In The Expectation That This Might Soon Happen, I Dared Not Leave The Miserable Shelter To Return To Mosul, From Which We Were Only A Mile Distant.

The whole day was spent in waiting; these people did not come until evening.

There were five of them: one, who appeared to be a wealthy man, with his two servants, was returning from a pilgrimage. We started at last about 10 o'clock at night. After travelling for four hours we crossed several ranges of hills, which form the boundaries of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. We passed several villages, and reached Secani on the morning of the 10th of July. Ali did not halt at the village which lies on the pretty river Kasir, but on the other side of the river near a couple of deserted, half-ruined huts. I hastened directly into one of the best to make sure of a good place, where the sun did not come through the sieve- like roof, which I fortunately found but the pilgrim, who hobbled in directly after me, was inclined to dispute its possession. I threw my mantle down, and seating myself upon it, did not move from the place, well knowing that a Mussulman never uses force towards a woman, not even towards a Christian one. And so it turned out; he left me in my place and went grumbling away. One of the pedlars behaved himself in a very different manner: when he saw that I had nothing for my meal but dry bread, while he had cucumbers and sweet melons, he gave me a cucumber and a melon, for which he would not take any money.

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