CHAPTER XVI
A STORM AND A LULL
The men were still very quarrelsome; the whole day their grating voices never stopped. They seemed, however, quite anxious to row now, and proposed at sunset that we should not moor to the shore as usual but, as the night was not very dark, keep on and make up for lost time. We had been in bed a little while and were dropping off to sleep in spite of the ceaseless quarrelsome voices, when a worse out-break than usual thoroughly awakened me.
"They are having a fight on board," said X, sleepily; "I suppose we must leave them at it."
I peered through the chinks of the door. Jedan had taken off all his clothes and was trying to jump off the raft into the middle of the river. Hassan and Ali were holding on to him for dear life, and the Evil One sat at the oars screaming with rage. Arten was offering him the remains of our dinner. Jedan seemed finally to yield to the other men's entreaties and sat down on the raft, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Ali sat beside him, holding his hand and murmuring soothing words. The Evil One occupied himself with devouring the dinner. General peace seemed, in fact, restored, and our slumbers were not again disturbed.
Next morning we threatened them both with dismissal at Tekreet, where we hoped to arrive that day, and which we knew was the seat of a Mudir, to whom we could make a show of appealing if the worst came to the worst. The cause of the disturbance was put down to Jedan, whose native village was close by, and who had threatened to leave the raft altogether if the Evil One bullied him any longer. Jedan begged to be allowed to visit his home, and it so happened that the wind rose again to such a pitch just opposite the place itself that we were compelled to put to shore. It was another Arab encampment, a collection of black tents with maize enclosures. Jedan at once disappeared amongst them, and, later on, as we strolled round the village, we came across him seated just inside a tent with two small children on his knees. He invited us to come in and sit down. The tent was full of his kindred. In the far corner a child shared with a bleating kid the quilted covering which constituted the bed of the establishment. A woman beside him was spinning wool and another one at the door was grinding dari for bread. A grown-up son sat opposite, industriously working the wool from his mother's wheel on to a leather sole for sandals.
Jedan appeared in quite a new light in the centre of his family circle; he suddenly seemed endowed with a dignity becoming his present position as monarch of all he surveyed. The children on his knee clung to him and stroked his head, and he softly patted their heads. All the gruff surliness and cringing hatred of the expression with which he regarded the Evil One on the raft had disappeared, and he smiled with benign content on his domestic surroundings. He sent the boy out into the village with orders to get some delicacy in our honour. In a few minutes the lad returned with a raw turnip, which was cut into chunks and offered to us with much ceremony. Then a bowl of youart was produced, and we felt compelled to drink out of the common stock.
At midday the wind had subsided and we insisted on starting off at once, with the hope of reaching Tekreet before evening. It was five days since we had left Mosul, and we had scarcely covered one hundred miles. As we had counted on reaching Baghdad in that time, our supply of provisions had got very low. The river was now deep and broad, and the strong current carried us along at a good pace. Jedan's visit to his family had put him in a very good humour, and even the Evil One, who had participated in the feast of raw turnip, worked quietly at the oars. Every moment took us further from the snow mountains and the bleak country of the north and nearer the sunny south. Already the sun's hot rays poured down soothingly, and everybody was in that state of quiet contentment known as "kief" in the East. Hassan, seated cross-legged with his back against the hut, dozed at intervals. Ali was rolling up long, fat cigarettes by the door, and Arten, stretched full length inside, was making up for his disturbed slumbers of the past night. X lay on a rug at the edge of the raft and I sat beside her, reading aloud the Prophetic utterances on Nineveh. The Bible is one of the few books that one can read in this sort of wandering life. This is, perhaps, because we are in the land where people live in rock houses, and hew their tombs in rocks, and wear girdles, and say "Aha," eat honey a lot, and go out to desolate lands, and say their prayers on the housetop. We were living with the shepherds who divided the sheep and goats at nightfall and watered their flocks at sundown; with the women who came down with their pitchers to the wells, and with the elders sitting at the gates. One felt that any other book made too great a demand on one's mental powers. Even now the sound of one's own voice was disturbing, and for some time we sat listening to the silence and imbibing the sun. A sudden chill crept into the atmosphere and a blackness covered the face of the waters. I looked up at the sky. A line of angry, black clouds had overtaken the sun, gathering up the scattered white fleeces in its path, and was advancing rapidly over our heads. An ominous sound of rising winds seemed to herald its approach. In less than three minutes we were swept up in the arms of a howling gale; sudden gusts caught the walls of the hut and swirled us round, the playthings of a merciless, raging force, at one moment tearing us into the middle of the stream, and the next dashing us with redoubled vigour against its rocky sides. The rain came down in blinding torrents, and the waves, breaking over the surface of the raft, made it seem as if we were being submerged altogether under the water. Then we rose on the crest of a wave once more, which dashed us against a wall of rock rising precipitously at the side, with a force which seemed as if it must shatter asunder all the bending, creaking poles of the raft. Ali and Hassan stood on the edge, trying to break the force of the blows with the butt end of their rifles, while the kalekjis struggled fruitlessly at the oars. The lowering black sky, the raging black waters, the unyielding black walls of rock gave a grim setting of darkness to this struggle, which proved to be no less than a fight with death itself. Our companions, the birds, clung huddled up with fright to sheltering walls of rock, or crept into niches, where they cowered together, hiding their heads under their wings. Even the noise of the wind and waters could not drown the wild, terrified shriek of startled crows when we were dashed against their hiding places, and they flew close past our heads to seek a fresh shelter.
