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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By Desert Ways to Baghdad
+
+Author: Louisa Jebb
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2011 [EBook #38319]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+
+
+_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._
+
+
+THE GREAT BOER WAR. _Arthur Conan Doyle._
+COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. _G. W. E. Russell._
+REMINISCENCES. _Sir Henry Hawkins._
+LIFE OF LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. _R. Barry O'Brien._
+FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. _E. S. Grogan._
+A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. _Dean Hole._
+LIFE OF FRANK BUCKLAND. _George C. Bompas._
+A MODERN UTOPIA. _H. G. Wells._
+WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM. _G. W. Steevens._
+THE UNVEILING OF LHASA. _Edmund Candler._
+LIFE OF LORD DUFFERIN. _Sir A. Lyall._
+ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL. _John Foster Fraser._
+LITERATURE AND DOGMA. _Matthew Arnold._
+SPURGEON'S SERMONS. _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D._
+MY CONFIDENCES. _Frederick Locker-Lampson._
+SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. _Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P._
+THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER. _Colonel Durand._
+LIFE OF GENERAL GORDON. _Demetrius C. Boulger._
+POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN. _Mrs. Earle._
+THE RING AND THE BOOK. _Robert Browning._
+THE ALPS FROM END TO END. _Sir W. Martin Conway._
+THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. _Walter Bagehot._
+LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. _Lord Morley._
+LIFE OF PARNELL. _R. Barry O'Brien._
+HAVELOCK'S MARCH. _J. W. Sherer._
+UP FROM SLAVERY. _Booker Washington._
+WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. _H. Hesketh Prichard._
+HISTORICAL MYSTERIES. _Andrew Lang._
+THE STRENUOUS LIFE. _Theodore Roosevelt._
+MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY. _Dr. John Kerr._
+LIFE OF DANTON. _Hilaire Belloc._
+A POCKETFUL OF SIXPENCES. _G. W. E. Russell._
+THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL. _James Milne._
+A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. _S. Reynolds Hole._
+RANDOM REMINISCENCES. _Charles Brookfield._
+THE LONDON POLICE COURTS. _Thomas Holmes._
+THE AMATEUR POACHER. _Richard Jefferies._
+THE BANCROFTS. _Sir Squire Bancroft._
+AT THE WORKS. _Lady Bell._
+MEXICO AS I SAW IT. _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIGNETTES. _Austin Dobson._
+GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR. _Edward Whymper._
+THE EARLY HISTORY OF C. J. FOX. _Sir G. O. Trevelyan._
+THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA. _H. Hesketh Prichard._
+BROWNING AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND
+ RELIGIOUS TEACHER. _Professor Henry Jones._
+LIFE OF TOLSTOY. _Charles Sarolea._
+PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND. _Harry de Windt._
+LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL. _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood._
+A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS. _Eugène André._
+THE MANTLE OF THE EAST. _Edmund Candler._
+LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.
+JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET. _Prince Ranjitsinhji._
+
+_Etc., etc._
+
+_Others to follow._
+
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF AUTHOR'S ROUTE]
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUISA JEBB
+(MRS. ROLAND WILKINS)
+
+
+THOMAS NELSON & SONS
+
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
+AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+ "Oft have I said, I say it once more,
+ I, a wanderer, do not stray from myself;
+ I am a kind of parrot; the mirror is holden to me;
+ What the Eternal says, I, stammering, say again."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+PART I
+
+BRUSA TO DIARBEKR
+
+PROLOGUE 13
+
+ I. DISENTANGLEMENT 23
+
+ II. BRIGANDAGE 34
+
+ III. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 46
+
+ IV. THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY 55
+
+ V. IN THE TAURUS 88
+
+ VI. ROYAL PROGRESS 112
+
+ VII. HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM 132
+
+ VIII. THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA 146
+
+
+PART II
+
+DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
+
+ IX. AFLOAT 167
+
+ X. HELD UP 175
+
+ XI. A RECEPTION AND A DANCE 194
+
+ XII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN 204
+
+ XIII. THE CREED OF THE KORAN 215
+
+ XIV. THE EVIL ONE 227
+
+ XV. ARAB HOSPITALITY 241
+
+ XVI. A STORM AND A LULL 254
+
+ XVII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS 267
+
+XVIII. THE END OF THE RAFT 277
+
+
+PART III
+
+BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS
+
+ XIX. BABYLON 287
+
+ XX. THE SOUND OF THE DESERT 302
+
+ XXI. PALMYRA 316
+
+ XXII. AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK 325
+
+XXIII. RETROSPECTIVE 354
+
+APPENDIX 367
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+MAP _Frontispiece_
+
+A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS 64
+
+HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ 129
+
+JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN 160
+
+"DRAWING SKINS OF WATER" 225
+
+PALMYRA. TRIUMPHAL ARCH 256
+
+HASSAN 321
+
+ERECH. SYRIAN DESERT 352
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+It was a hot midsummer's day; X and I sat on the long grass under an
+apple-tree: she had a map of Asia and I had a Murray's Handbook. We
+were about to travel together in the East. X was going primarily in
+search of health; but she had studied comparative religions and was
+prepared to be incidentally intelligent about it--visit mosques and
+tombs, identify classical spots, and take rubbings of inscriptions.
+
+I was merely going with X. She had unearthed me from a remote
+agricultural district in the West of England with the idea that contact
+with the agricultural labourer would have fitted me for dealing with
+the male attendants who were incident to our proposed form of travel.
+
+We were fully agreed on one fundamental point--that we should choose a
+country which could be reached otherwise than by sea; and that, having
+reached it, its nature should be such that we could travel indefinitely
+in it without reaching the sea.
+
+Now of all the continents Asia Minor is the one best adapted for this
+purpose; for if you were a giant you could easily step across the bit
+of inland sea which separates Europe from Asia in the neighbourhood
+of Constantinople; and once landed on the other side your field of
+operations is practically unlimited, extending even into the adjoining
+continent of Africa; for any one who could step across the Bosphorus
+could also step across the Suez Canal.
+
+But having once settled on the particular continent, our ideas were
+somewhat vague. How indeed can they be otherwise if you propose
+travelling in a country which has not yet been ticketed and docketed
+for the tourist? This product of a modern age can, thanks to Messrs.
+Cook and Lunn, already tell, in the corner of his own fireside, the
+exact hour at which he will be gazing at the dome of St. Sophia on any
+particular day, or at which he will be eating his dinner, with the
+number of courses specified, in the hotel the outside appearance of
+which is already depicted on the itinerary. But it was not to be so
+with us. What we should eat and what we should gaze upon was still
+wrapt in the mystery of the great unknown.
+
+X took a pencil and marked a straight line from Constantinople across
+the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus Mountains to Tarsus. "That looks a
+good point to make for," she said, "Alexander led an army over the
+Taurus." Then, having stopped within measurable distance of the sea,
+she drew her pencil eastwards across the Euphrates to a point on the
+Tigris high up in the Kurdistan mountains; from here she drew another
+line following the Tigris to Baghdad. At this point we were coming
+dangerously near the sea, so turning back she marked a line in the
+contrary direction across the Syrian desert to Damascus.
+
+"That will do for a start," she said; "we can fill in the details when
+we get there."
+
+Now this method of undertaking a journey might have its disadvantages
+in what is known as a civilised country; for here we are all such
+servers of time that unless we arrange everything beforehand, as
+everybody else does, we are apt to get pushed aside; you must,
+therefore, take your place in the general hustle and secure your bed
+and your dinner and your right to look at sights by ticket long before
+you are in need of them. In short, you must make a plan. But in the
+untravelled parts of the East you reign supreme; there is no need to go
+about securely chained to a gold watch which metes out with inexorable
+exactitude the dictates of railway time-tables, steamers, diligences,
+and _table d'hôte_ summonses. Ignore Time, and he is at once your
+servant; treat him with respect, and he at once becomes your master. In
+those countries where Time has become master he develops a system of
+locomotion to which you must conform or lose its benefits; it will not
+accommodate itself to you. But in the East, do you but recognise the
+principle of making Time your own and at once plans become unnecessary.
+Systems of locomotion, for instance, spring up in answer to a
+preliminary wish in your brain; and their existence being solely due to
+you, it is possible to use them when and where you will. You want to
+get from one point to another: your wish is passed on, and a mule or an
+araba appears at your door; and whether it be punctual, or whether, as
+is more usual in the East, it be late, it is of no consequence, for
+Time is waiting for you and will wait for ever. Once you are started,
+moreover, the stopping-places are not arbitrary; you have merely to
+wish, and at once the mule or the araba stops. In the same way when you
+wish to sleep your bed is where you make it; and when you wish to eat
+you need wait for no summons. And should it so happen that you have
+been misguided enough to make a plan, it is of no consequence should
+you think fit to change it. One only asks, "Why have made the plan?"
+
+Thus it was that, without any more preparation than this preliminary
+idea of our route, X and I were able to carry it out in detail exactly
+as we had sketched it in the rough.
+
+The drawbacks of course were there. Sometimes we had nothing to eat
+through not having arranged for food; and sometimes we slept out in the
+wet. But does this never happen to those who have made elaborate plans
+against all possible contingencies? And have they not had the worst of
+it after all, for they have had the planning with no result, and have
+suffered the annoyance of having their best laid plans mislaid.
+
+Is it possible, moreover, to judge this method of travel by our
+standard of ideas in the West? In a civilised country where beds abound
+and it is merely a matter of arrangement to acquire one, there is no
+delight in passing the night under a damp hedge with drips down your
+back; there is shelter round the corner, and you merely curse yourself
+for your own stupidity, or pretend you like it, and take care not to do
+it again. But when you lie on your back on a sandy desert with nothing
+within measurable distance of you, and the rain beats mercilessly down
+or the wind howls through the crevices of your garments, you are
+conscious of battling against great primeval forces akin to the unknown
+elements of your own being; you cannot escape from them, for there is
+no shelter round the corner: you are brought up face to face with
+something fundamental; all the little accessories with which we have
+learnt to shield ourselves fall away, and you are just there, stripped
+yourself, and in the middle of naked realities. And if only you have
+been wet enough, or cold enough, or hungry enough, it has been worth
+while, for you never forget it; and the remembrance of it will come to
+you ever and anon when you are once more tied up in the bonds of
+convention and are struggling to keep a true idea of what is a reality
+and what is not.
+
+So it is, perhaps, that in setting out to write any account of such a
+journey, one is dominated by the remembrance chiefly of facts which in
+this country seem trivial. All the little details of life take on an
+exaggerated form; for what in civilisation we are apt to ignore and
+take as a matter of course, occurring almost unnoticed in the ordinary
+routine of daily life, becomes out there of enormous importance. A good
+meal, for instance, seems of far greater moment than an attack by
+brigands, because of its rarer and more unexpected occurrence.
+
+If you are travelling for no particular purpose, with people whose
+language you do not understand, and in a country where the manners and
+customs are not familiar to you and you are merely moving on slowly
+from day to day--all you can get is a passing impression of outside
+things. If you are not a scientist or an archæologist or a politician
+striving to catalogue each new acquisition on your particular subject;
+if, in fact, you have no particular knowledge of any sort, but your
+pores are wide open to receive passing impressions, what you get is a
+vivid idea of the appearance of things. This is all that you can hope
+to pass on.
+
+In the following pages I do not propose to give a connected account of
+the various places we visited or of the many adventures which befell
+us; this is not a travel book. I shall have no intelligent remarks to
+make on the historic spots we passed, journeying slowly through this
+country so rich with still undiscovered monuments of ancient times; a
+country which is also destined to become, as civilisation advances with
+the Baghdad Railway, the centre of future political interest. What
+justification is there then for writing a book at all?
+
+The Danes have given us a definition of their idea of education: "It
+is," they say, "what is left after everything that has been learnt is
+forgotten." So it is with any form of travel; the value of it to the
+traveller himself is what is left after lapse of time has effaced all
+recollection of minor incidents and softened the vividness of strong
+impressions. In very slow travelling through desert countries, where
+day after day the same trivial events occur in similar yet different
+settings, the essential facts of that country sink into you
+imperceptibly, until at the end they are so woven into the fibres of
+your nature that, even when removed from their influence, you will
+never quite lose them.
+
+There are certain notes in the East which form part of a tune sung all
+the world over, but which give a clearer and more definite sound in the
+land which first gave them birth. The sketches given in the following
+pages are framed on them; they are what I have left, and what I would
+fain pass on to the reader.
+
+If I have succeeded in striking these notes true, there is no need of
+an apology to those who have already heard them in the country whence
+they spring; for any one who has ever travelled in the East welcomes
+anything that will once more touch that particular chord, at whatever
+time or place. And if I have succeeded in striking them so that here
+and there amongst those to whom the East is still but a name, there are
+some who may hear a faint echo of the real thing, I shall feel that
+there has been some justification for this contribution to the
+literature of the desert.
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+BRUSA TO DIARBEKR
+
+
+ "It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not,
+ I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or
+ ever so many generations hence.
+ Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
+ Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of
+ a crowd;
+ Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
+ bright flow, I was refresh'd;
+ Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
+ current, I stood, yet was hurried."...
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DISENTANGLEMENT
+
+
+It was our first night in camp; little mysterious hillocks shut us into
+a world of our own; we had it all to ourselves and only the stars
+overhead knew, and they seemed to be congratulating us on our escape;
+they twinkled and winked and beckoned. Constantin had lit a fire, and
+this at once became the centre of our world; the door of our tent
+looked out on it, the muleteers, the Zaptiehs, and our men sat round
+it, our supper was cooking on it, and we all thought about that; the
+horses and mules, tethered in a semicircle, turned that way and blinked
+at it; far away a jackal saw it and barked. It drew us all together,
+and its smoke went quietly up towards the beckoning stars.
+
+They would be eating their dinner now in the hotel at Brusa just the
+same as last night; the thin young man who had asked us what we should
+do if it rained, the old lady who wanted to know if we were doing it
+for pleasure, and the middle-aged spinster who thought we had no
+business to expose ourselves to such dangers unless it were for
+missionary work. The waiters would be bustling about; good Madame Brot
+would be carving diligently at the side table with an anxious look;
+bells would be ringing; men and women would be coming and going and
+talking and laughing and scolding; down below in the hot kitchen the
+men wash one pile of dirty plates after another.... Yes, it is very
+quiet out here; the men speak in undertones and the fire crackles in
+the cool, still air. Constantin lifted the pot off the fire. "Mangez,"
+he said. He was Greek but could speak a word or two of French. He
+ladled the onions and rice on to two plates and picked out the bits of
+mutton; then after handing us the plates, he began to beat up eggs for
+an omelette.
+
+We had been stretched out on the ground; we drew ourselves up, and
+sitting cross-legged balanced the plates on our knees. The food tasted
+excellent although it had been cooked in one pot. Constantin had wanted
+to bring three pots; he had been camp cook to the best people on
+hunting expeditions--three courses for dinner, with clean plates and
+knives for each course. He looked the part: his clothes were European,
+except for the fez. He remained on the border-line of civilisation and
+reminded us of what we had left. We had had a scene with him before
+leaving Constantinople; he had accumulated a large assortment of
+saucepans and kettles, of pans for frying and pans for stewing, of pots
+for boiling and pots for washing; we had gone through them critically
+and disregarded everything but a stew-pan, a frying-pan, and one pot
+for boiling water. Constantin was in despair. "Pas possible,
+mademoiselle," he kept on ejaculating, "pas possible, comment faire
+cuisine?" But we were adamant; we wished to travel light and live
+largely on native food.
+
+As it was we had a whole araba[1] loaded up with our belongings; there
+were the two tents for ourselves and the men, our camp-beds and sacks
+of clothes, and the cooking utensils. It all seemed a great deal now,
+and yet we were only taking necessaries. But then it had been so very
+hard to know what necessaries were; it is very hard to get disentangled
+from the forces of tradition. We had escaped now and would know better.
+Life was becoming extraordinarily easy, for we had left behind most
+things and forgotten all the injunctions and warnings of our friends.
+
+ [1] A native cart.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But there was still Constantin in his European clothes and his
+aristocratic ideas and his broken French.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+However, he does make delicious omelettes; we will forgive him for
+smuggling in that omelette-pan in defiance of our orders.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is getting very dark; we could no longer see the hillocks, but we
+knew that they were there. We could hardly see the horses tethered
+beyond the fire, but we could hear them munching and stamping, and now
+and then one would neigh suddenly.
+
+Constantin lit a lantern and hung it on a stick; then he washed up the
+dishes. The other men sat on by the fire and we looked through the
+smoke at them. There was Calphopolos. Now Calphopolos was a Greek, and
+he was a mistake. We have said that Constantin was on the border-line
+of civilisation and reminded us of what we had left. But Calphopolos
+was right in it without really being of it--so that when he was about
+one forgot that there was anything to be said for civilisation and only
+remembered its drawbacks. His unbrushed black clothes contrasted
+painfully with the native dress, especially when seen through the smoke
+of a camp-fire. He always carried about a little black handbag, out of
+which his tooth-brush was constantly falling. But his worst offence was
+that he spoke a language which we understood, and jabbered French at us
+from morning to night. He was in the employment of well-meaning friends
+whom he accompanied when they made business excursions into the
+interior. They had sent him to start us comfortably on the way; his
+knowledge of the amenities of life was to pave the road leading away
+from civilised methods of living.
+
+Then there was Ibrahim, a long, lean Turk with a smiling face. He put
+up the tents and rode in attendance upon us, and haggled with the
+villagers over milk and eggs. They had told me earlier in the day that
+Ibrahim was troubled in his mind; "never before had a woman looked him
+straight in the face and shown him a watch." Two Eastern precepts had
+been violated, and I had been the unwitting offender. It was at Brusa,
+which we had left with such difficulty that morning. We had arranged
+the night before to start at 8 o'clock. But 8 came, and 8.30 came, and
+9 came, and then the Zaptichs came who were to have come at 8 to escort
+us on the way; but there was no sign of our own retinue, of Constantin,
+of Ibrahim, of our own hired horses, of the arabas and muleteers with
+the baggage.
+
+The news of our departure had got about and the people of the hotel
+gradually collected at the door. "Where is your dragoman?" they said;
+"why do you not send for him?" We confessed to having engaged no
+dragoman. "No dragoman! that was very rash. We could speak the
+language, then?" No, we had only a Turkish dictionary. They gave us up
+then as hopeless. Another individual pushed his way up to us. "You will
+never get your men to start or do anything else," he said; "you do not
+realise what these Turks are."
+
+I recognised him as a professional dragoman offered to us by Cook the
+week before. But he was only telling us what everybody else out of the
+trade had been dinning into our ears ever since we planned the journey.
+
+I repaired to the inn where the men and horses had been collected the
+night before. In the open yard stood the araba, unpacked and horseless.
+Constantin sat on a roll of baggage near by, with a resigned expression
+and a settled look, as if he had been sitting there for hours.
+
+"Pas possible, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+Ibrahim stood in the stable door, smoking complacently, and our
+muleteers were squabbling violently over the roping of a box.
+
+It was at this moment that I stepped up to Ibrahim and showed him my
+watch. He looked at me with a startled expression, his jaw dropped, and
+he turned hastily on the muleteers. But it was not till later that I
+learnt how his inmost susceptibilities had been roused. One is at a
+decided disadvantage with no knowledge of a suitable language, but by
+dint of gesticulating with my riding-whip and pointing at everybody in
+turn, I managed, at the end of another half-hour, to get the araba and
+the men under way, and mounting my own horse rode behind them to the
+hotel. In another five minutes we had sallied out on our road. X and I
+rode ahead with Ibrahim and Calphopolos and the two Zaptiehs, then came
+the araba with our baggage and the muleteers, then Constantin with
+bulging saddle-bags suggesting the intrusion of various forbidden
+cooking utensils.
+
+Our road ran unshaded and dusty through the outskirts of Brusa, with
+Mount Olympus towering above us. Bit by bit we left behind the staring
+tourists, the staring native children, the unconcerned stall-keepers
+displaying their wares of Brusa silk and printed cottons from England;
+then we passed the country people riding in on mules with their
+vegetables and chickens; we passed the little cultivated patches and
+got amongst the larger fields, stretching away on each side of the
+road. "Tutun," said Ibrahim, pointing at them with his riding-whip. I
+looked at him inquiringly. He tapped his cigarette and pointed again at
+the field.
+
+"Tutun," he repeated. "Tobacco, you understand, mademoiselle,
+tobacco--such as he is now smoking." Calphopolos always would insist on
+explaining the obvious. The day got hotter and the road got dustier. At
+midday we skirted a willow plantation, and a stream gurgled through the
+damp green patch, inviting us to come in and rest. We crawled out of
+the sun under the low willow bushes, and the men tied the horses to the
+stronger branches. This first lunching place will always remain
+indelibly printed on my memory: the slices of brown bread thickly
+spread with solid cream; the watermelons and the grapes; the men
+grouped about amongst the willows, eating great hunches of bread and
+cheese; the horses breaking loose and straying about, browsing the
+finer herbage which sprang up through the dried and yellow tufts of
+older grass; the joy of being out of the sun and the dust; the cool
+sound of the water in the brook; the sense of rest and freedom, the
+sense of having really escaped at last.... On recalling this lunch with
+X, after many adventures had made it seem very remote, I found that she
+retained equally vivid recollections of it. I heard her murmur
+reflectively to herself, "And we thought it was always going to be like
+that!"
+
+Then we had reluctantly left it all, the unwilling horses were pulled
+and dragged away, snatching at last bites, and we rode off on the dusty
+road again, until we reached the village near which we had arranged to
+camp. We had ridden round and chosen this site in the middle of the
+mysterious hillocks, which shut us out so effectually from everything
+except the stars.
+
+We were destined to spend many more such nights in camp; but perhaps
+none can give you exactly the same thrill as the one on which for the
+first time you sleep out in the open.
+
+It is full of surprises; you expect it to be quiet, and you find the
+darkness and stillness is full of noise. Nothing escapes you: the
+breathing of men and animals, the crackling of the fire, the rustling
+of leaves and grass: there seems to be a continuous movement very close
+to you. You sit up many times expecting to see something in your tent;
+it all makes you very wakeful. You drop off into a disturbed sleep very
+late, and are awakened before sunrise by the stir in the camp. You are
+positive you have not slept all night and that strange people have been
+prowling round you in the dark.
+
+Yet as one lay in this semi-wakeful state of excitement and mystery,
+one's strongest impression was that of wanting protection merely
+against a few primitive forces; with the wild beasts we shared the
+dangers of cold and hunger and attacks from man. Slowly and painfully
+you have crawled out of the net in which you have all this time been
+unconsciously enveloped, and emerging stripped and bewildered grope
+about for what is actually going to serve and protect you in this
+primeval state of battling against the primitive forces of nature; a
+state, moreover, where protection against the dictates of an organised
+society is no longer needed. To those who are confronted with this
+problem for the first time, it is almost impossible to walk straight
+out of the net and have an impartial look round. Tradition still clings
+to us in little bits, and we grope hopelessly about, wondering what
+will be an essential and what will not.
+
+Looking back now on these first few days of preparation for our journey
+in the wilderness, I realise that by far the hardest part of the
+journey was this initial disentanglement from the forces of tradition.
+If you are about to alter fundamentally your method of living, you must
+take care that you are discarding all those accessories which are due
+to tradition; you must either adopt those evolved by the tradition of
+the races among which you are about to travel, or you must bring
+abstract science to bear on the question of how to provide for your
+immediate wants under the changed conditions. A bare tent in a country
+where weather is still an interesting topic is a safe place for such
+reflections; the realities of the situation make one strictly
+practical. On getting out of bed our clothes were damp with dew and the
+grass was cold to our bare feet; at the next town we bought the strip
+of carpet, the idea of which we had rejected at Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BRIGANDAGE
+
+
+Brigandage. The capture of Miss Stone, ancient history as it now is,
+has served to give a vivid meaning to this word in the public mind. We
+were being continually asked if we wished to emulate Miss Stone.
+Travelling second-class through Bulgaria on our way to Constantinople
+our fellow-passengers, rough, good-natured farmers, joked about it; but
+they always added, "No, it will not happen to you." Then they would
+look at one another and laugh. The capture of Miss Stone did not seem
+to be looked upon seriously out there.
+
+Then there was the Embassy at Constantinople. They were horribly
+nervous about international complications. As a matter of fact capture
+for ransom is a decided danger in the neighbourhood of larger towns in
+Asiatic Turkey. Not that there are any professional brigands prowling
+about, but there is a certain class of native ready to become a brigand
+on the spur of the moment, should they get wind of suitable prey. They
+are not Turks--no Turk would be bothered; they are, as a rule, Greeks,
+and always Christians. It is as well, therefore, on any expedition, not
+to make very great preparations and talk too much of your line of
+route; but as quietly and expeditiously as possible to get hold of your
+horses and men and start off before news of your movements has been
+noised abroad.
+
+It was not at all in our favour that X bore a name well known to
+fortune hunters; one of her uncles was in the habit of big-game
+shooting in this district, and his means were fabulously exaggerated.
+
+Calphopolos had been sent with us partly because he could be so
+thoroughly trusted to take all precautions. He certainly earned his
+reputation; he seemed to have been born with the fear of brigands in
+his soul; mere conversation about them caused him to break out into a
+profuse perspiration. He had talked to us very seriously on leaving
+Constantinople, as we sat on the deck of the steamer which took us
+across the Sea of Marmora on our way to Brusa.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mesdemoiselles, soyez secrètes; la secrécé,
+c'est tout."
+
+"La secrécé" became his by-word. If there was one thing he was more
+afraid of than anything else on earth it was X's surname. He implored
+her not to use it, but to call herself Miss Victoria. He had all our
+luggage labelled Miss Victoria; and if in casual conversation the
+dreaded name leaked out, beads of perspiration rolled down his face and
+he would glance nervously round to see who was within earshot.
+
+X was rather a reprobate on the subject. On our arrival at Madame
+Brot's well-known hotel at Brusa, from where we were making our final
+departure the next day, she marched up to Madame Brot and said, "I
+think you know my uncle"--mentioning him by name. Calphopolos, who was
+just behind, explaining that our name was Victoria pure and simple,
+turned green with horror. With bent back and staring eyes, shaking the
+same finger in warning which his subconscious self was trying to put on
+his lips, he endeavoured to attract X's attention from behind Madame
+Brot's broad back. But X went glibly on, quite oblivious of the panic
+she was creating. Calphopolos turned to me with the resigned expression
+of a man on whom death-sentence has been passed. "It is all over now,"
+he said, "everybody in Brusa will know about us in half an hour.
+Mesdemoiselles, did I not implore you for the love of God to respect
+the secrecy? Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+
+And then poor old Calphopolos, who was not without his sense of fun,
+laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "The only thing left to
+do," he went on, when he had sufficiently recovered to speak again, "is
+to pretend we are going to Angora and put them off the scent.
+Mesdemoiselles, for the love of God please try and remember that it is
+Angora you are going to. Tell everybody you are going to Angora. The
+secrecy it is everything."
+
+It must be confessed it was very difficult at that time to feel
+seriously alarmed about brigandage, for we seemed to be moving in
+ordinary respectable society, and Calphopolos's treatment of the
+subject merely caused us to think of it as a joke. Still, we fully
+realised that it was a real risk, against which it would not do to
+neglect taking ordinary precautions; and this sense was heightened by
+the extreme alarm of the Vice-Consul at Brusa to whom we applied for
+the escort of Zaptiehs, without whom one is not permitted to travel in
+Turkey with any guarantee of safety. He could not understand why we
+would not drive through to Nicæa in a landau in one day, like the
+ordinary tourist; this, with a suitable escort, made the journey quite
+safe, and it is a common thing for travellers to do. But to ride there
+in three days with our camp, sleeping on the way, was another matter.
+Every extra hour spent loitering in any one district heightened the
+risk of being attacked by brigands. X tried to explain that it was for
+the sake of her health, which only made him more bewildered; surely a
+landau was more suitable for invalids!
+
+Finding us, however, unmoved by his arguments, he promised to send us
+two men the next morning and implored us never to leave their sides for
+a moment. He must have rubbed the same instructions well into the
+Zaptiehs, for during the seven days which they accompanied us as far as
+Mekidje on the Anatolian Railway, they never were more than a couple of
+yards away from us, day and night. This certainly detracted from the
+sense of freedom we were otherwise experiencing. It seemed at first as
+if we had only escaped from one form of bondage to fall into another.
+But the fact that the men were unable to speak any language we
+understood prevented it from becoming irksome, and one was soon able to
+become nearly oblivious of the clanking sword at one's elbow.
+
+Calphopolos, however, was not so easily ignored. He had a sort of
+feeling that we were always running away from him, and tried to check
+this pernicious tendency on our part by engaging us in constant
+conversation in his broken French. The more we edged our horses away
+from his side and tried to put a silent Zaptieh between him and
+ourselves, the more persistently would he pursue us, propounding some
+new problem which required an answer. Our behaviour on breaking camp
+that morning had probably given rise to his state of mind. We had
+ordained that the start should be made at eight o'clock; but the usual
+procrastinations had ensued and the men seemed totally unable to get
+off. Calphopolos kept packing and unpacking his little bag in search of
+the missing tooth-brush, and tried to keep us calm.
+
+"It is thus in this country, mademoiselle; have no anxiety--we shall
+go, we shall go."
+
+X and I agreed that there was only one way to go. We had our horses
+saddled and rode away, in spite of Calphopolos's prayers and entreaties
+to wait till the whole camp was packed. The Zaptiehs, after the orders
+they had received, were obliged to ride after us. This left Calphopolos
+and the muleteers without Government protection, which so filled them
+with terror that in a very few minutes they also were on the way.
+Calphopolos came tearing down the road after us, the tails of his long
+black coat flying out behind, the tooth-brush sticking out of his
+pocket, and the perspiration rolling down his cheeks.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu!" he gasped as he caught us up, "pour l'amour de
+Dieu!" and then he had so much to say that he couldn't say it and
+relapsed into laughter and ejaculations of "Mais quelles demoiselles,
+mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+
+The second day our road lay across the great Jenishehr plain. Herds of
+buffaloes strayed about on the wilder parts, and here and there fields
+of corn and tobacco, suddenly springing up beside the stretches of
+rough grass, signalled the approach to an occasional village.
+
+Here also it was very difficult to think of brigands; the harmless look
+of peaceful cultivators did not suggest them. Besides which the country
+was so open that you could not be suddenly pounced upon; you would have
+ample opportunity of considering evil-doers as they approached you
+across the wide plain.
+
+We encamped that evening near the small village of Jenishehr. The
+excitement of the novelty had worn off and we had had a long day in the
+open air. In consequence of this I had fallen into a profound sleep at
+once on going to bed. Suddenly I was awakened by a noise in the tent,
+and looking up distinctly saw the figure of a man coming cautiously
+through the tent door. In one moment I had hold of my revolver, kept
+loaded at the head of my bed, and had it levelled at him, wondering
+when the psychological moment for pulling the trigger would occur and
+whether I should manage to live up to its requirements.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mademoiselle! pour l'amour de Dieu!" came in a
+terror-stricken voice.
+
+I put down the weapon rather crossly.
+
+"What do you want?" I said.
+
+"Quels sont vos noms," stuttered out Calphopolos in great agitation.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" I said; "you know our names well enough."
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, quels sont vos noms," he repeated.
+
+"X," I called out, "wake up and tell me what is the matter with
+Calphopolos--I think his head has been turned by this fright about your
+name; he is going about jibbering over it."
+
+X had a soothing influence on Calphopolos, and gradually extracted
+from him that the local Zaptieh had come up for our _tezkerehs_ and
+wanted to know our names. His agitation over the revolver had been so
+great that he had been unable to explain articulately that it was our
+_tezkerehs_ that he had come for.
+
+The next day the whole character of the country changed. The plain
+gradually oozed away into a more tumbled country and cultivation
+disappeared. We were about to cross the range of hills which shut out
+our view to the north.
+
+The Zaptiehs were very much on the alert here; they unslung their
+rifles from behind and rode with them across their knees. We were told
+to keep close together and ride quietly without talking.
+
+The mountains closed in on either side; they were bare, rounded hills
+for the most part, with stunted shrubs on the lower slopes, which one
+soon learnt to regard purely as cover for a possible enemy. There was
+no difficulty about realising possible dangers here; the broad road
+slowly narrowed, and at every turn in the winding path one almost
+expected to be confronted by a villain. At the snap of a twig or the
+rustle of a leaf our Zaptiehs grasped their rifles tighter, and without
+turning their heads moved their eyes in that direction. Once, on the
+wider road we had left, a cloud of dust had arisen in the distance, and
+a long line of camels laden with wood filed slowly past us in twos and
+threes. Our men exchanged a few monosyllabic words with the drivers,
+and in another minute or two the tinkling of the bells and the tramp of
+feet had subsided, the dust settled once more, and we were alone again
+with the silent hills and the crackling twigs, and wound our way in and
+out in single file across the rounded hillocks. Here and there the
+sight of a herd of sheep or goats, tended by peaceful looking natives,
+relieved the tension caused by our escort's precautions, for it is
+always difficult to associate danger with such rural scenes. At last
+there was a break in front; we were through the pass and began to
+descend.
+
+Calphopolos had been silent all this time; his conversational powers
+seem to have suffered a severe check. Now he brightened up, mopped his
+forehead, and murmured, "Grâce à Dieu nous voilà."
+
+Half way down the hillside, perched on a projecting ledge just off the
+road, stood a lonely coffee-house. The Zaptiehs, pointing at it with
+their whips, hailed it with delight. They slid off their horses, and
+holding ours, helped us to dismount. We sat in the porch and sipped
+thick, hot Turkish coffee; below us the lake Ascanius lay like a blue
+sheet between the purple hills, its eastern end fringed round with a
+band of green, in which the minarets and domes of Isnik itself were
+just visible. All around us the stunted shrubs still formed harbour for
+the suspected brigands. Our Zaptiehs lay stretched on the ground in
+front, apparently asleep; but their rifles were never laid aside, and
+the least stir in the bushes made us realise their state of alert
+watchfulness.
+
+But not a living creature showed itself, and we rode on down and down
+the curving incline until we reached the green band of vegetation and
+our horses trod softly through grassy slopes of olive plantations,
+whose grey leaves shone like silver as the sun's low rays beat through
+them. Past the olive plantations lay a stretch of low-lying reedy
+marsh.
+
+"You shall have a good supper to-night," said Ibrahim; and throwing his
+reins to a Zaptieh he plunged in on foot. He shot two snipe, and joined
+us again as we reached the outskirts of the town.
+
+The old city of Nicæa is now represented by a collection of a few
+hundred miserable houses forming the village of Isnik. But, as
+everywhere in the ancient towns of Asiatic Turkey, one is confronted at
+every point with tokens of former splendour. Four great gates in the
+old Roman walls give access to the town. Courses of brickwork are built
+in between the large stones of which the bulk of the walls consists;
+here and there semicircular towers rise up, their ruins still
+surmounting the ruins of the wall. One, more perfect than the rest, is
+said to mark the site of the church in which the Nicene Creed was
+framed.
+
+We fixed on a spot for the camp just inside the walls and outside the
+present town, where a green field, which merged into a cemetery, lay in
+the curve of a shallow brook.
+
+The pots and pans were speedily tumbled out of Constantin's saddle-bags
+and Ibrahim had our tents up with European alacrity; but it was dark
+before the smell of roasted snipe pervaded the night air. We ate our
+supper by the light of a lantern hung on a forked stick. The fear of
+brigands departed and the sleep of the just fell upon the camp. Owls
+hooted in the green-covered walls of ruined Nicæa, and away in the
+distance the still mountains kept guard over the dark waters of the
+lake as they lapped mournfully on the ruins of Roman baths on its stony
+shore. The Zaptieh on guard poked fresh sticks into the dying fire and
+sighed heavily between the snores of his companions.
+
+In and out amongst the upright white stones of the cemetery a jackal
+prowled stealthily and sniffed the smell of snipe bones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
+
+
+One tree stood out in the middle of the field in which we were
+encamped. We spread our carpet under it and laid ourselves out for a
+lazy day. There were letters to write home and plans to make about the
+journey ahead. It was impossible to do such things comfortably after a
+day's ride and with the feeling of transitoriness engendered by a short
+night in camp. So we had decided to spend this Sunday at Isnik.
+
+Constantin got out all his pots and pans to give them an extra
+cleaning, and promised us a vast meal. He complained that he had never
+had time to show us what he could do.
+
+Animals and men alike were pervaded with that sense of rest which is in
+the air on a hot Sunday morning. The horses, after rolling on their
+backs, stretched themselves out motionless on their sides; the arabajis
+dozed in the araba. Calphopolos retired inside the men's tent, prepared
+to make up for the loss of sleep occasioned by anxious nights. We got
+out our books and papers and thought about all we should get through
+that day.
+
+We were encamped within the old walls of Nicæa, and from where we sat
+were in full view of the outskirts of the present town. By and by some
+native women sallied out in our direction and, skirting the camp,
+peeped cautiously round our tents; then getting bolder they sidled
+towards us, smiling propitiatingly. We felt peacefully disposed towards
+the whole world and smiled back at them. Thus encouraged they advanced
+nearer and felt the substance of our clothes and examined our hats.
+
+Finally, not finding themselves repulsed, they fingered our hair and
+stroked our hands. X hunted in her vocabulary for suitable remarks and
+delivered them at intervals. Meanwhile other women straggled out from
+the town, and, finding their sisters already so much at home, they also
+satisfied themselves as to the consistency of our clothes and skin. The
+earlier arrivals now established themselves on the ground around us,
+jabbering away amongst themselves and occasionally addressing a single
+word to us, which they repeated again and again, pointing at each of
+us in turn. X looked it up, and came to the conclusion that it meant
+"sister." So we shook our heads and looked up the word for "friend."
+The effect was magical; we had established social intercourse. More
+and more women arrived and joined the throng settled round us, all
+new-comers being initiated into the already acquired knowledge
+concerning us. Soon everybody had a word they wanted looked out in the
+dictionary, until X became fairly exhausted. We tried "goodbye" and "no
+more" with disappointing effect, and finally let them sit there gazing
+at us while we went on with our writing, keeping a sharp look-out on
+our hats, which every one was anxious to try on. It seemed to please
+them just as much to look at us as to talk to us, and they sat on in
+placid content.
+
+By and by Ibrahim hurried up and spoke to the women; they all darted to
+their feet and fled. We looked at Ibrahim inquiringly. He pointed in
+the direction of the town, and we saw two men arriving at a slow and
+dignified pace. Constantin appeared on the scene.
+
+"Gouverneur," he said, "faire visite."
+
+X and I hastily donned our hats and sent for a seat for the
+"gouverneur." But Ibrahim could only find a saddle-bag. X turned over
+the leaves of the vocabulary in the hopes of finding suitable
+greetings. We bowed and scraped mutually, and X delivered herself of
+the first greeting.
+
+"We are very pleased."
+
+The "gouverneur" bowed and made, no doubt, what was a suitable
+response; but as we could only attack single words we were no wiser.
+There was a pause while X collected the words for another.
+
+"Beautiful country," she attempted.
+
+The "gouverneur" bowed very gravely.
+
+"I hope I have said that," said X nervously, "he looks rather shocked."
+
+At that moment Constantin appeared with coffee and cigarettes, which
+gave us time to recover.
+
+"I should not bother to talk to him," I said. "That is the best of
+these people--they understand how to sit happily in silence, just
+looking at you."
+
+But X determined to make another try; it was good practice.
+
+"Health good?" she said.
+
+The "gouverneur" turned to his companion and said a few words in
+Turkish. The young man looked rather terrified, and began to speak to
+us in what sounded like gibberish. Constantin came to take the cups
+away.
+
+"Parle français," he said, pointing to the young man.
+
+We strained our ears to try and catch an intelligible word, but could
+only shake our heads.
+
+So we all took refuge in silence and looked at one another. There was
+no sense of _gêne_. The Turk and his companion seemed as content to
+sit and look at us as the women had been. When he had finished his
+cigarette he rose, and, bowing once more in Turkish fashion, took his
+leave.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We picked up our papers once more, then Constantin came and said lunch
+was ready. We sat on saddle-bags outside the tent and ate chunks of
+mutton and onions out of the tin bowl keeping hot on the charcoal
+brazier at our side. Ibrahim filled our cups with water from the brook,
+and the grass tickled our hands each time we lifted them from the
+ground. The pots and pans lay about all around, and Constantin,
+squatting in the middle of them, brought the coffee to the boil three
+times in the little Turkish pot.
+
+"Sheker, effendi?" he called out, "un, deux?" as he ladled in the
+sugar. Constantin's language was always of a hybrid nature, consisting
+of alternate words of French and Turkish.
+
+Then we had returned to the carpet under the tree and sipped the thick,
+hot coffee out of the little Turkish cups, and sent thoughtful rings of
+smoke up into the branches of the tree above. And with the rings of
+smoke went up thoughts of the coffee they were drinking now in the
+drawing-rooms; the little cups there would have handles, and each one
+would help himself to sugar off a little tray.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"I guess you find it slow here!"
+
+An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us
+off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of
+driving to Nicæa in a landau.
+
+"We thought we would just look you up and see if you had got here all
+right, but we cannot stop a minute; we've only had an hour to see the
+walls, they were so long getting lunch."
+
+"You ought to see the tower on the site of the church where they
+discussed the Nicene Creed," said X.
+
+"The Nicene Creed--eh, what?" said the American, as he consulted his
+guide-book.
+
+"Say, we just ought to have a look at that," he said to his wife.
+
+"We shall miss the _Augusta Victoria_ if you do," said the lady.
+Then she turned to us. "We go on to Smyrna in it to-morrow morning,"
+she explained, "so we must get back to-night."
+
+The landau appeared at that moment; time was up. Smyrna, Beyrout,
+Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Luxor had to be got in during the
+allotted time, and there had been no provision made for the Nicene
+Creed. So in they got and dashed away over the plain.
+
+They had come as a whirlwind over from the West, sweeping the surface
+of this Eastern land and catching up the loose fragments on it; but its
+traditions were too deeply rooted to be caught in the blast; these had
+merely bent their heads and let the blast pass by. Strong as it is, it
+cannot unloose the sway of ancient customs. Even for Americans the East
+will not move. The natives gazed at the landau, hardly wondering at it;
+then they forgot it. But we did not forget it so easily. For us an
+odour of the West was left hanging over the plain--and above all, our
+sense of time had been offended.
