Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/449

Rh was; others bear rule, and will be glad when I am no more. Your Bishops sent you to us with offers of assistance, and when you were helping us they took you away, and never replied to the many letters which I addressed to them. This is 's work, and we must submit." All this was too true, and as I was not now commissioned to render him any help, I could only sympathize with him in his trouble, and endeavour to soothe the anguish of his despair.

Towards the evening we retired to a subterranean room where we all slept on the floor with the Patriarch, and early in the morning took our departure. Mar Shimoon accompanied us a short distance, and sent us away with his blessing. We returned by the same route that we had come, and in four hours found ourselves again under the hospitable roof of Kash' Audishu. The day following Messrs. Clive and Herbert started from Leezan intending to travel on foot to Julamerk, the road thither being impassable to mules or horses on account of the snows. Fifteen lusty Nestorians carried their baggage, and we saw them depart in good health and spirits upon their adventurous journey.

April 17th.—It was our intention to have penetrated into Tehoma from Leezan, but finding this impossible, we took leave of our worthy host, and retraced our steps to Zerni, and thence to Akri, a Nestorian village prettily situated on the Zab, from whence we proceeded on the following day to Amedia. Wishing to vary our former route we crossed the Supna and travelled in an easterly direction through two high mountain ranges as far as Kafià, a large Coordish village, where we put up for the night. From this we had a rugged and toilsome journey to Shermen, inhabited exclusively by Nestorians, thence to Shosh, where is a population of two hundred Jewish families, and finally to Goonduk. Here we found a Nestorian church, or convent, as it is sometimes called, dedicated to Mar Abd-Yeshua, and the usual residence of Mar Auraham, who from being a Chaldean had returned to Nestorianism during Mar Shimoon's stay at Mosul, as has been recorded in a former chapter. The Bishop was absent upon a visit to the Mezuriyeh district, but hearing that a priest and nun dwelt in the convent I sought admittance, and the door was opened to me by a little hump-backed woman