on a particular road, we were usually referred to three separate persons, each holding a perfectly good authority. If it was a question of a complaint for some breach of order, or anything of an equally unpleasant nature, each referred us to the other, and said he had nothing to do with it. If, on the other hand, it was a question of providing a paid escort, or of any matter where there was money to be made or an opportunity for extortion, each of the three maintained that the responsibility and the privilege were his alone. The job of looking after an important road is much sought after in these parts, for, although no pay and pay and no subsidy is given, there is a fat harvest to be reaped from caravans and merchants as the price of their safe-conduct. Under present conditions, however, the merchants complained bitterly. They had no objection, they said, to paying blackmail to one person, for such is the immemorial custom of the country. They did object, however, to having to pay it three times over to three different persons, each of whom was armed with a perfectly legal authority from a governor, and then having no certainty that their goods would get through in safety.

had been deterred from journeying farther, owing to the reports of the dangers from the tribes on the road and the generally unsettled state of the country. He remained there some months, while he vainly endeavoured to obtain more troops from Teheran. In the meantime his political opponents had obtained the appointment of another man in his place, although I believe the latter never got farther than Teheran. The Central Government, although willing to appoint a second governor, was not prepared to commit itself so far as to cancel the original appointment, and presumably hoped that the fates would intervene on one side or the other, or that one of the two would oust the other without the necessity for them to arrive at a definite decision. For there is nothing so hateful to the vacillating Persian mind as to have to arrive at a final decision on any difficult question. We in Sennah, therefore, were faced with a curious situation, though not, I believe, a particularly unusual one in Persia. Not only did these two governors make appointments to various to various posts by letter, but we also had an officiating governor in Sennah itself who was supposed to carry on until the real incumbent arrived. He also had his own clientèle appointed to all the more important posts in the district. If, therefore, we wished to find out who was responsible for keeping order

Finally this matter began to affect the importation of our much-needed local supplies to such an extent that we were compelled to take matters into our own hands. As the acting governor was at any rate on

the spot and accessible, we let it be known that no appointments would be recognised by the British Government unless made by a governor or acting governor actually within the province. This cleared up the situation to a certain extent, as we were able through the political officer to strengthen very considerably the hands of men appointed locally, and also to see that their extortions were not too great to affect the importation of such supplies as we needed.

Although the position of governor in Kurdistan carries very considerable advantages, pecuniary and otherwise, it must not be thought that he lies altogether on a bed of roses. He has his own troubles to contend with, for all round him are great landowners and tribal chiefs, many of whom can raise a thousand sowars to back their requests. Squeezing the governor, too, is a sport which has several times been successfully carried out. It is said, for instance, that that cheerful little villain, Sirdar Rashid of Juanrud, a few years ago kidnapped a former governor, and only let him go in exchange for a ransom of 30,000 tomans. Apparently, however, the whole of this amount was never actually handed over. He was released on a cash payment of part of the ransom and a signed and sealed promise for the rest. It shows the curious mentality of the Persian that Sirdar Rashid considers that he has a claim sus

tainable at law for the balance, while the ex-governor considers that, by persuading his adversary to let him go without full payment in cash, he won a notable diplomatic victory, of which he is fully entitled to reap the reward. That holding a prominent Government official to ransom is illegal never strikes the one, while to the other it never appears a matter for shame that a promise should not be kept. The ex-governor still resides in Sennah, and maintains a large armed following. Sirdar Rashid, therefore, does not often appear in the town, and relations between them are still somewhat strained.

Sirdar Rashid was a useful ally to us on occasions, and could put a very serviceable tribal force into the field. On one occasion, however, he scored off us heavily. It happened that one Sinjar Khan, a wellknown outlaw, was giving a lot of trouble on the road to Sennah, looting caravans and making himself otherwise objectionable. It was decided that his activities on our lines of communication could no longer be tolerated, and a mixed force of our troops and tribal levies was sent against him. His force was surrounded and captured, but he himself escaped. While our troops were endeavouring to intercept his flight, our allies discovered and got away with all his accumulated loot, a pretty valuable treasure, said to include 10,000 tomans of silver. Our political officer naturally pressed very

heavily for a share of this spoil of war to be handed over to the British Government, who had after all played the chief part in the operations. He was put off with various excuses. Finally, however, a beautiful Arab pony and a fine ambling mule were sent to us, with a message that, although the silver could not be traced, these two very valuable animals were sent as the British Government's share. It was only some time later, when we were on the point of leaving the town, and long after these animals had been issued as remounts, that we heard their true history. It appears that during the operations some of our tribal allies had met a Persian gentleman on the road with his household. Although he was merely a peaceful traveller, and had nothing whatever to do with the matter, the two animals in question were stolen from him. After a time, however, it transpired that the Persian gentleman was not the innocuous private individual that he appeared to be. He was, indeed, closely related to a very highly placed personage in Teheran. This came to the knowledge of the chiefs, who found themselves in a highly embarrassing situation. A hasty consultation followed, and some bright individual suggested that the British Government were the people who could most easily bear the blame. The animals were therefore hastily passed on to us, and accepted in all innocence.