+
+A French engineer with his wife and family were the next to appear on
+the scene. They were the only Europeans living in the place, and
+rejoiced over the sound of their mother-tongue. The man poured out
+volumes of it, and was interesting about his work up to the point when
+we became fatigued.
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what it is to be in civilised company again! We live
+here from day to day and year after year, and have no one to speak
+with, no one with whom to exchange ideas. C'est comme la mort."
+
+"Do you not see anything of the natives?" we inquired. "They seem very
+friendly, and you can speak Turkish."
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what can one do with such people? how can one
+associate with them? They are canaille, mere canaille."
+
+"We were talking to some of them," we said, "and thought them very
+intelligent."
+
+He held up his hands in horror.
+
+"But, mademoiselle, do you not understand? Certainly there are the
+Christian races, but for the most part, ce sont des Turques, des
+infidèles, des chiens. There is Marie there, pauvre Marie! it is bad
+enough for me, but then I have my work; but Marie, the pauvre Marie,
+she dies of ennui, she can speak to no one but me and the children."
+
+The pauvre Marie seemed indeed to have lost the power of speech; she
+sat silently as her husband poured out his contempt of the canaille.
+
+We had found the Greek women very entertaining in the morning, and they
+too had sat and looked at us in silence. But they had not been ashamed
+of their silence; Marie was, and felt awkward; so we all felt
+uncomfortable, and tried to talk to her.
+
+One felt then how little actual language had to do with social
+intercourse. We could not get into touch with Marie, whose language we
+understood, in the same way that we had got into touch with the native
+women, whose language we did not understand.
+
+They sat on and on; it was not until the sun began to send out long
+warning shoots of colour, heralding its disappearance behind the purple
+mountains, that they rose to go.
+
+And we, worn out with this final effort in sociability, gave ourselves
+up to the quiet of the deserted camp, and watched the shades of night
+creep once more over the ruined walls and the distant hills, over the
+houses of the French engineer and the canaille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY
+
+
+I
+
+There is something very weird and uncanny in the terminus of a railway
+in the middle of a wild and desolate country such as this. The Monster
+runs his iron fangs into the heart of its desolation and shoots you
+into it like a ball out of a cannon's mouth. Roaring and hissing and
+sending out jets of flame, he comes racing through the darkness to a
+certain definite spot; here he discharges you in the blackness of night
+and subsides. Next morning when you awake he is gone, and you are left
+to shift for yourself as best you can. But there is a certain human
+friendliness about this Monster while you are travelling with him. He
+seems to draw all the signs of life out of an apparently dead country
+and collect them at the stations for you to see. Great warehouses
+filled with sacks of corn testify to the productiveness of a country
+which, judging it from the train window after harvest time, one would
+dismiss as mere barren soil; an occasional MacCormick's "Daisy" reaper
+awaiting delivery on a side platform, native carts hanging about, and
+truck-loads of empty sacks tell the same tale. Groups of peasants, idly
+gossiping, gathered together by the whistle which heralds the Monster's
+approach, belie the impression of an uninhabited land; for Turkish
+villages are carefully designed so as not to attract attention. When
+one's eye gets more familiar with the seemingly uniform colour of the
+landscape, varied only by light and shade, one becomes aware of the
+low, flat-topped, mud-brick houses, which, even at close quarters,
+often seem but part of the natural rock.
+
+Even the unchanging East is powerless once the Monster's fangs have
+taken hold; he alone of all influences comes to stay and leave his
+mark.
+
+Slowly, perhaps, but very surely, he undermines with irresistible
+persistence the customs and habits which from time immemorial have held
+their own against the religious, educational, or military forces of
+stronger nations.
+
+This particular spot has long been the battlefield of the East and the
+West; now one, now the other, has had temporary ascendance; in the long
+run the East has always conquered.
+
+But already we can see what a power the East has to reckon with in the
+railway. For one thing it attacks the Eastern in one of his vital
+points--his conception of Time. Time waited for him when he had but
+camels to load; but the railway will not wait for him; the Monster
+screeches and is off. Sunrise or two hours after sunrise is not one and
+the same thing to him. Relentless as day and night he comes and goes,
+and there is no cheating him as the Eastern cheats Time.
+
+But the railway is cheating the East out of its time-worn customs and
+ideas, and there is a certain sadness in the evidences of transition.
+All down the line picturesque native costumes are being replaced by
+ugly European clothes. The men wear terrible fancy trouserings from
+Manchester; the women spend more money on dress--and unfortunately it
+is European dress--and less on the old-fashioned wedding feasts. The
+turnover of the shops in the larger towns has increased fourfold in the
+last ten years. The bazaars are now a medley of stalls exhibiting
+native manufactures side by side with cheap trinkets from England and
+loud flannelettes from Italy. The price of wheat has doubled; and with
+that of wheat the prices of other exports have also risen. Opium, wool,
+mohair, hides, and salt are amongst the products of these great plains.
+
+Two short days' ride from Nicæa had brought us to Mekidje, a station on
+the Anatolian Railway half-way between Haida Pasha and Eskishehr. The
+single line went as far as Konia, and one train ran each way every day.
+It stopped for the right at Eskishehr, continuing the journey next
+morning.
+
+We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due, and sat
+in the stationmaster's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything
+else to do. We said goodbye to the Zaptiehs and to the muleteers who
+were returning to Brusa, and watched them slowly disappear down the
+road we had come. Then we heard the low, familiar tinkle of camel bells
+and a score or more of laden animals paced slowly into the open ground
+round the station. They have a more discreet and tuneful way of
+announcing their arrival than the Monster, and when they appear on the
+scene they do so in a more dignified, calmer manner. Having arrived
+also, they do not look as if they were off again the next minute; they
+look as if they had come to stay for ever, and they give you time to
+think. One by one, in answer to a word of command, they knelt down in
+the dust, and the great baskets holding the goods were unfastened and
+rolled about on the ground. Their owners seemed too slack to do any
+more. They let them lie there while they looked at the sun. The Monster
+is slowly replacing these carriers of the East; but their day is not
+yet done by a long way, for they must feed him from the interior. His
+life is still dependent on the life of those he is working to destroy.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At last we heard his distant shriek. Down upon us he came, dashing up
+all in a minute, in such a splutter and such a hurry, waking us all up.
+Officials rushed up and down the platform, and swore at the natives who
+were loading our baggage. Everybody talked at once to everybody else,
+and the Monster hissed impatiently, noisy even when he was standing
+still.
+
+There were not many passengers; in a first-class carriage a Pasha
+travelled in solitary state; all his harem were delegated to a
+second-class carriage, where the blinds were pulled down. In the
+third-class were a few natives, who leaned out of the windows and
+gossiped with the camel owners, idle witnesses of the busy scene.
+
+But the Monster is getting impatient; he hisses furiously and finally
+gives a warning shriek. Then off he goes, and we take a last look at
+the kneeling camels, munching away as unconcernedly as if their
+destroyer had never invaded their peaceful country.
+
+Mekidje is practically at sea-level; Eskishehr is a tableland two
+thousand feet high; we had therefore a steady rise on the whole journey
+up the valley formed by the Kara Su, a river which has its source in
+the neighbourhood of Eskishehr. On each side rounded hills shut out the
+horizon, save where here and there a tributary valley would reveal,
+through steep-sided gorges, a distant view of purple ridges with
+snow-clad tops.
+
+It was night when we arrived at Eskishehr, and we groped our way to the
+Grand Hôtel d'Anatolie, kept by Greeks. It was at this hotel that we
+first met Hassan, who was destined to play such a large part in our
+future travels. He was an Albanian Turk, and had been introduced to us
+by our friends in Constantinople, whom he accompanied on their shooting
+expeditions in this district. They had written to ask him to look after
+us during our brief stay at Eskishehr.
+
+Ibrahim brought him into our room, and there he stood silently, after
+salaaming us in the usual way.
+
+Ibrahim was a tall man, but Hassan towered above him. He wore a huge
+sheepskin coat, which added to his massive, impressive look.
+
+X looked up words in her Turkish book.
+
+"They told us you would look after us here?" she said.
+
+"As my eyes," he answered very quietly and simply. And thus began one
+of those friendships on which neither time nor distance can leave its
+mark.
+
+Two days later X asked him whether he would accompany us on the next
+stage of our journey, across the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus
+Mountains to Mersina.
+
+"Will you come with us and guard us well?" she said. He dropped on one
+knee and kissed her hand.
+
+"On my head be it," he said.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Eskishehr, before the days of the railway, was a purely Turkish town;
+it displayed the usual chaos of mud-brick and wooden houses, with their
+lower windows carefully latticed over for the concealment of the women;
+of narrow, winding bazaars, here a display of brightly coloured clothes
+and rugs, there a noisy street of smithies and carpenters' shops; and
+rising above it all the minarets of half a dozen mosques.
+
+But the railway's mark is on it to-day. The population has been
+increased by some five thousand Tartars and Armenians, whose houses,
+planted together near the line, have a neat, modern, shoddy look,
+contrasting with the picturesque squalor of the ancient Turkish town.
+
+The railway is slowly attacking the stronghold of the Turkish peasant,
+extending his operations on the wasted stretches of cultivable land,
+and slowly opening out dim vistas of prosperity athwart his present
+apathy. In the same way the railway is slowly affecting the town
+merchant. But one shudders here at the effect of prosperity
+unaccompanied by civilising influences. For in the rich merchant of the
+town you have the Turk at his worst. The simple, hospitable Turkish
+peasant is made of good stuff; the Turkish soldier of rank and file, if
+his fanatical tendencies are not encouraged, is equally good; the
+official Turk is corrupt, but only because the particular method of
+administering his country's laws obliges him to be so; the educated
+Turk of Constantinople is rapidly becoming a civilised being. But the
+rich middle-class Turk of towns has nothing to be said for him. The
+Christians have taught him to drink, and he is rich enough to keep a
+large harem. We had an introduction to one such person in Eskishehr.
+The polished Turkish phraseology of welcome could not conceal the
+coarseness and vulgarity of his mind, and we were glad to escape to the
+sacred inner chambers, where a very young and pretty woman sat in
+lonely state, the latest addition to his harem. There she sat, draped
+in the softest silks of gorgeous colourings, surrounded with all the
+evidences of luxury and comfort, as sulky as a little bear.
+
+We were accompanied by a Greek lady, who talked French and Turkish and
+acted as our interpreter; but never a smile or more than a word could
+be drawn out of the cross little thing. She simply stared in front of
+her with an expression of acute boredom in her beautiful eyes. A
+good-natured, elderly serving-woman, who stood at the door, explained
+matters. She had been very much pampered at home, and she had had a
+good time; she saw all her young friends at the baths, the social
+resort for Turkish ladies. The rich merchant had been considered a
+great _parti_; but already she had had enough of it. She never
+went out except for an occasional drive in a closed carriage. She was
+tired of embroidery work, she was tired of eating sweets, she was tired
+of smoking, she was tired of her fine dresses. _"Aman_, but it
+would come all right--and the serving-woman winked and nodded, and
+stroked her mistress's listless hand.
+
+"Is it always like this?" we asked the Greek lady.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu! not at all! This man is very jealous, and she may not
+see her friends. He heaps on her what money can buy and thinks that is
+enough. But with the poor it is different. You will see. There is a
+wedding to-day in a poor family. I will arrange for you to go. Mon
+Dieu! no, it is not always thus. La pauvre petite."
+
+The room in which we sat was draped in the usual Turkish manner with
+magnificent curtains in rich Eastern colourings. Round three walls ran
+low divans covered in the same way. There was not such a room in
+Eskishehr we were told. Had the decorations stopped there, and we had
+been able to forget the unfortunate prisoner, the general effect would
+have been decidedly pleasing. But as we sat there our eyes were kept
+glued, by some horrible attraction, on the glitter of a cheap gilt
+frame of the gaudiest description, containing a crude coloured print of
+the German Emperor; below this stood a gimcracky little table covered
+with a cheap tinselled cloth, on which was placed a glass and silver
+cake-basket in the vilest of European taste. It hit one terribly in the
+eye. It was a jarring note in the Monster's work.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We took leave of the sulky little lady, and left her once more to her
+sweets and her embroideries in the long, weary hours of lonely
+splendour.
+
+We had only seen the second act of this bit of Turkish drama; when the
+curtain went down for us we had had enough of it.
+
+But we were about to see Act I. in different surroundings. The Greek
+lady kept her word, and in due course we found ourselves ushered into
+the house of the bridegroom. The preliminary ceremonies had already
+begun--in fact they had been going on all day. There sat the bride at
+the end of a room which had been cleared of everything except the low
+stool which she occupied alone. She was a lumpy looking girl of
+seventeen or so, and sat there motionless with downcast eyes. On the
+floor sat dozens of women, packed as tight as the room could hold. The
+bride might neither look up nor speak, which seemed hard, for every
+woman in the room was both looking at her and speaking about her; the
+hubbub was terrible.
+
+She rose as we entered and kissed our hands; this much is apparently
+allowed on the arrival of strangers. The Greek lady explained that she
+was obliged to stand until we asked her to sit down again, and that she
+might not look at us. This was a good deal to ask on such an occasion;
+European ladies are not, as a rule, guests at the wedding of the
+Turkish poor, and we caught one or two surreptitious peeps from under
+her long eyelashes. We joined the throng on the floor and continued to
+gaze at her as every one else did. Marriage customs in general, and her
+own affairs in particular, were discussed for our benefit, the Greek
+lady interpreting in torrents of voluble French.
+
+"She may not speak to her husband for forty-eight hours. When he comes
+in he will lift the veil and see his bride for the first time. Then he
+puts a girdle round her waist and it is finished. His mother chose her
+for him. If he does not like her, no matter, he can choose another, for
+he is getting good wages, and can afford to keep two."
+
+By and by a large tray was brought in, piled up with rounds of native
+bread and plates of chicken. It was placed on a low stool in the centre
+of us all, and, following everybody's example, we grabbed alternate
+bits of chicken and bread. Then followed hunches of cake made of nuts
+and honey.
+
+We were still eating when we heard a noise of singing and musical
+instruments outside; it became louder and louder, and finally stopped
+by the house.
+
+"They are singing 'Behold the bridegroom cometh,'" said the Greek lady;
+"the man is being brought in a procession of all his friends."
+
+The food was hastily removed, and all the guests were marshalled into
+an adjoining room, which already seemed as full as it could hold of
+babies and children and old hags, who presumably had been left to look
+after the younger ones. We were allowed to remain while the finishing
+touches were put on the bride. Her face was first plastered all over
+with little ornaments cut out of silver paper and stuck on with white
+of egg; then she was covered over entirely with a large violet veil.
+And so we left her sitting there, sheepish and placid in the extreme,
+in strange contrast to the voluble Greek lady and the excited friends.
+We met the bridegroom in the passage. He kissed his father, and stood
+first on one foot and then on the other. His mother took him by the
+shoulders, opened the door of the room we had just left, and shoved him
+in. Let us hope that the silver ornaments did their work and made his
+bride pleasing in his sight when he lifted the violet veil. What she
+thought of him need not concern us any more than it did her or her
+friends, for such thoughts may not enter the minds of Turkish brides.
+
+The show was over. The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.
+It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had
+previously witnessed.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskishehr to Konia. It took us a
+good fifteen hours by rail. We were now on the summit of the tableland;
+the bounded river valley gradually gave way to long stretches where
+signs of cultivation were more apparent. We were getting into the great
+wheat-growing district, which the railway is causing to extend year by
+year. At Karahissar, a town of 33,000 inhabitants, a gigantic rock with
+straight sides and castellated top rises abruptly out of the plain, and
+from here another corn-growing valley merges into the great plain
+stretching away to the north. Mount Olympus, whose base we had skirted
+on leaving Brusa, could be very dimly discerned on the sky-line.
+
+Then darkness set in, and the Monster ran steadily on with us into the
+unknown. Towards eight o'clock there was a sudden stop; it had come to
+the end of its tether.
+
+We had left Calphopolos and Ibrahim at Eskishehr, and now only
+Constantin remained as a link with civilisation. Hassan had appeared at
+the station at Eskishehr, prepared to accompany us round the world if
+need be. He wore a brown suit of Turkish trousers and zouave under his
+sheepskin cloak. His pockets bulged rather, so did the wide leather
+belt which he used as a pocket, otherwise his worldly goods were
+contained tied up in a white pocket-handkerchief.
+
+And so we arrived at Konia. Behind us was the railway, leading back to
+the things we knew, to the things we should hope to see again; before
+us was the plain, leading us to strange new things, things we should,
+perhaps, just see once and leave behind for ever.
+
+The iron Monster had dumped us down and was no further concerned with
+us; if we would go further it must be by taking thought for ourselves.
+
+There were horses and arabas to hire, there were provisions to lay in,
+there was the escort of Zaptiehs to be procured and the goodwill of the
+authorities to be obtained. We had letters of introduction to Ferid
+Pasha, then Vali of the Konia vilayet and since Grand Vizier of
+Constantinople. He was not as other Valis; he was called the great and
+the good, and had established law and order in his province. There need
+be no fear of brigandage while we were within the boundaries of his
+jurisdiction.
+
+The Government building, the Konak, occupied one side of the square in
+which stood our hotel, and we sent Hassan across to pay our respects.
+But Ferid Pasha was away, which caused us great disappointment; we
+could only see his Vekil, the acting Governor.
+
+Taking Hassan and Constantin with us, we went up the long flight of
+steps and down a corridor leading to the Vali's room. Peasants and
+ragged soldiers hung about the passage, and black-coated
+Jewish-looking men hurried in and out. A soldier showed us the way,
+holding back the curtains which concealed the entrance to various
+rooms, and from behind which the mysterious looking Jews were
+continually creeping.
+
+The Vekil sat at a table covered over with official documents; a
+divan, higher and harder than those we had seen in private houses, ran
+round two walls, on which squatted several secretaries, holding the
+paper on which they wrote on the palms of their left hands. Beside the
+Vekil sat an old Dervish priest, and next him the Muavin, the
+Christian official appointed after the massacres to inform Valis of
+the wishes of Christians, and better known amongst those who know him
+as "Evet Effendi" (Yes, Effendi).
+
+ * * * * *
+
+X was getting fluent in matters of Turkish greeting; she now reeled
+off a suitable string in reply to theirs. Hassan stood beside us,
+grave and dignified, and we noticed that all the men greeted him very
+courteously. X then endeavoured to explain our desire to travel to
+Mersina and requested the services of a suitable escort. Owing to
+limitations in her knowledge of the Turkish vocabulary, the nearest
+she could get to it was that the Consul at Mersina loved us dearly and
+wished us to come to him. Matters were getting to a deadlock; the
+officials appeared to be asking us what was the object of our journey,
+and we could only insist on the intense love of our English Consul.
+
+Suddenly another visitor was ushered in, and for the first time since
+leaving Nicæa the strange sound of the English tongue fell upon our
+ears. The newcomer was Dr. Nakashian, an Armenian doctor living in
+Konia.
+
+He at once acted as interpreter. Officialdom for once put no obstacles
+in the way, and an escort was promised us for the journey. The Vekil
+inquired whether we should like to see the sights of Konia; and on our
+replying in the affirmative, he arranged that we should be taken round
+that afternoon; Dr. Nakashian also promised to accompany us.
+
+Accordingly we sallied out later on horseback with Hassan. Dr.
+Nakashian was mounted on a splendid Arab mare. The Government
+Protection, in the shape of two Zaptiehs and a captain, followed in a
+close carriage. We started off very decorously, but the Arab mare
+became excited and plunged and galloped down the street; our horses
+caught the infection, and we followed hard; the Government Protection
+put its head out of each window and shouted; the driver lashed his
+jaded horse, and the rickety carriage lurched after us in a cloud of
+dust. The natives lining the streets shouted encouragingly; finally we
+landed at the Dervish mosque. Dervishes are strong in Konia. Their
+founder is buried here, and his tomb is an object of pilgrimage. The
+chief feature of the mosque is its wonderful polished floor, where the
+dancing ceremonies take place.
+
+At Konia, perhaps more than at Eskishehr, one is struck with the
+railway's influence in the passing order of things. There are many fine
+buildings in the last stages of decay in this ancient city of the
+Seljuk Turks; the palace, with its one remaining tower, the fragments
+of the old Seljuk walls found here and there in the middle of the
+modern town, the mosques lined with faïence, beautiful even in its
+fragments. Contrast with this the squalor and the dirt of the present
+Turkish streets, the earth and wood houses, enclosed in walls of earth,
+the apathetic natives, and the general feeling of stagnation and decay.
+
+[Illustration: A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS.]
+
+Then, outside the town, the railway appears; modern European houses
+spring up round it--offices for the Company and an hotel. A whiff of
+stir and bustle brought in along with the iron fangs of the Monster
+brings a sense of fresh life to these people, whose existence seemed
+one long decay of better things, like that of the ruins amongst which
+they spend their days.
+
+And everywhere there was a whisper of yet closer touch with
+civilisation. The Anatolian Railway stops at Konia, but its
+continuation under the name of the Baghdad Railway was everywhere in
+the air.[2] No one spoke openly about it; its coming seemed enveloped
+in such a shroud of mystery that one felt there was a sort of halo
+around its birth. At first one mentioned it baldly by name; and at once
+the official would put on his most discreet and impressive manner and
+refer to the will of Allah; the merchant would nod mysteriously and
+then wink with evident satisfaction. "It comes! oh yes, it comes! but
+it is better not to talk of it yet." And the Zaptieh would sigh
+heavily, thinking of his unpaid wages, and say, "Please God, it comes,"
+and then look hastily round to see who had overheard him.
+
+ [2] The Baghdad Railway is now running as far as Bulgurlu, a
+ point some seven miles beyond Eregli.
+
+And so at last we also learnt to speak of the Coming of the Monster
+with bated breath and lowered tones, and were duly infected with the
+impressiveness of his arrival--the arrival of the Being whose touch was
+to bring new life into this dead land.
+
+
+II
+
+It was on the morning of the third day after our arrival at Konia that
+we made the plunge into the great plain from the spot where the Monster
+had left us. We collected in the square in front of the Konak. There
+were two covered arabas to convey the baggage, and in one of these
+Constantin and Hassan also rode; X and I rode horses, and had
+saddle-bags slung under our saddles. Our escort consisted of three
+Zaptiehs, a Lieutenant, Rejeb, and an ancient Sergeant, Mustapha.
+
+The head of the police accompanied us a few miles out of the town.
+
+Slowly, riding at a foot's pace, we left it all behind, the squalid
+streets, the modern houses, the scraggy little trees; the lumpy road
+became a deeply rutted track bordering stubble fields; lumbering carts
+passed us, squeaking terribly as the wheels lurched out of the ruts to
+make way for us. The track became an ill-defined path, along which
+heavily laden pack-animals slowly toiled, raising clouds of dust.
+Turning in our saddles, all we could see of Konia was the minarets of
+its mosques standing above a confused blur on the horizon line.
+
+There is a strange fascination in watching the slow disappearance of
+any object on the horizon, when that horizon is visible at every point
+round you. The exact moment never comes when you can state the actual
+disappearance of the object. You think it is still there, and then you
+slowly realise that it is not. And when you have realised this, you
+turn round again in the saddle once for all, and set your face steadily
+towards the horizon in front of you, which for so many hours on end has
+nothing to show and nothing to tell you, and yet whose very emptiness
+is so full of secret possibilities and hidden wonder.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We had got beyond the point where one met others on the road; we had
+now become our own world, a self-contained planet travelling with the
+sun through space. When he disappeared over the horizon line we pitched
+our camp and waited for his reappearance on the opposite side. At the
+first glimmer announcing his arrival the tents were hauled down, the
+arabas loaded up, and by the time his face peeped over the line we were
+in our saddles, ready once more to follow him to his journey's end.
+
+It is a great half-desert plain, this part of Anatolia; desert only
+where it is waterless, and very fertile where irrigation is possible.
+In places it seemed to form one huge grazing ground; now it would be
+herds of black cattle munching its coarse, dried-up herbage; now flocks
+of mohair goats, now sheep, herded by boys in white sheepskin coats,
+tended by yellow dogs. Then we knew that a village would be somewhere
+about, although we did not always see it; for here too the villages are
+the colour of the surrounding country and perhaps only visible in very
+clear sunlight.
+
+Or it might be that we would ride slowly through a cluster of mud huts,
+and the yellow dogs would rush out and bark furiously at us, while the
+men and children stared silently, too listless even to wonder. At times
+we would stop in a village for our midday meal, sitting in the shade of
+its yellow mud walls. The Zaptiehs would stand round us and keep off
+the dogs until some of the village men would appear and call them away
+with a half-scared look--for the Zaptieh is the tax-collector, and they
+suffer from extortion at his hands.
+
+We visited the women in their houses, and found them always interested
+and friendly. Turkish was becoming more intelligible to us, and the
+conversation usually took the same form:--
+
+"Who is your father?"
+
+"He is a Pasha in a far country."
+
+"Where are your husbands?"
+
+"We have no husbands."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"In our country the women are better than the men, and the men are
+afraid of us."
+
+Then our clothes are fingered all over and the cost of everything on us
+is asked. We rise to go, and they hang on to us and implore us to come
+again. But the sun has already begun to dip on his downward course, and
+we must hurry after him.
+
+Then would follow hours when no attempt at cultivation, or sign of
+herds and flocks, would be visible, and the desert country was only
+relieved by wonderful effects of mirage, in which we would chase
+elusive pictures of mountains and lakes and streams.
+
+One had time to take it all in: the wonderful exhilarating air, the
+silent stretches, the long, monotonous days of the shepherd boys,
+marked only by the gathering in of their flocks at night.
+
+How will it be when the Monster comes, roaring and snorting through
+these silent plains, polluting this clear air with his dust and smoke?
+At first these haughty, resentful shepherds will stand aloof from the
+invasion, the yellow dogs will bark in vain at the intrusion. Then
+slowly its daily appearance will come to them as the sun comes in the
+morning and the stars at night. Unconsciously it also will become a
+part of the routine of their lives. They will not cease to look at it
+with wonder, for they have never wondered. They will accept it, as they
+accept everything else. But use it? That is a different tale. It will
+be a long fight; but the Monster has always conquered in the end.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the third day we rode into Karaman. A medieval castle crowns the
+town, and is visible at some little distance across the plain.
+
+The old sergeant, Mustapha, startled us by suddenly greeting it from
+afar:--
+
+"Ah, Karaman, you beautiful Karaman, city of peace and plenty. Ah,
+Karaman, beloved Karaman!"
+
+And the Zaptiehs, taking up the refrain, made the silent plains ring
+with "Karaman! beautiful Karaman!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We pitched our tents on a grass plot in the centre of the town.
+Constantin began preparing the evening meal, and the natives hung round
+in groups staring at us, or bringing in supplies of fuel and milk and
+eggs. A seedy-looking European pushed his way up to our tent and began
+storming at us in French.
+
+"But it is impossible for you to camp here--it is not allowable; you
+must come at once to my house. There is nothing to say."
+
+X and I tried to rouse our bewildered minds out of the Eastern sense of
+repose into which they had sunk through all these days. We concluded
+that Karaman must possess an urban district council, and that we were
+breaking some law of the town.
+
+We pressed for further enlightenment.
+
+"But do you not see all these people looking at you? It is not for you
+to camp here. My house is ready for you. There are good beds and it is
+dry, but this ..." and he waved his hand at our preparations. "It is
+not possible; there is nothing to say."
+
+By this time Hassan and Rejeb, into whose hands we had been entrusted
+for protection, came up and stood over us, looking threateningly at our
+gesticulating, excited friend.
+
+"I do not understand," I said. "Who says that we may not camp here?"
+
+"But it is I that say it; it is not possible. My house is ready; there
+is nothing to say."
+
+"Who are you?" I said.
+
+"I am an Austrian," he answered. Then he lowered his voice, in that
+mysterious manner which we associated with the coming of the Monster.
+"I am here," he said, in an undertone, "as agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman."
+
+"Very good," I answered; "and now tell us why we cannot camp here."
+
+"But it is damp," he said; "look at the mud."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" I said. "We are much obliged to you for the offer of
+your house, but we always sleep out."
+
+"But I have good beds," he said, "and a dry room at your service. There
+is nothing to say."
+
+At this point Rejeb could contain himself no longer. He spoke sternly
+to the Austrian in Turkish.
+
+"What do you want?" he said. "These ladies are under my protection.
+What are you saying to them?"
+
+The man poured out volumes of Turkish; Rejeb and he had a violent
+altercation, which seemed to be ending in blows.
+
+"Come, come," I said to the man, "enough of this. We are much obliged
+to you for your offer of hospitality, but we prefer to remain outside."
+
+He seemed totally unable to understand that this could be the case. "If
+it is myself you do not care about," he said, in a crestfallen manner,
+"I can easily move from the house. The beds are clean and they are
+dry."
+
+We finally consented to spend the evening at his house, and accompanied
+him through the streets, Rejeb and Hassan following closely on our
+heels. He showed us into a stuffy little sitting-room. Every corner was
+crammed with gimcracks; the whole place reeked of musty wool
+chairbacks.
+
+Then we followed him upstairs; we must at any rate "look at the
+beds"--he evidently thought the sight of them would prove irresistible.
+
+On calmer reflection the beds were, doubtless, no worse than the
+ordinary type to be found in commercial country inns; but to us, coming
+out of the sweet and wholesome atmosphere of the yet untainted plain,
+they seemed to be the very embodiment of stuffiness and discomfort. The
+windows, which had evidently not been opened for some time, were
+heavily draped, so as to effectually exclude all light and air even
+when open.
+
+"There, now do you see? It is clean, it is dry. There is nothing humid
+here; but out there it is exposed, it is damp, it is not allowable."
+
+We waived the question for the moment, reserving our forces for a later
+attack, and returned to the sitting-room, where a native woman was
+preparing the evening meal. We questioned our host on the arrival of
+the railway. He admitted being there to tout for trade _in case_
+it came; but who could tell, in a country like this, what would happen?
+Mon Dieu! it was a God-forsaken country, and all the inhabitants were
+canaille; there was no one he could associate with. He counted the days
+till his return. "When would that be?" "Ah," then he became mysterious
+once more and looked round at the door and window: "Ah, God knows;
+might it come soon!"
+
+The serving-woman appeared and said that our men wished to see us; they
+had been sitting on the doorstep ever since we entered the house and
+refused to go away. The Austrian went out to them; high words ensued,
+and we looked through the door. The Austrian, crimson with rage, was
+gesticulating violently and pouring out torrents of unintelligible
+Turkish. Rejeb stood in front of him, hitting his long riding-boot with
+his whip and answering with some heat. Above him towered Hassan, very
+calm and very quiet, slowly rolling up a cigarette and now and then
+putting in a single word in support of Rejeb.
+
+The Austrian turned to us. "Can you not send these men away, ladies? It
+is an impertinence. They refuse to leave you here unless they
+themselves sleep in the house. They say they have orders never to leave
+you, but surely they can see what I am!"
+
+We calmed him down as best we could, and insisted on our intention of
+returning to our tents. He could not understand it, and I should think
+never will. But we got away, Rejeb and Hassan one on each side of us.
+When we were out on the road in cover of darkness both men burst into
+loud roars of laughter.
+
+"Have we not done well, Effendi?" they said. "We have rescued you from
+the mad little man. The great doctor in London, has he not said, 'You
+shall sleep in the tent every night'?"
+
+And, gathering round our camp-fire in the damp and the mud, we rejoiced
+with Hassan and Rejeb over their gallant assault and our fortunate
+escape.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Two days' further ride brought us to Eregli. We approached it in the
+dusk, riding during the last hour through what appeared to be low copse
+wood. The place seemed low and damp; we rode past the door of the khan,
+and the men besought us to go there instead of camping outside.
+Constantin said he was ill, the arabajis said their horses would be
+ill. But Rejeb and Hassan took our side and we had the tents pitched on
+a spot which seemed dry in the darkness. Next morning we awoke to find
+ourselves encircled by a loop of the river and in a dense white mist.
+It was so cold that the milk froze as we poured it into the tea. We ate
+our breakfast with our gloves on, walking up and down to keep warm.
+
+Constantin said that he was still ill; the arabajis said their horses
+were now ill; but that was because the khan was comfortable. We
+decided, however, to give them a day's respite and ride out ourselves
+to Ivriz in search of the Hittite inscription at that place.
+
+[Illustration: HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ.]
+
+An hour's ride took us clear of the mists, and the sun came out hot and
+strong. Our road lay up a gorgeous richly wooded river valley. For the
+first time on our journey we realised what the absence of water and
+trees had meant. Our horses' feet crackled over brown and red autumn
+leaves; autumn smells, crisp and fresh, filled the air; brown trout
+darted from under dark rocks in the stream. Away through gaps in the
+low encircling hills we got sudden visions of two gigantic white-topped
+mountain peaks, the first suggestion of our approach to the Taurus
+barrier.
+
+Ivriz is a good three hours' ride from Eregli, and lies high on one of
+the lower hills. We left our horses in the village and climbed on foot
+to the spot where the river, rushing suddenly out of the bowels of the
+earth, has formed a cave in the limestone cliff. Below this the stream
+had cut its way through the rock, leaving steep sides of bare stone
+which tell a tale of untold geological age. At one point the ground
+shelved out on a level with the bed of the stream, and the waters here
+swept round a corner, so that the face of the rock overlooking them was
+almost hidden from any one on the same shore.
+
+It is on this face that the Hittite inscription is carved. A god, with
+a stalk of corn and a bunch of grapes in his hands, stands over a man
+who is in an attitude of adoration before him.
+
+There it stands, hidden from the casual observer, visited by no one but
+the native who comes to cure his sickness in the sacred waters of the
+cave above.
+
+Away in the desolate hills, off the track of man, the god has looked
+down on the waters of the river through all those æons since the days
+of the Hittites, which count as nothing in the time which it took this
+same river to carve its bed out of the eternal hills. How much longer
+will its solitude be left unviolated? The "agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman" is established at Eregli as elsewhere. When the iron
+Monster comes bellowing into Eregli his shriek will be heard in these
+silent hills, and following in his footsteps countless hordes of
+tourists will invade this sacred spot.
+
+With something akin to a feeling of shame I turned my Kodak on him; and
+a sorrowful thought of the many who would be following my example in
+the years to come shot across my mind.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was the sixth day after leaving Konia, and we were in full view of
+the Taurus Mountains. We were crossing the same stretch of barren
+plain, with its occasional patches of cultivation, its hidden villages
+with the flocks and herds trooping in at sundown. But the bounded
+horizon changed our conception of it; it was no longer a limitless
+plain. The nearer ranges stood out in dark purples and blues; behind
+and above towered the snow-clad heights which, looking down on to the
+Mediterranean shores, knew of the life and bustle of its sea-girt
+towns.
+
+We had come out on the other side of the unknown plain and the aspect
+of things was changed. What drew us on now was not the mystery of
+unexplored space, but the feeling that here was a great barrier to
+cross. We were about to share with these heights the knowledge of what
+lay on the other side. But there was more than this--we were about to
+do what the Monster might possibly fail to do. As we drew near the
+barrier, the mysterious allusions to his approach all took the form of
+pointing at this barrier. "So far and no further he may come," they
+seemed to say.
+
+As I rode with Mustapha up a long, winding pass on the outskirts of the
+range he pointed at the valley below us. "The Turkish Railway," he said
+solemnly.
+
+A long line of laden camels wound slowly up the opposite side; for a
+full quarter of a mile they covered in single file the road winding up
+out of the valley. I pulled my horse up, and Mustapha stopped his
+alongside of mine. We both bent our heads forward and listened. The
+sound of their tinkling bells came faintly across the valley to us; the
+low, musical tones, the quiet, measured movement, all was in keeping
+with the towering mountains and the still, clear air. Hassan rode up
+with the other men and joined us. He put his hands up to his mouth and
+gave a shrill, prolonged whistle in exact imitation of the engine we
+had left at Konia. The men looked at one another and laughed. Then they
+shrugged their shoulders and pushed on up the path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN THE TAURUS
+
+
+The Taurus range bounds in a semicircle the base of the plateau we had
+crossed. We had always been over 3,000 feet above sea-level, and now
+the heights of the Boulghar Dagh, as this part of the Taurus is called,
+rose high above us. The pass we were making for measured nearly 6,000
+feet, and it looked low in the level of the range. After leaving Eregli
+we had made a short day to Tchaym, some four hours' ride across a very
+barren stretch of country, with the snow mountains always in front of
+us. The next day was to be our last on the plains, for our destination
+was Ulu Kishla, well up on the hills. We had always great difficulty in
+deciding what the stages of our journey were to be. Maps and guidebooks
+were out of the question, the Zaptiehs had only very vague ideas as to
+distances, and local informants were hard to understand.
+
+Our destinations and the distances formed fruitful topics of
+conversation with the men, and generally ended in amicable wrangles.
+
+X having made out from the khanji[3] that it was ten hours' ride from
+Tchaym to Ulu Kishla, asked Rejeb's opinion on the matter.
+
+ [3] Innkeeper.
+
+REJEB. Eleven hours.
+
+MUSTAPHA. No, no, twelve hours. Tchaym to Ulu Kishla twelve hours.
+
+X. No, no, ten hours.
+
+REJEB AND MUSTAPHA (_in chorus_). No, no, the Pasha Effendi goes
+like the post.
+
+X. It is ten hours; Rejeb and Mustapha go like camels. (_Roars of
+laughter._)
+
+REJEB. It is Mustapha and the little Pasha Effendi who go like camels,
+_javash, javash_ (slowly, slowly).
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At Ulu Kishla we lunched in a huge khan, half in ruins, the size of
+which suggested the almost inconceivable size of the caravans which
+must have passed in better days. Here we decided to send the arabas on
+with half the escort, to await us at the next stage on the main road.
+Taking Hassan and Rejeb and one of the Zaptiehs with us, we branched
+off to visit Boulghar Maden, the highest village of the Taurus, noted
+for its silver mines. It was a rough ride up; now over chunks of rock,
+now along slippery grass slopes, then rock again and sliding bits of
+stone.
+
+The hills shut us in all round until we neared the summit of the pass;
+here we reached a level above that of the heights we had skirted on the
+previous day, and we could see the whole long line of peaks ranging
+westward to the sea. In front of us the chain of mountains on the
+opposite side of the valley, whose heights looked down on the Cilician
+Plain, obscured the view in that direction. We rode towards them in a
+southerly direction and began the descent into the valley below.
+Boulghar Maden lies perched on the hillside, and stretches into the
+valley, so that standing outside the higher houses you looked down on a
+sea of flat roofs below you. Tall, thin poplar-trees, rising above the
+houses in rows, mark it out like a chess-board. The great hillside
+which backs it to the south and keeps off the sun till midday is
+scarred and marked with the entrances to the mines.
+
+A small party of horsemen rode out of the town and came clambering up
+the hill towards us. Rejeb confessed to having sent a telegram from Ulu
+Kishla announcing our arrival to the Kaimakam, and suggested that this
+was a deputation sent out by him to receive us.
+
+Our spirits sank when we got near enough to distinguish European
+clothes on the leader of the party; we had been feeling ourselves
+tolerably safe from "agents commercials" at this altitude. Already from
+afar we were greeted in voluble French, which heightened our fears. The
+man was accompanied by a Turkish official and two Zaptiehs. The road
+was so steep that they dismounted and led their horses, both men and
+animals panting furiously. Our horses slid down the rough track,
+scattering the loose stones before them in all directions, and we
+joined the party below.
+
+"Salutations from Monsieur le Kaimakam, and he bids you welcome to
+Boulghar Maden." The man took off his fez and bowed. We saw that he was
+a cut above the enemy we had been fearing and we felt happier. He then
+explained that he was the representative in Boulghar Maden of our
+merchant friends in Constantinople, that he was an Armenian, that the
+Kaimakam was most perturbed lest we should not be received in proper
+manner, and had commissioned him, Onik Dervichian, at our service, to
+make all arrangements for our comfort. We were to be the guests of the
+Kaimakam, and he had caused rooms to be got ready for us in the house
+of a Greek family, where he would send down the feast he was preparing.
+But first he was expecting us at the Konak.
+
+We all scrambled down the hill together and rode through the village to
+the Government buildings. A line of Zaptiehs was drawn up at the
+entrance and fired a salute as we passed. Then we dismounted, and were
+led through the usual mysterious curtain-hung doors into the Kaimakam's
+presence.
+
+With our friend as interpreter, we felt sure the correct salutations
+would be delivered on our behalf. The health of the King of England and
+of our fathers, the great Pashas, was duly inquired after. Onik
+Dervichian then hustled us away to the Greek house. Here we found the
+women in a great state of perturbation and excitement. Our friend had
+sent down sheets for our beds, which were being constructed on the
+divans; would he show them where they were meant to go? Onik Dervichian
+threw off his coat and set to work on the beds himself, smoothing out
+the sheets with the fat Greek mother, who argued volubly with him the
+whole time. The two daughters of the house looked on and laughed; the
+little fat boy put his finger in his mouth and roared with laughter.
+Hassan stood in the doorway beaming with satisfaction. We were to sleep
+indoors, but was it not with Government sanction and under Government
+auspices? This was quite a different matter from the Karaman
+experience.
+
+Rejeb was having a good time recounting our adventures to his brother
+officers at the Konak, whither he had hastened back after seeing us
+safely landed at the house.
+
+A messenger arrived from the Kaimakam--were the ladies ready for the
+feast? The dishes had been prepared and the servants were awaiting
+commands. We invited Onik Dervichian to stay and help us through; for
+this was not the first time we had experienced Turkish hospitality and
+suspected that our powers would be taxed to the full.
+
+The little low table was brought in, and Onik showed the Greek mother
+how to lay it "à la Franka." The dishes began to arrive: curries and
+pilafs and roasted kid; dolmas and chickens and kebabs; and then the
+nameless sweet dishes which Turkish cooks only know how to prepare. At
+the fourth course I made an attempt to strike, but Onik Dervichian was
+shocked.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam," and he piled up my
+plate.
+
+At the fifth course he anticipated me.
