With the first light we began to load our animals, and the Arab who was responsible for all the trouble was made to go to the top of the hill where the breeze blew strongest and spy the village up on the side of the range, which he succeeded in descrying at no great distance away. So we struck across the foothills, and after an hour reached the place, which looked pretty enough in the cool bright morning, for a thick clump of fig-trees and a large willow grove, with several streams and many green and grassy patches, made it look a desirable spot for a halt. We found the bulk of the caravan already encamped here, and had but little room to dispose of ourselves in a place where shade should cover us when the sun rose higher. As we approached, the villagers, some of whom were working at the fig-garden, greeted us with the laconic Kurdish salutation, “Ma nabi!” (“May you not be tired”), and one or two ran off to get us a skin of “du,” and some barley for the mules. Under a willow-tree we threw the loads, and arranged them in a wall to keep off the fast warming sun-rays, and having entrusted them to the care of a traveller near by, they took the mules away to water, while Ahmad Bash Chaush and myself retired to a tiny spring of clear cold water and indulged in a good wash--the first since Sulaimania--and filled our water-pots. From the grove there was a fine view of the borders of Kurdistan, for we were high enough to see the hills behind Bazian, and the greater mountains behind them. Pir-i-Muguran, or Omar Gudroon, as it is called by Rich, the great rock of Sulaimania, stood up like a sentinel of the mounted army--on its outskirts, with the outlines of Aoraman just visible on one side, and the Kandil Dagh over Ravanduz and Keui Sanjaq on the other side. Immediately below us the plain of Chemchemal, like a sea of lumpy billows, stretched away to Bazian, the break in the range at Darband giving a glimpse of the hills on the other side of the valley of evil fame. During the morning a cousin of the Shuan chief to whom this plain belonged came in, a gaudy young Kurd, rich in striped silks and scarlet riding-boots, a good rifle over his shoulder, and a Mauser pistol in his belt, and having said a word or two to all, a question as to destination and journey, he departed again, followed by three or four men. We had bought a great handkerchief full of fresh figs, like small green pears in appearance, for a kran, and having soaked a little of our bread--for it was as hard as an iron plate--we all sat round and made a great meal, and then, our troubles and labour over for the time being, sprawled about, to rest till the afternoon, when we must once more take to the road. Upon a knoll above, under a canopy of leaves, sat three Kurds, whose sharp eyes saw everyone approaching, and now and then a hoarse cry of “Karvani, oh, Karvani,” would come down, and a muleteer would run out to collect his mules nearer home, for they were grazing on the hill-side.