AND MANNERS. 
453 
their beards grow to any length ; young men keeping theirs dipt 
and frizzled. I have already mentioned that they are hospitable 
from old established custom to whatever traveller puts himself 
under their roof; but the principle of pillage being also a sort 
of hereditary common law, it is quite an act ol generosity to 
permit his escape half an hour beyond the prescribed domestic 
boundary, without waylaying and plundering him. 
December 13th. — Though the pasha of Sulimania was absent, 
the credentials I brought from Bagdad furnished me with all 
requisite demands on his ministers; and having made Ibram 
Aga the proper pecuniary acknowledgment for his services, he, 
with his train, returned to the banks of the Tigris ; and myself, 
and new mehmandar, with an answerable escort, set forth 
towards the hills. We left the city at nine o’clock in the 
morning, on a bad road, and over a succession of heights, which 
gradually increased in elevation as we gained upon the huge 
base of the Shar-i-zool range. Our course lay N. 20° W. The 
snow-crowned Pera-mi-goodry stood just before us; which, 
together with an infinitude of minor mountains, terminated our 
view in that quarter. After some time, our road became a mere 
path on the side of a precipice on our left, of several hundred 
yards, deepening in proportion to our ascent. At the expiration 
of three fatiguing hours, we attained the highest level of the 
chain, and then suddenly entered a long chasm in the mountains, 
which descending their north-east side in a direction N. 40° E., 
followed the line of a rapid stream that brought us in about 
another hour to the small village of Gavain. Passing it, we 
continued our rough craggy way till we had traversed the sum¬ 
mit of a hill, whose abrupt brow looked down on a picturesque 
and highly cultivated vale, watered by the two rivers Sewal and 