+
+"Now, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+At the sixth: "Now, mademoiselle."
+
+"No," I said; "Kaimakam or no Kaimakam, I can't."
+
+Onik Dervichian's face was a study.
+
+"Mais, mademoiselle, _seulement_ pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+"You will have to do it all yourself, then," I said; "he won't know
+which of us has eaten it."
+
+Onik rose manfully to the occasion and did his best. Only at the last
+dish did he lean back and, rubbing himself gently, murmur:
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu! et tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There were "written stones," they told us, in this neighbourhood too;
+accordingly next day we hired a native as guide and set off in search
+of them.
+
+A road roughly cut on the side of the mountain led out of Boulghar
+Maden down the valley to the east; below it, precipitous sides shot
+into the river's bed; above it, the range we had crossed the previous
+day towered overhead.
+
+About a mile outside the village we turned off the road and wound up
+the mountain-side. Our horses pushed their way through the thorns and
+brambles which grew in rank profusion in and out amongst the rocky
+projections, until we had scrambled up to the summit of an outlying
+hill-top. Here a rocky projection stood out higher than the surrounding
+ones and showed a flat face of wall to the midday sun. It was just
+possible to make out that there was an inscription on this face. We
+could see that the characters were cut in relief and not incised. The
+Hittites were metal workers, and this characteristic of their
+inscriptions no doubt arose from their habit of embossing metal. That
+they were particularly fond of silver is suggested by the fact that
+many of their treaties were inscribed on tablets of that metal.
+Inscriptions are also found on stones near the Gumush Dagh, where
+silver-mines have been worked. We may presumably infer that the working
+of these mines at Boulghar Maden dates from Hittite times. The view in
+front of us was one vast breaking sea of mountain tops; the snow-clad
+heights forming the crests gleamed, in sudden flashes of sunlight, like
+the surf on a rising wave.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We left Boulghar Maden the next morning. The Kaimakam insisted that we
+should drive in his carriage down to Chifte Khan, the point on the main
+route where we were to meet our arabas. The road had only been made a
+few years and they were very proud of it; it was an exquisite road, we
+were told. The Kaimakam, we were also told, was very proud of his
+carriage. When he went to visit the mines he had it out; but his horse
+was led behind, for apparently his pride in it was not so great as
+regard for his own comfort, not to say safety. But here was an occasion
+for him to vaunt his pride with none of the accompanying discomforts.
+
+It arrived: a springless box on wheels, a hard and narrow seat on each
+side, the top encased in a heavy roof, with rattling glass windows. The
+whole was painted a bright primrose yellow, and was drawn by two small
+Turkish horses.
+
+X and I got in somewhat ruefully. It was a glorious fresh, sunny day,
+and we were about to pass through some of the finest scenery of the
+Taurus district.
+
+Onik Dervichian, who came to start us on the way, and Hassan sat inside
+with us. The Kaimakam had sent his servants to ride our horses; they
+and the Zaptiehs followed in a long string behind. For the first mile
+or two the road was fairly smooth; the vehicle lumbered heavily along;
+when it struck a loose stone the glass rattled furiously. We peered
+longingly through the panes, trying to catch glimpses of the
+surroundings. Pine woods nodded in the light breeze, but the noise
+drowned their whispers. Valley and hills streaked with laughing shadows
+beckoned to us to come out and look at them. Every turn in the road
+displayed new vistas of pine-clad slopes, shooting long tongues of
+green into the brown-red rocks.
+
+As time went on the road became very rough; great masses of solid rock
+lay across it, and the carriage, lurching up over them, jumped us about
+on the hard seats and knocked us up against one another. Hassan took it
+calmly; he merely ejaculated "Aman" when an extra lurch sent him flying
+off the seat.
+
+Onik Dervichian, however, was sorely troubled.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu!" he cried out at intervals, "et tout cela pour faire
+plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+At times it was not only painful but positively dangerous. The side of
+the hill would rise up in perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow
+ledge of road, cut at right angles to it, barely gave width enough for
+the wheels to pass; a jerk in the wrong direction would have
+precipitated us down the rocks into the valley beneath.[4]
+
+ [4] We heard later that the official who had been mainly
+ responsible for the construction of the road met his death in
+ this manner shortly after our visit.
+
+At such moments Onik Dervichian, pink with terror and excitement,
+opening with difficulty the door at the back, would scramble out and
+follow on foot. The crisis over, his sense of humour would return and
+he would take his seat again, throw up his hands and ejaculate, "Et
+tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam!"
+
+Then the carriage came to a dead stop. In front of us the ledge of rock
+had broken away, and two great boulders, fallen from above, blocked the
+narrow way.
+
+X pointed down the steep precipice.
+
+"Look, Hassan, look," she said, pretending to shudder.
+
+Hassan looked.
+
+"You go over, I go too," was his reply.
+
+The driver got down and examined the obstruction. We all got out and
+examined it. The servants leading our horses behind, dismounted and
+examined it. The horses stood with their noses on it and stared
+stupidly. Then everybody took hold of the wheels and lifted and shoved
+the whole concern bodily over. With the wheels on one side falling well
+over the steep side, the driver carefully engineered horses and
+carriage round the corner.
+
+Bruised and exhausted, shaken in body and nerves, we were finally
+safely landed at Chifte Khan, where we found our men and arabas
+awaiting us. We flung ourselves down on the grass of a little orchard
+and thanked God for our delivery from the task of pleasing Kaimakams.
+Hassan stood over us and gazed thoughtfully at the yellow carriage
+standing by the roadside, while the driver devoured pilaf at the door
+of the khan.
+
+"It is well now," he said; "we have pleased the Kaimakam."
+
+The driver clambered up on the seat again, and turned his horses' heads
+up the road we had left.
+
+"Thank God," said Onik Dervichian, "that we are still alive to see it
+depart!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From Chifte Khan we followed a good road, through the gorgeous vale of
+Bozanti, to Ak Kupru, where we pitched our camp for the night by the
+side of the river Chakut.
+
+The weather broke suddenly, and we reached the place in torrents of
+rain.
+
+The wind, tearing in gusts up the valley, shook the walls of the tent,
+and the ropes strained at the pegs. It drove the rain so hard against
+the white canvas that it forced the drops through almost against their
+will. It would have been so much easier for them just to run down the
+outside slope; but every force in nature seemed to be let loose to make
+the others worse. I moved my bed a little to try and get a clear course
+between two sets of drips. X surveyed my endeavours from where she sat,
+mechanically tilting a pool off her mackintosh rug when the accumulated
+drops showed signs of flowing in disastrous directions.
+
+"It's no use trying not to be wet," she said, "when there is no way of
+keeping dry."
+
+A new drip in the centre of the two original ones forced me to accept
+her philosophy, and we sat silently watching the scene outside. In
+front of us a bridge crossed the river and from it wound the road we
+should follow, zigzagging up until it disappeared round a corner. The
+Taurus Mountains rose like a black barrier in front of us, towering
+aloft in gigantic walls of rock; then layers of black forest and grassy
+slopes, then misty tops showing white snow where the clouds parted. At
+their feet on the other side lay the great Cilician Plain, covered with
+yellow crops and brown earth and clothed with mud-coloured villages. On
+the other side also was the Mediterranean, blue and calm; there was sun
+and warmth and quiet, and people quietly basking in the heat. But on
+this side there was turmoil and cold and wet; the earth's face was hard
+and bare, and over it angry waters dashed in heedless, headlong fury;
+angry clouds overhead vied with them, shooting down relentless torrents
+of rain. On the other side, the blue Cydnus wound gently in and out
+through the level plain, and made marshes of its low banks as its
+waters lazily crawled round in long, curving loops. On this side the
+Chakut Su, goaded on by the maddened waterfalls, rushed its black
+waters impatiently against obstructing rocks and turning white with
+fury foamed round them in angry swirls and dashed on through narrow
+gorges, lashing at their mocking, immovable walls.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We sought refuge in the khan for the evening meal, sharing the fire
+with our own men and the Zaptiehs. Onik Dervichian, always merry and
+full of resources even on such an evening, made the men sit round so as
+to leave an empty space in the centre of the room. Then he produced a
+walking-stick and laid it flat on the ground.
+
+"Stand up, oh stick!" he said, waving his hand and addressing it in
+Turkish.
+
+Not a sound could be heard in the room; all eyes were fixed on the
+stick, which slowly rose and stood up, apparently of itself.
+
+"Ha! ha!" went round the room in deep murmurs.
+
+"Lie down, oh stick!" said Onik.
+
+And the stick, after giving a hop or two, went slowly down on the floor
+again.
+
+For full half an hour did Onik Dervichian, by means of a fine thread
+invisible in the dim firelight, go through a series of tricks with the
+walking-stick.
+
+The men never moved or took their eyes off it for a moment, but showed
+no curiosity about it. They took it, like everything else, as a matter
+of course.
+
+Hassan and Rejeb, two silent men, talked together the whole night long
+just outside our tent. What with this and the wind and the rain, and
+the flapping of the tent and the drips, which, coursing down the
+canvas, found new points of entry at every moment, we got but little
+rest.
+
+Hassan greeted us with an anxious look next morning.
+
+"You were not frightened in the night, I hope?" he said.
+
+"No," I answered, "but we did not get much rest."
+
+"Rejeb and I," he went on, "were afraid you would be frightened by the
+noises, and we talked all night to show that we were close at hand."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The rain was still coming down in torrents. The khanji said it had come
+to stay, and he made a big fire, for he expected us to stay.
+
+But X was inexorable. If the bad weather had begun, she said, we must
+push on and get through the pass before we were snowed up; that would
+be worse than getting a wetting.
+
+We had all got into the habit of doing what X told us; so Hassan went
+out grimly and packed up the sodden tents. "Aman, aman," he murmured
+now and again, "it is the whim of a woman." The arabajis dejectedly
+fetched out the horses, who drooped their heads in the rain and blinked
+reproachfully. "It is the will of Allah," said the men, and they loaded
+up the tents. The Zaptiehs and Rejeb fetched their horses and mounted.
+"It is the will of Allah," said also the Zaptiehs; but their Lieutenant
+held his peace. The rain might be the will of Allah, but to ride
+through it was the whim of a woman.
+
+One by one we filed out over the bridge and up the winding road
+opposite. The arabas creaked; their sodden, wooden wheels squeaked as
+they lurched along after us; and the khanji stood in the doorway and
+wondered a little; then he went back to his fire. And we rode up and up
+silently. Thick rain mists shrouded the heights above us; gradually we
+reached the forest line, and the grassy slopes were level with us on
+the opposite side of the valley; and still we rode gently up and up.
+The rain lessened a little bit, and we raised our heads and told each
+other so. Onik Dervichian burst into song and made the hills echo with
+his ringing voice. Then the rain poured down again and we rode silently
+on into it.
+
+A string of camels laden with merchandise met us just as we were
+crossing a track, which was being temporarily turned into the bed of a
+stream for superfluous waters. Their great hoofs slipped on the greasy,
+muddy sides, and each one paused in its mechanical march as its turn
+came to slide down the slippery bank.
+
+"Y'allah, y'allah!" shouted the drivers, prodding them, and they
+resignedly put forward their great hoofs and floundered after their
+companions.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The arabas made slow progress up the hill. We were getting wet through
+and decided to push on ahead with Rejeb and two of the Zaptiehs. Onik
+Dervichian announced his intention of returning; he could reach
+Boulghar Maden that evening if he went no further, and he did not
+relish the idea of another night such as the one he had just spent.
+
+At midday we arrived at Gulek Boghaz, where we found a new detachment
+of Zaptiehs awaiting us, for we had crossed the borders of the Konia
+vilayet and were now under the Vali of Adana. The men took our horses
+and led them into the stable. Streams of water ran off horses and men
+alike and collected in pools about the uneven floor. We brushed past
+the horses' heels and went on into the living room leading out of the
+stable, where a roaring wood fire blazed at the far end. We lay on the
+rough divan in the corner and thawed and dried. The men came in from
+seeing to their horses, and the fire drew clouds of thick steam out of
+their soaking clothes.
+
+Rejeb sent out a Zaptieh to see if there was any sign of the arabas,
+but he returned with no news save that of increasing rain. We dozed
+round the hot fire; the Zaptiehs sat at the far end of the room and
+smoked; there was no sound but the beating of the rain outside and of
+the horses munching and stamping in the adjoining room.
+
+More than an hour passed and still no sign of the arabas. We roused
+ourselves and conjectured all the possibilities of mishap: a wheel had
+come off; they had stuck in the mud; they had lost their way; the roads
+were too heavy for the horses after the rain; they had been attacked by
+brigands.
+
+X, however, had her own suspicions. The arabajis had been very loth to
+leave Ak Kupru, and they knew of our intention of pushing on after the
+midday rest. They were dawdling on the road or sheltering somewhere out
+of the rain--we had passed an open shed--so as to ensure arriving too
+late for us to get on to the next stage.
+
+She cast round for a method of outwitting them, and at last hit on one.
+
+"You take two of the new Zaptiehs," she said, "and ride on with them to
+the next khan; I will wait here until the arabas turn up. We cannot
+leave you alone, and that will be an excuse to make the men come on."
+
+I always did as X told me, and rose obediently from the warm corner. As
+I drew on my dry overcoat, hot from the fire, and looked out at the
+drenching rain, I felt strongly drawn in sympathy towards the arabajis.
+My horse was saddled and dragged outside, as loth to leave its
+companions as I was. I mounted, and bid farewell to Rejeb and Mustapha,
+who were returning to Konia. It was a tearful parting, for they had
+been with us now for eleven days and we were fast friends. X stood in
+the doorway of the stable.
+
+"When you get to the khan," she called out after me, "say 'Atesh
+getir.'"
+
+"All right," I said obediently. What "atesh getir" meant I did not
+know; but X said I was to say it and that was enough. I was awfully
+afraid of forgetting it, and it was too wet to make a note, so I kept
+on repeating it at intervals. The Zaptiehs rode one behind and one
+before me, for the road was narrow. By and by we entered a defile not
+more than three or four yards across, where the rocks towered above us
+quite perpendicularly on one side and overhung us on the other; the
+road became almost coincident with the bed of the stream, and a large
+piece of fallen rock nearly blocked the way. The Zaptieh in front of me
+pointed with his whip at the rock just over our heads and also at the
+one fallen in the bed of the stream. The rain was pouring over the
+faces of both, and obscured them, but it was just possible to make out
+that these also were "written stones," and I concluded that we must be
+riding through the famous Cilician Gates, round which the historical
+interest of the Taurus centres.
+
+I repeated "Atesh getir" devoutly, and we hurried on. A two hours' ride
+brought us to a khan on the side of the road. One of the Zaptiehs
+galloped ahead to announce our arrival. The yard, ankle deep in mud,
+was full of dripping animals and men. The khanji helped me to dismount,
+and I said "Atesh getir." He nodded and smiled and talked away at me
+hard as he led me into a vast room, perfectly bare, without even the
+usual divan. There was a wood fire burning up a tumble-down chimney in
+the middle, and they fetched me a little three-legged stool to sit on.
+I thanked them and said "Atesh getir" once more. The Zaptiehs came and
+turned my hat and coat round and round in front of the fire to dry, as
+an excuse to dry their own. A boy appeared with more logs of wood,
+which he threw on the fire. Every now and then the khanji would come
+and jabber at me, and I smiled and nodded and said "Atesh getir." It
+seemed now to have become a sort of joke, for every time I said it the
+Zaptiehs and the other men laughed, and I caught the words repeatedly
+in their conversation amongst themselves. Every few minutes the boy
+came and threw more wood on the fire, then he would turn and ask me a
+question. I had nothing but "Atesh getir" to say. But I felt a little
+nervous about the size of the fire. It was exceeding the bounds of the
+hearth, and I was afraid would soon burn down the rotten old place, for
+the heat was terrific. So I would point at the fire and shake my head
+when he threw on the logs, but he only grinned and went off to return
+with some more.
+
+As I sat there waiting for X, I knew that I should always remember once
+for all that warmth is the one thing in the world which really matters.
+I was hungry, for we had not tasted much food that day. There was not
+much to sit upon, the stool had got very hard; the room was dirty and
+bare, and the smell of wet animals came up from the sheds below; but
+the fire made up for it all. One felt one had really got all one
+wanted, and I would not have exchanged that fire for the best of meals
+or the downiest of beds.
+
+I was quite content to sit by it and wait for X for ever if need be.
+She had shipped me off with two strange men to a strange place with two
+strange words whose meaning I did not know--but there was the fire.
+
+She arrived at last. The men all came tramping in with her and gathered
+round the blazing logs. Hassan fetched a bundle out of the araba, where
+the things had kept fairly dry, and made a seat for us. Constantin
+opened the last tin of sardines, and having demolished them we finished
+up with native bread and honey.
+
+Hassan went out to look for a place to pitch the tent, and came back to
+say there was nothing but mud and water outside: should he put it up
+under an open shed just below the room? The floor was sodden with the
+smell of generations of passing caravans, but there seemed no other
+choice, and the tent was the only means of privacy.
+
+Late at night a sudden thought struck me. I turned towards X and saw
+that she was awake.
+
+"X," I said, "what does 'atesh getir' mean?"
+
+"It means 'get a fire,'" said X sleepily.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were awakened early by the departure, before sunrise, of the men and
+animals who, quartered in the yard of which our shed formed part, had
+not given us much peace during the night. We were not loth, on our
+part, to leave the tent, which had caught and retained the smell rising
+up from the sodden earth floor, until we were nearly choked with the
+fumes. It was still raining, and the peaks we had ridden under the day
+before were shrouded in mist. We kept on descending slowly, and by and
+by came out on a piece of open moor land. The sun began to appear again
+now. We were leaving it all behind, the cold and the wet and the storms
+of the hills. We were getting into the stillness of the plains again.
+The men took off their overcoats and rolled them up on their saddles
+behind. One by one we shed the wraps which had seemed so thin and
+inefficient under the snowy heights; they were getting unbearable here.
+
+We expected at every turn to get a view of the sea. In spite of this,
+its first appearance was so sudden as to come as a surprise. We rounded
+a corner, and there it lay, as we had pictured it on the other side,
+still and bright, with no suggestion of storm and turmoil. It was not
+till that moment that we had the distinct feeling of having crossed the
+barrier. Each step forward now unrolled bit by bit the stretch of plain
+at our feet. There was the Cydnus winding its easy course through
+fertile lands as if there were no trouble in its rising waters. There
+was Tarsus, its flat roofs so sunk in gardens and fruit-trees that
+minarets and domes alone proclaimed the presence of a large town; and
+there, too, still faint and dim, but unmistakable, was the thin, moving
+line of smoke which proclaimed that we were nearing the land of the
+Monster once more.
+
+Can it be that the day is not far distant when this one will join hands
+with its brother through the barrier we have crossed; and tearing
+through these silent plains and the rugged fastnesses of these great
+hills, destroy the mystery over which they have so long kept their
+sacred guard?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ROYAL PROGRESS
+
+
+In the line of country stretching from Tarsus eastward to Urfa, there
+is a series of stations of the American Mission Board. Travelling as we
+did, in the direction of this line, we made these stations our stages,
+and hired horses and men afresh at each place.
+
+At Tarsus we camped in the playground of the mission school run by Dr.
+Christie. On the evening of our arrival out of the Taurus Mountains we
+were eating off spotless cloths with knives and forks, and were singing
+"Onward, Christian soldiers" with a hundred Armenian and Greek
+students.
+
+The plunge out of rough travelling into these oases of civilisation is
+very sudden, and the contrast gives a full meaning to the advantages
+and disadvantages of both forms of existence.
+
+The missionaries are the embodiment of hospitality. They know also what
+the discomforts of our journey have been, for they have gone through
+much the same experience themselves in order to arrive at their present
+homes; and so we find hot baths awaiting us and fresh supplies of
+hairpins; buttons are sewn on, and clothes sent to the wash. We are
+started off on the road again clean and tidy, and with a linen bag full
+of home-made white bread, which will see us through many days. We also
+carry with us thoughts of the splendid work which is being done by
+them, and of the hardship and danger many of them have gone through in
+carrying out this work of education among these Eastern Christians.
+Gathered round the fire at night we would listen to tales of bloodshed
+and massacre, of domestic tragedies and individual heroism, of anxiety
+and hope all told with that simplicity and quietness which bears the
+stamp of a personal experience which has come face to face with the
+real facts of life in a barbaric land.
+
+But, once we were on the road again, we were glad to be there, glad to
+hear only the sound of the Turkish tongue; glad to lie out once more
+under the stars and eat our meal round the camp-fire at night.
+
+Occasionally, too, we would get sudden reminders of the institutions we
+had left. A stray Armenian would accost us on the road with "Who are
+you? Where are you going? What is your name?" in the English tongue
+with a perceptible nasal twang. We would have a momentary unpleasant
+sense of impertinent familiarity. Then one would pull oneself together
+and remember the doctrine of universal brotherly love which was being
+instilled into the minds of mission students, and would try hard not to
+mind when the individual would proceed to tell us that we were his
+sisters, that he loved us very much, and would we give him a
+subscription towards a harmonium for his church.
+
+It was during this stage of our journey, also, that we were taken to be
+royalties and received at the larger towns with military honours. The
+idea seems to have emanated from Konia after our departure from there.
+We had left cards on the officials at the Konak. Now X's Christian name
+was Victoria, and her address printed on the card was Prince's Gate. To
+the Turkish mind this was conclusive evidence that she was a relation
+of the great queen, and instructions for our suitable reception were
+accordingly telegraphed on. At Adana we found ourselves indisputably
+"daughters of the King of Switzerland." It was of no use denying it:
+"naturally we wished to preserve an _incognito_."
+
+We were summoned to pay a state visit to the Vali of Adana and were
+accompanied by his secretary, who talked French.
+
+VALI. Welcome; you have come.
+
+X. Gladly we have found ourselves.
+
+VALI. By your features and bearing I can see you are of the high
+aristocracy.
+
+INTERPRETER. The ladies say that they also can see that you are a most
+high and noble prince. (_Turns to us._ You said that, didn't you?)
+
+VALI. And how do the noble ladies find Adana?
+
+INTERPRETER. The ladies find Adana the most charming and delightful
+spot in Turkey.
+
+X. Please thank his Excellency for sending the Zaptiehs to meet us;
+we were very pleased with them.
+
+VALI. The ladies are most welcome; if they should wish for fifty
+Zaptiehs they would be at their service.
+
+(_Mutual bows and salaams._)
+
+VALI. And where do the ladies intend to travel after this?
+
+X. We wish to go by Aintab and Diarbekr to Baghdad. Does his
+Excellency think the road is safe?
+
+VALI. Wherever the ladies go their safety is assured; they are the
+guests of the nation. There is not a governor in the land who has not
+received orders to look after them in every way.
+
+(_Further bows and expression of thanks._)
+
+VALI (_continues_). The ladies, however, will find it most
+uncomfortable travelling at this time of year. I would urge them to
+give up the idea of this journey.
+
+X. We are obliged to your Excellency for your advice, but we do not
+really mind the discomforts of travel.
+
+VALI (_turns to his Muavin, the_ "Evet Effendi" _already mentioned_).
+This gentleman has just returned from Baghdad; he will tell you how
+very disagreeable the journey will be.
+
+MUAVIN. Evet, Effendim; the road, of course, is safe as regards the
+tribes; but do not the ladies fear tigers and the many wild beasts
+which may be encountered?
+
+VALI. I assure you it is not safe for you. You hear what this
+gentleman says. If the ladies will wait till the spring I will arrange
+for them to accompany my brother, the Prince of Kurdistan, in his
+expedition to the mountains.
+
+Finding it impossible to dissuade us, the Vali then leads the way to
+the Council chamber, and makes X sit in the Presidential chair, where,
+he informs us, no one but the Vali has ever sat. He tells X she is now
+the Vali Pasha, this is her house, and he is at her commands.
+
+X promptly seizes the opportunity, and asks for favour to be extended
+to a friend we had met in the course of our travels, who had been
+banished from Adana owing to having incurred the Vali's displeasure.
+
+VALI. Because he was kind to you I will pardon him. He may come back
+if it will please the ladies.
+
+X. We are much obliged to your Excellency.
+
+VALI. Many people have spoken to me for him, but I would not listen;
+but to please the ladies I will now forgive him.
+
+VALI. Will it please the ladies to dine with me to-morrow?
+
+X. We thank your Excellency, it would give us much pleasure. But we
+must apologise for our clothes; we are travelling, and have no
+suitable dresses for dining with your Excellency.
+
+VALI (_waves his hand_). The ladies must not mention it. I can see by
+their appearance how noble they are, and their clothes are therefore
+of no significance.
+
+X. We will now say goodbye, and we thank your Excellency for all your
+kindness.
+
+VALI. It is I that am indebted for your presence. Will you send my
+love to his Excellency your father? for he also is a Pasha, and we are
+brothers.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From Adana our next stage was to Aintab. Our luggage had now all to be
+conveyed on pack-mules, for we were going over tracks where wheels
+could not pass. This made our party seem larger, for we needed three
+mules for the baggage, and they were accompanied by three muleteers,
+who also looked after our horses and the mules ridden by our men. Our
+escort here consisted of four Zaptiehs and a Captain. This was the
+lowest number to which we had been able to reduce the fifteen men the
+Vali had pressed upon us. Nominally, they received no pay from us, but
+the "baksheesh" which we were expected to give them no doubt
+compensated for the arrears of pay from which the Turkish soldier
+invariably suffers.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We had parted with Constantin at Adana. He was not very suitable for
+really rough camping work, and we had asked the missionaries at Adana
+to recommend us a less civilised person, who would be more competent in
+tight places. Through them we engaged an Armenian, Arten by name. He
+could only speak Turkish, so we were now entirely thrown on our own
+resources as to Turkish conversation. X, however, had acquired quite
+enough of the language to be intelligible to Hassan, who interpreted
+our wants to the others.
+
+We had hardly left Adana before incessant heavy rains came on, which
+turned the tracks into impassable mud swamps. We struggled on as far as
+Hamidieh, where we sought refuge in the house of an Austrian widow who
+ran a large cotton mill in the place. For three days the rain came down
+in torrents. I went to bed indoors with fever; X, however, still
+preferred to sleep out in the tent in pools of water, which the men
+vainly endeavoured to keep out by digging trenches all round. On the
+third day we sallied out again and pitched our camp in the middle of
+little green pasture fields in the bed of a lovely valley. Real milking
+cows strayed about in the little fields, and cocks and hens crowed and
+cackled familiarly close to us. This was a very different country from
+the one we had left. In spite of the fact that we had had to exchange
+wheels for pack-mules, it seemed far more civilised and cultivated.
+Trees and water everywhere gave one a feeling of life and growing
+things, unlike the stagnation of the waterless parts.
+
+The Zaptiehs here, in greeting the town or village we were approaching,
+would always include in their praises its power of providing milk and
+eggs. Our former Zaptiehs had handed on to them that we had an
+insatiable desire for these luxuries, and they would use this as an
+inducement for us to come on to any place where they particularly
+desired to camp, a desire which generally arose from the vicinity of
+some large khan where they could spend a sociable evening.
+
+"Oh, it is a lovely village; there are many eggs, there is much milk.
+The cows they are never dry, and the hens they never cease to lay. The
+chickens, too, they are not all legs, they are fat and juicy."
+
+But we were getting out of the Cilician Plain and the Taurus was with
+us again. The branch which runs southwards from the main chain to the
+coast at Alexandretta, the beautiful Amanus range, still cut us off
+from the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.
+
+For three days we rode on the outskirts, now climbing gentle, wooded
+slopes, now winding round a stony valley path; every evening we found
+ourselves at a higher altitude. We were getting into the Kurdish
+country. Their handsome women sat on the wide doorstep, which often
+formed the roof of a house beneath, grinding corn between two flat
+stones, or baking flat cakes of bread. They wore huge white headdresses,
+spotlessly clean, covered with silver ornaments, and short crimson
+zouave jackets. They were disposed to be very friendly, and used to
+come into our tent with offerings of oranges and eggs. At one small
+village we came in for a Kurdish wedding. We happened to arrive just as
+the bride was being torn, struggling and weeping, from her father's
+house by the bridegroom and his friends. At first we imagined ourselves
+witnesses of some domestic tragedy, but we were informed that the
+display of grief and resistance was part of the ceremony. The bride was
+plastered over with ornaments and her head was bedecked with a great
+crown of feathers. She was put, still sobbing, on a white horse, and
+led away to the bridegroom's village, to the sound of bagpipes and
+flutes and the shouts and laughter of a hundred brightly dressed
+natives.
+
+Then we had a precipitous ride up to Avjila, a wild, Kurdish village,
+3,000 feet above sea-level. Hidden away amongst the rocks, a few score
+of shepherds tended their mountain flocks. From Avjila the road wound
+round grassy hills and through richly wooded slopes, where the crimson
+berries of the carob-tree hung over our path and the leaves of the
+golden plane dazzled our eyes in the sunlight. The woodman would be
+busy too, and we would hear the sound of his axe in the pine-trees, or
+brush past a mule loaded with long, scratching bundles of firewood.
+
+The Amanus range slopes very abruptly to the plain on the opposite
+side. It was not till the tenth day after leaving Adana, owing to our
+delay at Hamidieh, that we reached the gap in the trees at the summit
+of the pass which gives you one short glimpse of Aintab on the plain
+below. The muleteers stopped here to throw stones on a cairn beside the
+track and greeted the town with expressions of endearment and praise.
+
+"Give us a coin for luck, Pashas," they said, "and that no evil may
+befall us in the place."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We rode straight into the Mission compound at Aintab, and found
+ourselves at once in a very academic atmosphere. The mission has been
+established here over sixty years and has a brave show of buildings: a
+college with five professors, a hospital, an orphanage, a girls' and a
+boys' boarding school, and a church. The women missionaries are mostly
+graduates of some American University, and one feels rather behind the
+times in conversation. Their work fills one with respect: there is no
+proselytising about it; their idea is to civilise by education.
+
+From Aintab it is two short days' journey to the Euphrates. We were now
+in a country of rich red soils covered with olive groves and vineyards.
+Near the villages small sized black and yellow cattle, brought in from
+the pastures, munched maize straw in the rough enclosures of reed or
+straw round the houses. The road was lined with signs of primitive
+cultivation and luxurious crops, evident even in these winter months.
+But the peasants seemed miserably poor. They were partners mostly of
+city men, who provided the seed and the stock and took two-thirds of
+the produce in payment.
+
+The Euphrates is visible a long way ahead as it winds southwards. At
+first you see it as a streak of light across the plain; then slowly you
+differentiate the banks, the alluvial shores, the flow of the waters.
+Then Birejik appears on the opposite side. Its houses, built on a
+limestone cliff four hundred feet high, rise up above the river tier
+upon tier; then the black marks on the face of the rock below the
+houses take on the shape of rock tombs. We descend a long, gentle slope
+towards the ferry, and find a few buildings on this side also. We wait
+while great herds of oxen and sheep going to the market at Killis are
+ferried across in the great, clumsy, flat-bottomed, flat-sided boat,
+whose one end rises up in a high, curved keel. Then our turn comes, and
+one by one our horses plunge into thick mud and up the slippery end of
+the boat, which lets down to form a gangway. Surely they are not going
+to take us all at once? Our horses get jammed up tighter and tighter at
+the far end as each animal enters the boat; they begin kicking and
+biting at one another. We draw our feet out of the stirrups and hunch
+them up on our horses' necks to be out of harm's way. There is no room
+now for the horses to kick--they are wedged too tight--but they
+struggle hard. We are shoved off the mud with long paddles, the cranky
+old boat lurches and wobbles, and we seem horribly near the water. The
+stream catches us and we are wafted down to a lower point on the
+opposite shore. Hassan, his great legs stretched up high and dry on his
+mule's neck, fumbles in his pouch and brings out the little bit of
+paper on which he writes down our expenses. He slowly puts on his
+spectacles and proceeds to write, holding the paper on the top of his
+thumb, and apparently oblivious of the struggles of his steed to kick
+the horse who is biting his flank behind. Then the gangway is let down
+and a terrific pandemonium ensues as each animal strives to get its
+saddle disentangled from the pack saddle of its neighbour and jump
+ashore. The hindmost land on the first, who have stuck hopelessly in
+the mud, the muleteers hit and shout, and we climb slowly on to firmer
+ground and wind up the steep path to the street at the top.
+
+The next day we ride slowly out of red soils and cultivation. The road
+is dangerous here, we are told; two extra Zaptiehs and a Yuzbashi are
+sent with us. We are in a desert plain again. A fearful storm of wind
+gets up and howls weirdly round us; the sun is getting low, and we have
+somehow missed the village where we should camp. The small cluster of
+huts that we pass or see in the distance have no accommodation for the
+horses, and the muleteers will not let them stand out on such a wild
+night. The Yuzbashi, who is a mysterious Kizilbash with a long black
+beard, gets anxious and makes us push on hard. At last we reach another
+cluster of huts, where the shepherds are calling in the flocks. It is
+nearly dark and we can go no further that night. The muleteers are
+sulky about the shelter for their horses, so we take a house for the
+purpose and the family cram in somewhere else. The tents are pitched
+with difficulty in the teeth of the wind. All night long the Yuzbashi,
+apart from the other men, walks up and down and round and round our
+tent, muttering in his black beard.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The next day we ride over a bleak, stony country, exposed to fierce
+lashes of wind and rain. Smooth faces of rock lie across the scarcely
+perceptible path, less slippery for our flat-shod horses than the mud
+in which they are embedded. We can see nothing ahead but low, rounded
+hillocks covered with broken stone. Suddenly yellow dogs spring from
+under our very feet and tall figures emerge out of the bowels of the
+earth. We have stumbled into the middle of a Kurdish village. The huts
+are hollowed out of the earth and roofed over with the stones which
+cover the whole ground.
+
+The chief of the village welcomes us at the door of his hut, and we
+descend the dark passage, blinded by the smoke of the dried camel-dung
+fire. We sit on strips of felt, thankful to be out of the wind and the
+rain, and stretch our frozen hands and feet in the direction of the
+thickest fumes.
+
+The tears run down our cheeks from the smarting of our eyes, but we
+hardly notice it, for it is heaven to be out of the bluster outside.
+Slowly our eyes get more accustomed to the darkness and the fumes, and
+we find the hut is full of arms and legs and motionless bodies, and
+gleaming eyes fixed on our eyes. But they are friendly and curious, and
+we feel at home.
+
+Then we crawl out to where Arten has prepared hot Maggi soup in the
+tent. It has been impossible to pitch ours, but they have tied the
+men's little tent on to the big stones forming the wall of our house,
+and the roof of another; we can see smoke mysteriously crawling out of
+the crevices of the ground at our feet. A sudden furious gust shakes
+the whole tent, and a Zaptieh's rifle, leant against the side, tumbles
+across and upsets the steaming soup. We pick our belongings ruefully
+out of the little trickling streams of thick liquid, and make a meagre
+meal by soaking bits of native bread in what remains. Then we get to
+bed as best we can, and all night long the wind howls and the tent
+flaps, and dogs sniff stealthily on the other side of the canvas.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A hard, broad, high-road runs ostentatiously some miles out of Urfa on
+the side which we were approaching. From the town it looks as if it
+were going on like that for ever. We stumbled suddenly out of our stony
+track on to it--where it ends abruptly in the middle of nowhere. The
+native does not walk on it much; he prefers the soft places at the
+margin, where the caravans, also shunning it, still make wobbly tracks.
+At one place, where it passes through a deep gully, the bank has been
+made up to make a more level run; but even here, as we rode over it, we
+noticed an old man and a boy driving a couple of mules, slowly crawling
+up the narrow path down below, which marked the line of the original
+road.
+
+We could see Urfa some little way ahead of us, and wondered whether the
+missionaries would have heard of our arrival through their friends at
+Aintab. For the post travelled quicker than we did; it had passed us
+days ago, borne at a gallop by two mounted men.
+
+"If ever we wanted cleaning up," I said, "it is at this moment; what
+with the rain and the mud and Maggi soup and camel-dung fumes, we are
+almost unfit to be seen even by a missionary."
+
+The words were hardly out of my mouth when a party of some twenty
+mounted soldiers appeared in the distance. As they got nearer they
+fired off a volley into the air and ranged up in a line down the road.
+The Captain rode up and saluted us. There was no mistaking it. We were
+Royalties once more.
+
+The Captain explained that the Governor was sending his carriage for
+their Royal Highnesses to make their entry into the town, and that he
+was expecting to receive them at the Konak. The carriage appeared up
+the road, a smart landau with red cushions, drawn by two splendid Arab
+horses, and followed by outriders in uniform.
+
+In we got. It is very difficult under such circumstances to feel the
+least royal. We were only conscious of our dishevelled looks and dirty
+clothes. We made Hassan get in with us, for he always had the air of a
+prince. The driver cracked his whip and we went off at a great pace,
+headed by the Captain and Zaptiehs, including our own escort, and
+followed by the outriders. Borne along in the cavalcade came Arten on
+his mule, looking worse than any of us, in a seedy old black overcoat
+and a red scarf round his neck. The inhabitants of Urfa lined the
+streets and waved and cheered lustily. Flags and decorations were hung
+out. We bow hard--it is getting easier to forget our dirty clothes. I
+begin to wonder if indeed we are not Royalties. Why not? Hassan looks
+more princelike than ever, sitting opposite to us, very erect and very
+gravely gracious, acknowledging salutes.
+
+At the main entrance to the town a smiling Armenian on a mule obstructs
+the way, and frantically waves a letter. The cavalcade stops, and
+riding up to the carriage he shoves a well-thumbed envelope into our
+hands. It is from the lady missionary, they tell us.
+
+"The Government," she writes, "are making great preparations for your
+entertainment, but I hope that you will not despise such hospitality as
+my house affords, and that you will spend your time in Urfa with me."
+
+What are the Government going to do with us? Once more I became
+conscious of our outward appearance. We sent a verbal message to say we
+would call later, and then we are dashed on again; the smiling Armenian
+whacking his mule and trying to keep pace with the formal, solemn
+officers.
+
+Finally we draw up in front of the Government buildings. A red carpet
+is unrolled before us, over which we walk gingerly in our muddy boots
+between rows of salaaming Turks. Hassan stalks after us, grave and
+dignified, returning salaams.
+
+We are received by an official, corresponding to the Mayor of the town,
+and his secretary. X tried to deliver the sentences she had been
+concocting as we were driven through the streets, but the general
+bewilderment of the situation and uncertainty as to what we were
+expected to do was making intercourse more difficult than usual. We
+were almost at our wits' end when the Head of the Education Department
+appeared on the scene. He talked French fluently, and explained that
+rooms had been prepared for us in the building and that the Pasha
+Effendi expected us to be his guests. After giving us tea, and thereby
+showing familiarity with the customs of foreign Royal personages, they
+conducted us to the Vali. He was of a very different type from those we
+had previously seen. A young, pleasant-mannered, intelligent Turk, he
+received us in a reserved, Western way, with no flowery greetings.
+
+Hassan, in whose hands we felt safe as regards points of Turkish
+etiquette, had whispered to us that we had better camp outside as
+usual, for the Pasha's harem was absent at the moment and we could not
+therefore visit the ladies. For this reason we declined as best we
+could his offers of hospitality. The Head of the Education Department,
+instructed by his chief, said the Pasha Effendi was "_désolé_" at
+our decision. Would we not reconsider it? We were causing his
+Excellency intense disappointment. His Excellency indeed looked
+crestfallen, and we would also have enjoyed being royally entertained,
+but we knew Hassan's judgment was never at fault, and thought it best
+to be on the safe side. We were also conscious of the fact that in all
+probability this was but a polite form of espionage, for Urfa is the
+centre of the district where the worst Armenian massacres took place;
+European visitors, therefore, especially those who say they are
+"travelling solely for their health" in all the discomforts of winter,
+are suspected of being mere gleaners of damaging facts.
+
+So we only accepted his Excellency's invitation to dine and, taking
+leave of him for the moment, were escorted to the Mission-house by the
+officers and Zaptiehs who had formed our escort, led by the smiling
+Armenian on the mule.
+
+Thus ended our triumphal entry into Urfa, which some call the ancient
+city of Abraham--"Ur of the Chaldees."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM
+
+
+"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son,
+and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went
+forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan;
+and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." And it happened that we,
+sojourning in this land, bethought ourselves of this journey of
+Abraham; we also, therefore, arose one morning and took two horses of
+the horses of Ur, and three Zaptiehs also upon horses, and we set our
+servants upon mules, and departed across the plain to visit this
+Harran, the city of Nahor; and there came with us a lady of the
+American Mission and her servant Jacobhan and a young Armenian friend;
+and they also were upon mules. And we all rode together across the
+plain of Mesopotamia, of which it is written: "When corn comes from
+Harran, then there is plenty; when no corn comes, then there is
+hunger." And, even as we rode, the villagers were gathering in barley,
+the clean white straw with its well-filled heads; and from time to time
+we came also upon a couple of sleek-skinned oxen drawing the wooden
+plough through the soil, making the furrows for the next year's seed;
+and the soil, where it was turned, was of a rich red colour, beside the
+yellow stubble which was yet unbroken. The villages stood at the space
+of one hour's ride apart, and by the side of every village, by the side
+of their bell-shaped huts, we saw great mounds of such a size that they
+covered as much ground as the villages themselves; and each of these
+mounds was of a rounded shape. And, looking across the plain as we
+rode, as far as we could see we saw also many such mounds far distant
+upon the horizon.
+
+And we said to Hassan, "Wherefore these mounds?" And he answered and
+said, "Behold, Effendi, you see these villages at the space of one
+hour's ride apart, each with its cornfields and its unbroken stubble,
+its pasture and its flocks; so it was in the days when Abraham and
+Terah passed this way, even as you and I are now passing; but these
+villages that we see of the bell-shaped huts were not the villages that
+Terah and Abraham saw, for they are now buried under these same
+mounds."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now Harran is eight hours across the plain from Ur; four hours we rode
+to Rasselhamur, a village by the side of a stream, where we ate and
+drank and rested awhile, and yet another four hours we rode from
+Rasselhamur to Harran.
