I was eating my frugal lunch of dry bread and lettuces one day in the caravanserai, when an aged man in the long garments and felt waistcoat of a southern Kurd came up to my room, and entering with a salutation, sat down, and accepted my invitation to share the meal. He introduced himself as Haji Vali, a native of Erbil, on the western marches of Kurdistan, a Baba Kurd, returning from his seventeenth journey to Mecca. He, like me, sought a passage to Mosul, and came with the news that a kalak was ready; and, moreover, possessed a shelter of sticks and calico which had been made for an effendi now unable to travel, and which could be bought for a mejidie or so. The old man knew a little Persian, and spoke, besides his native Kurdish in which we conversed, Turkish and Arabic. The assurance with which he had joined me at my meal, and the certainty he seemed to feel that I should become a partner with him in our passage to Mosul, I found a feature of all his doings. He had an abrupt, dictatorial manner, which he tempered with bluff heartiness, and, used to the respect which his seventeen journeys to Mecca had earned for him, was not accustomed to receiving a refusal to any of his propositions. So when he proposed to me--whom he called Musa--addressing me as “his beloved son,” that we should share all expenses, I agreed. No sooner was this settled than he departed, to return later with his goods and chattels, some being saddle-bags, and little sacks of charcoal, a tin samovar, and a packet of letters and papers which he entrusted to me, as being more secure in the pocket of my overcoat; for in the fashion of the long tunic of the East he possessed no pockets, but two wallets hanging at his sides, and must needs thrust any valuables in his breast. The kalak owner now appeared with the Armenian doorkeeper as witness and intermediary in the negotiations. This kalak owner was a gaunt Kurd, pretty well seven feet tall, a cadaverous-looking giant who, squatting on the ground, seemed an ordinary man’s height. An impediment in his speech and a single fierce-looking eye make him a fearsome-looking fellow. He was very easy to haggle with, though, and started by demanding six mejidies for transporting us to Mosul, we to be allowed to use the tent, which should become his property at the journey’s end. We held out for five mejidies, and half the proceeds of the sale of the tent at Mosul. Eventually, after the consumption of many cigarettes, and after he had three several times risen and got half-way down the stairs in apparent indignation at our inflexibility, with the Armenian as disinterested go-between, we arranged on the price of two mejidies each, the tent being the Kurd’s property. The kalak was to start next morning, and we must transport ourselves and our belongings outside the town to a spot where a stone bridge crosses the river some mile below Diarbekr.