This, then, was to be the end of our interlude of peace. It seemed as if the jealous gods, conscious of our forgetfulness of their authority, were proclaiming our powerlessness against their decrees. They tossed us ruthlessly about until we were reduced to a state of subordination, and then, as if repenting of their anger, they caused the wind to lull and shot out a gleam of sunshine through the dark clouds. We passed out beyond the walls of rock, on which the wet drops now gleamed like bits of silver, and drifted in a broad, slow stream with low, shelving banks. On the last ledge, with downcast heads, sat three great vultures, disappointed of their prey.
Hassan thoughtfully rolled some cigarettes; he lit one and handed it to me; then he lit another and handed it to X. She shook her head. "Smoke," he said sternly. X took the cigarette and, all need for action being over, we resumed our attitudes of contemplation. But the atmosphere of lazy indifference seemed to be dispelled. Where were we drifting to? Were we at any moment likely to be snatched from this state of peaceful acquiescence in our surroundings, and be hurled to destruction with no word of warning or choice in the matter?
"Ah, well, kim bilior?" (Who knows?) I said out loud.
"Who know what?" said Hassan.
"What is going to happen to us?" I said.
"Kim bilior?" repeated Hassan. "Allah bilior" (God knows), and then, after a minute's silence, he repeated:
"Kim bilior? Allah bilior!"
I looked up at him.
"It is so," he said, nodding his head solemnly; "Kim bilior? Allah bilior!"
The influence of the Eastern mind asserted itself; the future had no interest for them. Allah had arranged their destiny; it had nothing to do with them, and no thought or effort on their part would make any difference. Nor had the past any interest for them. They lived in the present, enjoying the pleasant places and accepting the unpleasant ones with no fear or resentment.
The storm was over, and they set about drying their clothes and making preparations for the evening meal. Jedan slowly unwound his keffiyeh and wiped his head all over, then he spread the coloured rag out to dry. Ali and Hassan rubbed their rifles carefully and hung them up inside the hut. Then Ali spread out his cloak on the far corner of the raft and went through the midday prayer; this over, he borrowed a needle and thread from me and began darning a tear in his ragged uniform.
The sun shone brightly and our clothes were soon dry. Birds appeared on the bank shaking their feathers and stretching out one limb after another. The lull that follows a great storm reigned over everything; all nature seemed resting after her exertions. Ali Chous finished his darn and began to sing; the kalekjis joined in the chorus, clapping their hands. An element of cheerful carelessness established itself on board. I went inside and began to invent a pudding for dinner. Arten was not enlightened in his profession as cook, and I was trying to supplement his deficiencies by the light of nature, for Arten did not seem to have that sort of light. I tied the mixture up in a handkerchief and set it to boil in a pot on the brazier. One by one the men came in and sat round the fire, gazing silently at the pot as they smoked away. After a time I took the lid off and examined its contents.
"Is it really going to be a pudding?" said X, with an agonized expression.
I tried to recall what puddings looked like in England, and then remembered that I had never seen one at this stage.
"I cannot say till it is finished," I said.
The pudding still clung ominously to the handkerchief; I had greased it well and have since heard that you only grease pans. I gave it a few minutes longer, then, as we were all hungry, I fished it out of the pot and untied the handkerchief.
"Bak!" (Look) said Arten.
"Bak!" said Hassan.
"Bak!" said Ali.
"Bak!" said the kalekjis.
It was a moment of extreme tension.
I slipped it on to a plate.
"Now look," said Arten.
"See now what a cook she is!" said Hassan, "a wonderful cook."
"Mashallah," said Ali.
"Mashallah," said the kalekjis.
"Itisa pudding," said X, "a real pudding."
We all gazed at it for several moments in ecstatic excitement. I handed X a spoon and we each took a mouthful; then we looked at one another.
"It is a pudding," said X again.
It almost seemed as if she were trying to persuade herself of the fact against the dictates of reason. When we had finished, the men shared our spoons in turn; each one cautiously raised a spoonful and smelt it, then they swallowed it, very much as one remembers swallowing jam in the nursery when one knew there was a powder inside.