+
+Now consider the journey of Terah and Abraham. There were his women and
+his children, his camels, his man-servants and his maid-servants, his
+he asses and his she asses, his oxen and flocks of sheep; and they
+would cause him to delay on the road, for they cannot be over-driven:
+yet, even as the Arab tribes journey to-day, the caravan of Terah and
+Abraham would reach this Harran on the second day from the day they
+left Ur of the Chaldees; and the land of Canaan, the land towards which
+they journeyed, would still be far distant.
+
+And we, marvelling, pondered on the words of the learned man who has
+said that the Harran of Terah and Abraham lies not here but at one
+day's journey from the city of Damascus.
+
+But why should our souls be vexed over the words of learned men? for,
+whether it be that Terah stayed at this Harran, even the Harran we are
+approaching, or whether he journeyed on day by day over the plains to
+the city of Damascus, for us, as our noiseless steeds trod the soft
+earth, these silent plains yet echoed with the tinkling of his
+camel bells, the bleating of his innumerable herds, and the cries of
+his men-servants and his maid-servants.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And the sun was yet high in the heavens when the walls of the city of
+Harran rose up before us; and as we rode through the fields without the
+city walls we looked, and behold there was a well in the field, and
+near it were gathered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, for it was
+out of that well that they watered the flocks. And it was at the time
+of the evening, the time that the women go out to draw water; and we
+drew rein and watched them, even as Jacob watched Rachel. And these
+daughters of the men of the city were dark-eyed and blue-smocked, and
+they balanced their pitchers on their heads; and they went down into
+the well, down the slippery stones which were worn by the feet of the
+generations which begat Rachel and Rebekah. And on beholding the
+strangers some of them ran back, even as Rebekah on beholding the
+servant of Isaac, and told their mothers; and some of them, even as
+Rachel on beholding Jacob, emptied their pitchers into the troughs and
+bade us water our horses. And the herdsmen gathered themselves together
+and looked at us in silence; and their look was long and straight, like
+the look of those who have the habit of looking far, as far as where
+the sun sinks on the horizon; and we, wondering, held our peace. Of
+what availed it, that we should vex ourselves as to whether this indeed
+were the Harran where Terah stayed on his way to the Land of Canaan,
+here are we in the fertile regions, without the walls of a city, by the
+side of a well where the maidens come down to fetch water and where the
+flocks are gathered at the going down of the sun. And we bethought
+ourselves of those ancient days, and we said unto the herdsmen, even as
+Jacob said unto the herdsmen as they tended the cattle of Laban,
+"Whence are ye?" and they answered us saying, "Of Harran are we."
+
+[Illustration: JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN.]
+
+And looking about us we saw also the black tents, the good camel-hair
+tents such as the Arabs use, and they stretched out from the side of
+the watering-place; and on the ground in front of them the young
+children rolled amongst the bleating flocks and herds. And the
+shepherds, haughty and silent amongst men, walked to the right and to
+the left in and out amongst the bleating flocks and herds; and their
+cloaks were of sheepskin, long and squarely cut--they hung from their
+shoulders, reaching nearly to the ankles; and looking at them we
+thought of Abraham who had left this city for the Land of Promise, of
+Isaac who sent his servant to seek out Rebekah, and of Jacob, who
+beheld Rachel even on this spot, and who tended the flocks of sheep and
+herds of cattle for her father Laban on these same fertile plains.
+
+And as we tarried, marvelling on these things, there came out a
+messenger from the city, and he said, "Why standest thou without? we
+have prepared a house and room for thy horses"; and turning our horses'
+heads we followed him and rode into the city.
+
+Now the people of Harran number at this day over 4,000 souls of the
+Moslem faith; of men there are 1,900, and of the women 2,300. And some
+of them live in the city and some of them live without, in the
+villages. Now in the generations that have passed Harran was a great
+city of merchants; they went forth to Tyre, they were her traffickers
+in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests
+of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar.
+
+Harran lay also on the highway from the north to the Land of Canaan, on
+the highway from the west, from Assyria and Babylonia to the shores of
+the Cilician Sea; hence also was Harran a great fortified city. And
+looking about us as we rode through the city, many and ancient were the
+ruins that we saw, showing that Harran had been great indeed in her
+time; and there stands to this day a four-sided tower, the walls of
+which are perfect even now; and at the summit of this tower the bricks
+are exceeding hard and of a bright yellow colour speckled with black
+spots withal. And still riding in and out amongst the bell-shaped huts
+we came at last to the ruins of a great castle; and still riding, our
+good horses picked their way amongst the columns which were fallen, of
+which there were many, and under the massive stone arches which were
+not yet fallen. And we came at last to an open space set right in the
+midst of the castle, and on this space the grass grew green all about
+in amongst the fallen stones. And, dismounting, we climbed yet a little
+way further until we came to a room in the walls, well covered in and
+newly built up with stones, so that neither wind nor rain could enter
+in. And at the door of this well-built room stood the Shaykh of the
+Beni-Zeid. And he welcomed us, bowing after the fashion of his country,
+and we also greeted him, bowing after the fashion of our country; and
+speaking to Jacobhan, for we knew not his language, neither did he know
+ours, he bade us welcome, and said that meat and drink would be laid
+before us, and provender should be found for our horses. And we
+rejoiced, for we were exceeding hungry. But the sheep was yet roasting
+on the great fire in a hut in the ruins of the castle below, and we
+said to Jacobhan, "Send these men away, for we are weary and would rest
+awhile." And, taking Hassan only with us, we climbed up to where the
+ruins of a great tower looked away over the plain, even the plain over
+which we had ridden and beyond also on the other side further than
+where we had ridden; and sitting down here we rested awhile; and down
+below the servants tended the horses, and Jacobhan and the lady from
+the American Mission unpacked the neatly folded bundles--and, further
+below, lay the ruins of the great city, and between them the little
+bell-shaped huts; but above us there was nothing but the sky. And
+looking away from the city, over the walls and over the plain even unto
+the far horizon where the sun was now setting, for the day was far
+spent, I said unto Hassan: "What think you, Hassan, can this indeed be
+the city whence Abraham departed, and think you that this is the plain
+over which Jacob fled with his women and children, his men-servants and
+his maid-servants, his asses and camels, his cattle and his sheep?"
+
+And Hassan knit his great brows and pondered awhile, and then he made
+answer: "What matters it, Effendi, whether this was the city of
+Abraham, and whether this was the plain over which Jacob fled before
+the wrath of Laban? Look down below and see these fallen ruins, which
+are all that is left of the great nations who conquered this city in
+the generations that have passed; and look down again, and you will see
+the miserable huts of the people who are left; what do they care for
+the great people who have lived and died within these walls where you
+and I are sitting? In a short time they also will be dead, and you and
+I will be dead, and therefore why should we care whether or not this
+was the city of Abraham? for, where Abraham is, there shall we soon be
+also."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As he was speaking we heard a shout from below, and looking down we saw
+Jacobhan beckoning to us, for the meat was now served. And we made
+haste to come down, and entered the room. Here on the earthen floor
+stood a well-filled bowl, all hot and smoking, for the meat was mixed
+with swelling rice well cooked in fat. Now Jacobhan fetched a little
+red carpet and spread it on the floor by the side of the bowl, and on
+this we sat, crossing our legs after the fashion of the country.
+
+On one side of us sat the lady from the American Mission, and on the
+other side sat Hassan.
+
+And they brought us flat cakes of bread, which we dipped into the bowl
+and scooping out the rice and meat, we ate it thus, for we had neither
+spoons nor forks. And round about us as we ate sat the dark-eyed Arabs
+in the white robes. When we had finished eating, one of them rose and
+fetched a pitcher of water and another brought a bowl, and they poured
+water over our hands until they were clean. Then, making way for those
+who had not yet eaten, we caused the carpet to be spread on the far
+side of the room, where, lying on it, we watched the men eating,
+gathered round the bowl. Now, when all had finished, one removed the
+empty bowl and another fetched a brush and swept the floor, for much
+rice had been spilt about. Then each man folded his cloak together, and
+sitting back against the wall gazed at us out of the dark corners.
+
+But Jacobhan the Armenian and his young friend, who was also of the
+same people, had no mind to sit thus quiet all the evening. For they
+were not as the Arabs are, content to smoke and make no sound. "Give us
+some song," he said to the assembled company, "that we may make merry,
+for the night is yet young."
+
+And they pushed forward, out of the far corner, a young man who seated
+himself at our feet. After looking at us awhile, there being no sound
+in the room, he began to sing softly, and these are the words that he
+sang, as they were told to us later by Jacobhan: "As the swallows from
+a far country winging their way from the north to the south, so you
+come to us for the day and on the morrow you are gone. You have the
+soft eyes of a dove, your hair is of silken threads, and your skin is
+as the soft skin of the pomegranate. Your little feet they are as the
+feet of swift gazelles--and they will bear you hence so that your going
+will be as swift and silent as your coming. Oh, may the snows come in
+the morning to stay your going away, for my heart will be sick when you
+are no longer here, and my eyes no longer behold your eyes. The land
+will mourn and be desolate; the herbs of the field will wither and the
+waters of the river will dry up in the wilderness."
+
+When the words of the song were finished, a silence fell upon us all;
+and the silence was so long in the quiet stillness of night that many
+of us fell half asleep sitting there in the dark room. And one by one
+the company glided out softly into the night until we were left only
+with our own men. There numbered thirteen of us in all, and wrapping
+ourselves each in his blanket we lay on the hard floor until morning.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now on the morrow the son of the Shaykh came to us and said:
+
+"My father sends you word he will be absent until evening, for he rode
+away this morning two hours before the rising of the sun. To-night,
+however, he prepares a feast for you and will return, Inshallah, with
+glad tidings for his people. He bids me meanwhile ask of the ladies
+what their pleasure will be to-day; and I am at their commands."
+
+And we said to the son of the Shaykh:
+
+"Take now thy father's lance and these our horses, and we pray thee
+call out one of your companions and let us see how the men of your
+country fight their enemies."
+
+And the young chief, nothing loth, fetched the long spear which stood
+at the door of his father's house, and he mounted one of our horses;
+and he called another youth from amongst the many that would ride with
+him, and they rode out together into the field, without the city walls.
+And we climbed up upon the high walls of the castle which looked over
+the field that we should have the better view. And the two young men
+set their lances and rode their horses hard at one another, first to
+the one side and then to the other, now wheeling round, now holding the
+spear aloft, shouting with loud cries. And their cries were mingled
+with the cries of all the assembled company, and we also shouted with
+the others. For the space of an hour or more did they fight thus with
+one another until they and their horses were weary, but we were not
+weary with watching them.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now as we were feasting that day at the time of the setting of the sun,
+the Shaykh entered the room where we sat, and greeted us.
+
+And we, speaking through Jacobhan, said to him, "Has your business been
+well?" And he said, "Very well; to-day is a great day for myself and
+for my people."
+
+And we said, "Tell us, we pray thee, how that is?" And he seated
+himself in our midst, and he told us how his tribe, the tribe of the
+Beni-Zeid, had offended the great Kurdish chief, Ibrahim Pasha, head of
+the Hamidieh, who lived not far distant at Viran-shahir. For some
+amongst them had stolen camels and mules belonging to his people. The
+wrath of Ibrahim Pasha was very great, and he caused his men to harass
+their men, and their beasts were no longer safe. Now the Shaykh knew
+not which among his people were the offenders, but after a year had
+gone by there came certain of the tribe to him and said, "Behold these
+camels and mules, are they not those which were stolen from Ibrahim
+Pasha? We pray thee restore them that we may no longer live in fear of
+having ours stolen." Thus it was, that on this same day the Shaykh had
+ridden out with his men, driving these animals, and had delivered them
+back to the Pasha at Viran-shahir. Inshallah, now they would no longer
+live under fear of his displeasure. For those who offended Ibrahim
+Pasha had no mercy at his hands; but those who pleased him had much
+kindness shown them.
+
+And we and the whole company rejoiced together over the good deed that
+had been done that day, and there was much feasting and singing that
+night.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the morrow we mounted our horses once more and rode away through the
+bell-shaped huts and past the ancient ruins, over the rich plains, back
+again into the city of Ur, at the foot of the grey hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA
+
+
+We were encamped in the khan, the native inn, at Severek, a dismal town
+in the dismal wilds of Mesopotamia; the weather and the depth of mud
+made it impossible for us to pitch our tent outside, and the dirty,
+windowless sheds round the courtyard, which afforded the only sleeping
+accommodation, were not inviting, so we had fixed our tent in a covered
+passage by tying the ropes to the pillars supporting the roof. The
+Zaptiehs deputed to guard us for the night hung about the door, plying
+Hassan and Arten with questions as to our sanity. Why should two
+foreign ladies choose the depth of winter to travel between Urfa and
+Diarbekr along the caravan route which had been long deserted owing to
+the raids of the Hamidieh Kurds? I had often asked myself the same
+question during the last few days, but had not yet thought of an
+answer.
+
+A pale, dishevelled young man in semi-European clothes slouched into
+the courtyard and joined the group. The Zaptiehs spoke roughly to him
+and he gave a cringing reply. He forced his way past them up to me.
+
+"Moi parle Français," he said, with an accent corresponding to his
+grammar.
+
+"So it seems," I answered, in the same language.
+
+"To-morrow I travel with you," he went on.
+
+"Indeed!" I answered, with more of interrogation than cordiality.
+
+"Yes, you and my mother and sisters will go in an araba, and I and my
+brother will ride your horses."
+
+I made a closer inspection of the individual, but could detect no signs
+of insanity to harmonise with his utterances.
+
+"Who are you?" I said.
+
+"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want
+to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an
+opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares
+pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for
+months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do
+thirteen hours to K----."
+
+"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a
+mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the
+regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."
+
+"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so
+long on the road."
+
+I began to get angry.
+
+"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."
+
+"I will have everything ready," he said.
+
+"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you
+wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that
+we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we
+wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."
+
+"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not
+my sister?"
+
+"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit,
+and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please
+understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our
+sisters' arabas."
+
+Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found
+the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A
+covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of
+tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage
+scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there
+were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton
+coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight
+trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats,
+and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck,
+suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The
+whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep
+through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a
+furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was
+bitterly cold.
+
+We rode for hours through a dreary country of broken grey stones with
+no sign of vegetation or life of any kind. At last we arrived at a
+collection of tumble-down deserted huts, built of the stones lying
+round, and hardly distinguishable from the rest of the country until we
+were actually amongst them. We were cold and wet and had hardly come
+half-way to our destination, but as neither of us could stand long
+hours in the saddle without rest or food, we called a halt here to
+recruit. The Zaptiehs forming our escort begged us not to stop. They
+could not understand the strange ways of these mad foreigners, who not
+only travelled in such weather, but sat down to picnic in it instead of
+pushing on to the shelter of the khan at the journey's end. But we were
+inexorable, and they reluctantly fastened the horses on the sheltered
+side of the remaining walls, against which they stood with their backs
+tightly pressed, drawing their ragged coats closely round them. The
+village had been but lately ransacked and destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha,
+the redoubtable Kurdish chief; he was still abroad in the
+neighbourhood, and any detention on the road increased the chances of
+our falling in with him or some of his stray bands. The knowledge of
+this and the discomforts of the journey made the men fretful and
+anxious. We picked out the least dilapidated looking house and
+clambered over fallen stones and half-razed walls until we found a
+roofless room which boasted of three undestroyed angles. In one of
+these the cook tried to make a fire with the last remnants of charcoal;
+we huddled in another to avoid, if we could, the blast which rushed
+across the broken doorways and whistled through the chinks of the rough
+stone walls. The arabas, accompanied by their bedraggled followers,
+rumbled heavily past us; the noise gradually died away as they
+disappeared in the distance; desolation reigned on all sides; the
+howling blast moaned weird echoes of destruction round the ruined
+walls.
+
+We managed to boil enough water to make tea; and then, yielding to the
+men's protests, we mounted and rode on. Hour after hour passed; the
+driving wind hurled the hailstones like a battery of small shot right
+into our faces; the rain collected in small pools in the folds of my
+mackintosh, and I guided their descent outwards and downwards with the
+point of my riding-whip. The drop which fell intermittently from the
+overflowing brim of my hat had been the signal for a downward bob to
+empty the contents; but now the wet had soaked through and I let it run
+down my face unconcernedly. We were a silent and melancholy band. X
+rode in front with her chin buried in her coat collar; her face was
+screwed up in her endeavour to face the elements; the hump in her
+shoulders betokened resigned misery. The soldiers' heads were too
+enveloped to allow any study of their expressions, but the outward
+aspect of their bodies was a sufficient indication of their inward
+feelings; the very outline of their soaked and tattered garments
+bespoke discomfort and dejection.
+
+The pale-faced little officer, straight from the military school at
+Constantinople, urged his horse alongside mine. "Nazil?" he said. It
+was a laconic method, essentially Turkish, of saying "How?" _i.e._,
+"How are you?" "How's everything?" "Hasta" (Ill), I answered. "Aman,"
+he groaned. "Kach Saat daha?" I asked (How many hours more?). "Jarem
+Saat, Inshallah. Bak, khan bourda" (Half an hour, Inshallah. Look, the
+khan is there). I raised my head to follow the direction of his
+pointed whip; the jerk sent a trickle of wet down the back of my neck
+and the rain blinded my eyes. I dropped my head again. It was not
+worth while battling with the elements even to look upon our
+approaching haven of rest. I was too familiar with the aspect of the
+country to be particularly interested in the scenery; it had not
+altered at all for many days. If you looked in front, you saw an
+endless tract of slightly undulating country, the surface of which was
+a mass of stones; there were stones to the right, there were stones to
+the left, there were stones behind; you rode over stones, slippery,
+broken, loose, sliding stones; and now stones, stones of hail, were
+hurled at you from the heavens above. The very bread we had eaten for
+our midday meal seemed to have partaken of the nature of the country.
+I had accidentally dropped my share, and had to hunt for it,
+indistinguishable among the other particles on the ground. We were
+rapidly turning into stones ourselves. One seemed to be riding on a
+huge, dry river-bed, the waters of which had been drawn up into the
+heavens and were now being let down again by degrees.
+
+The officer gave an order to a Zaptieh. The man tightened the folds of
+his cloak round him, wound the ends of his kafiyeh into his collar,
+and, digging his heels into the sides of his white mule, darted
+suddenly ahead. The crick in the back of my neck made it too painful
+for me to turn my head to look, but this must mean that we were near
+the khan and that he had gone on to announce our arrival. Visions of
+being otherwise seated than in a saddle faintly loomed in my brain; I
+hardly dared wander on to thoughts of a fire and something hot to
+drink. We turned at right angles off the track and plunged into a bed
+of mud, which led up to the door of a great, square, barrack-looking
+building with a low, flat roof and a general air of desolation. The
+Zaptieh stood grimly at the door. "Dollu" (Full), he said. Nevertheless
+we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in
+the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole
+enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with
+camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with
+bare legs and feet and dripping, ragged cloaks. The officer laid about
+him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the khanji (the
+innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with
+great English Pashas." The khanji waved his hand over the seething,
+jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is
+impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan. If we made way
+for the Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses.
+But they are welcome to what shelter there is."
+
+We gazed with dismay at the reeking scene.
+
+"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.
+
+"Two hours," was the answer.
+
+"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's
+head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals,
+who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of approaching food
+and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded
+back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast
+and driving rain.
+
+The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the
+uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones.
+One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and
+sure-footed beast who could be trusted to pick its own way. The hired
+Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left
+to himself he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it
+becomes so impossible that he stops and gazes in front of him in stupid
+despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins
+in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire
+not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in
+danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly
+lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the
+others. Weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and
+more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at
+his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.
+
+"We must push on, Hanum" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by
+sunset."
+
+"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my
+broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate
+brute's skin.
+
+He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly
+in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and
+the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows
+behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity
+for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb,
+petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.
+
+Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the
+horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came
+the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was
+rushed away in the driving wind.
+
+Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in
+the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of
+alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or
+was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains
+consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog,
+jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one
+did not care for how long.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but
+the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and
+the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms
+round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I
+thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as
+they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."
+
+"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door
+of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole
+on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round
+me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.
+
+"X?" I muttered interrogatively.
+
+"Hm," came from the corner.
+
+"Hm," I responded.
+
+The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously
+about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles,
+saddle-bags, wet cloaks, and muddy riding-boots.
+
+Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively and
+giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other,
+where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space
+in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried
+camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled
+with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let
+out the fumes; we opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a
+sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the
+smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down
+mercilessly.
+
+Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow
+passage by our open door, on into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing
+bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard, square boxes
+stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their
+owners' yourghans, quilts which form the native bed, damp and muddy in
+spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown
+over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope which also fastened on
+a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to
+the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the
+enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable
+crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of
+their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs;
+mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching
+yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in
+gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the
+piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright
+waistcoats; stern Mahomedans, wrapped in long, severe cloaks, gazed
+with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier
+race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials
+stared at them with open-mouthed, grinning wonder. Our little captain
+sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner, deftly rolling up, with his
+delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes; a
+Zaptieh, with his face to the wall, bowed and murmured over the evening
+prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that
+disregard of his neighbour's presence which is so impressive in any
+crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human
+note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent waiting of
+the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their
+respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant,
+strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all; men and
+animals, side by side, are busy satisfying their bodily needs. It is a
+strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings
+and mode of life, savours of the beast; and the beast, with his outward
+aspect of patient and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements.
+We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and
+publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hind-quarters backed
+into the room, upsetting the pot of water on the fire. We had been
+anxiously waiting for its boiling point with the open teapot ready to
+hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal; and pushed it back;
+they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself
+out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform
+peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses
+require anything?"
+
+Hassan courteously returned his salute. He was now seated cross-legged
+by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up
+together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. With the air of a king on his
+throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddle-bag:
+"Buyourun, Effendi, oturun" (Welcome; sit down). The man sat down,
+carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.
+
+"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his
+inquiry and send many thanks. They have all they require."
+
+The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterances seemed to
+dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as
+to the limitation of our wants and the methods of our Royal progress;
+he merely thought we were mad.
+
+He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative
+members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression.
+
+"What will you have for supper?" he said.
+
+"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long
+experience of limited possibilities.
+
+"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if
+he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in
+these places.
+
+"Get a fowl," I said.
+
+"There is not one left here," he answered.
+
+"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humour of desperation.
+
+"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority.
+
+"Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.
+
+"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.
+
+"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of
+lobster salad and maraschino croûstades?"
+
+Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held
+them. Everything was wet and slimy; a few bars of chocolate were soaked
+in Bovril emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains
+of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags
+contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting looking
+pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity.
+Could it be--yes, it had once been, protein flour, "eminently suitable
+for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal
+when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our
+respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly
+thought the matter out.
+
+"X," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the Bovril thrown
+in, or to drink Bovril with the chocolate thrown in?"
+
+"Don't talk about it," said X, "cook everything up together, and let us
+hope individual flavours will be merged beyond recognition."
+
+We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein.
+The chocolate and Bovril were added, after carefully picking out the
+bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which
+he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served
+as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable
+pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in
+triumph.
+
+"Soan?" (Onion) we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable
+greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife
+out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the
+treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling
+pot. The cook sat stirring it all together with a wooden spoon; he kept
+raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled
+slowly back again he murmured complacently:
+
+"Pirinje war, chocolad war, Inghiliz suppe war, soan war, su war"
+(There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is
+onion, there is water).
+
+When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted
+the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Choc ehe, choc" (Very
+good--very), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X
+swallowed a few mouthfuls.
+
+"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology, as
+she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread
+and started chewing it.
+
+"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my
+heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I
+had been following with some interest for several days. It was always
+turning up, and I recognised it by a black, burnt mark resembling a
+figure 8. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had
+been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken legs and dried figs, and with
+wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other
+bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy
+fingers, but being unsatisfied with the consistency they had thrown it,
+along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking
+utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our
+diminishing supply and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away
+Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and
+slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various
+articles not calculated to increase the savouriness of its flavour. I
+was determined to see its end, and when X laid down half--no doubt
+meaning it for my share--I threw it on the fire.
+
+"It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.
+
+The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his
+greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.
+
+"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he
+wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one
+side.
+
+"Jarin" (To-morrow), he said.
+
+And so we sit; a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of
+food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one
+or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the
+fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in or what dirt
+we have been eating.
+
+We roll our rugs round us and lie on the sodden earth floor. Hassan
+turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan,
+men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.
+
+In the middle of the night I wake with a start; something had hit me on
+the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was; a
+piece of plaster had fallen off the walls, and the plaster, like the
+fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
+
+
+ "The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift
+ current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the
+ world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away,
+ another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AFLOAT
+
+
+We rode into Diarbekr on Christmas Day, arriving just in time to share
+the plum-pudding at the house of Major Anderson, the Vice-Consul.
+
+They say of Diarbekr that its houses are black, that its dogs are
+black, and that the hearts of its people are black--and they say so
+truly. The first moment that one catches sight of it in the distance
+one is impressed by the blackness of its walls, built of a black
+volcanic stone. When one gets inside, the people look dourly at one,
+and the Zaptiehs ride closer together. But this may be because they
+have no other choice, the streets being often only four feet across. It
+is quite easy to cross a street from on high by jumping from one roof
+to another; and it is certainly cleaner, for down below we are ankle
+deep in mud, in which great boulders are embedded--relics, presumably,
+of ancient pavement or fallen houses. If you want to take the air at
+Diarbekr you walk round and round the flat roof of your house and watch
+the life of your neighbours on adjoining roofs; or else, closely
+accompanied by armed cavasses, you ride out into the bleak, stony
+country, and follow up some mud stream in the hopes of getting a shot
+at wild duck and snipe.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A week later we sat on the banks of the Tigris by the Roman bridge
+which spans the river just below the black walls of Diarbekr. The raft
+on which we were about to embark was moored to the shore and the men
+were loading our belongings. A dancing-bear stumped about to the tune
+of a bagpipe made of the skin which answers so many purposes in the
+East. When inflated they can be used either for carrying water for
+people inside, or for carrying people on water outside. We were using
+260 of them in this latter way. They were tied on to two layers of
+poplar poles put crossways, forming a raft about eighteen feet square.
+At one end were two small huts made of felt stretched across upright
+poles; the fore end was weighted down with bags of merchandise laid
+side by side across the poles to form a rough floor.
+
+The two kalekjis (raftsmen) waded in and out with a great seeming sense
+of hurry but without appearing to accomplish anything.
+
+"Can't you hurry the men up?" said X.
+
+"No," I answered, "we are in the East."
+
+"You might try," she said; "you always leave me all the talking to do."
+
+"They do not understand my Turkish," I said apologetically.
+
+"It would not take you long to learn enough for that," went on X.
+
+"I do know the swears," I answered humbly, and I stood up amongst the
+men and delivered myself of them.
+
+"Quick! quick! the Pasha is angry!" said the men.
+
+Our crew had assembled; there were our two personal attendants, Hassan
+and Arten. Hassan was now our interpreter, for, although he could only
+talk Turkish, he could interpret our signs to other Turks until we
+learnt the language. Arten, we found, was more Armenian than cook, and
+sang us Christian hymns in his native language when we felt low after
+meals. Then there were two kalekjis in charge of the raft; they were
+Kurds; we had yet to discover their qualifications. Two Zaptiehs
+forming our escort made up the number. We did not yet look upon them as
+individuals, but as part of an abstract régime in the country with
+which we now felt tolerably familiar; the outward aspect of it was a
+ragged uniform and an antiquated rifle, which served many useful
+purposes but had forgotten how to eject bullets.
+
+"Hazir dir, hazir" (Ready, ready), shouted the kalekjis. The owner of
+the dancing-bear hurriedly thrust his fez under our noses.
+
+"Don't give him anything," I said, "a bear has no business to be
+dancing in this country; he ought to be trying to eat us in a cave."
+
+"The demoralisation of the bear comes from the West," said X, who was
+studying the primitive habits of the natives, "we must pay for it."
+
+"Does this abuse of the hat emanate from the same source?" I inquired,
+as she dropped a coin into the fez.
+
+"That would be an interesting point to inquire into," said X, and she
+made an entry in her notebook.
+
+The worst of X was that you never knew whether she was laughing at you.
+It is a most uncomfortable position, which men as a rule resent. But I
+was another woman, and took it philosophically, especially as X accused
+me of the same failing, and we never see ourselves as others see us.
+
+We boarded the raft: the coil of rope which had fastened it to the
+shore was hauled in, and we drifted slowly out into the centre of the
+muddy stream. We were followed by another raft, laden up with bags of
+merchandise, which was coming with us to share the protection of our
+escort.
+
+We went into the sleeping-hut to ascertain the length of its
+possibilities. Boards had been nailed across the poles to form a floor,
+and on this was spread a thick native felt mat. Dwellers on land little
+know the feeling of luxury recalled to my mind in writing these
+words:--the luxury of being able to drop all the things addicted to
+dropping, especially when dressing, with the knowledge that they would
+not disappear for ever in the depths of the Tigris waters; the luxury
+of being able to walk in the ordinary biped method of placing one foot
+in front of the other.
+
+This was not the case in the open part of the raft, where the floor,
+formed of poles and sacks, exhibited a network of rounded interstices.
+The water gurgled and spluttered below them: one's foot invariably
+slipped into them when cautiously manipulating a journey across the
+raft by hopping from a slippery pole to a sliding sack; and unattached
+articles dropped through them on to the skins below, and were
+occasionally rescued in a dripping condition before they were washed
+away altogether. The water showed spiteful discrimination in its
+washing-away proclivities. I recall certain chinks in the more roughly
+boarded floor of the hut where we had our meals, through which the cook
+had a habit of brushing his cooking refuse, and where, if one was rash
+enough to look, there could be seen an accumulation of tea-leaves and
+bones and bits of decaying delicacies which one associated with meals
+of past ages.
+
+The felt walls of the hut were lined on the inside with white cotton
+tacked on the poles. There were two small glazed windows, one of which
+opened. The door was a single width of felt tied with tape. There was
+just room inside for our two camp-beds--with a space between, which
+would admit of one of us occupying it at a time. At the foot of each
+bed stood our two Eastern sacks, which contained all our worldly goods.
+I feel constrained, on mentioning this form of luggage, to say a word
+of warning concerning it. In one sense it is easy to pack, because you
+need not fold anything up, but can simply stuff it in and give the bag
+a shake; and it is easy to unpack, if you do it in a wholehearted
+manner--standing in the centre of a large room or a vast desert where
+you can turn it upside down and spill everything out on the ground. But
+under ordinary circumstances the bundle of hay with the needle in it is
+nothing to this sack with your clean handkerchief in it. X and I had a
+mutual understanding owing to which we never attacked a sack while the
+other was within hearing; but whenever she appeared in a half-fainting
+condition and asked the cook why on earth tea was so late, I knew what
+she had been doing. She had asked me, as a personal favour (the only
+one I've ever known her ask) not to attack my sack in the morning,
+because it was a pity to have the whole day spoilt, and if I did it in
+the evening to go to bed before she did.
+
+But to return from this digression. Having examined our quarters, I
+arranged a rug on the open part of the raft and sat down to take in the
+surroundings.
+
+Arten was unpacking cooking-pots in the second hut, and the other men
+sat about on the sacks smoking silently. The boatmen sat on a pile of
+sacks in the middle and manipulated the oars which served to steer the
+raft and keep it in the fast part of the current. The oars consisted of
+single young willow-trees, with short strips of split willow bound on
+one end with twigs, forming the blade; they were tied on to rough
+rowlocks made of twisted withies wound round heavily-weighted sacks.
+The Tigris at this point is singularly hideous. There was not a single
+blade of vegetation to be seen anywhere; the country was a stretch of
+mud hills and stony desert, and the mud banks of the river were only
+relieved by the hosts of water-birds that darted in and out or waded in
+the shallows. The high black escarpment, crowned by the massive black
+walls of Diarbekr, and fringed by a swampy tract of willow gardens,
+rose up sharply above the mud flats. As we were carried along the
+winding course of the sluggish river a higher mud bank shut it
+altogether from our view, and I felt we had severed that link with the
+world which one feels so strongly on arriving in any town of a distant
+uncivilised land, where a European mail occasionally arrives and a
+telegraph wire eliminates the isolation of its natural position.
+
+We were drifting into an unknown world at the mercy of these unknown
+Kurds. We were alone with the birds and the mud banks and the rippling
+waters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HELD UP
+
+
+The snow-capped mountains of Kurdistan were just visible on the horizon
+line; toward them rolled wave after wave of low brown tracts of land,
+utterly destitute of any form or sign of life. Behind, as in front,
+like the coils of a shining serpent, wound the thin white line of the
+Tigris bed, the one response to the light overhead, imparting a sense
+of weary pursuit in its never-ending course. Fresh coils unwound
+themselves ahead as we toiled after new yet familiar spots on a
+never-changing horizon. Now and then the raftsmen dipped their oars
+quietly into the water, and with a few strokes twisted the raft into
+the straightest part of the river; otherwise, we were helpless, in the
+hands of an arbitrary current which made us bide its time as it slunk
+pensively round unsuggesting corners, or sped us faster when it gurgled
+impatiently over a long reach, where grey rock vied momentarily with
+the endless grey mud. We had given ourselves up completely to Time, and
+sat all day contemplating one stretch of bank after another as we
+swirled along. The ripple of the water, the intermittent splash of the
+oars, the crooning songs of the raftsmen all added to the sense of
+drowsy contemplation already established by the surrounding view.
+Everything was in contemplative harmony: isolated herons fished from
+slippery stones, gazing with such intentness into the passing water
+that they hardly deigned to raise their heads towards us, and, if they
+ever deemed it wiser to move out of our way, they would do so by a very
+deliberate walk on to the shore, after fixing a resentful,
+half-wondering stare upon us. Flocks of black ducks, suddenly disturbed
+round a corner, would rise in silent indignation, and with a sharp
+whirr would pass over our heads and drop quietly down on to the waters
+behind, smoothing out their ruffled plumage. Fat, ungainly penguins,
+sitting in white rows, like surpliced choirs, on the shallow shore,
+would scuttle further back along the mud flat, and taking up attitudes
+of doubtful interrogation would stare us out of countenance. One and
+all they condescended to no notes of fright or alarm, and where any
+sound was uttered it impressed us only with a sense of resentful
+indignation or of mocking inquiry. We were intruders in specially
+reserved spots, and could only offer apologies to our unwilling hosts
+by showing our appreciation of their mode of life in a respectful
+silence; indeed, to have uttered any sound in such places would have
+seemed a crime against Nature. So we floated on, casually returning the
+stares of the would-be enemy, while we listened with lazy indifference
+to their taunts and threats. At times, when there was complete absence
+of life on the shore, we confined our attention to more personal
+reflections.
+
+We were a strange assortment of human beings, whom accident had thrown
+together to live the same life for an allotted time in such close
+companionship on a small space. Here sat the Moslem in friendly
+relation with us, Western Christian infidels; the Armenian broke bread
+with the hated oppressor of his race and religion, while the Turk, on
+his side, had to endure the presence of his despised enemy. The Arab
+Zaptiehs and the Kurdish boatmen represented tribes whose traditions
+told of constant deadly feuds and warfare. The whim of one among us had
+gathered us together. What casual observer would realise what we had in
+common? For difference of language, custom, and appearance counts for
+little when all are equally exposed to the chance of circumstance; and
+the bonds that united us all with a common feeling were the hardships
+we endured alike from hunger, cold, and danger. We shivered together in
+wind and rain, and basked in the sun together; we suffered pangs of
+hunger together, and rejoiced together over a meal; we faced the same
+perils with the same chances of escape or annihilation. Whomsoever
+Fortune had chosen for her favourites in the ordinary run of life stood
+here on the same level as their less fortunate companions, to take
+their chance under the same conditions.
+
+We each had our several occupations when we felt that it was possible
+to snatch any time from contemplation. Hassan would retire into the hut
+at one end of the raft, and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, would
+chop up tobacco; whilst one of the Zaptiehs, seated at the door, would
+roll up the cigarettes. Now and then he would reach out one to
+me.--"Will you smoke, Effendi?"--and the other Zaptieh, seated outside,
+would strike me a match.
+
+Arten might easily have worked all day, but he seemed to spend most of
+his time contemplating the brazier on which he occasionally cooked
+something. At intervals he blew up the live charcoal with measured
+puffs; or he would sit perilously near the extreme edge of the raft
+contemplating the sky, with the tails of his dirty black overcoat
+dangling in the water, holding the dishes in the river until most signs
+of the last meal were removed from them. Being an Armenian he was
+endowed with a more restless nature, and the apparent contemplation in
+his demeanour was but the dejection resulting from a broken spirit.
+When not engaged in his own pursuits he would break in on the silence
+by pointing out what he considered objects of interest.
+
+"Look! look! there is a bird," he would say; and the true Easterns
+would gaze on without moving a muscle, neither looking at him nor the
+bird. Arten would look nervously round, knowing from long habit that he
+was being despised, but unable to understand the grating, silencing
+effect of allusions to the obvious at the moment when the obvious is
+being most thoroughly appreciated.
+
+The two raftsmen were obliged to concentrate a certain amount of
+attention on the business of navigation, but they seized every moment
+they could spare from the task of guiding the raft, and, leaning on
+their oars, would devote it to contemplation. They too pointed out
+objects of interest, but only in their capacity as local guides, and in
+a monosyllabic manner in complete harmony with the occasion.
+
+"Christian village," they would say, without looking round, pointing a
+thumb over their shoulders in the direction of a group of mud huts; or
+"Arab" when an encampment of black tents appeared on the bank. Hassan
+and the soldiers would respond by slowly turning their eyes in the
+particular direction; perhaps even going so far as to give vent to a
+sudden, sharp "Ha!" if the occasion was one of particular moment.
+Arten, however, would jump about the raft.
+
+"A Christian village! Look, it is there; do you see, did you hear? A
+Christian village."
+
+No one would answer him.
+
+"Did you hear, Hassan?"
+
+A minute of absolute stillness, and then Hassan's deep, deliberate
+voice, with no suggestion of impatience:
+
+"I heard."
+
+But we did not always drift along in a smooth and idle manner; the
+mud banks gave way at times to steep, rocky sides, between which the
+waters flowed more rapidly, and careful steering with the oars was
+required to avoid rocks and whirlpools. And here there were not
+infrequent signs of life: rock tombs were cut in the walls of the
+rock, and we would have liked to stop and examine them further, but it
+was impossible to land the raft at such places, and the current
+hurried us on almost before we were aware of their existence. There
+was a certain relentlessness about the way we were torn past all
+objects of interest; it was like dealing with Time. We were conscious
+that things passed now were passed for ever, and that we should never
+have another opportunity for realising them. Evidences of ancient
+civilisation, episodes in the everyday life of the present tribes, all
+seemed to sweep past in bewildering, incredible swiftness; we found it
+hard sitting there to believe that it was we who swept past them. Now
+we would catch sight of a wedding procession on the bank;--the bride,
+plastered with feathers and ornaments, being escorted to the
+bridegroom's village amid a din of music and shouting, the sound of
+which would follow us long after they were lost to view. Now it would
+be a group of women washing their clothes at the river's edge, beating
+them on large, flat stones. Now a solitary horseman would stand
+motionless on the cliff above, his coloured cloak flowing over his
+horse's back, barely concealing the brilliant hues of his embroidered
+saddle; he would watch us out of sight and then turn and pursue his
+lonely road. Now a shepherd boy would be driving in the flocks of
+sheep and goats at sundown; and his weird calls, and the answering
+bleat of the animals, would echo and re-echo right away across the
+distant hills. Men and women on the bank hailed us as we passed; we
+could only cast one look at them and wave back a hurried and kindly
+greeting; they knew we must not stop and talk: we came out of a
+different world from theirs, and they paused for a moment to gaze at
+us and then returned, forgetful of the fleeting vision, to their own
+pursuits. Meditative oxen, chewing their cud, surveyed us wonderingly
+from the shore. "Why in such a hurry?" they seemed to say, and we
+answered, "We are not in a hurry, but we have no power to stop." And
+the eagles overhead peered in contemptuous security at us, vaunting
+with arrogant flaps the great wings with which they flew whither they
+listed, while we were being swept along uncertain currents. A hidden
+bird would pour forth his sweet song to cheer us on our way, and the
+owls utter a dismal note of warning as of unknown dangers yet to come.
+
+And there was some possibility of danger, for we were still in the
+land of the Sultan's irregular troops--the Hamidieh. Our friends,
+however, had been decidedly encouraging as we bade them goodbye. "You
+will probably meet with Kurds," they said, "but if they do shoot at
+you it will only be for the fun of sinking the raft; they may rob you
+and strip you, but if you don't resist they won't kill you." We had
+felt distinctly elated. We still clung to ideas of life; our clothes
+and provisions were a convenience, but no doubt sheepskins and rice
+would be always forthcoming if the worst happened. "What would you
+mind losing most?" I said to X, on the third day, as we lay on our
+backs on the raft, the muddy water rippling very close to our ears and
+the muddy banks swinging round as the current changed. "My hot-water
+bottle," answered X reflectively; "and you?" "My camera first," I
+said, after a pause during which I had pictured X alone with the
+hot-water bottle, "and then my stylo." "Yes," said X sympathetically,
+"I really don't see how you could get on without them; but perhaps,"
+she added consolingly, "if you persuaded the men that there was an
+evil spirit inside they would let you keep them." This was a decided
+inspiration. I booked it for possible contingencies; a hot-water
+bottle and a camera were obvious resting places for the evil eye.
