Shaikh ul Islam that unless he apologised to Hama there and then, they would eject him not only from their house, but from their lands. So with extremely bad grace he did so, and Hama came away covered with the glory that rests upon the vindicated and triumphant. He was now the bearer of renewed invitations from Uthman Pasha, Lady Adela, and Tahir Beg, to stay with them at Halabja, and was full of schemes for extended trade under their protection. But he also bore bad news, for he had been escorting several loads of “run” and had lost one, worth the--to him--immense sum of forty tomans, or about seven pounds. The caravan he had accompanied had arrived at Sulaimania very early in the morning, and his attention being taken to a mule that had fallen, he had let his other loads go ahead, through a village outside the town. [Sidenote: THEFT OF A LOAD] Here someone had taken advantage of the absence of a guardian quietly to lead a donkey and his load into a courtyard, and the caravan passed on, the absence of the animal not being discovered till they got into Sulaimania. Hama had spent a morning raising witnesses to the theft, a quite possible thing, although no one could possibly have seen it, and having fixed the crime upon certain villagers in collusion with a rival dealer in “run,” he was going to find the police and have an enquiry held. It did not appear to me of much use to do anything, for I knew the matter must go to the police commissaire, and I knew also that he would take such steps in the affair as would fulfil two aims: one, that I should not receive my goods again; the other, that he should get out of this that emolument which he had hoped to gain by his prosecution of the passport scheme. However, the owner of the donkey would do his best to assist Hama, if the stuff were to be found, of which I was doubtful, for it was a thousand to one by now that it had been disposed of in jars and pots, and the skins destroyed. So I let Hama do what he could. Matti and Habib were much perturbed, swearing that the whole affair was arranged out of revenge by the police commissaire, and urging me to represent the matter to the temporary mutasarrif or governor, a certain colonel who was replacing the senior while he was at Chemchemal waiting to condemn the Hamavands--when caught. Old Mustafa Beg, too, who had never ceased his morning calls, also came and insisted on being allowed to go and see the police commissaire himself and urge him to move in the matter. The old man always had a great sense of his own importance, and could not see what was so obvious, that he had been shelved, stowed away into this remote corner of the Turkish Empire to be allowed to wear out and give out gradually. He had received a fresh appointment in the last few days, which was equally a sinecure with the former one, for he could not get to the place, and had he done so the Kurds would have ejected him.