volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

210 Excavations at 'Ardbdn.
and antiquities, but Sh6kh Masalat was not greatly
interested in them. He knew all about the excavations
which Layard carried out at 'Araban, and his friendship
with Muhammad Amin/ the Jabur shekh of the district,
whose tomb stands on the east bank of the Khabur,
not far from Tall Ta'ban. And he invited me to stay
and go with him to many places in the neighbourhood
where there were ruined buildings. At length I told
him that I wanted to sleep, but as the men were leaving
the tent a woman came to one of them and whispered
to him, and he came back and spoke to the shekh, who
at once asked me if I had " medicine " with me. I said
I had, but that it was in one of my bullock-trunks, and
he sent a man to Muhammad to bring the trunk to me.
When the shekh saw the medicine case and its rows of
bottles he was much interested, and gave orders that
everyone who was sick should come to his tent at once.
At that time the tabloids of Burroughs and Wellcome
were unknown to me, and quantities had to be measured
by scales, and I was kept up until a late hour weighing
out quinine, salts, etc. There were a few cases of sore
eyes, and I was able to give the sufferers a little relief,
and as one of these happened to be a favourite wife of
Masalat, he was very pleased. What was far better
for me was that he promised to send one of his young
men with us the next day to show us the nearest road
to 'Iran, or Ghirin, in the Sinjar mountains.
The rain stopped early in the night, and as the
morning of November 19th broke clear and bright, I
decided to leave the encampment of the hospitable
shekh and continue my journey. Masalat and several
of his men walked some distance with me and then
handed us over to the care of the young man who was
to act as our guide that day. I was very sorry to say
good-bye to him, for apart from his kindness to me I
liked the man himself. He was a tall man, over six
feet high, with a good open countenance and a fine
presence, and he bore himself with great dignity ; he
' See Nineveh and Babylon, p. 285.