+
+We drifted on; the whirls of a slight rapid caught us--the top end of
+the raft where we lay dived suddenly into the water and then rose
+again, the bottom end followed suit, we became bowed for a second,
+then we were flat once more, and loose things which had started
+jumping about, lay still. I shook the water off my sleeve; X stretched
+out a hand, without turning her head, to feel whether the "Oxford Book
+of English Verse" had been washed away. "Mashallah, the Pashas like
+water," volunteered one of the kalekjis, a little, round-faced Kurd in
+a brightly-striped coat. "The Pashas are English," answered Hassan, in
+a tone of dignified rebuke. "The English fear nothing; why should they
+fear water?" The kalekji paused in his work; he was plying the two
+poplar poles, with which he guided the raft past shingles and kept it
+in the open part of the river. He started rolling up a cigarette. "May
+it please Allah to spare us from an attack from Ibrahim Pasha," he
+said devoutly, "or even these Pashas may have cause to fear." Hassan
+looked at him sternly and with some contempt. "The Pashas are
+English," he repeated, "and the Pashas are not afraid of Ibrahim
+Pasha." Reasons are superfluous to the Oriental mind; statements are
+conclusive; the kalekji lit his cigarette and resumed his task. The
+two Zaptiehs, Ali and Achmet, who had been aroused to a slight
+attention during the conversation, became listless as before and
+puffed away in silence after a simultaneous murmuring of "Aha, aha,
+Ibrahim Pasha." The remaining occupant of the raft, Arten, alone
+looked disturbed and uncomfortable. He was continually scouting the
+horizon, and retired behind the door of the hut whenever a black spot
+was visible. He burst into roars of forced merriment, "Ibrahim Pasha!
+who is afraid of Ibrahim Pasha? Let him come, and we shall give him a
+warm welcome!" His companions gazed in front of them in stolid, silent
+contempt.
+
+Silence reigned again--only the splash of the oars was heard and the
+beating of the water against the skins. Nothing broke the monotony;
+the river wound its way slowly in and out round mud banks; the country
+as far as one could see was unbroken, endless mud; the water one drank
+and washed in and floated on was diluted mud; the occasional village
+on the banks was built of mud, the inhabitants were mud colour; the
+very sky gave one a feeling of mud. It was time for a diversion. Away
+in the distance, since early morning, there had been a black smudge on
+the horizon which was slowly taking more definite shape as we followed
+the course of the shiny loops of the river, the one break in this
+endless, monotonous waste. We had lazily fixed our eyes in its
+direction. Almost imperceptibly it had evolved itself into great
+masses of solid, black, limestone rock; a few more turns of the river
+and we shot right under them and were suddenly shut inside a narrow
+black gorge. Bare walls of rock rose straight up on either side, and
+above a narrow stretch of sky-line, with its broken edges formed by
+the turreted ends of rock, and in a row, on every point, silent,
+motionless, awe-inspiring, sat peering down at us, like sentinels on
+guard, great brown vultures of the desert. I fidgeted uneasily; an
+armed brigand flesh and blood could stand, but this penetrating,
+undivulging, inhospitable gaze was too uncanny. To appear unconcerned
+I took out my field-glasses and stared back; with deliberate scorn,
+and of one accord, they slowly spread out their great wings, shook
+them, and soared up in the air, dropped down the other side of the
+rocks, or took up a fresh stand-point a little further removed from
+the intruders.
+
+We floated rapidly through the gorge. Already, on one side, the rocks
+were giving way to mud banks, though on the right bank the sides rose
+steeply in high, jagged cliffs. I lay back with a sense of enjoyment of
+life and peace; my thoughts had strayed to Western scenes. We turned a
+sharp bend in the river, and I vaguely noticed a native woman carrying
+a child in her arms. All of a sudden the atmosphere seemed disquieted,
+the two Zaptiehs had seized their rifles and dropped on one knee as if
+marking prey; even the imperturbable Hassan was handling a dangerous
+and antiquated looking weapon. There were men on the shore hailing us,
+and our boatman was shouting back vociferously. "Pashas," said Hassan
+in a solemn voice, "put on your hats." I slowly woke to the situation
+as I obediently donned the insignia of our nationality. There were men
+each side of the bank; they were armed men, and their arms were pointed
+at us. "Why, X," I exclaimed ecstatically, "we're held up!" X looked at
+me with a pitying expression. "You've been rather a long time taking
+that in," she said. This was not the moment for feeling snubbed; I
+wished to show that I was now acting with cool deliberation. "X," I
+said, "before leaving England we took some trouble with revolver
+practice; with much inconvenience we conscientiously wore our revolvers
+all through the wilds of Mesopotamia and Armenia; for some weeks we
+slept with them, loaded, under our pillows in the Taurus Mountains;
+they are now hanging discarded on the walls of the hut. Do you not
+think the moment has arrived for giving ourselves some little return
+for all the bother they have been?" "They have been a bore," assented
+X; "perhaps it is our duty to have them now." I went and fetched them
+and solemnly handed X hers. "They are loaded," I said, "but they seem
+rather sticky and rusty; I wonder if they will go off." "Please point
+the other way if you are going to try," said X. I could not allow this
+challenge to my want of knowledge in firearms to pass, and replied with
+dignity, "Remember to aim at the middle of the man; then if you miss
+his heart you have a chance either way at his head or his legs." "I do
+not think I shall fire," said X, "because I cannot do it without
+shutting my eyes. I will just point."
+
+The river had become very narrow, though the current was slow; the men
+could keep pace with us at a walk; they were masters of the situation.
+I gathered my wits together and debated our chances. The Kurds did not
+alarm me, but I cast nervous glances at Hassan. "X," I said at last,
+"if Hassan fires that blunderbuss, he cannot fail to hit either you or
+me." X surveyed the situation critically. "I don't think it will fire,"
+she said; "he was trying to shoot with it one day and it would not go
+off." I breathed more freely. "Effendi," said one of the soldiers to
+Hassan, "tell the ladies to go into the hut." "Pasha," said Hassan,
+"you would be more out of the way in the hut." X laughed, Hassan
+laughed, the Zaptiehs laughed, we all laughed, except Arten, he did not
+laugh--yet. Meanwhile, the Zaptiehs and the boatmen had been yelling
+and shouting at the brigands as they kept pace with us on the shore. As
+they spoke Kurdish we were unable to know what negotiations were going
+on, and could only await developments. They were a fine set of men,
+dark, handsome, well set-up, their long, black, curly hair worn down to
+the collar. They were dressed in bright colours, and armed to the teeth
+with long knives and pistols, besides the rifles they were flourishing.
+
+"There do not seem any villages near," said X. "We shall be very cold
+if they take our clothes and we cannot get sheepskins." "Yes," I said,
+"and very hungry if we can get no rice. We have longed for this moment,
+but there do seem to be inconveniences connected with it." My heart
+suddenly warmed within me. "X," I said, "isn't this a splendid piece of
+luck?" "Glorious!" said X; and we gave ourselves up to the full
+enjoyment of the situation.
+
+We had got into a faster bit of current, and the men had to run to keep
+up with us. They seemed to be yielding to the importunities of our
+escort; one by one they dropped behind, and finally, with a few parting
+yells, stood and gazed at us as we floated on. Indignation swelled in
+my veins. "X," I said, in a voice struggling with emotion, "they are
+letting us go!" X's face reflected my disappointment and disgust. "And
+they did not even fire one little shot!" she said bitterly. "Or try to
+burst our skins," I gulped. X tried to take a cheerful view of the
+situation. "Never mind," she said, "cheer up, we may have another
+chance; we are not out of their country yet." But I was not so easily
+comforted; I wanted some outlet for my rage and disappointment, and
+seizing my revolver I fired six shots up into the air and flung the
+weapon across the raft. The reports rang out loud and clear, and the
+echoes slowly died away in the answering rocks. Arten's white face
+peered through a chink in the door. X turned to the Zaptiehs and
+demanded of them a full account of their conversation. "Effendi," said
+the officer, "it is merchandise they want; they dare not touch the
+personal effects of the English; they have had some good lessons."
+"But," I interrupted, "we are loaded with merchandise." "Effendi," said
+the officer, "we swore by Allah that it was all your luggage, and that
+if they took it the English Padishah would send his soldiers and kill
+them all." "Yes," broke in the other Zaptieh, "and we swore that his
+Excellency the English Consul was on board, and that if they fired a
+shot he would come out with his great weapon and blow them all into the
+next world." The little boatman's face beamed with radiant smiles. "Ah!
+the English are a great people," he said; "with you English we are
+safe. I have been down the river scores of times, and always at this
+place I have been robbed. You saw the solitary woman as we turned the
+corner; she was put there to signal when the rafts were coming; if you
+see a woman alone on a bank, you know what you are in for. The river
+here is narrow and the current slow--you have no chance. On the one
+side the banks are low, and they can draw the rafts on shore and unload
+the merchandise while the men on the other side, high up on the cliffs,
+cover you with their guns."
+
+"Why do you not carry arms?" we said. The man smiled sadly. "Pasha,
+what are we against these men? If we float on, they sink the raft by
+shooting at the skins till they burst, and we lose raft and merchandise
+and all; if we submit quietly, they take what they want and let us go
+peaceably. Should we fire back at the men on the low bank within our
+range, we are at the mercy of the men on the cliffs, who have good
+ambush. No, Allah wishes it. Why should we resist?" There was silence
+for a few minutes. The Oriental's first refuge from the ills of the
+world is in his subservience to the will of Allah; his second is in his
+tobacco: our boatman slowly rolled up a cigarette. "It is not you
+English they will harm," he said, "they are afraid of punishment. It is
+we poor ones, who can get no redress. They take our little all, and
+know we must submit and they are safe." "Surely you can appeal to the
+local authorities?" we persisted. The man laughed--a low, quiet laugh.
+"The Governor!" he said; "poor man--he is no better off than the rest
+of us. He has no authority over these Hamidieh. Only last week he was
+set on and robbed himself by a party of them. They stripped him and
+threw him over a bridge; he was picked up half dead by a passing
+caravan next day. Aman--it is the will of Allah," and he took long,
+serene puffs at his cigarette.
+
+During the conversation Arten had emerged from his retreat, and, after
+casting furtive glances in all directions to make sure of the enemy's
+absence, he seated himself amongst us on the raft and started winking
+and giggling. "Ach, Pasha!" he said, "we scared them well. We are under
+the protection of God. Their shots came whizzing round our heads but
+none could hurt us; they fell round us in the water like hailstones and
+the air was black with them, and when we shot back we left them dying
+in hundreds on the bank and they were afraid to follow. Ah, ah, it was
+a great fight, and we shall be heroes in Stambul." "X," I said, "I fear
+this poor creature's head has been turned with fright; do you think a
+little quinine would be of any use? We have only that and the eye
+lotion left in the medicine case." X looked at me reprovingly. "You
+know you only hate him because he is an Armenian," she said; "you will
+not make allowances for his belonging to a down-trodden race. It is
+only natural he should boast when he knows what a coward he has been."
+
+X was putting new ideas in my head; I transferred my thoughts from
+insanity and quinine and looked with fresh interest at Arten. He was a
+typical specimen of his race--sallow complexion, dark hair and eyes,
+and a huge hooked nose. He was closely buttoned up in a long, thin,
+black overcoat, which had evidently descended on his shoulders from
+those of a missionary; on his head he wore a dirty red fez, bound round
+with a still dirtier coloured handkerchief. He sat hunched up,
+shivering with cold or fright, and his eyes wandered about uneasily. I
+looked from him to Hassan, and the contrast was indeed striking. Hassan
+was the embodiment of strength: there was strength in the massive,
+well-balanced proportions of his huge frame; there was strength in the
+poise of his head and in the keen level look of his eyes; there was
+strength in the quiet repose of his mind and body. If these two men
+were to be taken as typical specimens of their respective races, there
+was indeed cause to reflect on the result of one race dominating and
+crushing another through the course of generations. I sat down to
+reflect about it. It was getting dusk; the waters were very still; we
+hardly moved. The sun was setting behind us, and the intense redness of
+the sky made the rocks underneath look absolutely dead black; the moon
+had arisen and cast a silver glimmer over the dark waters--dark from
+reflecting the blackness of the rocks; the kalekjis felt their day's
+work was over and crooned a low song. We drifted to the shore and made
+fast the raft with large stones laid on the ropes. A very unsavoury
+smell of cooking alone kept our thoughts well on the solid earth. Arten
+appeared at the door of the hut. "Supper is ready, Pashas," he said. So
+we ate our supper that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A RECEPTION AND A DANCE
+
+
+Hassan Kaif is the first place of any interest along the banks, and we
+arrived there early on the fourth day, having floated about eighty
+miles in that time.
+
+As we approached the village the banks of the river rose
+perpendicularly in a wall of rock which was simply riddled with tombs.
+Many of them seemed to be quite inaccessible; those which had any sort
+of approach from the land side appeared to be inhabited by Kurds. We
+passed between the ruined buttresses of a Roman bridge of four arches,
+and then had a view of the whole village on the right bank. The
+mountains curve away from the river at this point and leave a
+semicircular level space, which is occupied by the ruins of an ancient
+Christian town. At the back, extending right up the curving side of the
+hill to where the topmost peak, surmounted by a castle, crowns the
+river, is a vast necropolis. The natives live in the tombs and in caves
+cut out of the rocks. We landed here and slowly toiled up the stony
+paths on the face of the rock, which led over the roofs of one
+habitation to the next above it. Near the top we were met by a local
+Zaptieh, who guided us to the house of the Mudir.[5] We were not sorry
+to have this opportunity of examining the interior of the dwellings.
+The house consisted of a single room, into which we stumbled down a
+dark passage; the walls were roughly levelled off inside, the marks of
+the chisel everywhere apparent. A low divan ran down each side of the
+room. In one corner the rock had been hollowed out to form a cupboard,
+inside which, through the chinks of a rough wooden door, we caught
+glimpses of his Excellency's bedding--for the Oriental keeps his bed in
+a cupboard in the daytime and spreads it on the floor at night. With
+all the instincts of a wandering tribe, the Turk, however permanent his
+abode, conducts his household exactly as if it were in the nature of a
+tent. He lives in one room, sleeping, eating, and doing business.
+Should he wish to eat, his meal is carried in on a little low table,
+beside which he squats on the floor; the meal over, the table is
+carried out and the floor swept. Should he wish to write, he discards
+the rickety table occasionally found in an official dwelling, and
+writes upon his hand, balancing the ink-pot upon his knee as he sits
+cross-legged on the floor. When it is time to sleep, his bed is pulled
+out of the cupboard and laid upon the floor; his slumbers over, it is
+rolled up and put away again.
+
+ [5] Local Governor.
+
+The Mudir received us with salaams, and taking X by the hand led her to
+the seat of honour at the top end of the divan; our men ranged
+themselves below in order of rank, and a few ragged soldiers hung about
+the door. A servant appeared with cups of coffee and we were offered
+cigarettes. Then water-melon and sweets were handed round. Conversation
+was limited by our small knowledge of Turkish; but X was by this time
+proficient in the formal modes of greeting.
+
+MUDIR. How do the ladies like Turkey?
+
+X. We think Turkey is a very fine country, and everybody has been very
+kind to us.
+
+MUDIR. How could they be otherwise? are the ladies not the honoured
+guests of the Sultan? Have the ladies a kalek[6] in London?
+
+ [6] Raft.
+
+X. No, we never saw one until we came here. We find it very
+comfortable. We should like to take one back with us.
+
+MUDIR. The ladies are sisters, then?
+
+X. No, we are friends; we were educated at the same college.
+
+MUDIR. The lady's father, is he a great Pasha?
+
+HASSAN. He is a very great Pasha and a friend of the Queen of England.
+
+(_Mutual salaams._)
+
+MUDIR. Your father, the great Pasha, has he many sons?
+
+X. Yes, he has five sons.
+
+MUDIR. Mashallah! God has been good to your father.
+
+(_A pause, during which we were closely scrutinised._)
+
+MUDIR. Have the ladies no husbands, then? Why are they not married?
+
+HASSAN. In England the ladies do not care about husbands. In that
+country they rule the men. If anything were to happen to these ladies,
+the Queen of England would send her soldiers out here to revenge them.
+
+(_The whole room gives vent to murmurs of "Mashallah," and every eye
+is fixed on us._)
+
+MUDIR. The other lady (_nodding at me_), is she a servant that she
+does not speak?
+
+HASSAN. No, she too is a Pasha, but she cannot speak Turkish.
+
+MUDIR (_incredulously_). No Turkish?
+
+HASSAN (_scornfully_). Well, only such words as "hot water," "tea,"
+and "be quick," and "is my horse ready?"
+
+The Mudir then inquired calmly "how many times" we had been held up by
+brigands in his district, a strange satire on Turkish methods of
+government. There was not a doubt in his mind that we had not been
+waylaid and robbed.
+
+He then took us to visit another house which boasted of three rooms,
+all leading out of each other. The first one appeared to be the general
+living- and sleeping-room, absolutely bare save for strips of felt
+ranged down the far end and a pile of native quilts in a corner; the
+second room, which could only be reached through the first, was
+dedicated to the animals; and the third, which was almost pitch dark,
+was a larder and store-house. We were received by several women, who
+held us fast by the hands while they displayed their abode with great
+signs of pride. One of them was a strikingly handsome dark girl,
+dressed in gorgeous coloured native silks and velvet, and literally
+plastered with ornaments from the face and hair downwards.
+
+On returning to the raft we were somewhat puzzled (one is never
+_surprised_ in Turkish dominions) by finding it taken possession
+of by two women, magnificently dressed and closely veiled, accompanied
+by a man and a woman servant. They were sitting in a row on our beds
+examining all our belongings complacently.
+
+"We are very pleased to have a visit from the ladies," said X to the
+local Zaptieh who had accompanied us back to the raft, "but they must
+go on land now, as we are starting at once."
+
+"But they will travel with you," said the Zaptieh.
+
+"That would be very pleasant," said X, who never forgot to be polite,
+"but the raft is so small, I am afraid there will be no room for us all
+and they will not be comfortable."
+
+"Oh, there is plenty of room," said the man reassuringly. "The ladies
+need not trouble themselves."
+
+X turned to one of our Zaptiehs.
+
+"Will you explain," she said, "that the raft is ours, and that we are
+very sorry but we are afraid we cannot take the ladies with us?"
+
+"It is an arrangement of the Mudir's," explained Ali; "he has been
+waiting for an opportunity to send the harem of a great Pasha to a
+neighbouring village, and he ordered them to travel with you. They will
+land before evening."
+
+As there seemed no choice in the matter we expressed our tremendous
+appreciation of the honour, and instructed Hassan to keep an eye on
+their pockets. Hassan, who had looked somewhat perturbed from the
+outset, had resolutely ensconced himself at the farthest corner of the
+raft with his back turned to everything. He refused to change his
+position, and explained to us that the ladies were such very great
+Pashas that it would be "shame" for him to look in their direction.
+
+Towards evening we reached a spot where two armed Kurds, with long
+black curls and magnificent striped coats, stood waiting with saddled
+horses. The servant woman carefully wrapped the great ladies up in
+their gaudy silk cloaks, and the man-servant helped them off the raft
+on to the backs of the horses. The little party rode away up a lonely
+looking mountain pass, and as we floated on we caught occasional
+glimpses of their bright colours in and out of the rocks until they
+disappeared entirely over the crest of a distant hill.
+
+That night we moored the raft at Sheveh, a village backed by high
+hills, the last spurs of a great range of snow mountains, at whose base
+we had been winding in and out. We arrived at sunset, just as the women
+were trooping down, with jars on their heads, to fetch water from the
+river. I went and sat on a rock above them, and one by one, having
+filled their jars, they filed up past me, and, stopping for an instant,
+fingered my garments and gently stroked my hair. Many and various
+questions they asked me, of which I could understand nothing beyond the
+note of interrogation, and they sailed on with that free and graceful
+carriage which is the gift of uncivilised races, balancing the jars at
+an angle on their white-veiled heads.
+
+We had finished supper and had stretched ourselves out on the raft
+under the stars, enjoying the quiet and beauty of the scene. The
+boatmen belonging to the two rafts had joined forces and pitched a tent
+on the shore close by. Most of the village had straggled down to the
+river and were flitting mysteriously about in waving white garments.
+All of a sudden a wild, savage noise of screaming and singing arose.
+
+"The men have bought a piece of meat," said Ali, "and are singing to
+it."
+
+It was a weird sight: a roaring fire blazed in the gloaming; in the
+centre hung a large black pot containing the meat which was the object
+of this adoration. The men had joined hands and were dancing round the
+fire in a circle, dark figures in long white flowing robes which waved
+about in the semi-darkness as their owners flung their feet up or swung
+suddenly round. All at once the men dropped on the ground with a
+prolonged dwindling yell, which finally died off into an expectant
+silence. The head boatman fished out the meat and began to tear it to
+pieces with his hands, distributing it amongst his companions. A
+deathly silence reigned while the carcass was being consumed. This gave
+place, as time went on, to a murmuring ripple of satisfaction, which
+developed a little later into bursts of contented song. Then they
+sprang to their feet and flung themselves once more into a dance.
+
+"Let's join in," said X.
+
+We each seized a Zaptieh by the hand and were included in the circle.
+We sprang and kicked and stamped; we turned and hopped and stamped. One
+man stood in the middle clapping the time with his hands as he led the
+song. It was a war-dance; the circle broke into two lines and we dashed
+against one another. Then the lines receded and the song became a low
+murmur as of gathering hordes, whilst our feet beat slow time. The
+murmur swelled and our feet quickened; louder and louder we shouted,
+quicker and quicker we moved, and finally with a great roar the two
+lines dashed against one another. We gave one great stamp all together
+and stopped dead; another great stamp and a roar, then a hush, and the
+lines receded. Thoroughly exhausted, I fell out of the line while this
+proceeding was repeated. By this time the moon shone out bright and
+strong. On one side a great desert stretched away into the starry
+night; on the other the waters of the Tigris swept darkly past us. The
+wild shrieks flew up into the clear, silent air. X danced furiously on
+between Hassan and Ali. Her face was strangely white, lit up by the
+moon, amongst the dark complexions of her companions. They sprang and
+hopped and stamped, they turned and hopped and stamped; a white robe
+here, a red cloak there, a naked foot and a soldier's boot, hopping and
+turning and stamping.
+
+"X," I said to myself, "you are mad, and I, poor sane fool, can only
+remember that I once did crotchet work in drawing-rooms."
+
+A feeling of wild rebellion took hold of me; I sprang into the circle.
+
+"Make me mad!" I cried out; "I want to be mad too!"
+
+The men seized me and on we went, on and on with the hopping and
+turning and stamping. And soon I too was a savage, a glorious, free
+savage under the white moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN
+
+
+Between Hassan Kaif and Jezireh, a distance of thirty-five miles, the
+scenery is very fine. The river winds through narrow gorges with steep
+walls of limestone rock riddled with rock tombs. Here and there in the
+black gorges the high turreted rocks would be skirted below with bands
+of vegetation; little spurts of glistening water shooting over the
+rocky tops, as they dashed down to join the river, shot between masses
+of ferns or trickled through beds of green moss. It was months since we
+had seen anything green, and we feasted our eyes and senses on the
+unaccustomed luxuriance. All the grim bareness and desolation of the
+stone and mud country through which we had passed seemed to serve a
+purpose now in heightening the intoxication of this scene. Reluctantly
+I had been compelled to admit, on more than one occasion, that Nature
+could be positively revolting in places where absence of life and
+colour were not relieved by any sense of stern ruggedness or the
+freedom of space; where day after day we had journeyed through a
+country of little meaningless hillocks strewn with grey stones, only
+getting round the corner of one to be confronted with another of the
+same appearance; where it seemed as if Nature had chosen a spot, far
+from the eye of man, to dump all the clinkers of life, all the stony
+refuse which even she could not turn to any profitable account--she,
+the great mother, of whom men say she knows no waste. We had discovered
+her ugly secret hidden away in this far corner; and now she was using
+her chief weapon, contrast, to make us feel the true extent of her
+power. She had wearied and revolted us, and now she seemed to make use
+of this very fact to give us an intenser appreciation of her best.
+
+"Pretty view, isn't it?" said a voice in the native tongue at my side.
+Startled from another world, I turned round. Arten was rubbing some
+spoons with a dirty cloth and waved his hands towards the banks.
+
+"Got anything like this in London?" he asked affably.
+
+I looked at him in silence. He dived into the hut with a scared look,
+and complained later on to X that the other Pasha had an uncertain
+temper.
+
+The spell of enchantment was broken; but sentiment was in the air with
+the smell of wet earth and the sound of drinking vegetation; oleander
+bushes with bright red blossoms stood out against the dark rock,
+water-birds darted in and out and vultures hovered overhead. I had a
+sudden desire, awakened by Arten's interruption, to share the emotions
+called up by the surrounding scene. I glanced at X. She looked fairly
+sentimental, I thought, lying motionless in her favourite place at the
+extreme end of the raft, with a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.
+
+"X," I murmured softly, "what does this make you think about?"
+
+X was one of those rare people who always know what they are thinking
+about. She did not fail me on this occasion.
+
+"It reminds me of Scotland," she said without hesitation. "Why, what
+does it make you think about?"
+
+But I had stopped thinking about it, and agreed that I had seen places
+like it in Scotland.
+
+"Pasha," said Hassan, "the boatmen want you not to sit so near the edge
+of the raft."
+
+"Why," laughed X, "do they think I shall roll over?"
+
+"No," replied Hassan, pointing ahead, "but we are going to shoot a
+rapid and they say you will be frightened."
+
+"I would sooner be frightened than go through the awful exertion of
+moving on this raft," said X, and she gazed placidly at the line of
+foaming waters which we were rapidly nearing. There was only just room
+for the raft to rush between hard, sharp-edged boulders of rock, and it
+seemed as if we should inevitably be dashed to pieces or stranded at an
+acute angle on one of them.
+
+The Zaptiehs helped with the oars, they and the boatmen keeping up one
+prolonged yell of "Allah! Allah!" They exerted themselves strenuously,
+a strange thing for Easterns to do; the raft creaked and rocked and
+plunged; there was a very disturbing sense of fuss and unseemly
+exertion on board; the cook was saying his prayers inside; Hassan, with
+an air of total unconcern or even apparent perception of what was going
+on, was laboriously adding up his accounts; and X, with equal
+unconcern, was mending her gloves. On such occasions one thinks of
+one's past sins and the future; I thought of the future. I stood up and
+leaned my back against the wall of the hut to steady myself.
+
+"X," I roared above the din, "I wonder what there is for supper
+to-night."
+
+X looked at me with a bored expression. "The same, I should think," she
+said, "as we had last night and the night before and the night before
+that. Why this sudden interest in your food?"
+
+"Because," I said, "I have an idea I shall enjoy my supper to-night."
+
+"Yes," said X (she was always sympathetic), "this sort of weather does
+make one hungry."
+
+Further conversation was prevented by a sudden leap of water and raft
+right into the air, and with the leap went up a loud cry to Allah, as
+the men threw themselves, with one great determination, on the oars. We
+shot head downwards into the dark waters past the white froth of foam;
+there was a moment of turmoil, then everything became very still; the
+men rested exhausted on their oars, the roaring waters sounded faint in
+the distance. I looked round: Hassan was still at his accounts; X had
+finished her gloves, and was lying back with her eyes closed; the
+cook's prayers had ceased; we were through. The cook came out rubbing
+his hands jocosely.
+
+"Arten," I said, "your prayers have saved us from some inconvenience."
+
+Arten looked conscious. "What danger has there been?" he said; "was the
+Pasha afraid of the waters?"
+
+"No, indeed," I returned; "it was not the Pasha who was afraid of the
+waters, but she was afraid she might not get her supper to-night."
+
+"The Pasha is hungry," said X; "we must have onions as well as potatoes
+to-night."
+
+We arrived at Jezireh, without further adventure, at noon the next day.
+The River Jezeer runs into the Tigris at this point, so that the town
+can only be reached by wading through the water.
+
+We were making preparations to go on shore when we observed a little
+man being carried across the water on the back of a half-naked Arab. He
+had that incongruous look made up of the European overcoat with a fur
+collar, the black trousers, and the brown boots, all surmounted with a
+fez, which we had learnt to associate, curiously enough, both with the
+office of local Governor and with that of the native Christian Man.
+
+In this case our visitor was the Kaimakam. He was spilt off the Arab's
+shoulders on to the raft, and landed in rather an unofficial position.
+We went through the usual pantomime of salaams, and after inquiries
+after the health and rank of our relations he invited us to come on
+shore and visit the town.
+
+Jezireh is a stronghold of the Hamidieh Kurds; the ragged soldiers
+about the streets bore their distinguishing mark, a silver star on the
+forehead. Their chief Mustafa had been murdered but a year ago, after
+devastating and burning the whole country round; and under the rule of
+his weaker son there was a temporary lull in hostilities. But Mustafa's
+name was still only mentioned in whispered words of awe, and this not
+by plundered natives alone, but by Turkish regulars and Turkish
+officials alike.
+
+On returning to the raft we heard that an English Pasha had just ridden
+into the town and that he was coming to visit us. He had met Hassan,
+who had been buying supplies in the bazaars, and the following
+conversation had ensued, which Hassan now repeated for our benefit.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Who are you?
+
+HASSAN. I am a cavasse.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Who is your Pasha?
+
+HASSAN. Victoria Pasha.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Where is he?
+
+HASSAN. She is sitting on the raft.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. What is she doing there?
+
+HASSAN. She is floating to Baghdad.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Where did she come from?
+
+HASSAN. She came out of England.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Is she alone?
+
+HASSAN. No, she has a friend, who is not her sister, neither
+is she her servant.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Give the ladies my salaams and say that I will call
+upon them.
+
+X and I looked at one another. The meeting of an Englishman under such
+circumstances is no doubt, in one sense, an excitement; so would it be
+to meet a tiger in an English country lane. In a jungle, now, one
+expects a tiger, and, being prepared for his attack, does not resent
+it. In the same way one is prepared to meet an Englishman on common
+ground in England, but, in an Asiatic wild, one is not prepared for the
+onslaught and one is therefore taken at a disadvantage. It was ten days
+since we had seen ourselves, as the Man would see us, in a glass (and
+then it was only a missionary's glass), and we had lost nearly all our
+hairpins in the crevices of the raft.
+
+"Is my face as red as yours?" said X.
+
+The question was evidently the outcome of the thoughts which assailed
+her mind during the few moments' silence in which we had gazed at each
+other, wondering whether we really looked like that too.
+
+"Your face is all right," I said, "it's only red in patches; but your
+hair is disgraceful. How's mine?"
+
+"It's all right," said X, critically, "it's only coming down in
+patches. But there is no time to do anything; here it is; we must
+brazen it out."
+
+A young Englishman was boarding the raft; he was very spick and span,
+shaved, brushed, a clean collar, and polished boots.
+
+"You must excuse me for calling upon you in this dishevelled manner,"
+he said as we shook hands, "but travellers have to come as they are; I
+daresay you can sympathise," and he glanced round at our _ménage_.
+
+X laughed. "Oh, as far as that goes," she said, "we are all in the same
+boat."
+
+"Raft," I corrected in a nervous flutter.
+
+The Young Man looked at me and smiled. I realised that he thought I was
+trying to make a cheap joke, such as one might have been capable of in
+the country lane.
+
+"I must introduce myself," he went on. "I am Captain T---- of V----. I
+am on my way there now. It's strange you should just have arrived
+to-day as I was crossing the river...."
+
+I murmured something about tea and fled into the men's hut, where Arten
+was boiling the kettle.
+
+"Arten," I stammered out in broken Turkish, "the English Pasha will
+have tea with us. You must bring the cups clean. The English never have
+dirty cups."
+
+Arten smiled back very genially; he breathed into a cup and wiped it
+vigorously with one of his dirty cloths, by which I concluded that he
+understood what I had said to him. I had learnt up all the words about
+dirt and the desirability of washing.
+
+It was raining slightly and we had to ask the Young Man under cover. X
+and I sat down on one of the camp-beds and the Young Man sat on the
+opposite bed, sticking his long legs out through the door.
+
+"You speak Turkish, then?" he said to me as I returned.
+
+So he had heard my injunctions! I hastily denied any claim to a
+knowledge of the language. Arten came in with the tea, which he placed
+on the floor between the Young Man's top-boots.
+
+"The Pasha," he said, addressing X, "said you wanted something for tea
+which the English always have, only I did not understand what it was."
+
+"Oh," said X, turning to me, "what was it?"
+
+I kicked X.
+
+"Biscuits," I said.
+
+"No," said Arten, persistently, "it wasn't biscuits; it was something
+which you don't usually have."
+
+I gave Arten the look which he had learnt to associate with the
+advisability of his own retreat. The Young Man smiled again and looked
+the other way.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I don't know where we should be very often without
+biscuits in this country; they are so easy to carry."
+
+I knew then that he had heard.
+
+The Young Man stayed about half an hour and then rose to go. His camp
+had gone on, and it was a two hours' ride to the place where they would
+spend the night.
+
+When he had departed X and I thought it over.
+
+"You bet," I said fretfully, "he will have a five-course dinner
+to-night, on a table with clean plates and knives for each course, and
+probably a camp-chair to sit on."
+
+"Yes," said X, "and a looking-glass hung on the wall of his tent, and
+hot water and a clean towel."
+
+And that's what a man calls roughing it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CREED OF THE KORAN
+
+
+We left Jezireh early next morning. The scenery was now much tamer; the
+banks of the river were low; stretches of conglomerate and red rocks
+were interspersed with grassy slopes. The river was no longer disturbed
+by rocks and rapids, and our two kalekjis had been replaced by a
+bright-faced youth who was going to take us single-handed as far as
+Mosul.
+
+"Am not I a good kalekji?" he kept on saying to us, "see how quick I
+make the raft go. When you get to Mosul you will remember what a good
+kalekji I was," and, standing up on the raft, grasping the two oars, he
+would throw himself right backwards, causing the raft to shoot on
+through the sluggish stream. Then when we had got into a faster bit of
+current he would lean on his oars and roll up a cigarette, talking all
+the time.
+
+"The ladies like me, do they not? They see I am a good kalekji. They
+surely like me better than their other kalekjis?"
+
+Six rafts laden with merchandise had followed us from Jezireh, and one
+with a hut similar to ours, and flying the Turkish crescent, was
+conveying a Turkish Yuzbashi with his harem to Mosul. The women were
+shut inside the hut the whole time, and occasionally, when the rafts
+drifted alongside, we caught glimpses of them peering shyly at us
+through the little glazed window. Did they envy us, sitting boldly
+outside, unveiled, open to the stares of all this crowd? Or, knowing no
+other lot, did they merely regard us with astonished curiosity, these
+so-called women from a strange land, who dressed like women but went
+about like men?
+
+The fat little officer in his smart uniform sat outside most of the
+day, smoking with Oriental listlessness or playing with his little fat
+boy, a miniature counterpart of himself, dressed in uniform with a toy
+sword.
+
+On some of the merchandise rafts the kalekjis were accompanied by their
+families. The sacks were piled up to form a rough shelter, under which
+the women and children crouched all day and cooked their masters' food.
+More rafts joined on to us further down, until we numbered thirteen.
+All day we floated in and out amongst each other, the rafts twisting
+and turning with the vagaries of the current. The kalekjis yelled and
+shouted at one another; they raced for the fast bits of current ahead
+where only one raft could pass at a time; they jostled one another or
+got entangled in shallow places, and the other rafts passed them with
+jeers.
+
+Our little kalekji put forth all his skill.
+
+"See, Pasha," he would say, excitedly, "see how we leave them behind!
+You have the best kalekji; do you see I always have the best of the
+river? Yah, yah, yah," and he roared derisive laughter at his pursuers.
+
+At night we all moored together and the kalekjis would land and sleep
+in the caves under overhanging rocks, or light a fire on the banks and
+stretch themselves out round it, taking turns at the night watch.
+
+No sooner was the raft drawn up along the banks than X and I would land
+to get as much exercise as possible in the remaining hour of daylight.
+The Zaptiehs, who were obliged to accompany us, wrung their hands over
+this display of energy.
+
+"Aman, aman. These English have strange habits. They land all in
+a minute, and before you know what they are doing one has rushed in one
+direction and one in another, and perhaps both are lost in the
+darkness, and we have orders from the Government never to lose sight of
+them. If the Government only knew what they were asking!"
+
+The first evening after leaving Jezireh, Ali and I climbed to the
+highest point near the river, from where I obtained a good view of the
+surrounding country. The top of the hill on which we stood was a mass
+of stones and bulbous plants with withered leaves and tufts of rough
+grass. The country stretched away all round in strong, firm undulations
+to a distant horizon. To the west was the full glory of an Eastern
+sunset, intensifying the reddish hue of the rolling hills until they
+merged into blackness in the shadows. To the east the terminating range
+was snow-clad, and the setting sun, casting a pink glow over the white
+peaks, gave a gradation of colour which caused them to melt
+imperceptibly into the sky and mingle with the pale reflection of the
+sun's setting rays on the opposite horizon. What villages, what life
+lay concealed in the hollows of these rolling hills I do not know. To
+the eye there was nothing visible but the hill-tops in their naked
+immensity and intense desolation; on one side the flaming colours of
+the setting sun, on the other its pale reflection on the snowy peaks,
+and over it all the vast, inscrutable sky. We were alone, Ali and I,
+with "that silence which some call God." I liked Ali's companionship on
+these evening walks; his nature, truly Eastern, was in keeping with the
+country. He had been chatting away merrily all the way up, trying to
+teach me Turkish words; and now we both lapsed of one accord into
+silence and his merry face took on something of the sternness of the
+surroundings. He laid his rifle on the ground, and moving away a little
+distance, went through the evening prayer. Now upright, now bending,
+now on his knees, a misty black form in the dazzling red light, he
+murmured inaudibly the prescribed words, words which at that same hour
+were being uttered alike by so many thousands in the fevered rush of
+busy towns, on the house-tops, and in the crowded chambers. A form, a
+ritual of empty words this prayer may be, but up here, in Nature's
+loneliness, the prayer and the man seemed strangely relevant.
+
+Was it not in such a place as this, alone with the great forces of
+Nature, that Mahomet formed his conception of God as an Irresistible
+Power?
+
+"Has there come to thee the story of the overwhelming?" he cries out at
+one time, and again: "Does there not come in man a portion of time when
+he is nothing worth mentioning?"
+
+The great need of man is for expression; in places such as these his
+own insignificance is forced upon him by the overwhelming might of
+primeval forces. Alone with the great silence which his voice cannot
+fill, with the great space in which he, as a physical being, is lost;
+with the great mountains against which to measure his strength, with
+the stars which he cannot reach, and the floods which he cannot stem,
+his own personality seems so trivial that he doubts its very existence,
+until a strong feeling of participation in the forces themselves, of
+his own share in them, gives a truer sense of his own proportion; and
+the reaction of feeling, from this realization of his own impotence to
+that of his own magnificence in being part of them, produces an
+overwhelming desire for utterance.
+
+Was it under such influences as these that Mahomet's longing,
+awe-struck soul first heard, "Cry, what shall I cry?" and subsequently
+gave forth that long blazonry of Nature's beauty in the Koran? There is
+something in the grand simplicity and childish acceptance of the
+unspoilt Eastern character at its best which seems to be a counterpart
+of the feeling inspired by Nature in this Eastern land itself. That it
+should be so seems natural when we remember how Mahomet was continually
+conjuring his followers to look at Nature and understand great things.
+
+"Look at the heaven how it is reared, and at the mountains how they are
+set up, and at the earth how it is spread out...."
+
+"Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you
+if you would understand...."
+
+"Lift up thine eyes to the heaven; dost thou see any flaw therein? Nay,
+lift up thine eyes again; thy sight returneth dim and dazed...."
+
+The murmuring words of Ali's prayer had stopped; the sun sank behind
+the distant line of hills; a breeze sprang up and stirred the tufts of
+withered grass, whispering in the "still of night."
+
+We retraced our steps to the edge of the hill and dropped into the
+hidden valley, where the Tigris rushed along unheeded and unseen from
+above.
+
+Arten's voice rose with the sound of the waters, singing the well-worn
+words of an Armenian Protestant hymn.
+
+The kalekjis had lit fires at the mouth of the caves, and crouched
+round the black pot which contained the evening meal. From the far
+corner of one cave came the wail of a new-born infant.
+
+Under "the splendour of the Night Star" we too retired to rest.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were already afloat when I woke next morning. From my bed I could
+see the banks shooting past the little window of the hut. The reader
+must not imagine a continuous view, such as one would get through the
+window of a more civilized vehicle of locomotion. The banks at one
+moment would move straight past the window in the orthodox way; then
+they would be suddenly shooting past in the opposite direction, or we
+had a view of the river behind. It requires in many ways a certain
+amount of practice to live in a state of equilibrium on a raft. One is
+constantly being made aware of the truism that there are two sides to
+everything. First of all there are, as one would expect, two sides to
+the river; and owing to the particular method of our progression we
+were always being reminded, in a most irritating way, of this purely
+geological fact. No sooner had we become aware of the scenery on one
+side, and had decided that it was the right bank, than--swish--round
+went the raft, and the whole length of the right bank would be shot
+before our view like a circular panorama, and before you could take it
+in you were looking at the left bank; moreover, you would be looking at
+it moving past you upwards, though you were perfectly certain the raft
+could only be floating downwards. There was hardly time to reason this
+out when--swish--round you go the reverse way again, the left bank
+swings past you downwards and you are travelling up the right bank,
+although the raft, you are persuaded, is still pursuing its downward
+course. If you stood outside and fixed your eye with strenuous
+determination on some fixed and immutable spot of heaven or earth you
+might be able to keep your bearings with a strong mental effort. But
+when you observed the features of the landscape through the small
+window of your hut you gave it up--and simply gazed at the view as you
+would at a magic-lantern slide being slowly withdrawn through the
+porthole of an undulating steamer.
+
+It was equally difficult to look steadily ahead from a mental point of
+view. Travelling by yourself you might be able to arrange your own
+philosophy, but it is upsetting when the other person sees the side
+which at any particular moment you do not happen to be looking at.
+When, for instance, we were delayed later that morning repairing burst
+skins, X was perfectly happy dwelling on the romance of navigating this
+noble and ancient river in the same way as those heroes whose feats
+were recorded on the tablets of Nineveh, until I unwittingly disturbed
+the harmony of these thoughts by complaining that I was unpleasantly
+reminded of a punctured bicycle on a lonely road of civilisation.
+
+"How delightful this is," I said, in exuberant laziness, when we were
+floating on once more, "to be able to lose all conception of time and
+float on, as it were, to eternity."
+
+"Personally," said X, "I find myself counting the days with a most
+unpleasant conception of the lapse of time, for we have only food
+enough for one day, and owing to this delay there is no possibility of
+renewing our supply for two."
