Most of the Kurds are migratory in their habits, but others reside in villages, where they sow their fields with seed in spring-time, and then quit them in order to pasture their flocks in the mountains. In autumn they return to their villages, and reap their harvest. Those residing in the plains are of a more peaceful disposition, and exercise much ingenuity and show much taste in the manufacture of carpets. These are entirely of wool, and are of that light description known as _kilims_, used in this country for portieres. Occasionally some of the women working at them weave in locks or tresses of their own hair, which is supposed to add to the value of the carpet. It certainly adds to its quaintness. A peculiar product of the Kurdish forests is manna, a sweet exudation on the oak-leaf. These leaves are beaten down from the trees, and collected on sheets, and then pressed into lumps and eaten, either in their natural condition, or used as a sweetening ingredient. Manna has a sweet, pleasant taste, and is called by the Kurds the "divine sweetmeat." It is sold in the courts of the mosques in Constantinople during the sacred month of Ramazzan. Lake Van, on the confines of Kurdistan, is about 70 miles long and 28 miles broad. Its waters are salt, but brackish near the streams, and when evaporated produce a kind of soap used in the country. The lake abounds in a peculiar kind of carp (_Cyprinus Tarachi_), locally known as _Dareg_, which is said to exist nowhere else, and which is dried and eaten extensively in the neighbourhood. CHAPTER IV ARMENIANS Adjoining Kurdistan lies Armenia, but it is difficult to determine where the one begins and the other ends, as during the time of the Armenian troubles the Sultan decreed that no such place as Armenia should exist, and vast stretches of country inhabited by Armenians were officially incorporated in the villayets, or provinces, of Kurdistan and others. So determined was the Sultan to blot out the name he hated that the censors were ordered to prohibit or deface all books having reference to Armenia, and the writer of these lines had unpleasant experiences at the Custom-house where a number of his books were mutilated; Keith Johnston's book on "Geography," for instance, had ten pages torn out. But in spite of Imperial edicts, Armenia still exists, and will continue to do so as long as Mount Ararat stands as a monument in the land to proclaim an antiquity claimed to be coeval with Noah.