A caravan starting from Mosul for Tabreez, Madame Ida Pfeiffer determined on joining it, though warned that it would traverse a country containing not a single European.  But, as we have already had abundant evidence, Madame Pfeiffer knew not what fear was.  Nothing could daunt her fixed purpose.  She had made up her mind to go to Persia; and to Persia she would go.  She started with the caravan on the 8th of July, and next day crossed the hills that intervene between Mesopotamia and Kurdistan.  The latter country has never enjoyed a good reputation among travellers; and Madame Pfeiffer’s experience was not calculated to retrieve its character.  The caravan was crossing a corn-field which had been recently reaped, when half-a-dozen stalwart Kurds, armed with stout cudgels, sprang out from their hiding-place among the sheaves, and seizing the travellers’ bridles, poured out upon them what was unmistakably a volley of oaths and threats.  One of the travellers leaped from his steed, seized his assailant by the throat, and holding a loaded pistol to his head, indicated his determination of blowing out his brains.  The effect of this resolute conduct was immediate; the robbers desisted from their attack, and were soon engaged in quite an amicable conversation with those they had intended to plunder.  At last they pointed out a good place for an encampment, receiving in return a trifling backshish, collected from the whole caravan.

A few days later, the travellers, having started at two in the morning, entered a magnificent mountain-valley, which had been cloven through the solid rock by the waters of a copious stream.  A narrow stony path followed the course of the stream upward.  The moon shone in unclouded light; or it would have been difficult even for the well-trained horses of the caravan to have kept their footing along the dangerous way, encumbered as it was with fallen masses of rock.

Like chamois, however, they scrambled up the steep mountain-side, and safely carried their riders round frightful projections and past dangerous, dizzy precipices.  So wild, so romantic was the scene, with its shifting lights and shadows, its sudden bursts of silvery lustre where the valley lay open to the moon, and its depths of darkness in many a winding recess, that even Madame Pfeiffer’s uncultured companions were irresistibly moved by its influence; and as they rode along not a sound was heard but the clatter of the horses’ hoofs, and the fall of rolling stones into the chasm below.  But all at once thick clouds gathered over the moon, and the gloom became so intense that the travellers could scarcely discern each one his fellow.  The leader continually struck fire with a flint, that the sparks might afford some slight indication of the proper course.  But this was not enough; and as the horses began to miss their footing, the only hope of safety consisted in remaining immovable.  With the break of day, however, a gray light spread over the scene, and the travellers found themselves surrounded by a circle of lofty mountains, rising one above the other in magnificent gradation, and superbly dominated by one mighty snow-crowned mass.