance of the Kurdish merchants round about. One of these, a certain Hama Ali, spoke Persian extremely well, and was very proud of having been to Kashan in Persia, where he had unsuccessfully attempted to trade against a ring of Persian merchants; and while cursing their business astuteness, praised their nice manners and hospitality, and that to a Sunni, who is hated among the Persian Shi’a. The evening meal was a frugal affair of boiled rice and meat, and a cucumber or two procured for me in the bazaar by the old dame of the house; and an hour after eating I turned in upon the stones of the courtyard, that being the coolest place, for the nights were stuffy. Early in the morning I received a visit from the old Mustafa Beg, Mudir Effendi, my companion in the caravanserai on my first arrival at Sulaimania. He expressed genuine pleasure at seeing me again, and stayed for an hour or two, drinking the morning tea. He lamented, as always, the lack of his appointment, which he could not take up, and cursed the ill-luck that had transplanted him from Tripoli in Africa to Sulaimania. He had learned no Kurdish, had found no new friends, and passed his days as he had done before, visiting the official Turks, sitting in the post-office, and dining at the shaikhs’ house. His old fingers, white and well-kept, trembled so much that he could barely sew on the buttons of his garments, a task he was continually engaged upon; and his pride, that kept him respectable and clean, necessitated his getting up in the night to wash his own garments in the caravanserai cistern, for he could not be seen doing such work, nor had he, indeed, another change of raiment. [Sidenote: THE MUDIR EFFENDI] He was somewhat avaricious, I discovered, for he had enough cash to purchase more clothing, and at length I gained his consent to buy the material for another shirt and trousers, so we repaired to the bazaar. My costume of those days, in town, was one which gained some respect for me among others, and should, perhaps, have lessened my own for myself. I wore an old pair of pyjamas under the dressing-gown I had adopted in Kirkuk, and a good abba thrown over these gave me a peculiar appearance, which apparently passed among the Sulaimanians for distinction.