+
+I felt an injury had been inflicted on me by being reminded of absence
+of dinner when I had been inflated with great thoughts. But I had not
+long to wait for my revenge.
+
+"What a picturesque man the kalekji is," X exclaimed suddenly. "I take
+such a delight in watching him shaking out his flowing garments and
+folding himself up in such graceful attitudes."
+
+"Personally," I said, with some malice, "it gives me no pleasure since
+I became aware that he is only engaged in hunting for fleas."
+
+X made no answer; I felt we were quits. She would have to think of the
+presence of fleas while I thought of the absence of dinner.
+
+We floated on very quietly that day. The banks were flatter and the
+patches of grass became more frequent. At long intervals we passed
+villages of mud huts built on the sides of the river where the banks
+rose to a higher point. Towards evening we swung round under a rocky
+prominence, on the top of which stood the village of Hassoni. There was
+no possibility of mooring the raft anywhere near it for the night. The
+banks rose up in a straight wall of rock, of such a height that the
+inhabitants of the village, peering down at us from above, seemed like
+pigmies on the sky-line. We floated on until the hills curved and the
+banks sloped down to a muddy flat. The other rafts were already moored
+along the shore and we drifted alongside of them. Ali and I landed, and
+we set off to walk back to the village in the hope of getting some eggs
+and milk to eke out our supply of provisions. We had some difficulty in
+scrambling up the wet, grassy places between edges of rock where the
+water oozed out and trickled down to the river below; and on reaching
+the top we found ourselves on the edge of an extensive tableland which
+ended abruptly in the escarpment under which we had floated. Below us
+we could see the river winding ahead through a low-lying country to the
+east. We walked for half a mile across the flat table-top towards the
+village; a long procession of black and yellow cattle were sauntering
+along in front of us, lowing quietly in answer to the shrill calls of a
+boy who stood motionless on a little hillock, a weird figure in the
+straight, square-cut sheepskin cloak of the natives.
+
+From all sides flocks of goats and sheep were coming in and filled the
+narrow streets, sharing the homes of their masters as a protection
+against the raids of Hamidieh chiefs. It was a partly Kurdish, partly
+Arab village, and the inhabitants mingled their curiosity at my
+appearance with fright at that of Ali's. Long experience had taught
+them that a visit from a Turkish Zaptieh meant extortion of some sort.
+A child in our path screamed aloud, rooted to the spot with terror.
+Ali's bright, laughing face clouded over.
+
+"That is what the children are taught to think of us," he said, "and I
+have my own little ones at home."
+
+Our demands for milk were received with sullen grimness, until the
+sight of the unwonted coin caused the faces to clear, and a further
+present of tobacco established quite a friendly footing. I sat down
+inside an enclosure of maize stalks at the door of a larger hut, where
+the cows were being milked, and the natives, clustering round, plied
+Ali with questions. One of the villagers offered to walk back with us
+and carry the milk. It was dark before we reached the edge of the
+tableland again, and I shouted down in the hopes of getting an answer
+which would guide us to the encampment below. The village boy held up
+his hand with a scared look: the call was only answered by its own
+echo, and the stones, slipping under our feet, rattled noisily down the
+steep slope.
+
+"Hush!" said Ali, "who knows but what Ibrahim Pasha may hear you," and
+we slid silently down the slippery banks in the darkness, until the
+light of a camp-fire gleamed out a welcome signal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EVIL ONE
+
+
+At noon on the tenth day after leaving Diarbekr and the fourth from
+Jezireh we caught sight of the minarets and cupolas of Mosul, and
+floated for a couple of miles under the chain of limestone cliffs on
+the end of which the town is built. We had hardly got within sight of
+the town itself when a fearful cannonading met our ears, accompanied by
+piercing screams and savage yells. It sounded as if the walls were
+being attacked by battering-rams, and all along the shore line at their
+base we could faintly distinguish a seething line of human beings
+brandishing some form of weapon. We were evidently going to be
+eye-witnesses of a tribal disturbance which would cause diplomatic
+unrest in Europe, and who knows but what our participation in it would
+not brand us with fame for the rest of time. I determined to make full
+use of the opportunity and prepared my camera and notebook.
+
+The Zaptiehs, however, seemed quite unconcerned, and we understood from
+them that there was no cause for alarm, and that this sort of thing was
+of weekly occurrence in Mosul. On floating up to the scene of action we
+realised that it was indeed only Mosul's washing-day. All along the
+shore, as far as we could see, under the walls of the town stretched a
+continuous line of women beating clothes with flat sticks on the stones
+at the water's edge; and the screams resolved themselves into the
+ordinary sounds usually emitted where women congregate in large
+numbers. Truly, the men of the East are wise in their generation. They
+had thus solved the problem of washing-day and all its horrors, and
+were left in peaceful and undisputed possession of their hearths and
+tempers. The women were there in their hundreds, and, as we approached
+the bridge of boats which crossed the river lower down, we floated past
+a small army of them on the opposite shore, where a flat stretch of mud
+was covered with gaudy rags laid out to dry. Mosul, I believe, derives
+its name from the manufacture of muslin carried on there, and the
+guide-book informs us that it is chiefly remarkable for the Assyrian
+mounds found near it. I am bound to confess, however, that it is
+indelibly impressed on my mind solely in its connection with the vulgar
+art of washing.
+
+We had to wait several days at Mosul while a new raft was being
+constructed, on to which our huts were bodily transferred. The skins on
+which we had floated so far were deflated and the kalekjis would return
+with them to Diarbekr by land on donkey back.
+
+We spent the time visiting the historic mounds of Koyunjik and
+Khorsabad, for detailed information on which I must refer the reader to
+the works of Layard and Botha and King. The site of Nineveh to the
+uninitiated eye is represented by the great mound of Koyunjik, which
+rises out of the flat country on the opposite side of the river to
+Mosul; it is surrounded by smaller tumuli representing parts of the
+ancient walls. Here and there are patches of cultivation, and at the
+time of our visit the bare brown earth was beginning to show promise of
+being covered by a scanty vegetation. Of winged bulls, of lettered
+slabs, of cylinders, of all the wondrous contents of the palaces of the
+ancient Assyrian kings, now ensconced in the museums of Western cities,
+the only indication we had on the spot were the subterranean tunnels,
+now choked with fallen débris, from which these evidences had been
+removed; and the broken bits of masonry and pottery which were strewn
+promiscuously about the surface. From the summit we obtained a
+comprehensive view of the country: of Mosul at our feet standing on its
+limestone cliffs at the farther side of the Tigris, and of the distant
+country through which the river wandered southwards; a great plain
+dotted with villages round which patches of cultivated land were
+already green with the rising corn. Long strings of mules laden with
+cabbage and other vegetables came in from the outlying villages and
+swelled the motley coloured crowd at the stalls established on this
+side of the river, or passed on over the rickety wooden bridge to the
+bazaars inside the town.
+
+The exertion of living on land for these few days had seemed so very
+great that we were not sorry when we found ourselves afloat once more
+on the new raft and with a new set of men. Achmet and Ali had bidden us
+a tearful farewell, and we now had one Zaptieh only as escort, an Arab
+also named Ali. He was a Chous,[7] and I will give him his full title
+to distinguish him from our late friend. A picturesque kalekji is
+almost an essential in such close quarters as a raft, and up till now
+we had rejoiced in the brightly-striped Kurdish coats and turbans of
+our first kalekjis, and the clean, flowing, white abba of our Jezireh
+friend. The two men who were to take us from Mosul to Baghdad presented
+a very different appearance. Unlike most Arabs, they were both huge,
+stout men, and were dressed in rough brown camel-hair cloaks over
+unwashed white under-garments. One of them we nicknamed at once the
+Evil One; he had the most excruciatingly wicked face imaginable--and
+the terror of it was considerably heightened when he tried to
+superinduce a conciliating smile on his hideous expression of
+wickedness.
+
+ [7] Sergeant.
+
+The country below Mosul was decidedly tame; the dry brown plain was
+fringed by the already green banks of the river. The river itself was
+now much wider, and here and there its course would be divided by
+islands with low, swampy banks, round which the waters would lose
+themselves in marshy tracts, where herons waded in and out and
+innumerable black ducks dived and spluttered amongst the rushes. The
+jungle round was the haunt of the wild boar, jackal, and hyena. It was
+hard to believe that a few weeks later the first spring sun would call
+forth wild masses of gorgeous flowers and long, rank grasses, and that
+the whole country would be teeming with succulent vegetation.
+
+It was, indeed, a monotonous bit of country. The sun had not yet melted
+the snows of the distant Armenian hills, which later on would cause a
+rapid flood to the river, and we progressed very slowly in the low,
+sluggish waters. Our two kalekjis displayed no desire to hurry matters
+by their own exertions, and leant on their oars all day, disturbing the
+general harmony by constant quarrelling in harsh, grating voices. Now
+and then Ali Chous, who was fat and meek, would address himself to them
+in a soothing, almost pleading tone of voice. The purport of their
+remarks was lost to us, as their conversation was carried on in Arabic,
+and we found it hard to extract any information out of Ali, who could
+communicate with us in Turkish.
+
+"Tell them they must stop talking and row," I said; "we are hardly
+moving at all."
+
+And Ali Chous would answer:
+
+"They will row, Effendi, indeed they will row." And the kalekjis rested
+on their oars as before, and the Evil One would smile at me, distorting
+his evil countenance with a diabolical grin.
+
+Finally, Ali informed us, in his anxious, conciliating tone, that they
+had brought no food with them and that they were hungry. If the Pashas
+would give them bread they could row; now they were faint. This was a
+favourite Eastern dodge with which we were well acquainted by this
+time. The kalekjis were always engaged with the understanding that they
+fed themselves, and knowing the fatal results of giving in on such
+points we hardened our countenances.
+
+"Tell them we cannot help that; they knew they had to bring their own
+food, and if they starve it is not our fault." And the Evil One, on
+hearing this through Ali's no doubt modified interpretation, gave us
+another grin, even more diabolical than before.
+
+When we retired into the hut for our next meal I took the precaution of
+cutting a hole in the felt wall, and peeping through it, saw them
+comfortably ensconced at the furthest end of the raft, eating bread and
+scraps of meat out of a dirty linen bag, which they hastily sat on when
+we reappeared.
+
+Arten was terribly afraid of them, and I knew what that meant.
+
+"Arten," I said to him early in the day, "if you dare to give these men
+any food without my leave we will land you at the next village."
+
+Arten hastily disclaimed any intention of giving them food, but he
+evidently cherished the thought as quite a good idea; after all, he was
+more alarmed of them even than he was of me.
+
+Early on the second day we arrived at a small village, where it seemed
+as if we were expected. There was a crowd on the banks, and one of the
+men was waiting with a large sack. Ali explained to us that it
+contained the kalekjis' bread, and that we must land to take it on
+board.
+
+The Evil One waded on shore with the rope, which he made fast to a
+rock. A little further down the banks were several natives making a
+raft, and I strolled down to have a look at them. One man sat on the
+ground with a pile of skins beside him. The skins had been cut off
+above the hind legs, and the man was engaged in tying up this end, and
+the openings of the fore legs, with string. One end of the string was
+tied round his big toe, and he worked the other end up and down round
+the gathered end of the skin until the tied ends were quite air-tight.
+Then he threw the skin to another man, who blew into the open fore end
+until it was inflated, when he tied it up. A third man stood in the
+water, tying the inflated skins on to the poplar poles with the ends of
+the same strings that had served to tie up the openings.
+
+After watching them a little time I returned to our raft. By this time
+the whole village had turned out, and a great uproar was going on.
+
+"What's up?" I said to X, who had not left the raft.
+
+"I've been trying to find out," said X. "The Evil One has displeased
+them somehow and they will not let him go."
+
+We instructed Ali Chous to insist on our going on. The second kalekji,
+Jedan by name, seemed only too delighted; he kept winking at us and
+pointing derisively at the Evil One. He untied the rope and shoved off.
+A man on the shore promptly seized the rope and held us back.
+
+"Get a stick," said X, "and give him a smack on his head."
+
+X was of a peaceable disposition, and I daresay she was laughing at me.
+She enjoyed seeing me get angry. But it was in our contract that I
+should do all the manual labour connected with keeping order, so I
+obediently seized a long pole, and let it descend gently on the
+offender's shoulder. He turned round and stared, dropping the rope with
+an astonished grin. The crowd burst into joyous shouts and pointed at
+the Evil One, who still stood expostulating angrily in their midst.
+
+"Hit him!" they yelled, "he is the one to hit!" and quite believing
+them I transferred my attentions, along with the end of the pole, to
+his shoulder.
+
+"Come!" I shouted. It sounds tame, but it was the only Arabic word I
+knew. The raft slowly drifted down-stream and the Evil One, dashing in
+up to his waist, clambered on board.
+
+Ali explained to us that he refused to pay enough for his bread, and
+that the crowd would not let him go until he had done so.
+
+The Evil One grinned, and, diving into the bag, offered me a dirty
+piece of native bread in his still dirtier fingers. He would share his
+food with us, though we refused to do so with him; a typical Eastern
+method of putting one in the wrong.
+
+The waters were still sluggish, and the men seemed determined to do no
+work.
+
+"I am beginning to think they are in league with some one on shore,"
+said X. "It cannot be to their advantage to be so long on the way, as
+they are paid a lump sum to get us to Baghdad, and we are not feeding
+them. I quite expect we shall be held up and robbed before evening."
+
+Finding that orders and threats were of no use and learning from Ali
+that Jedan, the second kalekji, was afraid of the Evil One, who would
+not allow him to row, I sat down facing them and produced my revolver.
+
+"Tell the bad kalekji," I said to Ali Chous, "that if he does not row I
+will shoot him."
+
+The Evil One, greatly to my astonishment, appeared to believe in the
+possibility of bloodshed and set to work at the oars. All the rest of
+the day I sat with my revolver at his head. It was a most fatiguing, if
+effectual, process.
+
+"Supposing he does stop rowing," said X, "will you shoot him?"
+
+"I cannot think what I shall do," I said; "the only way will be to fire
+over his head and pretend I've missed him."
+
+"Mind you do miss him," said X languidly.
+
+"Sure to," I answered hopefully.
+
+Some hours before sunset we were held up in a manner which admitted of
+no blame being attached to the Evil One. A strong head-wind arose,
+before which the raft refused to make headway, and we were forced to
+take refuge on a dreary mud bank which sloped down to the water's edge
+under a low line of shaley rocks.
+
+The men sat about cross and disconsolate. It was very unsafe, they
+said, to spend the night so far from a village. We should certainly be
+attacked; the Evil One had arranged this--wind and all. We might be
+there for days, and what should we do for food? Tired of looking at all
+their sulky faces, I clambered up the cliff above to see what I could
+see. The top of the hill was as level as if it had been flattened out
+by a giant with a hot iron. A low line of hills with equally flattened
+tops at a little distance hid the further view. I walked to the top of
+them, led on by the sort of fascination which makes one wish to see
+what is hidden between one and the horizon. Having reached the top
+there was nothing to be seen but repeated lines of naked, flat-topped
+hills. The dreary loneliness of the place, its utter nakedness, in
+which one seemed shut off from all the real things of life, colour,
+sound, space, and growth, descended like a physical weight on one's
+senses. It was all like one great senseless punishment, which from its
+sheer callousness held one, with mingled fascination and terror, rooted
+to the spot. With an effort I turned to retrace my steps, when my eye
+caught sight of a dark object on the same line of hills on which I
+stood, which made my blood turn cold. A wild-looking, half-naked Arab,
+who seemed to have dropped suddenly from the sky, was standing
+motionless gazing at me from a little distance. For one moment I stood
+transfixed with nameless dread; the whole feeling of terror which had
+been established by the mere aspect of the country seemed now to be
+concentrated and personified in this sudden apparition. What hordes of
+like beings might not be concealed behind these mysterious hillocks? He
+moved one step towards me and I turned and fled, down the slope and
+across the level plain to the edge of the cliff under which the raft
+was moored. The apparition pursued me silently. On reaching the edge of
+the cliff I peered over and could see the crew of the raft still
+occupying the disconsolate positions in which I had left them. My
+senses now slowly returned, and I sat down to await the arrival of the
+apparition out of consideration to my own self-respect. He was still
+some distance from me, and, on seeing me sit down, he also sat down and
+we gazed at one another. The comic element in the scene asserted
+itself. A savage and I holding each other at bay like two dogs
+preparing for a fight on the top of the cliff, and down below X sitting
+unconcernedly on the raft reading the "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius."
+I laughed out loud; the savage sprang to his feet with a yell,
+brandished his arms in the air, and darting up a neighbouring slope
+disappeared behind it as suddenly as he had appeared.
+
+I slid down the cliff and joined X.
+
+"Where have you been?" she said. "I was just going to send Ali to look
+for you; he says it is not safe to go out of sight of the raft."
+
+"I was only on the top," I answered, too ashamed to enter into further
+details.
+
+We discussed our general situation in bed that night.
+
+"X," I said, "if you met a savage all alone in a wild piece of country
+what would you do?"
+
+"Why, go up and speak to him, of course," said X; "it would be awfully
+interesting. What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered; "I want to go to sleep now."
+
+The wind dropped in the night, and at the first break of day we were
+off once more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ARAB HOSPITALITY
+
+
+Fifty-three pairs of dark eyes were fixed upon us in unwavering
+scrutiny; it was dark and there was silence. The eyes, as they gleamed
+out of the darkness, might have belonged to a herd of wild beasts
+watching their prey; but we were privileged guests of the Arab Shaykh
+in whose tent we were sitting, and the gaze was but that of friendly
+curiosity. We had been placed on the seat of honour--a rush mat at one
+side of the tent; opposite to us squatted our host, a venerable old man
+with a white beard which flowed over his bare, wrinkled chest; with one
+arm he supported a small boy, who played with the beads round the old
+chief's neck.
+
+Between us, in the centre of the hut, glowed a dying fire, and beside
+it, silently watching the pot on the ashes, sat the coffee-maker. Now
+and then he scraped the ashes together round the pot. A thin veil of
+smoke rose up slowly and dispersed itself under the low roof of the
+tent. The silence was almost religious; the darkness suggested
+witchcraft rather than night; a hobgoblin might have sprung out of the
+coffee-maker's pot and not been out of keeping with the natural
+sequence of events.
+
+All at once, at the back of the tent, a hand was raised and a bundle of
+fine brushwood came down on to the fire; in sudden blaze it momentarily
+lit up the fifty-three dark faces, flared an instant, flickered, then
+as rapidly died away, and we only felt the gaze we had seen before. We
+silently watched the coffee-maker and our host, who, being nearest to
+the fire, were dimly visible in its remaining light; the attention of
+the one was concentrated on his pot; that of the other, in common with
+his companions, was on us. There was no call for speech, for we spoke
+in tongues unintelligible to one another, and the only sound which
+fitfully broke the ghostly silence was that language understood by all
+nations alike, the wail of an infant in its mother's arms.
+
+"Salaam Aleikum," we had been received with as the Shaykh stood up to
+welcome us on our arrival, unexpected and uninvited, in the midst of
+his tribe. We had been guided to his tent by the long spear which stood
+upright at the door, and when he had offered us that token of Arab
+goodwill--the cup of coffee--we knew that we were amongst friends. He
+waved us to our seats, and then, seating himself, pulled the child
+towards him; he patted his own chest, and then pointed to the lad with
+pride.
+
+"His youngest child," interpreted Ali, who accompanied us, and who
+understood a few words of Arabic.
+
+We nodded back our looks of appreciation, and, these preliminary acts
+of courtesy having established the requisite good feeling, all need for
+further converse seemed at an end, and a comfortable silence fell upon
+us all.
+
+The whole village had followed us into their chief's tent as a matter
+of course, and those for whom there was no room inside herded together
+at the door. The Eastern standard of ideas, which allows respectful
+equality with one's superiors, was responsible for the total absence of
+ill-mannered jostling which would have characterised a civilised crowd
+under similar circumstances on the reception of strange foreigners.
+
+The coffee-maker reached out his hand without turning, and one amongst
+the crowd at his back handed him a massive iron spoon on to which was
+chained a copper ladle. The Shaykh's little son, obeying a nod from his
+father, pulled a bag out of a dark recess behind him; another bundle of
+brushwood was thrown upon the fire and by the light of its sudden,
+almost startling blaze, the lad untied the bag and carefully counted
+out the allotted number of coffee-berries. The coffee-maker dropped
+them into the spoon, for which he had raked out a hole in the ashes.
+The slight stir caused by these proceedings subsided, the blaze died
+away, and the attention of all was again riveted on us, save that only
+of the coffee-maker, who, sitting close up to the embers, now scraped
+the white ashes round the pot, now turned the roasting berries over
+with the ladle chained to the spoon. The Shaykh's hand stole on to the
+little boy's head, and the boy, looking up, stroked the old man's
+beard. On we sat in the dark silence, learning from these true masters
+of Time how neither to waste it nor to let it drag, but going step by
+step with it, to lay ourselves open to receive all that it had to give.
+
+The silence was so prolonged and so intense that, silently as time
+flies, we could almost hear its moments ticking away. It has been said
+that we take no note of time except when we count its loss. It might be
+said of all Easterns that they are unconscious of the time they lose,
+because they take no note of it; they live unconsciously up to the fact
+that, the past being beyond recall and the future unfathomable, the
+present only is in our power. And the Eastern is master of Time because
+he spends it absorbing the present.
+
+Meanwhile the berries had blackened, and the man emptied them into a
+copper mortar. As he pounded them he caused the pestle to ring in tune
+against the sides of the bowl. The child laughed gleefully and pointed
+at him; the stern old man smiled and shot a proud glance over at us.
+
+"Fiddle away, old Time," rang out the tones of the metal pestle. It
+seemed to give voice to our joyful derision of Time; here was Time
+trying to weary us with himself, and we only laughed at him.
+
+ "Fiddle away, old Time--
+ Fiddle away, old Fellow!
+ Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,
+ Times both shrill and mellow.
+ Fiddle away,
+ Or grave or gay,
+ For faces pink or yellow--
+ Scrape your song a lifetime long,
+ Fiddle away, old Fellow!"
+
+Not a soul moved. Outside in the dusk a stunted black cow thoughtfully
+chewed the maize stalks of which the enclosure round the tent was
+built, and a kid rubbed his head up and down against a child's bare
+leg. Beyond this the darkness had nothing to conceal. We were in the
+middle of a bare, largely uninhabited, desert land known only to a few
+wandering Arab tribes. Outside, the mysterious open vault of the dark
+sky with its many hundred points of light; inside, the mysterious
+recess of the dark tent with the fifty-three pairs of gleaming eyes,
+every one fixed upon ourselves. Now and then, as a flash of lightning
+in the sky at night will expose the immediate surroundings to view, so
+a sudden spark from the fire revealed the setting of the eyes--the
+solemn, dusky, Arab faces.
+
+A splutter on the fire as the pot boiled over put an end alike to the
+tune and to the meditations called up by it. The man transferred the
+ground berries to a copper jug and, pouring the boiling water on to
+them, placed this second pot on the hot ashes. We had been sitting
+there for an hour watching these preparations, and it seemed as if we
+might now reasonably entertain hopes of tasting the results. Our
+expectations in this direction were also enhanced by the appearance of
+three tiny cups which had been unearthed from a dark corner, and handed
+to one of the men nearest the fire. He proceeded to rinse them out one
+by one with hot water, displaying a care and absorption in the process
+which contrasted strangely with the simplicity of his task.
+
+The coffee on the fire came to the boil, the coffee-maker poured it
+back into the original pot, which he again set on the ashes. He then
+handed the empty jug to the cup-washer, who rinsed each cup out
+carefully with a few drops of the coffee left for this purpose. Very
+quietly, very precisely, he placed each cup on the ground within reach
+of the coffee-maker, and retreated into the background.
+
+The coffee on the fire boiled up; we straightened ourselves in
+expectation as the coffee-maker reached out his hand. But he emptied
+the boiling liquid back again into the original pot and replaced it on
+the ashes.
+
+The fire now burned very dimly. Even the man's form bending over the
+glowing ashes was discernible only as a black shadow. The stillness for
+a few moments was so great, and the concentration of all so centred on
+the bubbling coffee-pot, that one felt as if all the meaning of life,
+the past, the present, and the future, was being distilled in the black
+liquid, and that an incantation was only necessary for the future to
+take shape and, rising out of the pot, become visible to us all in this
+mysterious darkness.
+
+Again the coffee boiled up. Again the man emptied the boiling liquid
+back into the other pot and replaced it on the fire.
+
+The stillness and the concentration became more intense. Outside, a
+lamb's sudden cry and the mother's answering bleat rang out sharply in
+the black night, a distant reminder of a far-off world; it died away,
+and the broken silence was all the more intense.
+
+The coffee boiled up.
+
+By this time one had ceased to associate the drinking of coffee with
+the end of these mysterious rites. The coffee of Cook's hotels, the
+coffee of crowded railway stations, whole coffee, ground coffee, French
+coffee, coffee at 1s. 8d. a pound; the clatter of black saucepans, the
+hot and anxious cook, the bustling waiter, the impatient people of the
+world with only a minute to wait--calling for instantaneous coffee;
+what had coffee and all these associations to do with this? And so it
+was with a certain shock that we looked at this magician pouring the
+result of his black art into the cups, a few carefully measured drops
+only. Two are handed to us and one to the Shaykh. We sipped the oily
+black drink slowly and thoughtfully. A liquid which had been prepared
+with so much deliberation could not be quaffed down with the reckless
+indifference ordinarily displayed in the process. It was thick and
+bitter. We drained the last drop and returned the cups. Another
+spoonful was poured in and they were passed back to us. Etiquette
+required that we should not refuse till the third time of offering;
+then the remainder of the coffee was handed round to the rest of the
+company in order of rank.
+
+There was a stir amongst the crowd round the door, and a woman forced
+her way through with a baby in her arms. She squatted in front of us,
+and held the child down for our closer inspection by the firelight.
+
+"Khasta" (Ill), said Ali Chous; "she wants medicine."
+
+The mother pointed to the sores on the child's face and body, the
+pleading eloquence in her dark eyes rendering unnecessary any
+explanations on the part of our interpreter.
+
+It was a pathetic instance of the suffering induced by man, even when
+living so akin to Nature, when he tries to superimpose his own crude
+ideas of beauty and expediency on to the human frame. The baby, though
+only a few months old, had been pierced in the nose and ears for the
+reception of the ornaments which were to enhance its charms in
+after-life, and of the blue bead which would ensure its safety from the
+one recognised enemy--the Evil Eye. The wounds were healing badly, and
+the irritation set up had caused fever.
+
+"Tell her we can give her medicine," we said to Ali, "but it is not
+medicine to drink, it is to wash the wounds with. If the baby drinks
+it, it will die."
+
+The message was interpreted. "Aha, aha, Mashallah," was murmured all
+through the crowd. The baby became an object of intense interest. Ali
+threw back his head and pretended to swallow, then he pointed
+significantly to heaven and to the unconscious victim at his feet.
+
+"Ha! ha!" murmured the crowd.
+
+Hassan meanwhile had begun to fidget uneasily.
+
+"There are fleas here," he said, "you must not stop any longer."
+
+We rose, and silently salaaming our host, passed out of the tent. It
+was lighter outside; the moon had risen, casting mysterious black
+shadows round the huts, where weird black and white forms flitted
+stealthily in and out.
+
+Owing to the shallowness of the water on the low shelving mud banks we
+had been unable to bring the raft right up to the shore, and it had
+been moored at a little distance out in the water. The kalekjis had
+carried us across on their backs and had returned to cook their evening
+meal on board. We now shouted across the water to them to come and
+carry us back. As we stood waiting, a woman came up to us dragging a
+child by the arm, who hid his head in his mother's dress and refused to
+allow himself to be examined.
+
+"He is ill too," said Ali, "like the other child."
+
+"We will give them some medicine when we get on the raft," we said;
+"tell them each to send a cup."
+
+"And this one says he is ill," the man went on, as a tall,
+sheepish-looking youth touched me on the arm; "they will all say they
+are ill now that they know you have medicine."
+
+"We can only give to those who are really ill," we answered; "what is
+the matter with this one?"
+
+"He has fever, he cannot eat, and his head hurts."
+
+I had some quinine pills in my pocket, and I gave three to the boy.
+
+"Tell him to take two now, and not to keep them in his mouth," I
+explained, "but drink some water and swallow them down; then, when the
+sun has risen one hour to-morrow, let him take the other one."
+
+A dozen interested spectators at once went through the whole process in
+pantomime; a pill was swallowed, and its downward course indicated by
+stroking the chest. "Ha!" was ejaculated all round. Then the second
+pill was swallowed with equally suggestive signs. The rising point of
+the sun was indicated, and one finger held up, and the third pill
+swallowed.
+
+"Mashallah!" went up through the crowd, staring with bated breath.
+
+We boarded the raft, and had scarcely established ourselves in our
+sleeping-hut when Hassan staggered to the door with a huge clay pitcher
+capable of holding several gallons; he deposited it at our feet.
+
+"For the medicine," he said gravely.
+
+"We said that the woman was to send a cup," we said; "the few drops of
+lotion will be lost in that."
+
+"For the medicine," he answered, imperturbably.
+
+"We had better send it in one of our cups," I said, and I measured out
+some lotion. Hassan took it; a few minutes later he returned laden with
+cups, jars, pitchers, and bowls of every size and description.
+
+"For the medicine," he said, as he deposited them beside us.
+
+We looked at one another aghast.
+
+"Say that we have no more," we said.
+
+"I have told them," he said, "but they will not go away."
+
+We went outside, where a tremendous hubbub had arisen. Our men were
+standing round the edge of the raft resolutely pushing would-be
+intruders back into the river. Up to their waists in water, hanging on
+to the raft at every point, shouting out their ailments, pointing to
+their throats, their eyes, their heads, were the whole male population
+of the place. In vain our men strove to keep them off; the raft was
+besieged at every point. In desperation we unmoored and floated out
+into the middle of the river; the most determined swam out after us,
+and holding on to the raft with one hand stroked their chests and
+pointed to the absent sun with the other. Finally, as we drifted
+down-stream, they gave up, and the last sight we had was that of a row
+of disconsolate invalids, suddenly endowed with great evidences of
+health and strength, careering wildly on the mud flats in the starlight
+round a discarded heap of empty bowls and pitchers.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+"It _is_ a 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.
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+"Allah, Allah, Allah," 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.'"
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+ "O Shamash, thou art the judge of the world,
+ Thou directest the decisions thereof...."
+
+Thus prayed the dwellers of the city four thousand years ago. And with
+the same light with which you lit the pomp and splendour of the works
+of their time, you light the decay and ruin and hideous desolation of
+the present.
+
+"Verily there is a God which judgeth the earth," say we, four thousand
+years later.
+
+And as you smiled on those who worshipped you as the supreme God and
+Creator of all things, so you smile on us who look upon you, bound and
+fixed, with no will of your own, following the inevitable laws of
+Nature. Will you, four thousand years hence, light with the same light
+sojourners in this land, and will they wonder at our conception of your
+nature and function, as we wonder at the faith that your ancient
+worshippers had in you? Or will you, before them, have run your
+allotted course and consumed the whole world, whether in the fiery
+furnace of your wrath or in the uncontrolled madness of your broken
+bonds?
+
+The next morning we visited Babel, the mound we had passed the day
+before. We walked for more than a mile through the palm-groves by the
+river. Under the shade of the trees were numerous huts made of mud,
+covered and enclosed with piles of fine brushwood. There were various
+signs of human occupations. Two cows were toiling peacefully up and
+down an entrenchment, drawing water in skins over a rough windlass; the
+skins emptied themselves into a channel, and the water wandered about
+in vaguely directed irrigation. On the bank beside them lolled an Arab
+with a long pole, who prodded the sleepy beasts in the moments when he
+was more awake than they were. A large mass of brushwood was moving in
+front of us; it looked like one of the huts endowed with a pair of very
+thin brown legs. As we overtook it the mass half-turned towards us, and
+a woman's form, doubled in two, looked small in the middle of it.
+
+At the doors of the enclosures naked children sprawled about, all with
+gleaming white teeth and closely shaven heads, save for the one lock of
+hair, with which they are to be pulled up to heaven; women with
+tattooed faces and dangling ornaments pounded barley in primitive stone
+mortars, and baked thin cakes of bread on flat stones.
+
+Leaving the river-side we struck out to the right for half a mile
+across the bare, parched ground, where tufts of rough grass were trying
+to get a footing in the white, barren soil. We climbed up the mound,
+passing bands of workmen tunnelling in the sides and removing the
+bricks which lay about in tumbled heaps or in bits of standing walls.
+
+From the top of Babel we could look right over the tract of land once
+enclosed by the walls of Babylon. The descriptions of Herodotus enable
+the traveller to call up some sort of idea of the scene in his time. We
+learn from him that the city was built in the form of a square,
+surrounded by walls of enormous strength; each side of the square was
+fourteen miles long, each side had twenty-five gates of solid brass and
+was defended by square towers built above the wall; twenty-five streets
+went straight across the city each way from gate to gate. The city was
+thus cut into squares. The houses, three or four stories high, faced
+the street and were built at a little distance apart from each other;
+between them were gardens and plantations. A branch of the river ran
+through the city; its banks were one long quay. The larger buildings
+stood in the centre of a square, each apparently fortified and
+surrounded by walls of its own. It is of these smaller walls only that
+any trace can be detected. From the foot of Babel, where we stood,
+remains of earthen ramparts could be traced for two or three miles
+southwards; they then turned at right angles towards the river and
+extended as far as its eastern bank. The mounds they enclosed were
+presumably the site of the more important buildings. Babel itself is
+supposed to represent the temple of Belus. The Mujelibe, or Kasr, lying
+to the south of us, is identified with the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar and
+the hanging gardens; further south still was a lesser mound, Amram. We
+knew that Birs Nimroud, the great ruin which is looked upon as the
+Tower of Babel, lay beyond this again, although we could not see it
+from where we stood.
+
+The whole gleamed white in the strong sunshine. On our right the
+Euphrates rolled along, as unconcerned in his course as the Sun-god
+overhead. We could trace the direction of the river southwards to the
+horizon, marked by the palms along its banks. They made a thin, dark
+line across a wide, light plain--an alluvial tract which is only
+waiting to yield its hidden gifts on the day when Man joins hands with
+Nature and distributes the waters of the river. But not so the actual
+soil of Babylon; that soil, consisting as it does of building dust and
+débris, is of a nature which destroys vegetation. "The Lord of Hosts
+hath swept it with the besom of destruction," and it is doomed
+perpetually to be a "dry land, a wilderness, a land wherein no man
+dwelleth."
+
+As we looked upon the great plain which stretched away all round until
+it carried the eye on into the sky above, we could almost believe with
+the ancients that the edge of the earth joined the dome of heaven and
+that both were supported by the waters of Apsn--the deep.
+
+A great wave of silence rolled out of the desert and broke over us. It
+seemed natural to be immersed in silence; could anything else be
+expected from a land which had never been alive with the stir of
+humanity even in far-off ages, of which one might now feel the hush
+while listening for the echo? The desert had always been silent and
+would be silent for ever more--a dead, unconscious silence, with no
+significance save of absence of life. But when we looked at the site of
+Babylon stretched just beneath us, we became vividly conscious of a
+real, living silence; we were listening to the "hum of mighty
+workings"; voices of souls long since dead, the dust of whose bodies
+lay at our feet, were "wakening the slumbering ages." Had not
+Nebuchadnezzar entered into the House of the Dead in the great cavern
+Araltu, the Land of No Return? The dead had been stirred up, even the
+chief ones of earth, to greet him as he entered hell: "Art thou also
+become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought
+down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under
+thee, and the worms cover thee, ..." and they looked at him narrowly,
+saying, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?"
+
+And yet still for us "the wind uttered" and "the spirit heard" his
+vainglorious cry: "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built for
+the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honour of
+my majesty?"
+
+The silent answer to it lay at our feet. And, listening, we heard the
+solemn warnings of Daniel, the sorrowful forebodings of Jeremiah, and,
+above all, the ironical voice of Isaiah:--
+
+ "Let them stand up and save thee,
+ Mappers of heavens, Planet observers, Tellers of new moons,
+ From what must befall thee."
+
+As we listened again we heard the noise "like as of a great people; a
+tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together....
+
+"A sound of battle is in the land and of great destruction....
+
+"A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon and great destruction from the
+land of the Chaldeans....
+
+"One post ran to meet another post, and one messenger to meet another
+to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken."
+
+Then we heard a sound of much feasting and revelling; we heard a solemn
+hush when there came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote upon the
+wall. Even as we listened to the hush it seemed to grow into the great
+hush of ages, and we remembered that we stood alone in the living
+silence of these great dead, surrounded by the dead silence of an
+uninhabited land.
+
+Overhead the Sun-god silently vaunted his eternal existence; at our
+feet the Euphrates rolled fresh waters of oblivion from an eternal
+source to an eternal sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SOUND OF THE DESERT
+
+
+The Syrian desert between Baghdad and Damascus; two white tents, a
+prowling jackal, and a starry sky.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There was a sense of stir in camp; a rattle of tins and a neighing of
+animals; a faint odour of lighted charcoal was wafted in at the tent
+door. I opened one eye; X still slumbered peacefully at the opposite
+side of the tent. Arten appeared at the door with a jug of water and a
+light. "One o'clock," he said laconically as he placed them on the
+ground and retired. The stars were still shining, my bed was very warm.
+True, it was one o'clock in Turkish time only, but no Christian ought
+to be roused at that hour. X fell out of bed with a determined thump.
+"It's late," she said. I made no response, but, knowing from experience
+that X was always right, tried to reconstruct my ideas about time and
+reconcile the fact that it was late with its being one o'clock in the
+morning. Besides, if X ordained that it was late, in another half-hour
+the tent ropes would be loosened regardless of the stage our toilet had
+reached, and a falling tent, when one has just got one's back hair into
+shape, is exasperating if not damaging. I got up, and just managed to
+hurl myself through the door, mostly clothed, as the tent collapsed on
+the ground. X was already seated cross-legged on a rug outside, holding
+one blue hand over a few charcoal embers while she munched a piece of
+dry bread held in the other. "You need not think I have eaten all the
+butter," she said, "because there wasn't any." Satisfied with the
+explanation, I munched my bread in silence and swallowed a cup of thick
+tea; we had been carrying water for three days and it was getting
+opaque.
+
+The stillness of the night which reigned outside was being invaded by
+the cries and movements of men; dark forms flitted about as they
+watered the animals and adjusted the nose-bags for the morning's feed.
+A horse, impatient of his tether, had broken loose and was galloping
+defiantly round the camp, inspired to further mischief by the methods
+of his pursuers, whose idea of reassuming their authority over him was
+to rush in his direction flourishing whips and uttering piercing cries.
+He was finally brought to bay entangled in some tent ropes, and a
+sudden lull fell on the disturbed atmosphere. The Oriental can work
+himself into a pitch of excitement which would keep a European in
+hysterics for several hours, and then suddenly drop the matter and
+become instantly silent and unconcerned. There seems no half-way stage
+between excessive noise and an indifferent silence.
+
+Somewhat awakened by this incident, the men set to work to pack up the
+camp; the mules were unloosed and stood about with looks of resignation
+as the loads were adjusted on the creaking pack-saddles and secured
+with ropes. There was a subdued din and confusion without any sense of
+hurry. "Allah! Allah!" the native cries when he exerts himself in
+any way. "Aha, aha!" he cries with equal ardour, mingled with
+satisfaction, when his task is accomplished.
+
+And now the last knot has been tied, the last cloak laid across the
+saddle; the last ember of the dying charcoal fire has been carefully
+raked out to light the cigarette, and we straggle slowly out into the
+gloom, leaving one charred spot and a sardine tin in the sandy waste.
+
+There had been a suggestion of redness in the gathering light for the
+last few moments; streaks of silver and bars of gold lined the dusky
+sky. It is disconcerting to be travelling westwards when one wishes to
+be aware of a rising sun. I twisted myself round in the saddle and,
+leaving my horse to pick his way, advanced backwards. The whole scene
+was soon a vast glow of colour, the yellow sand of the desert holding
+and reflecting the brilliant reds and yellows; and now the sun appeared
+on the horizon line and slowly rose, until the whole disc of fire stood
+out in glowing magnificence and then gradually grew paler as he shared
+his substance with the surrounding sky. The long straggling line of our
+caravan, which had looked like a black serpent twisting through a sea
+of fire, became less black in the growing light, and men and animals
+assumed individual shapes.
+
+In another half-hour the broad light of day showed the surroundings in
+their common aspect. I twisted round again in the saddle, and, having
+turned my back on poetry and romance, became only conscious of the
+temperature of my extremities. The cold was intense; X and the soldiers
+were far ahead; the caravan lagged behind; I was alone with cold hands
+and feet. Poets and philosophers have talked of being alone with the
+sun and the earth: if ever conditions were favourable for enjoying the
+sole companionship of these two elements, it might seem to be under the
+present circumstances. But in the desert one can be more alone even
+than this, for in some frames of mind the sky and the earth give one no
+sense of companionship. Cold and implacable the grim silent desert
+stretched away in front beyond the realms of space; the hard blue sky
+overhead stared into the abyss of Time, offering no link between Nature
+and Man. There was nothing one could take hold of; no cloud in the sky
+of which to ask the question "Whither?"; no shadow on the earth to
+which one could say "Whence?" You were thrown back on yourself, were
+only conscious of your beating heart and a void. The words of a great
+lover of nature rose up in my mind: "There is nothing human in nature.
+The earth, though loved so dearly, would let you perish on the ground
+and neither bring forth food nor water. Burning in the sky the great
+sun, of whose company I have been so fond, would merely burn on and
+make no motion to assist me." You felt keenly alive in the middle of
+this cold dead space, and you knew there was something alive in you
+which demanded something of it: had you no place in the economy of this
+great silent Universe? was there no way of making yourself heard or
+felt? Is it that the soul of man must be there to make things alive,
+and you were now crossing earth where no soul of man had crossed
+before, and all things were dead? From sheer agony I cried out; no
+answering echo followed; the sound fell flat and dead. The cold heavens
+stared placidly on, the surface of the earth was unruffled. I drew rein
+and listened intently: I heard the roar of London streets; the cry of
+the newsboy, the milkman's call, the tramp of a million hurrying feet;
+I heard the rush of trains and the screech of engines; I heard a
+thousand discordant voices in divers tongues where men were struggling
+and rushing after material ends. And dominating all this, infinitely
+louder and more distinct, making itself heard supreme and all powerful,
+filling the great space in which one had seemed eternally lost, I
+heard--the Silence of the desert. Why wish to make one's self
+heard?--better be still and listen to the voice of silence; let its
+words sink into you and become part of you, and so take some of its
+quiet and peace back with you into those crowded cities of men.
