e, and started with them early on the morning of the 30th of May,
to accompany them on their way back to Mosul. On reaching a village,
toward noon, a scene took place, which is of so much interest that we
give Mr. Bacon's account of it in full:

"We were assisted from our horses by a remarkably ill-looking set of
men, whom we supposed to have come out to see us from curiosity. An
unprepossessing young gentleman, with a scar that divided his nose and
his upper lip, and a silver-mounted dagger, took a seat near the Mullah,
and a violent discussion immediately commenced, of the drift of which,
we were, happily, ignorant. Soon, another party of villagers appeared,
headed by another young man, who was quite the counterpart of the first,
even to the scar in his lip; but his dagger-hilt and sheath were of
solid silver, set with precious stones, and the long ringlets which hung
upon his shoulders, were still more daintily curled. The arrival of this
reinforcement renewed the violence of the discussion, between the Mullah
on one side, and the young men on the other. It plainly related to us,
and the fierce looks of the Kurds, as they walked to and fro with their
hands on their daggers, would have alarmed us, had we not had full
confidence in the power and good will of our friend. The controversy had
a good deal subsided, when the approach of still another party renewed
it once more. The Agha himself was coming. He was a man of fifty years,
with a once gray beard, dyed a bright red, and with his lower eyebrows
stained a livid blue-black. He greeted us with a ferocious smile, and
entered at once into earnest conversation with Mullah Mustafa. The
conversation was interrupted, now and then, by one of his amiable sons
leaping from his seat, and speaking violently, to the great apparent
satisfaction of the crowd.

"We soon learned the nature of these discussions from Khudr, who had
been an attentive and agitated listener to the whole. The respectable
old gentleman, it seems, had sent his first son to murder us, placing
the second at a convenient distance to assist him. The latter, surprised
that the business lagged, came up to see to it. And the Agha himself,
finding that business lagged, came finally to attend to it himself. The
Mullah urged the danger of injuring persons of consequence. 'The sword
of the Frank is long,' said he. But this argument was without effect.
Mustafa then appealed to him not to disgrace his hospitality. These