"Ehe" (Good), they said very deliberately, nodding their heads, and then, as they handed the spoon to their neighbour, "Inghiliz" they added. One felt that the first word was Turkish politeness; the second was a veiled warning to their brethren.
But on the whole it seemed a success; we had a sense of repletion; how often had we not swallowed bowls of rice and been only conscious of a great internal void.
The men carried our rugs outside and we stretched ourselves lazily out on the open end of the raft. I began to reflect upon Time and Destiny. No shadow of a cloud appeared to disturb the horizon, no obstruction in the river affected our steady onward course down the slow, wide stream; we took the current where it served, and so were not delayed in the shallows where the waters dallied about the banks; they in due course would arrive at their destination and pour themselves, unquestioning and unquestioned, into the oblivious sea. But what would Time, that unremitting, relentless current, do with us? Was it going to hurl us too into oblivion? Whatever it had to give was ours, and yet, because we could not stop it, we were not master of it. We could moor to the shore and let the river go on without us; the current did not wait for us, but we could pick it up again when we were ready for it and go on without loss; but in the current of Time, when we stay on one side and let the moments go past us, we have lost for ever what those moments had to give, and our arrival at our destination has not been delayed; it is so much the nearer.
"X," I said, "where do you think we are floating to?"
"Baghdad," said X.
"I wasn't thinking geographically," I answered, "I was thinking whether it was Eternity or Oblivion. Being hurried along by this current gives me an uncomfortable feeling of not being allowed any choice as regards time, which I resent. Do you mind it at all?"
"No," said X, "I feel that I have lost all conception of time, and that we are floating on, as it were, to Eternity."
"Do you?" I said dubiously; "I feel it's Oblivion we are getting to."
"But we are only three days off Baghdad," insisted X.
"Well," I answered, "I devoutly pray that we may get there first."
We arrived at Tekreet just before sunset, and at once sent Ali up to the Mudir with the request that he would help us in the dismissal of the Evil One.
"Tell the Mudir," we said, "that we cannot sleep for the noise he makes at night, and our heads ache from the noise he makes in the daytime, and that he has guided the raft so badly that we have spent five days getting here from Mosul."
Ali obediently disappeared. He first communicated the substance of our remarks to the kalekjis, who, after putting their heads together, landed and strolled down a rambling street of Arab huts. We also went on shore with Hassan, and wandered about along the rocky paths amongst labyrinths of tombs which ran down to the water's edge. Tekreet boasts of one palm tree, the first we had seen on the river, and an old castle, the ruins of which stand on a rock above. The town is a tumble-down sort of place, inhabited chiefly by Arabs, who ply rafts with merchandise between Mosul and Baghdad. Ali returned with the news that the Mudir had given orders for new kalekjis to be ready in the morning. He apologised in the name of the Sultan for the discomfort we had experienced in his Highness's domains. We asked what had become of the others, and were informed that they were frightened of being punished and had run away.
"That's curious," I said, "I should have thought that no Eastern would put fright before baksheesh, or mind what a Mudir said in this district."
Later on an emissary arrived from the Mudir with a piece of sheep and a message that he would travel with us the next day as far as Samarah. Accordingly we sent back word that we were starting at sunrise.
We went to bed that night with a greater sense of security then we had felt since leaving Mosul. We came, moreover, to the conclusion that there was, perhaps, a slight advantage in being under Government patronage, when we really had to apply for that protection which his Highness the Sultan so anxiously proffers to all travellers in his well-regulated country.
CHAPTER XVII
AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS
It was long after sunrise when we awoke next morning; the raft was still tied up and the men showed no signs of moving.
"Hi!" shouted X to Hassan through the felt wall, "why haven't we started?"
"The Mudir has not arrived yet, Effendi."
We waited another ten minutes.
"Hi! Hassan, has the Mudir come?"
"No, Effendi, he will come soon."
We turned over and had another doze.
"Hi! Hassan, if the Mudir has not come we shall go without him. Send Ali to say we must start now."
"Yes, Effendi, he will go."
Turkish acquiescence, especially when very polite, is suspicious. I got out of bed and peeped through the door. Ali was sitting on the bank chatting with a local Zaptieh.
"Hi! Hassan, send Ali at once."
"Yes, yes, Effendi, this minute he goes."
From my point of observation I reported that neither Hassan nor Ali were making any move in the matter, so we decided to dress and become strenuous about it.
I relieved my feelings at intervals by trying to express in my best Turkish to Hassan, through the wall, what I thought of the Mudir who dared to keep great English Pashas waiting beyond the accustomed two hours which one concedes to Eastern ideas of punctuality.
Before we had finished dressing a sudden rocking of the raft and general bustle outside announced our departure. Through the window I took a last look at Tekreet and thanked my lucky stars that departure from it meant also deliverance from the Evil One.
"Do you think the Mudir will be angry with us for leaving him behind?" I said.