+
+If there is a link between anything in you and this grim stretch of
+barren sand and impassive depth of distant sky, it is the response of
+its silence to the silence in you. It is the material aspect of silence
+in its crudest form appealing to and recognising in you the unspeakable
+realms of silence which exist in the region you are dimly conscious of
+beyond your senses. As we pray to the sea for its depth and calm, to
+the wind for its freedom, to the sun for its light, so we pray to the
+desert for its silence. Let your nature expand to the width of this
+horizon, to the height and depth of this sky, and fill it all with the
+eternity of this silence.
+
+Ask of the sun why it shines, and if there is light in you it will
+answer; ask of the wind why it blows, and to fettered and free alike it
+gives its answer; ask of the desert why it is silent, and if there is
+silence in you you need no answer.
+
+Is there any calm for you in the sea until you put it there? Do you
+feel any freedom in the wind until you have created it? But can you, in
+any mood or under any circumstance, evade the silence of the desert?
+Its influence extends alike to those who receive it and those who
+resent it.
+
+The men who have no region of silence in themselves are under the power
+of its physical aspect; to them it is oppressive, wearying, and
+deadening; there is an absence of life, a presence of monotony from
+which there is no escape. But once we recognise its silence as being of
+the nature of what we possess in ourselves, the shadow of monotony and
+oppressiveness is lifted. Can its effect be better described than it is
+in that fundamental doctrine of Islam, where it almost coincides with
+the teachings of Christianity in its endeavour to give expression to
+the truth? "Islam," that is the resignation of our own will to that of
+one great power, the effacement of self, the futility of putting our
+own will or mind against that of the great, silent, all powerful,
+inevitable laws of Nature--the Moslem idea of Fate and Power--the
+Christian's blending of his own will with the Divine will--the
+scientist's recognition of Law--you may put it how you will; are they
+not but different interpretations of the unseen power, which, silent in
+itself and only understood in silence, holds supreme sway in moments of
+silence, and, when expressed in its physical aspect in these barren
+regions of the earth, appeals through our eyes and ears to the regions
+in us, beyond these senses, where it exists in its essential condition?
+
+I rode on; the sun had warmed my left side through and the right was
+beginning to thaw. My shadow, which had been keeping pace with the
+horse on the right, now began to creep in front as the sun rose higher.
+By the time its burning rays poured straight down overhead the
+foreshortened shadow seemed to be leading the way along the desert
+track. In time the heat became almost unbearable, and, suddenly
+awakening to the stern realities of physical discomfort, I brought my
+whip down on the horse's flank; he leaped, startled, in the air, and
+then flew after his shadow in a settled gallop. Air, of which one had
+become unconscious, rushed past one's face, and the muffled thud of his
+hoofs on the sand seemed to measure time and space. I dashed up to X
+and stopped dead beside her. She looked round inquiringly. "Let's eat,"
+I said. She looked at her watch. "We have been riding four hours," she
+said; "we might stop at the next good place." I looked ahead
+significantly. "One place looks much the same as another," I said. "I
+think there is a dip in the ground further on," she answered, "where we
+might get a little shelter." There did seem to be a slight wave in the
+flat expanse and we rode on to it, but, like all dips in this country,
+when we arrived at it, it did not seem to be there. We had had so much
+experience in riding after delusive dips that we decided to stop here,
+and slid off our horses. The cook unpacked the lunch from his
+saddle-bags and placed hard-boiled eggs, biscuits, and dates beside us.
+He carefully filled a cup with a thick, brown liquid from the bottom of
+his waterskin. "Bitdi," he said, by which expression he conveyed that
+the fresh water was now finished. Then he and the men retired a few
+yards and ate their lunch. Nothing was heard but the steady munch of
+human jaws. Then they stretched themselves on the sand and absolute
+silence reigned, broken by occasional snores. We too lay back, each
+concealed from the other under two huge umbrellas, which seemed rather
+to focus the sun's rays than shade them from us.
+
+When one was alone the desert had seemed full of unqualified silence;
+in company with others the silence seemed even greater, for the slight
+sounds which there were made one more conscious of the sound which was
+not. The clank of the horses' bits, the quiet breathing of one's
+companions, the stir of a foot, made one realise the intensity of the
+silence of the whole vast expanse. The far-off tinkling of the mule
+bells in the approaching caravan gave one a sense of distance in a way
+one would hardly experience by simply gazing at an unapproachable
+horizon. The heat and the slight fatigue added a feeling of drowsiness
+which would make even the solid things around one seem shadowy and
+distant. It was a waking sleep; one's senses were numb because of the
+absence of anything to call them into play, though one might "see,
+hear, feel, outside the senses." In the same way that one is alone in a
+London street one can live in a whirl in the desert; the throb of
+humanity---- X's umbrella shut with a bang. "Wake up, the caravan is
+coming." A cloud of dust, a stamping of animals, a shouting of men, and
+we were off once more. It was our habit to keep pace with the camp in
+the latter half of the day, and for the next three hours we dawdled
+along at caravan pace. It was a motley crew. The muleteers trudge along
+behind the laden animals, taking turns on the back of a patient,
+sorrowful donkey, on which they ride sideways with dangling legs,
+pricking its side with a long needle, the secondary object of which is
+the repairing of broken straps. The pack-mules go doggedly on in front,
+jostling one another with their unwieldy loads. Occasionally one gets
+off the track and wanders aside, only to be urged back into line with
+yells and blows. Another stops dead, feeling its load slip round
+sideways. The men rush at it with shouts of "Allah! Allah!" the
+load is shoved up and the ropes tightened. There is a general din of
+shouting and swearing and jangling of bells; and above it all the
+disdainful camel moves deliberately on with measured step and arched
+neck, unmindful of the petty skirmishes so far below it; its owner,
+infected by its spirit, rocking on the top, surveys the whole scene
+with a dejected, uninterested air. Bringing up the rear, motionless and
+erect on small donkeys, ride one or two older Arabs, wrapped in long
+sheepskin cloaks, their faces entirely concealed in the folds of a
+keffiyeh, save where two stern and solemn eyes gaze unceasingly at you
+with expressionless imperturbability. Wild sons of the desert, product
+of this eternal silence, are you so much a part of it that you are
+unconscious of its power?
+
+The only gay and careless element is introduced by the Turkish
+soldiers. Mounted on splendid Arab mares they ride in front, sometimes
+dashing ahead at a wild gallop, holding out their rifles at arm's
+length, wheeling suddenly round and coming to a dead stop in front of
+an imaginary enemy, upright in their stirrups; in their more subdued
+moments breaking into song with the mournful Eastern refrains.
+
+And so, forming one small world of our own, we "follow and follow the
+journeying sun," and as it sinks lower on the horizon and its fierce
+rays cease to beat pitilessly down on the parched ground and thirsty
+animals, a silence falls on the moving band. The spirit of the desert
+again holds sway. The men cease quarrelling, the animals' heads sink
+lower, the donkey looks more resigned, the mule more dogged, the camel
+more superior, the silent Arab more stern and forbidding; the soldier
+hums where he sang before. Then at last the walls of a solitary
+guard-house heave in sight. The men hail it with joyful cries, the
+soldiers dash ahead, the pack-animals prick their ears and quicken
+their steps to an amble. There is a general rush and tumble,
+culminating in a dead halt on the ground which has formed the place for
+caravans since caravans crossed the desert. All is noise and confusion.
+The loads are unloosed and fall in promiscuous heaps amongst the medley
+of animals, who, released of their burdens, roll over on their backs
+kicking up the dust. A line of men draw water from the well, pulling at
+a squeaky chain and invoking the aid of Allah in chorus as they pull. A
+fight is going on in one corner; men are knocking one another down,
+encouraged by a circle of yelling spectators. The din of excited
+quarrelling voices, the hammering of tent pegs, dominates everything,
+broken at times by the sudden neigh of a horse bitten by its neighbour
+or the harsh, imperious cry of the camel for its supper. And in the
+middle of it all the Turkish soldier spreads his cloak upon the ground,
+turns his face to Mecca, and offers up his murmured prayer to Allah,
+the one restful form in this scene of chaos.
+
+"Allah Akbar" (God is great), prays this son of Islam, and with his
+hands upon his knees, he bows his head; "Subhana 'llah" (I praise God),
+and he falls upon his knees; "Allah Akbar" (God is great), and he bows
+his head to touch the earth; "Subhana 'llah, subhana 'llah, subhana
+'llah," and he sits upon his heels; "Allah Akbar," and he again
+prostrates himself; "Allah Akbar, subhana 'llah."
+
+And on this scene the sun casts his final rays of gold and red. As the
+shades of night draw in, quiet reigns once more; the men collect round
+the blazing camp-fire, and in its light we see the outline of their
+dark forms seated cross-legged, as they eat out of the common bowl or
+take turns at the bubbling narghile; to one side the mules are tethered
+in two lines forming a half square; a muleteer is grooming them, and
+one hears the rattle of his scraper and the ever tinkling bell. The
+cook is stirring our evening meal in a pot on the fire outside our
+tent. Hassan fetches our rugs and spreads them on the ground; we lie
+down and he covers us over with his sheepskin cloak. "Rahat" (Rest),
+he says, and lifts his hands over us as if pronouncing a blessing. Then
+he sits down beside us and lights a cigarette. "Bourda ehe," he goes
+on, describing the universe with a sweep of his hand. "Kimse yok" (It
+is well here--there is no one). "Is Allah here?" asks X. "Allah is
+here," he answers with simple reverence, "Allah is everywhere"; and we
+all lie motionless under the stars, unwilling to probe the silence by
+the sound of uttered thoughts. The murmur of the men's voices gradually
+dies away as, one by one, they doze off; a jackal cries in the
+distance; a star falls down to earth. The day is over, and in this land
+of the Oriental there is no thought of the morrow.
+
+The passive silence of sleep; the active silence of communing souls;
+the silence of night--all fitful expressions of the one great Silence
+brooding over all, be one asleep or awake, by night and by day, in
+desert places and in busy haunts of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PALMYRA
+
+
+It burst upon us all at once, Palmyra, in the desert--a chaos of golden
+pillars in the glow of the setting sun. We had been riding all day
+towards an indefinite shape on the horizon; slowly it had resolved
+itself into a barrier of yellow rock with dark lines becoming
+distinguishable against it. We had passed through the patches of rising
+corn, making green holes in the brown desert; we had wound through the
+gardens of pomegranate and plantations of palm trees and turned the
+corner of the ugly konak which barred the ruins from our view; and
+there it lay, the desert-girt city, in the unutterable lonely
+magnificence of its reckless confusion.
+
+We drew rein under the Triumphal Arch; from here the eye is led on down
+the great colonnade from column to column, now upright, now fallen, to
+where a mile away a castle crowns a peak of the range under which
+Palmyra crouches--an old time harbour for the sand sea beyond.
+
+[Illustration: PALMYRA. TRIUMPHAL ARCH.]
+
+Behind us the present village of Tadmor was concealed inside the walls
+of the great Temple of the Sun; its mud hovels lie rotting behind the
+gigantic columns of the inner court in the dirt which chokes the
+massive archways. Here it is that the present life of Palmyra, such as
+it is, is slowly obliterating the remaining evidences of her past;
+while on the opposite side of the ruins, where the hills cleave to form
+a lonely valley, the dead of Palmyra, buried in a line of square
+tomb-towers, still keep alive the memory of her ancient greatness.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Was it the sun only, with its light on the yellow columns, that made
+one think of Palmyra purely as a city of gold? Or were one's thoughts
+unconsciously influenced by the fact that its traditions all rest on
+the getting of gold; its power was built up on trade; its great men
+were the successful traffickers of the desert; its statues and columns
+were raised to the memory of those who brought the caravans of goods
+from India and Persia unharmed through the dangers of the desert; its
+temples were dedicated to the Sun-god by those whose lives were spared
+in their getting of great wealth, or to the memory of those who
+perished in the attempt.
+
+Those were the days when it was a man's boast that the blood of a
+merchant ran in his veins--when a youth could aspire to no higher goal
+than that of being a merchant prince of his proud city.
+
+Her prosperity had been her ruin; the gold had led to her undoing; and
+now the Sun, to whom the temples had been raised at the time of her
+pride, mocked her ruins by giving them the semblance of scattered gold.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+This is the best way to realise Palmyra--to make it the culmination of
+a long and tedious journey through the desert. The first sight of it
+under any conditions must indeed be wonderful, but coming in from
+Damascus, which is the natural approach for visitors to the ruins, one
+could never feel about it in quite the same way. Civilisation is only
+five days behind you; the country you pass through, moreover, although
+desert enough in a way, does not give you the same sense of being
+utterly cut off from everything in limitless space; there are chains of
+mountains to be seen in the distance, and cultivated patches stretching
+round villages are more frequent. Then when you arrive at Palmyra you
+ride first through the valley of tombs--it is the dead that give you
+the first greeting; you get glimpses through the opening ahead of the
+highest columns, and are slowly prepared for what is coming, until,
+emerging finally through the gap, the whole scene is laid out before
+you, with the gleaming desert beyond.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But approach it from the desert side, and all the meaning and force of
+its one time existence is borne in upon you with an overwhelming
+realisation. For three weeks you have been following the old trade
+route from the Persian Gulf. You have made one of a caravan amongst the
+doggedly jogging mules and the slow stepping camels, both heavily laden
+with the clumsy pack-saddles holding bales of merchandise; the sound of
+their jangling bells is the only sound you hear through the long,
+monotonous ride under the blazing sun; you have spent night after night
+in the circle round the camp-fire, with the men crouched under the
+bales of goods piled up on the ground to form a rude shelter; the
+places where you stop have been the regular halting places for caravans
+for all time--now they are oases big enough to support a village, now
+it is merely a well and a guard-house. As you ride through the
+immeasurable expanse every dark object on the horizon line forms a
+subject for speculation. Its appearance is a signal for the hasty
+consolidation of the straggling line of men and animals, arms are
+looked to, you all close up and ride on, apparently unconcerned, but
+equally prepared for a sudden onslaught or a friendly greeting. For it
+is not only the difficulties and dangers due to Nature's barrenness
+that have to be guarded against. What must it have been in the days
+when the countless hordes of wealth of a huge caravan were at stake,
+and when the whole desert was beset with marauding tribes specially on
+the look-out for such prey? What must have been the feelings of those
+responsible for its safe conduct when they once more saw the first dim
+outline of the Palmyra hills in the distance? The goal would be reached
+that day; the troubles, the anxieties, the sleeplessness of the
+watching nights would be over; proud and triumphant they would ride
+down the long colonnade, the pack animals jostling one another in the
+unaccustomed crush of the bounded way, and the noise of shouting
+drivers and jangling bells sounding strangely loud and near in the
+confining space. Down on them from the columns above would look the
+statues put up to honour those who had achieved the same feat which
+they themselves had just accomplished. Their names too would now be
+written up and handed down from generation to generation in remembrance
+of the service they had rendered their State. For such deeds as these
+had built up the great city, and their fellow-citizens honoured them in
+this way.
+
+[Illustration: HASSAN.]
+
+At first it would seem that Tadmor was merely an Arab encampment, a
+stopping place amongst others for the passing caravans. The abundance
+of its water and its position on the meeting point of two great trade
+routes would gradually cause it to become an important centre. Dues
+were levied on all goods passing in and out, and even the privilege of
+using the wells was heavily taxed. Slowly it became the market-place of
+the East and the West; its inhabitants were the carriers between the
+Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. As the foundations of the city
+were built up on trade, so commerce was a pursuit for its aristocracy,
+involved as it was with all the elements of warfare and danger. Its
+merchants would be pure Arabs of good blood, welcomed as equals by the
+shaykhs of the desert tribes through whose territory their goods had to
+pass. Palmyra had thus gradually built up her own existence as an
+independent State. Political events then added to her power. The wars
+of Rome with Persia made her an important military post; recognised by
+Rome more as a partner State than a dependency, she was able to pursue
+her own policy with such effect that she tried to assert her entire
+independence and cut herself adrift from the Western power. Taking
+advantage of the temporary ascendance of Persia over the Roman arms,
+the desert Queen, Zenobia, fulfilled her ambition as sole Queen of the
+East. After her defeat by Aurelian the town was partially destroyed; a
+change in the political factors which had contributed to her importance
+now hastened her downfall by lessening the significance of her
+geographical position; safer trade routes further south led to the
+decay of her commercial prosperity. Bit by bit she loses her place in
+historical records, and at the present day Palmyra stands a lonely ruin
+on a deserted trade route, inhabited by a score of Arab families.
+
+In one sense Time has dealt gently with her; there is no decay from the
+growth of vegetation in this dry climate. Neither moss nor ivy has
+softened the aspect of destruction; the overturned columns show as true
+and sharp a face now as the day they were set up, and the ornate
+carving stands out in the same relief. One thinks of the place as built
+entirely of columns; they lie in rank profusion everywhere, like a
+great forest of trunks overturned by a gale. The great central avenue
+runs from the Temple of the Sun in a north-westerly direction to the
+castle on the range of hills which bounds the city to the north. It has
+been calculated that it alone contains 1,500 columns. Much of this
+still remains standing, but the gaps become more frequent, until at the
+castle end the whole thing has collapsed, forming a perfect sea of
+broken columns and fragments of carved pilasters. It is evident that
+the minor streets also were lined with pillars in the same way; short
+rows of them stand up here and there in various directions. Groups of
+twos and threes suggest also their attachment to some public building
+or temple. The statues were placed on brackets projecting from the
+upper part of the pillars, and the inscriptions below, which have
+escaped destruction, give the names and dates of those whom they were
+intended to honour.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As we had entered Palmyra with a vivid conception of its life, so we
+left it with an equally vivid conception of its death.
+
+Standing guard like a row of sentinels at the base of the hills are the
+square tomb-towers in which Palmyra buried its dead. The proud
+merchants seem to have been imbued with two main ideas: the erection of
+columns in their lifetime and of resting places for their families in
+death. Many of the towers are over a hundred feet high and consist of
+five and six stories. The bodies were arranged in tiers in the recesses
+on either side of a central chamber. Some of these buildings are still
+nearly perfect, others are practically heaps of ruins. The bones of the
+proud merchants are mingled with the bones of the wild beasts who have
+sought refuge there through the long ages.
+
+We turn our backs on the city and ride away through the gap in the
+hills. The city is hidden from view, but the tomb-towers still stand in
+silent rows down the valley on either side.
+
+We forget the golden pillars and all the ruined magnificence; we can
+think of nothing but these ghostly towers seeing us out, as it were,
+from this city of the dead.
+
+High up on the hill above, in the still morning air, a shepherd boy
+pipes merrily at them, and flocks of goats and sheep browse
+unconcernedly at their feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK
+
+
+I. ARTEN.
+
+Arten was an Armenian; he was quick, thin, methodical, dirty,
+intelligent, and untruthful; he was also the cook. I say _the_ cook
+advisedly, for _a_ cook he was not. No doubt he would have made an
+excellent cook if he had known anything about the art; but it was not
+till after we had engaged him in this capacity that we discovered that
+he had not thought this qualification necessary. At any rate, he knew,
+being a hungry man himself, that we were in need of food of some sort
+at stated intervals. In this he was a decided improvement on the Greek
+cook we had just dismissed; this man had a habit of coming to us,
+after we had been waiting hours in momentary expectation of a meal,
+and saying with a languid air, "Do you wish to eat?" He was a good
+cook, but always seemed overcome with astonishment when we expected
+him to cook.
+
+Arten was a dirty man, and he looked dirtier than he was owing to his
+dark complexion and hairy hands; besides this, his unbrushed and greasy
+black European clothes showed off to disadvantage amongst the simpler
+Eastern garments of his companions.
+
+"Arten is not a clean cook," Hassan would say, and Arten would smile
+sadly. He must have been slightly conscious of this defect, for he
+never handed me a plate or a spoon without saying "Temiz" (clean) as a
+forestalling measure before I had even looked at it. He spent a good
+deal of time rubbing smeary plates with a blackish cloth, murmuring
+"Temiz, temiz."
+
+He had a sincere desire to please us; but he always imagined this
+object was attained by the vigorous assertion of any fact that seemed
+necessary for our pleasure. "Taze" (fresh) he would say every time he
+handed me an egg; and, when I cut off the top and an explosion
+followed, "Taze" he would say again.
+
+"Eat it yourself then," I would suggest, handing it back to him; after
+putting his great nose right into it, "Taze," he would say. But he
+never ate it; he kept it for omelettes.
+
+His nose was his chief feature. One saw the nose first and then the man
+behind it. On cold days, when we all wrapped our heads and faces
+entirely in keffiyehs, Arten would be always distinguishable from the
+others by this protrusion. He had a jet black drooping moustache which
+he was always wiping furtively with a jet black pocket-handkerchief,
+for Arten was a greedy man and the only person who loved the taste of
+his own cookery.
+
+"I like to see him getting fat," X would say; "he looked half starved
+when he came to us."
+
+But Hassan and I were not so charitable.
+
+"Look," Hassan would say, "the door of the tent is shut; that pig Arten
+is stealing the food," and he would go and kick at the tent until Arten
+looked out, guiltily wiping his moustache.
+
+"You are cold, I suppose," says Hassan with lofty sarcasm. Arten mops
+his perspiring brow--he was always perspiring.
+
+"How cold?" he answers with well feigned surprise.
+
+"Because you shut the tent door," answers Hassan.
+
+"Aman," rejoins Arten, "what am I to do? if the muleteers see me
+cooking they come and ask for food; they are such greedy men, the
+muleteers."
+
+Hassan returns to us snorting.
+
+"Arten says the muleteers are greedy men. Mashallah! greedy men! We
+know who is the greedy man!" And he slaps his thigh vehemently.
+
+Arten's notions of cookery were, as I have said, limited. His staple
+dish was a mixture of mutton, potatoes, onions, and rice, which were
+all cooked up together in the same pot, each ingredient being thrown in
+according to the length of time it took to cook. It certainly tasted
+very good, and I would suggest the method to those in England who
+dislike washing many saucepans. His other idea of cooking mutton was
+less satisfactory in results, though simpler in method, and I have no
+hesitation in not recommending it to English housewives, though I
+append the recipe as a matter of interest from its originality.
+
+Take a piece of sheep, and with an axe cut it into chunks, regardless
+of bones or gristle; take a chunk and throw it on to red-hot charcoal
+in a brazier; when there is a distinct smell of burning and the hissing
+has nearly ceased, turn it over on the other side. When it resembles a
+piece of burnt charcoal, remove it and serve at once; swallow whole, as
+if you try to bite it your teeth will remind you of it for a
+considerable time, and in any case you will be conscious of its
+resting-place for the remainder of the day.
+
+When staying at a consulate in the middle of our tour, the consul's
+wife, horrified at our fare, offered to let her cook teach Arten a few
+simple dishes which would considerably add to our comfort. Arten
+acquiesced with very good grace, and was inducted, amongst other
+things, in the art of making cutlets. On our departure our kind
+hostess, moreover, provided us with a piece of meat suitable for
+cutlets. The first evening there was an undercurrent of excitement in
+the air; there were to be cutlets for dinner. Arten had an important,
+self-conscious bustle about him and looked mysterious; the Zaptiehs
+seemed awed and asked questions under their breath; the greedy
+muleteers were distinctly interested; we pretended to be unmoved.
+Finally, with a modest air, through which bumptiousness glared
+furiously, Arten announced that supper was ready. There was a covered
+dish keeping warm under the brazier; Arten very deliberately placed it
+before us and with a dramatic flourish removed the cover. We were only
+conscious of a yellow-looking crumby paste.
+
+"Where are the cutlets?" we asked, keeping up our courage nobly.
+
+"That is cutlets, Pasha."
+
+We tasted it; it appeared to consist of fried eggs and breadcrumbs. We
+felt justified in contradicting him, but he still persisted that it was
+cutlets.
+
+"But we want the cutlets, like those the Effendi's cook showed you how
+to make."
+
+"Yes, that is it, Pasha; that is what the Effendi's cook showed me."
+
+"But cutlets are meat," we persisted.
+
+"Yes, Pasha; but that is cutlets without the meat."
+
+This reasoning was incontrovertible. We tried to fill up with dates and
+rice and went to bed crestfallen and hungry. The next day we returned
+to the charge. I undertook to show Arten how to cook cutlets, though I
+had not the smallest idea myself how it ought to be done. I had an
+inkling, however, that egg and breadcrumbs were in it somehow.
+
+"Arten," I said, "cut the meat as the Effendi's cook did for cutlets."
+Arten obeyed.
+
+"Make egg and breadcrumb," I said. He did this also.
+
+"Now do with it what the Effendi's cook did," I said. Arten smeared the
+meat with it. I began to see light and breathed more freely, but I had
+still one venture to make.
+
+"Now cook the meat as the Effendi's cook did," I said.
+
+I held my breath; for all I knew they might now have to be boiled in a
+saucepan or toasted on a fork. But Arten appeared to know what he was
+doing. He took a frying-pan and fried them in fat. A glow of
+satisfaction crept all over me as I watched them beginning to resemble
+the finished appearance I was acquainted with. When they were actually
+on a dish, I said loftily:--
+
+"Please remember for the future that when we say we want cutlets, this
+is what we mean."
+
+"As you please," he answered affably; "I call them frisolen. I knew how
+to cook them before the Effendi's cook showed me," he went on.
+
+"Why did you never let us have them, then?" I said severely.
+
+"How could I know you would like them?" he answered with injured
+innocence.
+
+"How did you know we liked tough chunks burnt on a brazier?" was my icy
+retort.
+
+Arten shrugged his shoulders; there never has been any accounting for
+the whims of women.
+
+Small differences of opinion such as these were continually cropping up
+between us; and I would tell him in calm and measured tones, though in
+forcible English, what I thought of him. As the language was
+unintelligible to him, this method had the advantage of relieving my
+feelings without hurting his. But there were secret bonds of sympathy
+between us. We both suffered intensely from the cold, and Arten would
+carefully wrap things round me so that the apertures and crevices were
+not on the windward side. There is a good deal of art in this, and he
+did it very scientifically.
+
+"Little things feel the cold," he would say compassionately, and in
+such a kindly spirit that, for the moment, I forgave him his greed and
+forgot to feel undignified.
+
+We were also on common ground when I tried to cook dishes which I did
+not know how to cook. Currents of great sympathy ran between us when
+things did not seem to be turning out right and Arten would tentatively
+suggest various ways and means. But he never did what a foolish or
+disagreeable person would have done: he never expressed in his looks
+that I was no better than himself, which obviously would not have been
+true, since I did not pretend to be a cook, while Arten did.
+
+And then when the critical moments of our existence arrived and we
+placed the dish before X, we both watched with the same intensity for
+the expression of her face after the first mouthful. X was singularly
+appreciative, and, when she kept assuring us how excellent it was,
+Arten would glance at me encouragingly and appear to share the delight
+I experienced at my own prowess. X thought Arten's cookery good, too,
+but then she never knew what she was eating, and, if you do not know
+the name of the dish, how can you judge whether or not it is cooked as
+it ought to be?
+
+"What is this?" X would ask one day.
+
+"Mutton," Arten would answer.
+
+"What is this?" she would say the next day, when the identical
+substance was handed to her.
+
+"Chicken," Arten would answer. And X was perfectly satisfied.
+
+The next day it would be "tinned meat," and it was all the same to
+her--and to me; but then I knew what a liar Arten was.
+
+His kindness of heart and his desire to please us made it all the more
+difficult not to be irritated with him when circumstances did not draw
+out the better side of his nature. It is uncomfortable to despise
+people in a qualified manner, and I found it impossible to despise
+Arten unreservedly and therefore happily. There was no doubt that he
+was a horrible coward. If he had said, "I am a coward--I am afraid," he
+would have enlisted my sympathy for what it was worth, because I was a
+coward myself and admired sincerity. If he had even preserved a decent
+silence on the subject I should have been unable altogether to despise
+him, for that was the course I pursued myself. But when any real or
+imaginary danger was past he would come out with assumed and aggressive
+hilarity, and make tales about it and his prowess, which latter he had
+already made conspicuous enough by its absence. Yet his position was no
+doubt complicated: he knew that the Turks in our train despised not
+only him but his race; there was no one to suggest his courage if he
+did not do it himself, and, as he was unable to exhibit it in deeds, I
+have no doubt he saw no other course to pursue but that of publishing
+it by word of mouth. Moreover, he had suffered personally from bad
+treatment; the tale was a piteous one. Near his native town of Adana he
+had a small mill where he ground corn through the season. On one
+occasion he had done well and was on his way back to his wife and
+children in the town, carrying his earnings, which were to keep them
+through the winter. Half way home he was attacked by a band of robbers,
+who relieved him not only of his gold but of all his clothes. He had to
+remain in hiding by the roadside until some one passed from whom he
+could borrow a garment in which to return starved and penniless to his
+expectant family. Small wonder that the poor man shuddered at the word
+"Khursus" (brigand) which we laughingly joked about.
+
+"What is it to you?" he said one day; "you have rich relations, kind
+friends, and a just Government. If you are robbed, justice is done to
+you. But what can I expect but more abuse and ill-treatment?--and I
+have a wife and small children into the bargain!"
+
+When he was not posing as a hero, he was posing as a feature in the
+landscape. This was particularly exasperating, for no amount of pity
+for his condition would turn him into a picturesque martyr, even in the
+foreground of ancient ruins. No sooner was my camera produced than
+Arten produced himself. The only occasion on which I knew him keep out
+of sight was when I was trying to get a snap-shot of the band of Kurds
+who held us up on the Tigris. He seemed to have no desire to show
+himself, although I was considerate enough to invite him to occupy a
+prominent position for once. His appearance was not calculated to
+enhance the effect of any picture. He was like a starved black
+scarecrow dressed up in tight and clerical garments, with a fez on the
+top--and then there was the nose. He would have made any warm desert
+scene look cold, as it would not be obvious that he was perspiring, and
+in any group of picturesque natives he would look ludicrous.
+
+I recall, as I write, isolated moments of exasperation--when, for
+instance, he sat, singing a hymn, kicking up the dust with his heels,
+when we were trying to inflate ourselves with worthy feelings on the
+contemplation of Babylon, awed by the silence and desolation of the
+scene around us. Or again, how in a fit of nervousness he hurled the
+whole of our dinner in agitation on the floor, while we, after an
+unusually long fast, could have cried for food.
+
+But reviewing him calmly at a distance, one remembers a man that one
+alternately laughed at and pitied; who annoyed one by his transparent
+faults, but who commanded one's sympathy by his tragic condition, and
+one's admiration by his cheerful willingness in trying circumstances. A
+man who was meant by nature to be light-hearted and happy, kind to his
+fellows, energetic and interested in his work, ambitious for his
+children; but who fate dictated was to have his spirit quenched, his
+nature hardened, and mean and cowardly qualities developed owing to the
+fear, injustice, and poverty in which, like the rest of his countrymen,
+he was condemned to live.
+
+
+II. HASSAN.
+
+Hassan was an Albanian Turk; he belonged to one of the old Turkish
+families and looked every inch the gentleman that he was. Introduced to
+us by a common friend, he accompanied us during our seven months'
+wandering through Asiatic Turkey in a semi-professional capacity, but
+what that capacity was it would be difficult to define by any
+particular name. A dragoman he was not, though he called himself our
+"tergeman." "Tergeman," literally translated, being "interpreter," he
+could claim nothing entitling him to this function, for he spoke no
+European language, and it was not till we learnt Turkish that we could
+hold any spoken communication with him. Briefly, he acted as a sort of
+amateur dragoman without any of the qualifications usually expected of
+these gentlemen--and possessing a great many of the virtues in which,
+as a rule, they are sadly lacking. Essentially he was our Figure-head,
+and a splendid one he made, six foot six in stature and broad in
+proportion, as straight as a die and as supple as a willow, with a
+handsome head set well back on strong shoulders, and keen, kindly eyes
+which looked out very straight from under shaggy eyebrows. When he
+walked he put into his great stride a grace and dignity which soon
+earned for him the nickname of "the Prince." His chief characteristics
+were that gentleness which comes of great strength under perfect
+command; the courtesy which arises from a sense of other people's worth
+measured by a sense of his own; and an imperturbability which could be
+as irritating as it was admirable. "Ne faidet?" (what is the use?), was
+a favourite expression of his, and "ne faidet," he looked all over. In
+scenes of human quarrel, excitement, or danger, one was chiefly
+conscious of his calm indifference of mind and manner as he silently
+surveyed his companions in fear of brigands or in joy over a piece of
+meat. Yet he was a man full of the passions of his race, capable of an
+iron self-control when he thought fit to make use of it, but
+occasionally roused into a state of temper bordering on madness. On
+these occasions he would afterwards say his "jan" had had him by the
+throat, and he did not know what he was doing.
+
+A great man with a great imprisoned soul, as free and light-hearted as
+a careless boy when roaming in the great forests or on the bare
+mountain-side of his native home, fettered and fretful when the bonds
+of artificial civilisation held him.
+
+"What a Kallabalak! what is the use of this Kallabalak?" he would say
+with a wave of disgust when he got into the middle of a noisy crowd.
+"This is good, this is keyf," was his comment, with great gasps of
+enjoyment, when we three sat on the ground together in some lonely spot
+of a lonely desert. One felt he was breathing freely again. A silent
+man by nature, he could not bear loquacious people. "Burra, burra,
+burra," he would say, pointing his thumb at them; "burra, burra, burra,
+what is the use of all this talking?" If the remarks were addressed to
+him, they were always answered with stern courtesy. A talkative young
+Armenian rode with us one day and tried to draw him into conversation.
+"Is not that mirage in front of us? What a wonderful sight--trees and
+water and mountains! Do you not think it must be mirage, Effendi?"
+
+"With the eyes that Allah has given me, it does seem to be so, young
+man," was Hassan's grim answer, and he rode on without turning his head
+to right or left.
+
+Yet on occasion he enjoyed a refined "Kallabalak." One night in Cairo,
+when we had done for the time with camping and were seated in
+cleanliness and finery in the hotel garden, a confetti feast was going
+on. Serious young men and maidens, larky old men and festive matrons,
+were diverting themselves in the essentially hilarious proceeding of
+scattering confetti on one another. The garden was hung with Chinese
+lanterns; fireworks hissed and spluttered, shooting flames of colour.
+Hassan sat in convulsed enjoyment of the gay scene. It was a revelation
+to him of the lighter side of life. And when a charming young lady,
+bolder than the many who cast coy and curious glances at the handsome
+Turk, came and administered a dose of confetti down the back of his
+neck, he was overcome with glee and merriment. Afterwards, on
+subsequent wanderings in wilds and deserts, he would turn to us after
+hours of silence, and, bursting into a deep roar of laughter, would
+say, "Do you remember the paper and the foolish men and women?"
+
+His function, as I have said, was first and foremost that of
+Figure-head; he escorted us on our visits to Turkish officials and
+dignitaries, and, with grave dignity and courtly manner, unembarrassed
+by his own unshaven chin or the stains and dust of travel on our
+weather-worn and unwashed garments, he would make the most of anything
+entitling us to belong to "the great ones of England." He cast a
+general air of respectability over us, and we always felt it was
+largely due to him that we were shown so much consideration in a land
+where all travellers are treated with suspicion, and where women are
+not regarded in a particularly chivalrous light.
+
+But beside this, he was general caretaker of our personal comforts: he
+put up our camp-beds and arranged our tent; he always sat beside us at
+meals, which we took seated cross-legged on the ground, either outside
+by the camp-fire, or in bad weather on the floor of the tent. His first
+self-constituted duty was to peel the oranges with which we generally
+finished a meal; he removed the peel to form two cups, in which he
+neatly piled the sections and placed them beside us, carefully counting
+the pieces to make sure that he had treated us alike. "Shimdi" (now) he
+would say when we had finished the first course and we would ask for
+dates. "Shimdi" he would say again when the last of these were
+demolished. "Shimdi Kahiveh," and coffee would come in its turn.
+"Shimdi." "Nothing more." "Nothing," he would exclaim; "nothing?" "We
+will smoke now." "Tütün (tobacco), aha, Shimdi tütün," and he would
+light us each a cigarette. Then, when this too was finished,
+"Shimdi"--"Shimdi Rahat" (now rest), we answer--and he makes pillows
+for us with our saddle-bags and covers us over with rugs. This process
+was repeated every day until it became a stock joke. His jokes were all
+of this kind; there were certain standing ones which had to be gone
+through periodically. My Turkish was limited to about fifty words, so
+that conversation between us did not flow, but X, who had learned to
+speak more fluently, would ride with him for hours together, holding
+endless conversations on Turkish religion, habits, and ideas. When X
+and he fell out he would come and joke with me: one day I teazed him
+about being a better friend to her than to me.
+
+"How can that be?" he said gravely.
+
+"Because," I answered, "you quarrel with the Vali Pasha" (X was the
+Vali Pasha and I was the Padishah), "and then you make it up and are
+great friends again. But you are never cross with me. If I were your
+friend you would quarrel with me, too. But I am glad I am not your
+friend, or you would get angry with me." This idea seemed to tickle him
+immensely, and every day after this conversation there would be a
+moment when he would ride alongside of me, and, feigning an air of
+great disgust, would shrug his shoulders and say, "Istemen, istemen" (I
+do not want you). It was his singularly primitive way of acting a
+quarrel with me, and thereby showing that he and I were also friends. X
+would also attack him on the subject.
+
+"Why don't you go and scold the Padishah?" she said on one occasion;
+"she thinks the same as I do about these things, only she cannot talk
+Turkish, so she does not say them."
+
+"The Padishah is but a child," he answered; "it would hurt her. It
+would be a shame to hurt a child."
+
+As a matter of fact I was older than X in months, but her bodily
+proportions were larger than mine, and everything goes by size in the
+East.
+
+As time went on, however, we too had our little rubs, and his methods
+of making friends again were what one would expect from his schoolboy
+nature. If I was in the tent, he would throw stones at it until I
+looked out smiling; this was taken as a sign that the quarrel was over;
+he would roll up an extra large cigarette for me, and we would sit on
+the ground and have a smoke of peace together. Our friendship was of a
+silent nature. I made my fifty words express everything I had to say,
+and to simplify matters only used the verbs in the infinitive and nouns
+in the nominative. Long custom had established a certain meaning to
+various sentences between us which would have been unintelligible to
+any other Turk.
+
+"What Turkish, aman, what Turkish she speaks!" he used to say to X,
+holding up his hands in amused dismay.
+
+We taught him a few English sentences, of which he was very proud.
+
+"Pull it up," he invariably said when he held out his hand to help us
+off the ground.
+
+"Pull it down," was his formula when he arranged our habit skirts after
+mounting us.
+
+"Pull it off," when he helped us off with our oats.
+
+When he was in a temper I made him say, "I am a silly man," which he
+pronounced:
+
+"I am----
+
+"A Silliman."
+
+Although he did not know the meaning of the words, he connected them
+with his own misdemeanours.
+
+"Silliman yok (not), silliman yok," he used to say fiercely when he was
+beginning to repent and get ashamed of himself. He always said
+"Good-bight" for "Goodbye," confusing it with "Good-night."
+
+Great was his pleasure whenever in the course of our travels we came
+across a European, or any one who could speak a language which I
+understood.
+
+"See now," he would exclaim at the unwonted sight of me talking with
+any one, "she has found a friend!" And then, when we parted and I
+relapsed into silence: "See now, how sad she looks! She is thinking of
+her friend."
+
+And he would ride up to me compassionately.
+
+"Where is your friend now, Padishah?"
+
+"Where, indeed?" I answer. "I have no friend; you must buy me one in
+the bazaars next time we get to a town."
+
+"And how much money must I give for him, Padishah?"
+
+"You must not give much, because I am poor, but you must get a very
+good one."
+
+"Aman, ama, see now what she says: I must get a good one, and
+yet not give much money. Do you hear, Vali Pasha?"
+
+And when he came back from the bazaars:
+
+"I have bought the friend, Padishah."
+
+"Where is he? I don't see him."
+
+"He is here, in my bag."
+
+"How much did you give for him?"
+
+"Ten piastres."
+
+"He cannot be a good one if he is as cheap as that, and so small that
+he will go in your bag."
+
+"Oh yes, he is a good friend," and he produces a roll of tobacco; "a
+good friend and little money. That was what you said, wasn't it,
+Padishah?"
+
+And I reflect that there is many a true word spoken in jest.
+
+"Has she no friend in England," he asked X one day, "or does she never
+speak in England either?"
+
+"Yes," said X, "she has a friend in England, and she does not speak
+because she is thinking of him."
+
+"And you, Vali Pasha, have you also a friend in England?"
+
+"Yes," I answered for X; "she has twenty-nine friends in England, and
+you are only the thirtieth."
+
+And Hassan would ride on in silence, pondering over the strange ways of
+English ladies.
+
+Amongst his other duties he had to purchase the food, pay the muleteers
+and soldiers, and give tips; and it fell to my lot to do up the
+accounts with him periodically. The unusual mental exertion required by
+this he found very trying. His imperturbability would forsake him
+completely. On the first occasion he broke down altogether. "What can I
+do with figures?" he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks; "let me
+go back to my hills and forests; I am only a poor hunter. She brings
+out her little book and I shall not know how the piastres have gone,
+and she will think I have taken her piastres," and he laid his head on
+his knees and groaned aloud.
+
+When we became better acquainted, however, "hisab" (accounts) became a
+joke, though they always caused him to perspire profusely.
+
+At first my entire ignorance of the language made our intercourse over
+the account-book somewhat difficult. We would sit on the ground
+opposite one another, and Hassan would fumble in the folds of his belt
+until he had found his spectacles and his account-book.
+
+"Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki (very good), Effendim; yimurta (eggs), 2 piastres." I would write
+it down.
