Matti had not informed the muleteer who I was or of what creed and nationality, and I did not propose to him to do so. I should be asked, and that soon, and I could give such answer as I felt inclined. Habib, I think, had a notion that I was not what I pretended to be, for he was of a prying nature, and he had professed it difficult to believe several of my assertions in the face of the English and French books, and the maps he saw at my house, which to him suggested disguises and intrigues, because he could not understand them. We came up to the waiting animals--a little group of three or four, for the main caravan had not arrived--and here took leave of one another, an incident of no little regret upon my part, and I hope, too, upon that of Matti; and before we left the brow of the hillock, I looked my last upon Sulaimania, a cluster of flat roofs in a hollow almost invisible a mile away, so well did the old pashas hide their town from the view of Turk and Kurd alike. I gazed, too, for a moment upon distant Aoraman, a frowning wall, black now, the snows invisible from the distance--the frontier of Persia, from which I once more receded. CHAPTER XIV TO KIRKUK Our caravan was a tiny one, and the muleteer, a long-legged Turkoman known as Ahmad Bash Chaush, was accompanied by a youth and a long-haired darvish, both natives of his town. This second was a quiet, cheerful man, short and stoutly built, as are many of the Turkomans, and he was the laughing-stock of many he met, for he had adopted the habit of wearing a Persian felt hat, which excited the ridicule of such of the local population as took him for a Persian at first sight. We did not go far that day, but pushed along quickly till the village of Baba Murda, the inhabitants of which were encamped miles away in a pleasanter spot. Here upon a knoll we threw the loads, and while the youth took the animals to water, the darvish filled the jars at the spring, and Ahmad, as head-man, and entitled to ease first--though he had walked his twelve miles--sat with me and smoked. It was hot this summer afternoon in Lower Kurdistan, though the heat was past its greatest, and we were glad to get that side of the loads where a light breeze played, and wait for the mules to be tethered, groomed, and finally given their barley, when the day’s work was done. Then the darvish and the lad joined us, and we shared the pears I had brought, for they would not keep; and these with bread made the evening meal.