"Let us hope not," said X, as we emerged from the hut for breakfast; "we owe him something for ridding us of the Evil One."
The words were hardly out of my mouth before we became aware of the Evil One himself, sitting between the oars in his usual place. He greeted us with a bland smile. Beside him, instead of Jedan, sat a grinning boy.
We turned on Ali for an explanation.
"Ach, Effendi, he is good now; he will not speak: he will not say a word; he is changed: he is now a good kalekji. The ladies can now sleep at night."
The Evil One nodded affably at us and put his finger on his sealed lips. The grinning boy understood Turkish. "I am a good kalekji, Effendi; I do not talk, I never say a word."
We had become sufficiently Oriental to reconcile ourselves to the dictates of Destiny; there was no getting rid of him now, so we had to be content with threats of no baksheesh if a word was uttered on the way to Baghdad.
We caught sight of a stranger in the men's hut.
"Who is that?" I said.
"The Mudir, Effendi."
"How long has he been there?"
"Since sunrise, Effendi."
"Why did you say he had not come?"
"Ach, Effendi, the kalekjis' bread was not ready; they could not go without bread."
So all this time the local magnate had been sitting listening to our abuse of his person. There is only one way to live in the East, and that is to accept it. Its ways are stronger than your ways, especially when you come out freshly armed with the ardour of the West. Your best reasoning is worsted by gracious irrelevancy; your protesting attacks are turned by acquiescing politeness; and the East moves on its smiling, unalterable way.
The country below Tekreet began to have a more civilised look; there were plantations of cucumbers and melons on the banks and roughly constructed windlasses for raising the water in skins into irrigating channels. We passed several ruined villages, and caught sight in the distance of the remains of an old castle.
At noon, after floating about three or four miles, we arrived within sight of Samarah, a town which was made conspicuous by the huge blue dome of its mosque and which, we learnt later on, was a place of pilgrimage for Mahomedans of the Shieah sect. We drew up opposite it to land the Mudir, and Hassan announced his intention of landing also to replenish the store of charcoal.
"Then I'll get off too," said X, "I want to see inside that mosque."
X had a mania for looking at mosques; we had seen inside hundreds and she never seemed to get tired of them. I connected the process chiefly with having to unlace your boots, a proceeding I detest, and dawdle over cold floors in your stocking feet. Then you had to remember to cross your hands in front; if you put them behind your back or in your pockets you were a marked infidel.
The raft was run along the shore and we walked up to the town. It was enclosed by a high mud wall which was defended by towers and bastions. We entered through a large gateway and found ourselves amongst a collection of falling mud houses lining the usual dirty, narrow streets. Hassan went in search of charcoal, and we, accompanied by Ali Chous, strolled on to the mosque. We were followed by the usual crowd of curious-minded inhabitants, but being by this time quite used to these attentions, we did not notice them particularly. X was in front, and advanced towards the low line of chains which barred the entrance to the building; she was in the act of stepping over the chains when an excited-looking fanatic rushed at her and hurled her across the street with what appeared to be effusive execrations. In one moment we were hemmed in by an angry, buzzing mob; there was no mistaking the glaring menaces of their expressions and the significant handling of the long knives worn by all natives in their belts. We realised in a flash that we had unwittingly aroused the dangerous side of Eastern fanaticism. Resistance was out of the question; a sign of fear would have been fatal. All day-dreams were at an end: I recalled the vague forebodings the storm had first aroused in me. Was it only the day before that X had said she felt like floating to Eternity and I had maintained that we should be hurled into Oblivion? Were we only joking then? Now we were face to face with grim reality. Hassan's words rang in my ears, "Kim bilior? Allah bilior!" (Who knows? God knows!) We stopped and looked over the crowd. Ali Chous, our only protector, stood beside us white and trembling, appealing to some of the leading men, who hesitated and glared at us in wavering suspicion. Hassan was nowhere in sight.
"Let's stroll on as far as the end of the street," said X.
"Yes," I answered, "that seems a good idea."
"Don't let's hurry," she said.
"No," I replied, "we have plenty of time."
The crowd made way for us as we turned from the mosque, and we walked on beyond it up through the bazaars. The men had begun to fight and wrangle amongst themselves, the narrow street was tightly packed, and the crowd surged up behind us as we walked on. We were in the covered part of the bazaars; the usual bright-coloured keffiyehs hung outside; gaudy cotton coats of Eastern make lay on the top of bales of Manchester prints and flannelettes; there was the leather stall, with gorgeous beaded bridles and handsomely embroidered native saddles; and next it was the boot bazaar, with none of our blackness about it, but a mass of red and yellow sandals. We had seen it all, just the same, in a score of similar villages, but I took it all in this time as I had never taken it in before.
"What a funny baby's garment that is," said X.
The crowd behind were beginning to push.
"Yes," I said, "I wonder how it gets outside the baby."
