[87] A “belai” forms the top story of many of the mountain houses. It is quite open on one side (usually the northern) and forms the general family living room during the summer heats. In winter it is used as a hay barn, and thus helps to warm the room below.
[88] Except one hoof, to be accurate—such at least was the cook’s report. Scott points out that the Scotch highlanders also would eat prodigious meals when they got the chance, though ordinarily their fare was very meagre.
[89] Eye disease is terribly prevalent in all the neighbouring provinces. It is originated by dust and want of cleanliness, and aggravated by persistent neglect.
[90] In this connexion sometimes the phrase is unpleasantly literal. The prison at Akra, for instance, is a regular bottle-shaped dungeon like those at Alnwick and Berkeley, and in many Continental keeps.
[92] It is to be feared that sometimes they adopt other masculine habiliments, particularly (for instance) in winter, for convenience in getting through deep snow. We went once to rout up a workman who had failed to turn up at his job in the morning. He was still in bed, we discovered. A fact which did not tend to appease us until he faltered out his excuse. “But my wife has gone away to work, Rabbi; and has taken my only pair of trousers”—when we fear that the Rabbi’s laughter brought these confidences to a sudden end.
[93] This brushwood harbours all sorts of vermin, including scorpions and serpents, which latter are rather encouraged because they are reputed to eat the rest. The proper way to get rid of them is to make up a blazing fire, and pile on to it a quantity of sheep’s horns or goats’ horns (cow’s horns will not do). This sounds as if it ought to get rid of much worse things than serpents!
[94] The tanura serves also as an oven, and when the fire has subsided into embers the thin pancakes of dough (the form in which bread is usually made in the mountains) are plastered round the hot sides of the pit.
[95] Most “old books” have now been ferreted out, and perhaps the only earths yet untried are in the Yezidi villages of the Sinjar. These villages were formerly Christian; and there is a widespread conviction (strenuously denied by the Yezidis) that old Christian books still remain there, carefully secreted in certain caves. We have heard from a Syrian priest that he himself once actually saw some spread out to dry in the sun because they had got damp in a flood. He was at once headed off when he tried to look at them; but could see from the title-page that one was “The Works of Diodorus,” a famous Eastern doctor whose writings have been entirely lost.
[96] This journey was actually made in the spring of 1909, and was thus earlier in date than the events recorded in the last chapter.