Who is or is not in this house it is hard to say. Mirza tells me that there are 115 guests to-day! Among them are a number of Tyari men, whose wild looks, combined with the splendour of their dress and arms, are a great interest. Their chief man has invited me to visit their valley, and they say if I will go to them they will give me “a fine suit of clothes.” I need it much, as doubtless they have observed! Their jackets are one mass of gold embroidery (worked by Jews), their shirts, with hanging sleeves, are striped satin; their trousers, of sailor cut, are silk, made from the cocoons of their own silkworms, woven with broad crimson stripes on a white ground, on which is a zigzag pattern; and their handsome jack-boots are of crimson leather. With their white or red peaked felt hats and twisted silk pagris, their rich girdles, jewelled daggers, and inlaid pistols, they are very imposing. Female dress is very simple.

These Tyari men come from one of the wildest and most inaccessible valleys of Central Kurdistan, and belong to those Ashirets or tribal Syrians who, in their deep and narrow rifts, are practically unconquered by the Turks and unmolested by the Kurds, and maintain a fierce semi-independence under their maleks (lit. kings) or chiefs.