An angry buzz arose just behind us; were they going to stick us in the back? We both disdained to turn our heads to see.
"I hope Hassan will think of getting some spinach," I said, "there was some in the vegetable bazaar."
"He knows you like it," X answered, "he is sure to get it."
We had come to the end of the row of stalls; we slowly turned and faced the mob.
"This is the obvious moment for annihilation," I thought to myself, "I wonder why I'm not afraid."
I was waiting in momentary expectation of death, but at the same time I could not realise that we were going to be killed. I did not seem to be able to take in what being killed was—I felt very indifferent, and noticed that I had lost a button off my coat. But the crowd made way for us and we sauntered back. Further down we met Hassan.
"What is all this crowd about?" he said.
X told him; he made no answer and we walked on together.
We got outside the gates of the town but were still a few minutes' walk from the river.
"I'm tired," said X; "let's rest here a minute," and she lay down on the ground.
I looked round. There was still a noisy crowd at the gates of the town, and we were being followed out by some of the rowdier members. I had a vague idea that it would have been more comfortable to lie down on the raft, but there was no accounting for tastes, and it was all in the day's work. I sat down beside X. There was a white stone a few yards away, larger than the others which lay about; I picked up a handful of the smaller stones.
"Best out of ten," I said to myself; "if I hit we get off, if I don't hit we are done for. There is no current about this, it's all chance," and I started lazily throwing at the large stone. Hassan stood by smoking. I missed the first, and the second, and the third. Ali Chous looked uneasily at the crowd beginning to straggle out towards us. The fourth hit, and the fifth; the sixth missed. Two more misses and we should be done for. Ali Chous begged us to come on. The seventh and the eighth hit, the ninth missed. The next throw would settle the question.
Two men had come up and stood looking at us.
"Let's come on now," said X, sitting up.
"One minute," I said, and I carefully picked out a nice round pebble. It hit.
"What a baby you are!" said X.
We boarded the raft and pushed off. It was a lovely calm evening. The current was straight enough for us to glide quietly along with no assistance from the oars; the last traces of the setting sun slowly disappeared, and gradually the stars reflected twinkling points of silver in the black water, dancing brightly in the moving current. A silence as of death reigned over everything; the blackness of death peered out of the deep waters; the slow but surely moving current was drifting us on relentlessly towards an uncertainty suggesting death. And with it there was a tremendous sense of stillness and peace.
I was sitting very near the edge looking into the dark waters.
"I don't want to die yet," I said.
"You are such a time taking things in," said X, "that you would not be aware that you were dead until so long after the event that it would hardly matter to you. You weren't afraid, were you?"
"No," I answered. We were silent for a while, then Hassan spoke.
"If you had crossed the chain," he said, "there would have been no more Pashas for me to travel with. Inside is the tomb of the last Imam of the race of Ali, and no Christian may look upon it and live." I looked again into the deep waters and began to take it all in—what I had seen in the men's faces, and how they would have done it. Hassan put a rug over me; I had shivered. I wasn't cold. It was all over, we were safe; but I was knowing what it was to be afraid.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE END OF THE RAFT
We were now only sixty-five miles from Baghdad, and with luck we should reach it next day. We travelled on all night, and on waking up next morning found ourselves floating past cultivated banks and creaking waterwheels, and sighted in the distance dark patches of palm-groves.
But, in spite of Ali's prayers to the "God of the favouring breeze," our enemy the wind rose up once more and compelled us to put to shore. From this point it was only a few hours by land to Baghdad. We could faintly see the town itself on the distant horizon line to the east, separated from us by a great expanse of sandy desert. We were told, however, that the river wound in and out so much that it was still a day's journey off by water.
We kicked our heels disconsolately on shore—a sandy shore this time; little sandy hillocks alternated with patches of struggling tufts of grass. We sat there all day. The sand blew into our faces, and the river rolled on past us—and just behind me a rat put its head occasionally out of a hole to see if we were still there. Arten also at intervals put his head out of the hut and held up his hand in the hurricane to feel if the wind was blowing. "There is still much wind," he would say, and as no one paid any attention to his original remark he retired again into the hut, and the rat looked out of his hole. I always mixed up Arten with rats after that day. By and by a goufa appeared on the scene. A goufa is a native boat made of pomegranate branches laced together with ropes and covered inside and out with bitumen. It is like a circular coracle, eight to ten feet across and about four feet deep, and is propelled with a single paddle. The crew disembarked just above us. First came half a dozen Arabs, then a veiled woman, then a donkey, then a buffalo, then another woman, then three more men. One donkey still remained inside with two men. He refused to be jumped over the side like his predecessors. All the people on shore yelled at him and the men in the boat hit him. Hits and cries were of no avail; he sneered at the yellers and kicked at the hitters. The donkey on land gazed mournfully at his companion and brayed. Finally the offender put his two fore feet on the edge of the boat and the men behind seized his hind legs and heaved him overboard. He rolled over in the water, shook himself unconcernedly, and started to browse the withered grass. Then everybody disappeared behind sandy hillocks, the goufa floated past us, and we were once more left alone with the wind and the rat.
