This, like so many of the caravanserais in the towns of Mesopotamia, is of a composite nature. Its yard and the stables surrounding afford accommodation for beast, while the rooms which enclose it on three sides, upstairs, harbour both travellers, and residents, who are strangers without womenfolk. The entrance to this caravanserai was between two huge cafés, at the back of which the yard lay, and above this long entrance were the offices of the mayor, and the agent of Singer’s sewing-machines, an article which has penetrated to the remotest districts of Kurdistan. These offices opened upon a gallery which communicated direct with the rooms set apart for passengers. Kirkuk is famous for Turkomans, fruit, and crude oil, all of which abound. The town, which must have a population of at least 15,000, is one of the trilingual towns of the Kurdistan borders. Turkish, Arabic, and Kurdish are spoken by everyone, the first and last being used indifferently in the bazaars. Itself a Turkoman town, to its south and west are nomad Arabs, and to its east the country of the Hamavand Kurds. Turkish power is very evident here. Being near to Bagdad--seven days--and possessing a Turkish-speaking population, it is in a position to supply a large number of youths to the military schools, which, half-educating the lads, turn them out idle and vicious, and incapable of existing without a uniform. The result is that they all obtain some post, telegraph, police, or customs, or join the ranks of the superfluous and unattached army “officers,” and return to their native town to lounge in the innumerable tea-houses, and earn a living by tyrannising over whatever unfortunate their position enables them to blackmail and persecute. Consequently, Kirkuk is full of uniforms containing the scum of the town, often drunken brutes--who sap the life of the place, driven to any length of rascality to gain a living, for they are usually unpaid. Despite this plethora of police, I was unmolested, probably the composite crowd of the Kirkuk bazaar makes a stranger too inconspicuous for their attention. The architecture of the place is purely Arab; the Persian influence noticeable in Bagdad, Mosul, Diarbekr, and other cities of Mesopotamia and Syria is not seen here. Solid stone buildings of no beauty, a few mean mosques and minarets, very solid, but with no ornamentation, and an immense arched bazaar, make the architectural features of the place. The Turkoman population, or rather the commercial section of it, compares very favourably with the people of Bagdad and Mosul. A stranger meets with great consideration, nor is he swindled right and left, nor annoyed, as among the Arabs of the greater cities. Purchasing food and other things in the bazaars, I found everywhere an astonishing honesty and rough goodwill that wins the heart of a stranger, and this, notwithstanding the fact that I was taken for a Persian, and a Shi’a Muhammadan, with whom the Sunni has very little sympathy.