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Never, surely, was the reputation of Dame Fortune for fickleness so completely proved as in her treatment of me this morning ten o'clock finds me seated on a pile of rugs in a capacious black tent, "wrassling" with a huge bowl of savory mutton pillau, flavored with green herbs, as the guest of a Koordish sheikh; shortly afterwards I meet a man taking a donkey-load of musk-melons to the Koordish camp, who insists on presenting me with the finest melon I have tasted since leaving Constantinople; and high noon finds me the guest of another Koordish sheikh; thus does a morning, which commenced with a fair prospect of no breakfast, following after yesterday's scant supply of unsuitable food, end in more hospitality than I know what to do with.
The demeanor of these wild- eyed Koordish females on this occasion fully convinces me that the stories concerning their barbarous conduct toward travellers captured on the road is not an exaggeration, for while preventing my departure they seem to take a rude, boisterous delight in worrying me on all sides, like a gang of puppies barking and harassing anything they fancy powerless to do them harm.
I try to induce them to make a flight, but for some reason or other they refuse; an Osmanli Turk would have accommodated me in a minute. Soon I arrive at another Koordish camp, fording a stream in order to reach their tents, for I have not yet breakfasted, and know full well that no better opportunity of obtaining one will be likely to turn up.
The tents of the Eliautes are small and inelegant as compared with the tents of well-to-do Koords, and the physique and general appearance of the Eliautes themselves is vastly inferior to the magnificent fellows that we found loafing about the headquarters of the Koordish sheikhs in Asia Minor and Western Persia.
Striking a Koordish camp adjacent to the trail I trundle toward one of the tents; before reaching it I am overhauled by a shepherd who hands me a handful of dried peaches from a wallet suspended from his waist.
"What nice soft hair and pretty blue eyes." "Don't you wish the dear old Sheikh would let us keep him. "Considering the source whence it comes, it requires very little of this to satisfy one, and as soon as I can prevail upon them to let me escape, I mount and wheel away, several huge dogs escorting me, for some minutes, in the peculiar manner Koordish dogs have of escorting stray 'cyclers.
I am beginning to doubt the propriety of having done so, and find myself casting involuntary glances toward a Koordish camp that is visible some miles to the north of my route, when, upon rounding a mountain-spur jutting out into the valley, I descry the minaret of Mamakhatoun in the distance ahead.
Here they were detained nearly a month by the incursions of Koordish robbers along the direct road to Tabriz. The Pasha having gone with his troops to drive back the marauders, Mr. Perkins resumed his journey on the 15th of July. Next day he overtook the Pasha, who assured him that he could not safely go in advance of his army.
Grant had been suffering for some time before the death of his wife, from the climate of the plain; and he was now instructed by his Committee to commence a station, if possible, among the Nestorians on the western side of the Koordish mountains. Incapable of fear, he had vainly sought the consent of his brethren to penetrate the mountains directly from the plain.
The churches of this country ought to be accurately informed as to the number of the Nestorians, their places of residence, their doctrines, rites, morals, education, etc. Whether you will be able at present, with a due regard for personal safety, to penetrate the Koordish mountains, and visit the Nestorian Patriarch, is very doubtful.
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