For the first week or two we were in Sennah we had an interesting but strenuous time. During this period we were chiefly occupied in getting into as close touch as possible with the local situation and the local personages of importance, in trying to ascertain what their ideas on the situation were, and in endeavouring through them to tap the more likely sources of recruiting.

This was a difficult and unsatisfactory business. It would be easy to get as many recruits as we wanted of a sort. Any decent pay would bring in hundreds of them. But none of the class who came forward would be of any use, for in Persia good fighting men are as scarce as wild sheep, and as difficult to catch, while they are generally family retainers of one or another of the local chiefs.

classes value

There are only two likely to be of any the tribesmen, and the peasant followers of the local Aghawat (landed gentry). The former know no master, they are difficult to control, and almost impossible to discipline, while the latter would only serve if allowed to do so by their feudal chiefs, who, soon came to the conclusion, were at least as well disposed towards the Turks as to ourselves.

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Tribesmen could, it is true, be used for certain temporary duty

for raids against convoys or against other hostile tribes; but it was out of the question to hope that they would be of

any use against a regular or even partially regular force.

We therefore decided that, while making such arrangements with the tribes as would allow us to draw on them for temporary duty under their own leaders when required, we would endeavour to obtain recruits for our standing force from the settled peasant class. This was, however, a slow business. Every landowner naturally objected to losing the cultivators of his land, while all the time Turkish intrigue was working hard against us. It was indeed, only after the most strenuous efforts that our first half company was enlisted. Then came bad news from all around. Dunsterforce was compelled to evacuate Baku, large Turkish forces began to concentrate round Tabriz, our troops were chased out of Mianeh, while our nextdoor neighbours at Bijar were sorely pressed by superior forces. Everywhere things began to look black from the British point of view, and recruiting became almost impossible.

To make matters worse, our immediate opponents, the considerable Turkish forces at Saqiz, began to show signs of moving forward. The situation at Sennah was rendered none the easier by the fact that the town contains 6000 or 7000 armed men, not taking into consideration the tribes all round, all of whom were potential enemies in the event of the Turks gaining a decided advan

tage. Sennah was, moreover, a place of considerable strategical importance, for it is an obvious jumping-off place for an advance against either Hamadan or Kermanshah, and its capture by the Turks would have constituted a very serious menace to the long lines of communication between Persia and the army in Mesopotamia. To add to our anxiety, accurate information of the Turkish movements to the north was very difficult to obtain. The Turkish forces were some six or seven marches away, and between us was a barren waste of country patrolled by hostile tribes, and over which there was no regular traffic. This made it very difficult to pass intelligence agents through, and many of our spies were captured by the tribes. The fog of war was, in fact, very difficult to penetrate.

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Soon, however, there was a change of command of command and a change of policy in NorthWest Persia, and things began to improve very rapidly. military policy was devised to meet the situation, and the good results were obvious even in an out-of-the-way place like ours. Not only were we given definite instructions as to the rôle of our force, but we were supplied regularly with information collected and collated at headquarters. Shortly afterwards we were told to take over a considerable force which was being raised from the Armenian refugees and was being sent up to us. A day

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later we were on the move down the road to meet them. I do not think any of us likely to forget quickly meeting with our new army. We had ridden two or three days down the road towards Hamadan, when suddenly over a rise ahead of us appeared masses of what we at first took to be Cossacks. On closer inspection, these proved to be the advancedguard of our Armenians. first sight it seemed that we had got hold of a force which was ready for anything. Nearer acquaintance, however, showed that things were not as rosy as they looked. The force had been very hastily raised, and had been sent off before it could be fully equipped. Almost all the most important items of equipment, such as greatcoats, cooking apparatus, and serviceable boots, were wanting. These we knew, given a little time, we could make good in Sennah. But two things were beyond our power to cope with in a hurry broken morale worn-out horses.

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To get an idea of the state of affairs, it must be remembered that only a month or so before these people had formed part of the broken and disorganised rout which had poured into Hamadan from the north-west. They were all terribly weakened physically by their experiences, and to crown all, as we discovered later, they were badly infected with influenza, which, in their weakened state, attacked them with

terrible severity. The horses were naturally in a worse state than the men. For they had also been campaigning for months, while they had had to carry their riders back through the desolate mountain tracts for some hundreds of miles to Hamadan, where little grass and no grain had been obtainable.

The first difficulty with which we found ourselves faced was the language problem. These people talk a terrible tongue called Syriac, which appears to consist entirely of words beginning with Tz and Sz and Prz, and is beyond the capabilities of anybody but a linguistic genius. Our first efforts when we met them at making ourselves understood were not very successful. We tried signs, we tried bad Persian, bad Arabic, and still worse French, all to no purpose. Presently we began to get a little bit heated, and then the situation was suddenly saved. A voice from the ranks was heard remarking, "Gee whiz! ain't the colonel peppery, or words to that effect, in the best American. We found the speaker was an interpreter, worth his weight in gold. He was a pure Armenian from Van, but he had been schooled in an American mission, and had lived for a considerable time in New York and Chicago.

It was a toilsome business shepherding this force to Sennah. Never have we felt quite so brutal as when we urged the stragglers on up the road, for