any annoyance to the quarter. His emphatic utterance and assertion of going surety for my good intentions called forth expressions of gratitude from the people around, and I saw that by my action I had gained in their estimation. [Sidenote: A COMPLAINT FROM THE NEIGHBOURS] In the bazaar and coffee-houses there was but one topic of conversation these days--the Hamavands. We heard rumours of their intention to raid Sulaimania, and at nights their riders came openly to the shaikhs’ house to receive their orders. Once or twice they actually looted a few houses on the west side of the town. Not a soul dared venture forth. Matti used to tell me of happier times when the Christians and Kurds too used to go outside upon the low hills and spend days in the cooler air picnicking to the accompaniment of music--and I suspected, in the case of the Christians, too much ’araq. But now, to venture outside the fringe of houses upon any except the north-east side was to court robbery, if not destruction. And then the futile talk of the “ta’qib,” or punishment that was to be dealt out to the tribe! We heard reports--and these seemed true--of regiments of soldiers from Anatolia and Mesopotamia collecting at Chemchemal, and judging from letters coming from Mosul and Bagdad, we were able to keep a check upon rumour, and ascertained that there were in reality some three or four thousand military, foot and “mule-riders,” gathered there--to extinguish a couple of hundred rough horsemen. All these troops were kept idle by the Mosul authorities to wait for a commander, and as long as funds from the shaikhs poured into the Mosul Vali’s pocket, the commander was kept engaged in pressing business elsewhere, and the Hamavands redoubled their audacity, actually raiding Chemchemal itself and killing some soldiers. Meanwhile the state of the district was becoming worse, for travellers were threatened not only by roving parties of Jafs and Hamavands, but by the local soldiery also, for the “binbashis” had consumed what little cash could be collected for their pay, and the “muhasibichis,” or accountants, grew daily fatter upon sequestrated funds. Soldiers were leaving for their native places, or retiring over the frontier to Persia--taking with them their new Mauser rifles; and in Halabja a colonel commanded five half-tamed Kurdish levied men instead of his usual fifty.