Towards sunset we made a start again, and floated on most of the night. Small mud villages and plantations of palms and orange-trees were scattered thickly on each side of the river. We seemed to be quite close to Baghdad; gilded domes and minarets stood up on the sky-line above confused masses of flat-topped houses and groups of palm-trees. But all the morning we wound slowly round and round endless loops of the river and hardly seemed to get any nearer to our destination. The banks now teemed with life; goufas shot across past us from one bank to another with mixed consignments of men and animals; mules plodded up and down drawing skins of water over windlasses; groups of Arabs lay about on the sunny banks and shouted inquiries at the kalekjis as we passed. The houses, which had been mud hovels higher up the river, now looked more substantial, and were each surrounded by high walls enclosing shady orange gardens. Finally we hove in sight of the bridge of boats which guards the entrance to the town, and ran into the shore just above it. The bridge, we learnt, had to be broken down before the raft could pass through, and as this seemed likely to take some hours we landed and drove up to the Consulate. H.M. Vice-Consul was away, and so we proceeded to the Babylon Hotel.
Drawing Skins of Water
"Drawing Skins of Water."
Baghdad can be reached in a normal way up the Persian Gulf to Busra and from thence by the weekly mail steamer; it contains, therefore, certain concessions to the ideas of occasional European agents and commercial travellers. The Babylon Hotel is one of these concessions. There was a dining-room hung all round with the framed self-assertions of various wine and spirit merchants whose names, strangely familiar, mocked us from the wall as a first greeting from the borders of civilisation. Hassan stood in the middle of the room and gazed at them open-mouthed. These were to him English works of art, decorations of great English houses, in keeping with the gaudily covered chairs and meaningless glass ornaments. Each one had unmistakable pictorial aspects of the bottle. He pointed at first one and then another.
"Ingilhiz," he said in a tone of congratulation. He was always pleased when we met with anything which would seem to remind us of our native land. We were irresponsive; he studied them further.
"Raki?" (Whisky) he added, the note of inquiry tinged with apologetic scorn.
The hotel was built, like all the better modern houses, along the banks of the river, with overhanging balconies. I escaped from the further evidences of Western vulgarity, and, leaning over the rail of the balcony, let the passing river wash them away from the disturbed crevices of my brain. Just beneath, on one side, the narrow street which led to the hotel was continued past it down to the shore; and here came an incessant stream of natives; women with waterskins to fill and men with mules carrying baskets of town refuse to empty; the same spot served admirably for both purposes. The Eastern has an overwhelming love for "taze su" (fresh water); he drinks it, he sings to it, he worships it, he makes an emblem of it, and yet—with his extraordinarily consistent inconsistency—he makes the town midden and the town watering-place one and the same spot.
A nearly naked child sprawled about amongst the dirt and rubbish, unearthing hidden treasures in the form of bright tin lids. The mules strayed about at the water's muddy edge, putting in a drink on their own account whilst their masters, having emptied the loads, filled waterskins for the return journey.
A big, lumbering sailing boat was being unloaded just below me; the men swung themselves to and fro together as they pitched heavy bales overboard.
"Allāh, Allāh, Allāh," they sang out as they swung. Round their heads circled and swooped white gulls talking of the sea.
And now, through the distant broken bridge, clumsily floating down the current, came our raft, square and stubborn amongst the twirling, swiftly paddled goufas. Like a great, uncertain, bewildered animal, turning now this way and now that, guided by the unwieldy poplar poles, it lurched up the watering-place and stuck on the midden.
From every corner of the narrow, winding street sprang out half-clothed, jabbering Arab forms; gesticulating, fighting, jostling, they proffered their services in the task of unloading.
In a few moments all our belongings were removed; the cooking-pots, the rugs, the beds, all the personal requirements which had made it into our home for so many weeks. Stripped and deserted, looking almost ashamed of itself, it lay there in all its naked clumsiness. By to-morrow even this vestige of our journey will have disappeared for ever from the realms of historic evidence. The felt strips, the walls which have sheltered us through so many stormy nights, will be sold to the highest bidder; they will serve henceforth as carpets in some native hovel, on which the Mahomedan will kneel to say his prayers or squat to smoke his pipe. The poles and oars will go as firewood; and the skins, deflated, will return to the country we have left. Nothing will remain but the memory of it to a few human minds. We are glad that it is to be so; as it has been exclusively ours in the past, so will it remain ours only in the future. We made it what it was, and without us it will cease to be.
