Note 95 — Chapter VII · AN ORIENTAL VICH IAN VOHR (THE SHEIKH OF BARZAN)

Most “old books” have now been ferreted out, and perhaps the only earths yet untried are in the Yezidi villages of the Sinjar. These villages were formerly Christian; and there is a widespread conviction (strenuously denied by the Yezidis) that old Christian books still remain there, carefully secreted in certain caves. We have heard from a Syrian priest that he himself once actually saw some spread out to dry in the sun because they had got damp in a flood. He was at once headed off when he tried to look at them; but could see from the title-page that one was “The Works of Diodorus,” a famous Eastern doctor whose writings have been entirely lost.