Dinner was finished half an hour after sunset, and after a short interlude of conversation most of the company would sleep, to rise with the sun in the morning. One or two nights I slept there on one of the courtyard benches, but the sandflies were so numerous that I preferred my own roof, where there was usually a cool breeze. One morning I was seated in my little upper room, upon my carpet, writing, when the courtyard door was thrown open and Mustafa Beg, accompanied by half a dozen Kurds, entered, and at my invitation ascended. They all came crowding into the little room, and Mustafa Beg invited a youth to the highest place. The others took places anywhere, and two stood at the doorway, being servants. The old man introduced the lad as Sayyid Nuri, son of Shaikh Ahmad, a prominent member of the hated family of Shaikhs. Now, in Sulaimania a man who has escaped the notice of this family thanks Heaven, and prays for continued freedom from their acquaintance. Equally the day is accursed that one of the family discovers the unfortunate. It had been the boast of the quarter, too, that up to the present no shaikh had set his foot in its streets, for it was a respectable business quarter, well guarded, and too alert to be surprised by the night attacks of the shaikhs’ roughs and robbers. Well did I know that the advent of Sayyid Nuri here would disturb the peace of the “mahalla” and make myself unpopular, for none were distrusted more than those whom the shaikhs treated in a friendly manner. Sayyid Nuri himself was a mean but sharp-looking youth, a type of the mixture of Turkoman and Kurd that is found in Sulaimania, for he had the bravado look of the latter and the scanty moustache and long, wavy nose of a certain section of the former. He rustled in silk, and wore fine cotton socks. In his belt was stuck a huge knife, and a revolver dangled in its case from under his zouave jacket. Still, for all his unprepossessing appearance, for a member of the family from whom arrogance and all that is objectionable was to be expected, he was very polite. Mustafa Beg seemed to think that, in bringing him there he had done me a great service, and sat beaming upon both of us, and listening to the Kurdish around him. The lad spoke excellent Turkish, for, as he explained, the family had plenty of dealings with the Turks. When he found that Mustafa Beg had not been wrong in describing me as a Persian, he was delighted, for all he desired to do was to air his knowledge of that language, which was not excessive.