The waters gave it a farewell lap as they passed on. We had stopped; but they went hurrying on, taking with them all those mixed memories of peace and danger, of contemplation and exertion, of idleness and hurry which they, and they only, had shared with us. They had borne us from the wilds and fastnesses of the unconquered East to the gateway of the Western invasion; through the dreariness and desolation of desert lands, through the magnificent isolation of gorgeous mountain scenery, past the ruined evidences of ancient Western civilisations still mocked by the persistence of squalid tribal huts; and now, having deposited us to draw our own conclusions in this decayed city of the Khalifs, they hurried on, lapping scornfully in their course at the rocking pleasure-boat of Messrs. Sassoon's representatives and the white steam launch of H.M. British Vice-Consulate.
Impartially, as they had borne us up, so down here they bore up alike the brass trinkets shipped in their thousands from Manchester, the emissary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the golf clubs and society papers for the English Club; and with an indescribable roar, as of grim laughter, rushed headlong into the salt blue waters of the Persian Gulf, where, surrendering irretrievably their own bounded individuality, they merged themselves in the larger life of the untrammelled Eastern seas.
PART III
BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS
"I read on a porch of a palace bold,In a purple tablet letters cast—'A house though a million years old,A house of earth comes down at last;Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,And build the dome that shall not fall.'"
"I read on a porch of a palace bold,In a purple tablet letters cast—'A house though a million years old,A house of earth comes down at last;Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,And build the dome that shall not fall.'"
"I read on a porch of a palace bold,
In a purple tablet letters cast—
'A house though a million years old,
A house of earth comes down at last;
Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,
And build the dome that shall not fall.'"
CHAPTER XIX
BABYLON
The eastern gate of heaven was unbarred; Shamash, the Sun-god of Babylonia, flamed forth and stepped upon the Mount of Sunrise at the edge of the world. As he had poured the light of heaven upon the luxuriant gardens and fertile corn-lands of the Babylonians, so was he pouring it upon the same spot, now an arid and deserted wilderness. We were crossing it on our way to visit Babylon. It was pitch dark when we had left Baghdad in the procession of covered arabas which conveyed pilgrims to Kerbela and merchants to Hillah. We had been roused at 2 a.m., and had threaded our way silently through the sleeping streets by the light of a dim lantern. Huddled human forms lay about in angles and on doorsteps, and at every moment we stumbled over the outstretched limbs of a yellow dog. We crossed the Tigris in one of the round native boats, and landed within a few minutes' walk of the khan from where the arabas started. We had an araba to ourselves: an oblong wooden box on four wheels, with a light canvas top and canvas sides that could be rolled up or let down at pleasure; a narrow wooden plank, with a singularly sharp edge and an uncomfortably hard face, ran down each side, and was called a seat. We were going to sit on it for twelve hours. We were drawn by four mules harnessed abreast. Our driver had knotted the reins and hooked them on to his seat; his hands were rolled inside his cloak, and he sat huddled up on the box in the freezing air of sunrise. The mules galloped ahead at their own discretion; the araba lurched over ruts; sudden jerks shot us against one another, or threw us in the air, from whence we descended with some emphasis in the vacuum between the two sharp edges.
Now the horizon on the left blazed orange and red, and the desert sands were pink. Stunted tufts of grey-green grass tried to assert themselves in the barren soil; mounds, marking the site of ancient villages, occurred at random; walls of sand, indicating the course of old irrigating canals, broke the level plain; they could almost be taken for the work of Nature, for the hand of Time had obliterated the marks of man. Every twenty minutes the arabas came to a sudden stop to give the mules breathing time; there is a general dismounting of the passengers; the plain is suddenly dotted with bending, praying forms, groups of excited talking Arabs, isolated, contemplative, smoking individuals, fussy superior Turkish officers flicking the specks of travel off their smart uniforms; veiled women peep from behind the curtain of a closely packed conveyance; a small Arab child plants himself with outstretched legs in front of us, and sucks his thumb in complete absorption as he gazes upon us like a little wild animal. Then the whole scene dissolves itself into a sudden rush for the carriages, as of so many rabbits bolting into a warren at the sound of an alarm, and off goes the whole train at a gallop; belated loiterers hang perilously on the step of any conveyance they can catch, and try to snatch the lash of the whip with which the driver good-humouredly flicks them. Finally, we approach a collection of mud huts; we dash through them, scattering hens and children, and draw up in a long line opposite a large khan in the centre of the village. This is one of the regular halting places for caravans, and we have a short wait while the mules are being changed. A stall close by is already closely besieged by our fellow-travellers clamouring for tea, which is sold in small glasses after the Persian custom. We buy a little blue dish of thick cream from an Arab girl in a blue smock, and make a sumptuous breakfast off it and dates.
With a fresh set of mules we start off again; the party is more lively. We dash up the sides of an embankment, catch a glimpse of a silted-up canal as we waver for a moment on the top; then a fearful double lurch throws us about as the two front wheels go downwards whilst the two back ones are still going upwards. A short, sharp descent follows, then comes a level stretch; the driver boys shout and race one another, we overtake and are overtaken, we jeer and are jeered at.
