Sun. March 26 [26 March 1911] Got to the ruins at 6.15 and worked till
8.45. Just as I had taken the last photograph I saw F [Fattuh] and the
baggage coming through the breach in the outer wall. So we all rode
off together to Haoush Kuru through the hills. We passed one little
village belonging to Kerim Khan at 9.45 and got to H. Kuru at 11.15.
Here we found Mejid Khan, Kerim Khan's brother, who was very
anxious that I shd stay the night. But there was no work. A big castle,
2 storeys, but too much ruined and filled in to plan, and in the plain a
sort of khan? with courts and 2 long (vaulted) corridors. A big
enclosing wall. So I sent the baggage on with Muhammad the Kurd
(11.30, the Kurdish gumruk tried to levy a tax on us!) and went in to pay
a visit to Mejid Khan's women. F and I caught up the baggage at the
Turkish frontier where we were all turned back by a soldier who said
this was not the high road. We had to ride round to the zabit's post.
He was very polite, read my papers and begged me to stay the night.
Also asked if I wanted zaptiehs but said the road was quite safe.
Turkey felt like paradise! The nuktah towers at short intervals all
along the frontier. So we took another road to Bin Kudra, crossed a
hill and came down into the Diala [Diyala (Sirwan)] Valley. We got to
Bin Kudra at 3.15 and camped near the village. I went off to see a ruin
1/4 of an hour away by another village to the S. A big mound with a
mass of foundations below into which apparently the people had dug
for bricks. From the bricks I shd say Sassanian. Sheikh Tabib, a
relation of Mustafa Pasha on the female side owns this district. He
paid me a long call. A pleasant man with a broken nose. Fertile plain
all covered with corn. Black {irises} arums today beyond Haoush
Kuru and small blue irises here. Through the hills quantities of
anemones. At 5.30 AM temp 55, Bar 28.5.