And the Sun-god pursues his journey in silence and unconcern across the dome of heaven.
We pass bands of Persian pilgrims on their way to the sacred Tomb of Hosein, son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet. Many of them trudge along on foot, grasping only the stout staff which one's mind associates with pilgrims; these give a true feeling of sackcloth and ashes. Some ride mules and carry a few worldly goods in saddle-bags. There is a Pasha mounted on a fine Arab horse and followed by servants; large pack trunks on mules in his train make one doubt the existence of his hair shirts. The women sit in covered wicker cradles suspended on each side of mules; donkeys bear rude coffins strapped crossways over their backs, for the ambition of the true believer is not only to make the pilgrimage during life, but that after death his bones may rest in peace in the holy ground of Hosein's martyrdom.
At Mushayhib we halt again to get a fresh relay of mules. Here the roads branch and we part company with the rest of the party, who are going to Kerbela. We jerk along over the ridged and rutty ground. I find myself wondering whether cushions in the chariots were amongst the luxuries of wicked Babylon; and if so, whether it was part of the punishment of the fourth generation that we should be deprived of them. We come to a marshy tract with water standing in pools; the driver thrashes the mules vigorously and shouts, the animals plunge forward, and the boy bends his body to and fro with them as they plunge. We go headlong into the marsh and stick; the boy uses his whip unsparingly; the light, energetic members of our party dismount, the fat and heavy ones remain seated; we all shout in anger or encouragement, and by means of these strenuous endeavours are landed on the other side.
On the horizon in front we see a black line; it is formed, we are told, by the rows of palm-trees which border the Euphrates. We are now soberly trotting towards a great mound which, rising abruptly out of the level plain, appears in the distance like a sudden thought of Nature's, tired of the monotony of her own handiwork. But as we approach, its symmetrical sides and flat table-top proclaim it to be the work of man. Our native escort tell us, in subdued tones of awe, how Marut and Harut, the fallen angels, are suspended by their heels in the centre awaiting the Day of Judgment. We leave it at some distance to the right. In front of us stretches a tract of land more desolate and naked even than that through which we have been driving; small heaps are scattered amongst a few larger mounds, and all are enveloped in a network of high-banked canals, now mostly silted up. There are marshy pools here and there, and rough tussocks of coarse grass catch the blown sand.
"And Babylon shall become heaps," said Jeremiah. It was the heaps of Babylon we were looking upon. Babylon, the "glory of nations," was laid out in front of us.
The Sun-god had reached the pinnacle of his height, and covered the spot with the brightness of heaven.
We made a detour round the edge to avoid the embankments and marshy places, and then struck to the right across the uneven ground, at a jolting foot's pace, towards a clump of palms on the banks of the river. The trees partially concealed the one stone house of the district, the home of three German professors who are superintending the work of excavation now going on. A mud wall separated it from a collection of mud huts; here live the natives employed in removing the sand which buries the architectural monuments of ancient times.
We were at the foot of one of the larger mounds; it is called the Kasr by travellers and Mujelibe (the overturned) by the Arabs, and represents the only part of Babylon which is not altogether buried. We climbed up the great square mass composed entirely of the débris of former habitations; the surface was strewn with broken bricks and tiles; in the centre stood the remains of solid blocks of masonry. Looking down into a large ravine at the further end we saw—half-blocked with rubbish—walls, courtyards, doorways, pilasters, and buttresses built of pale yellow-coloured bricks, each bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Here and there architectural ornaments were built in with the walls; bits of bright-coloured enamel and pieces of broken pottery lay about. We wandered amongst the huge ruin, balancing ourselves on the edges of low remaining walls and clambering from one courtyard to another. A jackal darted from under our feet with a shrill bark; he was answered from behind distant walls by innumerable hidden companions. An owl flew out of a dark corner and perched, blinking, a little way off; a great black crow hovered uneasily overhead. The broad walls of Babylon were indeed utterly broken, and her houses were indeed full of doleful creatures. We sat down and listened to the wild beasts crying in her desolate houses; it was indeed "a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing without an inhabitant."
Shamash, the Sun-god, was nearing the western gate of heaven. The gate-bolts of the bright heavens were giving him greeting.
The Euphrates and its wooded banks lay between us and the horizon; above the river-line we saw a row of jet black palms in an orange setting, and below it a row of jet black palms standing on their heads in the rippled golden water. Shamash has reached the summit of the Mount of Sunset; he slowly descends; the orange changes to red, the general conflagration becomes streaked and barred; the waters of the river grow black, almost as black as the reflected palms, the streaks slowly die away. Shamash has entered into the Kirib Shame, the "innermost part of heaven, that mysterious realm beyond the heavenly ocean, where the great gods dwell apart from mankind."