+
+"Yasdin me?"
+
+"Ne yasdin me?" (what is "yasdin me?").
+
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?"
+
+I have not the smallest idea what "yasdin me" means, but I pretend to
+write it down and then say:
+
+"How many piastres was it?"
+
+Hassan makes a gesture of despair.
+
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?" he repeats again.
+
+"X," I shout across the tent, "what does 'yasdin me' mean? I suppose
+it's some sort of food, only he won't tell me how many piastres it
+costs."
+
+"It means 'Have you written it?'" said X calmly.
+
+"Yasdin me?" repeats Hassan again.
+
+"Yes," I answer meekly.
+
+"Aha, now she know," says Hassan, and he mops his forehead vigorously.
+"I say 'Yasdin me' and she says, 'How many piastres?' Aman, aman!"
+
+"Peki, Effendim" (very good), he goes on. "Etmek (bread), 3 piastres.
+Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim. Et (meat), 12 piastres. Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim. Pilij (chicken), 3 piastres."
+
+"Ne Pilij?" (what is pilij?).
+
+"Pilij, _pilij_, PILIJ."
+
+"Yes, but what is it?"
+
+"Pilij, pilij--she doesn't know pilij, and she learns it every day."
+
+He begins to crow like a cock.
+
+"Oh yes, I know."
+
+"Ah, ah, now she knows! Peki; pilij 3 piastres. Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim."
+
+And so we go on through all the items, and finally add up the total in
+our respective languages. By means of holding up our ten fingers a
+large number of times, we ascertain whether the results tally, for in
+those early days I could only count in Turkish up to twenty-nine, and
+knew the words for a hundred and a thousand. Then Hassan would give a
+great sigh, close his book, fold his spectacles, take off his fez, and
+wipe his head all over, and finally forget his troubles under the
+soothing influence of tobacco.
+
+[Illustration: ERECH. SYRIAN DESERT.]
+
+And so the days slipped away. At the end of six months we landed out of
+the Syrian desert into Damascus. An immense change came over Hassan
+when he was released from the anxieties of piloting us through
+impossible places and rumoured dangers. He became more boyish and
+cheerful and amused at everything. His first care on arriving at the
+end of our journey was, after spending several hours in a public bath,
+to go a clean and happy man to the Mosque, to return thanks to Allah
+for having brought us safely through.
+
+We had been to call at the consulate, and, as we drove up to the hotel
+on our return, I caught sight of Hassan in the street with a crowd
+round him; he was strutting up and down in his shirt-sleeves, with his
+head even more thrown back than usual and a wild look in his eye.
+
+"Good heavens," I said to X, "the Prince must have got into one of his
+tempers and killed a few people in the street," and I anxiously looked
+round for signs of gore. The Prince took no notice of us, but stalked
+up and down, the crowd making way before him with looks of awe.
+
+"What are we to do?" I said; "he looks as if he had gone off his head
+and would knock down any one who comes near him."
+
+"He does look like a prize-fighter," said X; "I have never seen him
+look like that before."
+
+Our cook was standing on the steps.
+
+"What is the matter with Hassan?" I said to him.
+
+The man stared.
+
+"Nothing," he said, "it's only his new shirt."
+
+We went inside, telling him to fetch Hassan to us.
+
+The Prince stalked into the room with the same air with which he had
+been stalking the streets, and stood in front of us with an excited and
+expectant expression.
+
+"The cook is right," said X; "it is his new shirt. He is overcome with
+pride and conceit; he is on parade, that's all."
+
+He certainly had something to be conceited about. The shirt was of fine
+silk in gorgeous yellow and red stripes; round his waist was a wide,
+bright-coloured kammerband, round his head a new keffiyeh flashed all
+the colours of the rainbow. Clean and shaven, his tight-fitting shirt
+showing up the strong outline of his muscular frame, he exhibited, to
+say the least of it, a striking spectacle.
+
+We were evidently expected to be overcome at the magnificence of his
+appearance, and certainly we did not disappoint him in this respect.
+
+"You are grand," said X to him in his own language; "you quite surprise
+us."
+
+Hassan put his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted up and down
+the room, speechless with delight.
+
+"Who would have thought you could be such a turkey-cock, you old
+gander!" I said in English.
+
+"What is she saying?" said Hassan to X.
+
+"She says you are just like a very magnificent bird we have in
+England," answered X.
+
+Hassan beamed triumphantly.
+
+"You have fine clothes," he said; "I must not disgrace you."
+
+"Is he always going about in his shirt-sleeves, I wonder?" I inquired.
+X asked him.
+
+"It is quite usual in my country not to wear a coat in hot weather," he
+said; "my coat is old and dirty, and my shirt is new and clean: why
+should I wear my coat?"
+
+And he rarely put it on again.
+
+He loved to see us in nice clothes, and took great delight in wandering
+about the bazaars with us buying presents for the "twenty-nine friends"
+in England. But we used to sigh over the good old camping days.
+
+"Hebsi bitdi" (all is over), he would say dolefully, when anything
+particularly brought them back to our thoughts.
+
+We rode down Palestine and took him over to Egypt with us. Evading with
+difficulty the importunities of Cook, and the rush of tourists on the
+beaten track, we tried to steal days which brought back a sense of our
+old free-and-easy times.
+
+But there came a day when there was an end to it all, an end to the
+long silent rides, an end to the quiet smokes in desert places, an end
+to the little daily jokes, an end to the serious talks and the foolish
+quarrels, an end to the Kallabalaks and the Keyfs.
+
+We stood on the steamer which was to take Hassan back to his old life
+in the forests of the Turkmendagh.
+
+"You will soon be going a long journey with some one else," said X
+cheeringly.
+
+Hassan shook his head.
+
+"No, indeed," he said; "I should take care not to go with two ladies
+again, and I shall not go with a man, for no man would be so much of a
+fool as to wish to go such a mad journey."
+
+The steamer gave vent to its first hideous whistle. We put our fingers
+to our ears.
+
+"Good-bight, little Padishah," he said, as we clasped hands for the
+last time; "good-bight. Go home to your friend in England; he will be
+glad to see you looking so fat."
+
+"Silly man," I said with a lump in my throat.
+
+"Silliman yok," he answered.
+
+The whistle blew again, we turned and went our different ways. If there
+had been a stone he would have thrown it after me; as it was, when I
+turned he made a face and shouted, "Istemen, istemen!"
+
+And now, looking back on those days, there rises invariably before us
+the memory of this companion in our many adventures--the memory of a
+simple-minded, honourable man, a trusted friend, a pleasant companion,
+and a devoted servant, who, whether he was sharing the discomforts and
+dangers of winter travel in a wild and lawless country, or experiencing
+the joyous freedom of the roaming desert life we loved so well, or
+enduring the terrors of critical and carping civilisation, invariably
+put us in the foremost place, and, without swerving an inch from the
+traditions of his race, never offended the susceptibilities of ours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+RETROSPECTIVE
+
+
+Last night we were dirty, isolated, and free; to-night we are clean,
+sociable, and trammelled. Last night the setting sun's final message
+written in flaming signs of gold was burnt into us, and the starry
+heights carried our thoughts heavenward and made them free as
+themselves. To-night the sunset passed all unheeded and we gaze, as we
+retire from the busy rush of the trivial day, at a never-ending,
+twisting, twirling pattern on the four walls that imprison us,
+oppressed by the confining ceiling of our room in the Damascus Palace
+Hotel.
+
+We are no longer princesses whose hands and feet are kissed, whose word
+is law, sharing the simple hospitality of proud and dignified wayfarers
+in desert kingdoms. Our word is law according to the depth of our
+purses, our hands and feet are kissed according to the height of our
+floor in the hotel. We are no longer in a land where men and women are
+judged by their capacities for being men and women: the cost of our
+raiment apportions our rank.
+
+We are now no longer amongst people to whom we say what we mean and are
+silent when we have nothing to say. We are in surroundings where to say
+what you mean is an offence, where silence is not understood and looked
+upon askance as an uncanny visitor. The less we have to say, the more
+we make an effort to say it; and the more we have to say, the greater
+the effort to suppress it.
+
+Everything seems unreal or unnecessary, everything is dressed up.
+
+All these people moving about, sitting still, in a hurry, catching
+trains, eating long dinners, dressing themselves, looking at each other
+dressed--what does it all mean? Was all this going on when we were in
+that other world which we have just left, that great silent world where
+everything was itself and big, and not confused by accessories? Was all
+this din and bustle going on? It is strange that we should have had no
+inkling of it, for it seems of so much importance to all these people,
+idle with a great restlessness; it seems essential to them.
+
+It is hard, too, to realise that that other world still exists out
+there in the distance, and that it would be quite possible to reach it
+by merely riding out on a camel. Can it indeed be true that the same
+sun which lights all these moving streets, these buyers and sellers,
+these catchers of trains, is lighting the desert out there as
+imperturbably as it lit us, journeying on after it day after day in the
+silent places; did it see all these people from its inaccessible
+height, and, sharing its gifts equally with them and with us, give us
+no hint of what it was looking down upon? It showed then no more favour
+to us than to these dwellers in towns, and yet was it not more to us?
+Were we not more conscious of its innumerable gifts; and did we not
+receive more from it as a result of our greater appreciation? No bars
+of windows, no roofy outlines, no sleepy oblivion hid the glory of its
+first appearance for us. As far as its rays could range, so far, and
+further, could we see. Not a pale silver thread or wiry line of gold,
+or faint reflection of its glowing colours on the opposite horizon, was
+lost to our vision; and, as we rode through the chilly morning air,
+were we not conscious of every separate ray of warmth as it grew and
+grew until we were bathed in its delicious heat, and all day it served
+as our sole guide, indicating direction in boundless space and hour in
+limitless time. No finger-posts, no winding up of clocks; only this sun
+with its fixed and unalterable decrees.
+
+The sun, then, we share, although apparently in divers degrees. But was
+not the moon more for us alone? For they can shut it out from their
+lives altogether. It, too, looked down upon this city, but not on the
+noise and chaos of it. As far as it was concerned all the bustlers were
+dead, buried away in their roofed houses behind their shuttered
+windows. The silence of night is the moon's heritage, and it exercises
+its autocratic sway to the full; it admits no disturbing rush or
+unseemly hurry beneath its gaze. What do they know of you who pull down
+blinds and light up the gas and dwell in curtained rooms? Accident may
+cause a benighted traveller to look at you with a passing sense of
+rest, a casual tossing sleeper may be half conscious of your charm, the
+weary toiler at the end of a long day may momentarily bless your
+soothing light, and in so far as they take hold of you they make
+themselves akin with us out there. But you are not a part of them, as
+you are a part of us; you do not enter into the very heart of their
+existence and carry their minds up, night after night, to the realms
+where you live serene and calm, making us forget the saddle rubs, the
+parching thirst, the driven sand, the fire that would not light, the
+kettle that would not boil--all the little near things, the things
+which matter so much in the day, and which you remind us do not matter
+at night. But here they matter so much more at night, all shut up with
+us inside these confining walls--inside these muslin curtains. The
+darkness and the enclosed space make them assume exaggerated
+dimensions; all the little trivialities in the room accentuate their
+importance. We see them cropping up again and again in that blue flower
+on the wall paper, or running round and round the red coils on the
+dado. We raise our eyes to heaven and encounter the fixed, inane smile
+of a painted lady with a wand, seated in a wreath of flowers. We shut
+our eyes, determined to forget her, but a terrible fascination makes us
+peep again and again, and always that same inane smile; and when at
+last the kindly shades of night hide it altogether in darkness, we are
+still conscious of her only, smiling away there, looking at us while we
+cannot see her. And all the time outside the steadfast moon and the
+stars eternally twinkling are telling the same tale that they told out
+in that other world, but we have shut them out and will not listen to
+their silent teaching.
+
+In vain the Prophet of the Desert has said:
+
+"And we have adorned the lower heaven with lamps and set them to pelt
+the devils with ... we touched the heavens, and found them filled with
+a mighty guard and shooting stars, and we did sit in certain seats
+thereof to listen; but whoso of us listens now finds a shooting star
+for him on guard."
+
+Emblems of all the great abiding truths have been set up on high,
+where, one would have thought, every poor, striving mortal could not
+fail to see them; vastness and distance is displayed as a rest to those
+wearied with the smallness and nearness of things; solidity and
+eternity are there to comfort the grievers over passing men and
+disappointed hopes; the kindly darkness which hides us intermittently
+from our fellows is pierced with points of guiding light. And yet we do
+not habitually, and as a matter of course, accept these gifts for which
+no price is asked; we go blundering on, intensifying the grim blackness
+of night by shutting ourselves up with it, surrounded with all the
+small things of earth, and this when we might forget them by reason of
+their very smallness in the vast distances of the vaulted heavens. It
+almost seems as though we would deliberately wish to hide from
+ourselves and each other the few simple sufficient laws of existence,
+for in this as in other things we not only avoid the truth but appear
+ashamed of it, and dress it up in every possible accessory of human
+invention.
+
+We dress everything up--our bodies, our minds, our food. I look down
+this long _table d'hôte_, and what do I see? I see a crowd of people
+dressed up, exchanging dressed-up commonplaces, eating dressed-up
+food.
+
+I feel that nothing is real.
+
+But this unreality is so real that I ask:
+
+"Have, then, the unrealities, the non-essentials of existence become
+the realities, and have we, emerging from a world where only the
+essentials of existence concerned us, given them an undue importance?
+Coming out of a state of primitive civilisation, are we unable to
+appreciate the true meaning of our surroundings? These people wear the
+burdens of fashion so lightly, they talk these complicated nothings so
+simply, they toil so contentedly discontented through these endless
+disguised dishes: what is it behind it all that our minds cannot
+grasp?" I look again: I talk to them and they answer me; I eat another
+dressed-up dish. Here I feel a weary heart, there I touch a bored mind;
+now one gets a flash of intellect, now a gleam of soul, all alike so
+carefully wrapped up, and yet with a longing to be out. Why this
+unnatural dread of truth and simplicity? I am getting positively
+affected by it. I sit here amongst these smart people in my travelling
+clothes, and I confess to a new strange sense of discomfort in
+consequence. I feel ashamed of my old clothes. Opposite to me is a lady
+with a kindly face and a comfortable look about her; her mauve dress
+gives a pleasing sense of colour, but as she moves two beaded flaps
+keep jumping about, which detracts from the sense of repose suggested
+by her comfortable look; when she leans back an array of stitched beads
+catches on the carved projection of the chair, and she has to be
+disengaged by the waiter. Her sleeves drooping gracefully from the
+elbow require elaborate gymnastics to prevent them dipping into her
+plate as she eats, and twice they caught in the pepper-pot and
+overturned its contents on the floor. But she bore it all with a
+pleasant apologetic smile which called out my admiration for such a
+display of schooled temper under these trying circumstances. Then, with
+an unconscious transition of thought, I found myself comparing her to
+the Arab woman who brought the bowl of youart off which we supped last
+night. I recalled how I envied her the dignified carriage of her free
+unfettered form, the natural grace of her untrammelled manners. I
+recalled the simple graceful folds of her clinging single garment, so
+much a part of herself that she was quite unconscious of it, and I
+compare this lady trying to adapt herself to the elaborate creation in
+which she is enthralled. Long custom prevents her from realising how
+her form and movements are rendered artificial and ungraceful. As the
+Chinese lady, unconscious of her deformity in feet, would resent or
+wonder at our pity for her enslaved by the idea of a barbarous custom,
+so would my neighbour resent or wonder should I feel pity for her at
+this moment, equally a slave to a Western idea.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I glanced at my battered old coat and was pervaded with a sense of
+remorse at having been ashamed of it.
+
+Here, in the middle of this bewildering appearance of unreality, it
+was telling me of so many solid facts. How often had it not covered
+the aching pangs of hunger, and the satisfied sense of that hunger
+appeased; it had felt the thumping of my heart stirred by danger, or
+hastened by exhilarating motion; it had known the long-drawn breaths of
+quiet enjoyment at a peaceful scene. That tear was made on the rocks
+the day we climbed to the "written stone" at the top of the Boulghar
+Mountains, and I mended it one long quiet evening by the Euphrates. I
+lost this button the night we scrambled up to the castle at Palmyra, my
+little friend Maydi pulled me up a rock by it and it broke. That burnt
+mark was made by Mahmet, who dropped the live charcoal with which I was
+lighting my cigarette in the shaykh's hut at Harran. All this and more
+is what my coat says to me.... I am no longer ashamed of it. I feel
+sure if the kind lady opposite realised all this she would not regard
+me as an outcast, for there is something very honest about the coat.
+
+But I had got no further away from the feeling of unreality. I tried to
+recall what it had felt like to live in civilisation, but all I could
+remember was how difficult it had been to disentangle ourselves from
+it. While we were still in it, we had not known what we should want
+outside it. But, once outside, all these difficulties had disappeared:
+everything at once seemed to happen naturally; we missed nothing of the
+things we had left behind. And as it had been difficult while we were
+still in it to get disentangled from it, so now we experienced a
+difficulty in entering it again--a difficulty in once more taking up
+and using the things we had discarded for a time. It was as if we had
+never used them, so strange did they seem, and so little did we
+understand their meaning. Entering it differed, moreover, in this way
+from our entrance into the new life outside it; once in it nothing
+seemed to happen naturally. This was the more disconcerting since
+civilisation was not altogether a new world to us, in the sense that
+the other had been. We had spent many long years in it, and yet on
+returning we found it all strange and incomprehensible.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We rose and left the table. Hassan joined us at the door, and we all
+sat down on a red plush settee. Waiters hurried past us with trays of
+coffee and stronger drinks; ladies in bright colours rustled about the
+passage; and in the corners men in evening dress lounged and smoked.
+Hassan stroked the settee gingerly. "It is very soft," he said, "but
+the sand was better." Then he looked round and paused. "What are all
+these people doing?" he asked irritably; "why can't they sit down and
+be quiet. There is no quiet here; the sand was better." Earlier in the
+day he had been pleased with the bright colours and the sense of
+movement, but now they seemed to vex him.
+
+"Why do they keep on looking at us?" he went on; "is it because you are
+great Pashas?"
+
+"No," I answered, "they have no idea that we are great Pashas."
+
+"My countrymen in the desert looked at you because you were strangers
+from another country and they had not seen women like you before; but
+these are your own countrymen: why do they stare at you?"
+
+"It is because we are not dressed like them," I said; "we have not got
+our beautiful clothes yet; when these come they will no longer look at
+us."
+
+"But can they not see that you are travelling?" he said. "The people of
+my country, the Valis and the Kaimakams who prepared feasts for us,
+knew that you also had beautiful clothes in your own country."
+
+"Yes, but our travelling clothes are not quite the same as those worn
+by our countrymen here," I explained, "so they do not understand us."
+
+"But why," persisted Hassan, "should that cause them not to understand
+you?"
+
+"We all do alike in our country," I explained; "if one person wears no
+pockets and big sleeves, then we all do the same."
+
+"Who is this person then?" said Hassan; "he must be a very great
+Pasha."
+
+"We none of us know who he is," I said; "in fact, he is not any one
+particular person; it is more like a sort of jinn who spreads about an
+unwritten law."
+
+Hassan looked perplexed.
+
+"And are there no written words," he said, "to tell you the meaning of
+this law?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "the people in our land who have the most money write
+out the meaning of the law."
+
+"And if you do not follow the law, what then?"
+
+"Your fellow-creatures are rather afraid of you; they do not ask you to
+their feasts, neither do they give you places of command, however
+capable you may be."
+
+"Is it this jinn that makes your men wear the hard black hats and the
+tight black clothes?"
+
+I nodded assent.
+
+"And it is not only our clothes," I added; "the jinn says we may not
+think differently from other people, or if we do, we must hide it."
+
+"Is it a sin that your country has committed that it is thus
+condemned," he went on, "or is the jinn an evil spirit under whose
+curse it lies?"
+
+"We do not know," I said. "There are some of the younger men who are
+trying to discover; they do not do as the jinn says, and so they do not
+live happily amongst others; many of them live apart, and we call them
+cranks and are afraid of them."
+
+"Are they wicked men, then?"
+
+"No, they are good men as a rule, but in our country we do not
+understand the people who do not do what others do."
+
+"But if you all do the same," said Hassan, "how can you progress? We in
+the East have not changed our customs, so we do not progress. Do you
+never change then either, you in the West?"
+
+"We change very slowly," I answered, "because we tend to the thought
+that if a thing has always been, then it is good."
+
+"Aman, aman," said Hassan.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+ITINERARY OF JOURNEY
+
+
+ KONIA TO TARSUS.
+
+ Chumra.
+ Kisilkeui.
+ Karaman.
+ Adeteppe.
+ Buadjik.
+ Eregli.
+ Tchaym.
+ Ulu Kishla.
+ Boulghar Maden.
+ Chiftekhan.
+ Ak Kupru.
+ Gulek Boghaz.
+ A Khan.
+ Tarsus.
+
+(These stages are from 5 to 8 hours.)
+
+
+ ADANA TO DIARBEKR. (18 stages.)
+
+ Hours.
+ Missis 4 Small village with khan.
+ Hamidieh 4-1/2 Cotton-mills and town.
+ Kalakeui 5 Small Kurdish village.
+ Osmanieh 1-1/2 Town.
+ Bagtsche 6 Village.
+ Shekasskeui 5 Village with khan.
+ Avjilar 5 Small Kurdish village. No khan.
+ Aintab 5 Town.
+ Urral 5 Village with khan.
+ Birejik 5 Town. Ferry across Euphrates.
+ Abermor 6 Kurdish huts.
+ Karekeui 6 Kurdish huts.
+ Urfa 3-1/2 Town.
+ Sheksheligher 7 Khan.
+ Mismischen 7 Large khan.
+ Severek 6 Town.
+ Kaimach 7 Large khan.
+ Gergeli 6 Small Kurdish village.
+ Diarbekr 3-1/2
+
+
+ BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS. (27 stages.)
+
+ Hours.
+ Menasseyeh No village.
+ Fellujah 6 Village on Euphrates.
+ Rumadeyeh 6 Village on Euphrates.
+ _Hit_ 10 Town on Euphrates.
+ Bagdadi 8 Ruined water-mill on Euphrates.
+ Hadittah 8 Village on Euphrates.
+ Fukaymeh 6-1/2 Large khan on Euphrates.
+ _Ana_ 7 Town on Euphrates.
+ Niteyah 8 Guard-house on Euphrates.
+ Gayyim 9-1/2 Guard-house on Euphrates.
+ Abu Kamal 5 Village on Euphrates.
+ Salihiyyeh 7 Khan with a few Arab huts.
+ Micardin 9-1/2 Village.
+ Deir-el-Zor 7 Town.
+ Pools of
+ brackish water 2-1/2
+ Guard-house 8 Well of bad water.
+ Bir Jeddid 8 Well of bad water.
+ Suknak 9 Village with hot sulphur springs.
+ Erek 8-1/2 Village.
+ Tadmor 6 Palmyra.
+ Baytha 6 Khan with bad water.
+ Gusayr 16 (Camping-place half-way, where water
+ is found early in the year).
+ Karietein 7 Village.
+ Nasariyeh 12 Village.
+ Kutayfah 5 Village.
+ Guard-house 2
+ Damascus 4
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
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+<title>By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa (Jebb) Wilkins&#8212;A Project Gutenberg eBook</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By Desert Ways to Baghdad
+
+Author: Louisa Jebb
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2011 [EBook #38319]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<big>BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD</big>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><i>UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<table class="small" summary="Book titles and authors">
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE GREAT BOER WAR.</td>
+<td><i>Arthur Conan Doyle.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS.</td>
+<td><i>G. W. E. Russell.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>REMINISCENCES.</td>
+<td><i>Sir Henry Hawkins.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN.</td>
+<td><i>R. Barry O'Brien.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO.</td>
+<td><i>E. S. Grogan.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN.</td>
+<td><i>Dean Hole.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF FRANK BUCKLAND.</td>
+<td><i>George C. Bompas.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A MODERN UTOPIA.</td>
+<td><i>H. G. Wells.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM.</td>
+<td><i>G. W. Steevens.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE UNVEILING OF LHASA.</td>
+<td><i>Edmund Candler.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF LORD DUFFERIN.</td>
+<td><i>Sir A. Lyall.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL.</td>
+<td><i>John Foster Fraser.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LITERATURE AND DOGMA.</td>
+<td><i>Matthew Arnold.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>SPURGEON'S SERMONS.</td>
+<td><i>Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>MY CONFIDENCES.</td>
+<td><i>Frederick Locker-Lampson.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.</td>
+<td><i>Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER.</td>
+<td><i>Colonel Durand.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF GENERAL GORDON.</td>
+<td><i>Demetrius C. Boulger.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN.</td>
+<td><i>Mrs. Earle.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE RING AND THE BOOK.</td>
+<td><i>Robert Browning.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE ALPS FROM END TO END.</td>
+<td><i>Sir W. Martin Conway.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.</td>
+<td><i>Walter Bagehot.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN.</td>
+<td><i>Lord Morley.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF PARNELL.</td>
+<td><i>R. Barry O'Brien.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>HAVELOCK'S MARCH.</td>
+<td><i>J. W. Sherer.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>UP FROM SLAVERY.</td>
+<td><i>Booker Washington.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE.</td>
+<td><i>H. Hesketh Prichard.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>HISTORICAL MYSTERIES.</td>
+<td><i>Andrew Lang.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE STRENUOUS LIFE.</td>
+<td><i>Theodore Roosevelt.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY.</td>
+<td><i>Dr. John Kerr.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF DANTON.</td>
+<td><i>Hilaire Belloc.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A POCKETFUL OF SIXPENCES.</td>
+<td><i>G. W. E. Russell.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL.</td>
+<td><i>James Milne.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A BOOK ABOUT ROSES.</td>
+<td><i>S. Reynolds Hole.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>RANDOM REMINISCENCES.</td>
+<td><i>Charles Brookfield.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE LONDON POLICE COURTS.</td>
+<td><i>Thomas Holmes.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE AMATEUR POACHER.</td>
+<td><i>Richard Jefferies.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE BANCROFTS.</td>
+<td><i>Sir Squire Bancroft.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>AT THE WORKS.</td>
+<td><i>Lady Bell.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>MEXICO AS I SAW IT.</td>
+<td><i>Mrs. Alec Tweedie.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIGNETTES.</td>
+<td><i>Austin Dobson.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR.</td>
+<td><i>Edward Whymper.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE EARLY HISTORY OF C. J. FOX.</td>
+<td><i>Sir G. O. Trevelyan.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA.</td>
+<td><i>H. Hesketh Prichard.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>BROWNING AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND<br>RELIGIOUS TEACHER.</td>
+<td><i>Professor Henry Jones.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF TOLSTOY.</td>
+<td><i>Charles Sarolea.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND.</td>
+<td><i>Harry de Windt.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL.</td>
+<td><i>Stuart Dodgson Collingwood.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS.</td>
+<td><i>Eug&#232;ne Andr&#233;.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE MANTLE OF THE EAST.</td>
+<td><i>Edmund Candler.</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET.</td>
+<td><i>Prince Ranjitsinhji.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p class="ctr">
+<i>Etc., etc.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<i>Others to follow.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="frontis"><img src="images/001.jpg" alt="SKETCH MAP OF AUTHOR'S ROUTE" width="493" height="311"></a></div>
+<p class="caption">
+SKETCH MAP OF AUTHOR'S ROUTE
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="Titlepage" width="271" height="450"></div>
+
+
+<h1>
+<small>BY</small><br>DESERT WAYS<br><small>TO</small><br>BAGHDAD
+</h1>
+<br>
+
+<h3>
+BY
+</h3>
+
+<h2>
+LOUISA JEBB<br>
+<small>(MRS. ROLAND WILKINS)</small>
+</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="Publisher's logo" width="66" height="100"></div>
+
+<h4>
+THOMAS NELSON &#38; SONS<br>
+
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN<br>
+AND NEW YORK
+</h4>
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+<div class="titlepoem">
+<div class="titlestanza">
+<p>"Oft have I said, I say it once more,</p>
+<p>I, a wanderer, do not stray from myself;</p>
+<p>I am a kind of parrot; the mirror is holden to me;</p>
+<p>What the Eternal says, I, stammering, say again."</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+
+<p class="section">
+CONTENTS
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="txt">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="txt"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="part" colspan="3">PART I</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="name" colspan="3">BRUSA TO DIARBEKR</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Prologue</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#prologue">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">I.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Disentanglement</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#I">23</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">II.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Brigandage</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#II">34</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">III.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Social Intercourse</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#III">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">IV.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">The Dawn of the Baghdad Railway</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#IV">55</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">V.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">In the Taurus</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#V">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">VI.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Royal Progress</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#VI">112</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">VII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Harran: A Digression into the Land of Abraham</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#VII">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">VIII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">That Unblessed Land, Mesopotamia</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#VIII">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="part" colspan="3">PART II</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="name" colspan="3">DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">IX.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Afloat</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#IX">167</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">X.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Held Up</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#X">175</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XI.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">A Reception and a Dance</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XI">194</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">An Encounter with an Englishman</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XII">204</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XIII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">The Creed of the Koran</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XIII">215</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XIV.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">The Evil One</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XIV">227</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XV.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Arab Hospitality</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XV">241</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XVI.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">A Storm and a Lull</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XVI">254</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XVII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">An Encounter with Fanatics</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XVII">267</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XVIII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">The End of the Raft</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XVIII">277</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="part" colspan="3">PART III</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="name" colspan="3">BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XIX.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Babylon</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XIX">287</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XX.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">The Sound of the Desert</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XX">302</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XXI.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Palmyra</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XXI">316</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XXII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">An Armenian and a Turk</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XXII">325</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">XXIII.</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Retrospective</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#XXIII">354</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Appendix</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#appendix">367</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p class="section">
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Illustrations">
+<tr>
+<td class="txt">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="pg"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Map</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">A Well in the Konia Plains</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#plains">64</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Hittite Bas-relief and Inscription. Ivriz</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#hittite">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Jacob's Well. Harran</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#jacob">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt">"<span class="sc">Drawing Skins of Water</span>"</td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#water">225</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Palmyra. Triumphal Arch</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#arch">256</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Hassan</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#hassan">321</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="txt"><span class="sc">Erech. Syrian Desert</span></td>
+<td class="pg"><a href="#desert">352</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+<a name="prologue">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="firstchapter">
+PROLOGUE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It was a hot midsummer's day; X and I sat on the long grass under an
+apple-tree: she had a map of Asia and I had a Murray's Handbook. We
+were about to travel together in the East. X was going primarily in
+search of health; but she had studied comparative religions and was
+prepared to be incidentally intelligent about it&#8212;visit mosques and
+tombs, identify classical spots, and take rubbings of inscriptions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was merely going with X. She had unearthed me from a remote
+agricultural district in the West of England with the idea that contact
+with the agricultural labourer would have fitted me for dealing with
+the male attendants who were incident to our proposed form of travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were fully agreed on one fundamental point&#8212;that we should choose a
+country which could be reached otherwise than by sea; and that, having
+reached it, its nature should be such that we could travel indefinitely
+in it without reaching the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now of all the continents Asia Minor is the one best adapted for this
+purpose; for if you were a giant you could easily step across the bit
+of inland sea which separates Europe from Asia in the neighbourhood of
+Constantinople; and once landed on the other side your field of
+operations is practically unlimited, extending even into the adjoining
+continent of Africa; for any one who could step across the Bosphorus
+could also step across the Suez Canal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But having once settled on the particular continent, our ideas were
+somewhat vague. How indeed can they be otherwise if you propose
+travelling in a country which has not yet been ticketed and docketed
+for the tourist? This product of a modern age can, thanks to Messrs.
+Cook and Lunn, already tell, in the corner of his own fireside, the
+exact hour at which he will be gazing at the dome of St. Sophia on any
+particular day, or at which he will be eating his dinner, with the
+number of courses specified, in the hotel the outside appearance of
+which is already depicted on the itinerary. But it was not to be so
+with us. What we should eat and what we should gaze upon was still
+wrapt in the mystery of the great unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X took a pencil and marked a straight line from Constantinople across
+the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus Mountains to Tarsus. "That looks a
+good point to make for," she said, "Alexander led an army over the
+Taurus." Then, having stopped within measurable distance of the sea,
+she drew her pencil eastwards across the Euphrates to a point on the
+Tigris high up in the Kurdistan mountains; from here she drew another
+line following the Tigris to Baghdad. At this point we were coming
+dangerously near the sea, so turning back she marked a line in the
+contrary direction across the Syrian desert to Damascus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That will do for a start," she said; "we can fill in the details when
+we get there."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this method of undertaking a journey might have its disadvantages
+in what is known as a civilised country; for here we are all such
+servers of time that unless we arrange everything beforehand, as
+everybody else does, we are apt to get pushed aside; you must,
+therefore, take your place in the general hustle and secure your bed
+and your dinner and your right to look at sights by ticket long before
+you are in need of them. In short, you must make a plan. But in the
+untravelled parts of the East you reign supreme; there is no need to go
+about securely chained to a gold watch which metes out with inexorable
+exactitude the dictates of railway time-tables, steamers, diligences,
+and <i>table d'h&#244;te</i> summonses. Ignore Time, and he is at once your
+servant; treat him with respect, and he at once becomes your master. In
+those countries where Time has become master he develops a system of
+locomotion to which you must conform or lose its benefits; it will not
+accommodate itself to you. But in the East, do you but recognise the
+principle of making Time your own and at once plans become unnecessary.
+Systems of locomotion, for instance, spring up in answer to a
+preliminary wish in your brain; and their existence being solely due to
+you, it is possible to use them when and where you will. You want to
+get from one point to another: your wish is passed on, and a mule or an
+araba appears at your door; and whether it be punctual, or whether, as
+is more usual in the East, it be late, it is of no consequence, for
+Time is waiting for you and will wait for ever. Once you are started,
+moreover, the stopping-places are not arbitrary; you have merely to
+wish, and at once the mule or the araba stops. In the same way when you
+wish to sleep your bed is where you make it; and when you wish to eat
+you need wait for no summons. And should it so happen that you have
+been misguided enough to make a plan, it is of no consequence should
+you think fit to change it. One only asks, "Why have made the plan?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it was that, without any more preparation than this preliminary
+idea of our route, X and I were able to carry it out in detail exactly
+as we had sketched it in the rough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The drawbacks of course were there. Sometimes we had nothing to eat
+through not having arranged for food; and sometimes we slept out in the
+wet. But does this never happen to those who have made elaborate plans
+against all possible contingencies? And have they not had the worst of
+it after all, for they have had the planning with no result, and have
+suffered the annoyance of having their best laid plans mislaid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Is it possible, moreover, to judge this method of travel by our
+standard of ideas in the West? In a civilised country where beds abound
+and it is merely a matter of arrangement to acquire one, there is no
+delight in passing the night under a damp hedge with drips down your
+back; there is shelter round the corner, and you merely curse yourself
+for your own stupidity, or pretend you like it, and take care not to do
+it again. But when you lie on your back on a sandy desert with nothing
+within measurable distance of you, and the rain beats mercilessly down
+or the wind howls through the crevices of your garments, you are
+conscious of battling against great primeval forces akin to the unknown
+elements of your own being; you cannot escape from them, for there is
+no shelter round the corner: you are brought up face to face with
+something fundamental; all the little accessories with which we have
+learnt to shield ourselves fall away, and you are just there, stripped
+yourself, and in the middle of naked realities. And if only you have
+been wet enough, or cold enough, or hungry enough, it has been worth
+while, for you never forget it; and the remembrance of it will come to
+you ever and anon when you are once more tied up in the bonds of
+convention and are struggling to keep a true idea of what is a reality
+and what is not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it is, perhaps, that in setting out to write any account of such a
+journey, one is dominated by the remembrance chiefly of facts which in
+this country seem trivial. All the little details of life take on an
+exaggerated form; for what in civilisation we are apt to ignore and
+take as a matter of course, occurring almost unnoticed in the ordinary
+routine of daily life, becomes out there of enormous importance. A good
+meal, for instance, seems of far greater moment than an attack by
+brigands, because of its rarer and more unexpected occurrence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you are travelling for no particular purpose, with people whose
+language you do not understand, and in a country where the manners and
+customs are not familiar to you and you are merely moving on slowly
+from day to day&#8212;all you can get is a passing impression of outside
+things. If you are not a scientist or an arch&#230;ologist or a politician
+striving to catalogue each new acquisition on your particular subject;
+if, in fact, you have no particular knowledge of any sort, but your
+pores are wide open to receive passing impressions, what you get is a
+vivid idea of the appearance of things. This is all that you can hope
+to pass on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the following pages I do not propose to give a connected account of
+the various places we visited or of the many adventures which befell
+us; this is not a travel book. I shall have no intelligent remarks to
+make on the historic spots we passed, journeying slowly through this
+country so rich with still undiscovered monuments of ancient times; a
+country which is also destined to become, as civilisation advances with
+the Baghdad Railway, the centre of future political interest. What
+justification is there then for writing a book at all?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Danes have given us a definition of their idea of education: "It
+is," they say, "what is left after everything that has been learnt is
+forgotten." So it is with any form of travel; the value of it to the
+traveller himself is what is left after lapse of time has effaced all
+recollection of minor incidents and softened the vividness of strong
+impressions. In very slow travelling through desert countries, where
+day after day the same trivial events occur in similar yet different
+settings, the essential facts of that country sink into you
+imperceptibly, until at the end they are so woven into the fibres of
+your nature that, even when removed from their influence, you will
+never quite lose them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are certain notes in the East which form part of a tune sung all
+the world over, but which give a clearer and more definite sound in the
+land which first gave them birth. The sketches given in the following
+pages are framed on them; they are what I have left, and what I would
+fain pass on to the reader.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If I have succeeded in striking these notes true, there is no need of
+an apology to those who have already heard them in the country whence
+they spring; for any one who has ever travelled in the East welcomes
+anything that will once more touch that particular chord, at whatever
+time or place. And if I have succeeded in striking them so that here
+and there amongst those to whom the East is still but a name, there are
+some who may hear a faint echo of the real thing, I shall feel that
+there has been some justification for this contribution to the
+literature of the desert.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="part2">
+PART I
+</p>
+
+<p class="partname">
+BRUSA TO DIARBEKR
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"It avails not, time nor place&#8212;distance avails not,</p>
+<p>I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence.</p>
+<p>Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;</p>
+<p>Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;</p>
+<p>Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd;</p>
+<p>Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried."...</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="part2">
+<big>BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD</big>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="I">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER I
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+DISENTANGLEMENT
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It was our first night in camp; little mysterious hillocks shut us into
+a world of our own; we had it all to ourselves and only the stars
+overhead knew, and they seemed to be congratulating us on our escape;
+they twinkled and winked and beckoned. Constantin had lit a fire, and
+this at once became the centre of our world; the door of our tent
+looked out on it, the muleteers, the Zaptiehs, and our men sat round
+it, our supper was cooking on it, and we all thought about that; the
+horses and mules, tethered in a semicircle, turned that way and blinked
+at it; far away a jackal saw it and barked. It drew us all together,
+and its smoke went quietly up towards the beckoning stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They would be eating their dinner now in the hotel at Brusa just the
+same as last night; the thin young man who had asked us what we should
+do if it rained, the old lady who wanted to know if we were doing it
+for pleasure, and the middle-aged spinster who thought we had no
+business to expose ourselves to such dangers unless it were for
+missionary work. The waiters would be bustling about; good Madame Brot
+would be carving diligently at the side table with an anxious look;
+bells would be ringing; men and women would be coming and going and
+talking and laughing and scolding; down below in the hot kitchen the
+men wash one pile of dirty plates after another.... Yes, it is very
+quiet out here; the men speak in undertones and the fire crackles in
+the cool, still air. Constantin lifted the pot off the fire. "Mangez,"
+he said. He was Greek but could speak a word or two of French. He
+ladled the onions and rice on to two plates and picked out the bits of
+mutton; then after handing us the plates, he began to beat up eggs for
+an omelette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had been stretched out on the ground; we drew ourselves up, and
+sitting cross-legged balanced the plates on our knees. The food tasted
+excellent although it had been cooked in one pot. Constantin had wanted
+to bring three pots; he had been camp cook to the best people on
+hunting expeditions&#8212;three courses for dinner, with clean plates and
+knives for each course. He looked the part: his clothes were European,
+except for the fez. He remained on the border-line of civilisation and
+reminded us of what we had left. We had had a scene with him before
+leaving Constantinople; he had accumulated a large assortment of
+saucepans and kettles, of pans for frying and pans for stewing, of pots
+for boiling and pots for washing; we had gone through them critically
+and disregarded everything but a stew-pan, a frying-pan, and one pot
+for boiling water. Constantin was in despair. "Pas possible,
+mademoiselle," he kept on ejaculating, "pas possible, comment faire
+cuisine?" But we were adamant; we wished to travel light and live
+largely on native food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As it was we had a whole araba<a href="#note1" name="noteref1">
+<small>[1]</small></a> loaded up with our belongings; there
+were the two tents for ourselves and the men, our camp-beds and sacks
+of clothes, and the cooking utensils. It all seemed a great deal now,
+and yet we were only taking necessaries. But then it had been so very
+hard to know what necessaries were; it is very hard to get disentangled
+from the forces of tradition. We had escaped now and would know better.
+Life was becoming extraordinarily easy, for we had left behind most
+things and forgotten all the injunctions and warnings of our friends.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+But there was still Constantin in his European clothes and his
+aristocratic ideas and his broken French.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+However, he does make delicious omelettes; we will forgive him for
+smuggling in that omelette-pan in defiance of our orders.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+It is getting very dark; we could no longer see the hillocks, but we
+knew that they were there. We could hardly see the horses tethered
+beyond the fire, but we could hear them munching and stamping, and now
+and then one would neigh suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constantin lit a lantern and hung it on a stick; then he washed up the
+dishes. The other men sat on by the fire and we looked through the
+smoke at them. There was Calphopolos. Now Calphopolos was a Greek, and
+he was a mistake. We have said that Constantin was on the border-line
+of civilisation and reminded us of what we had left. But Calphopolos
+was right in it without really being of it&#8212;so that when he was about
+one forgot that there was anything to be said for civilisation and only
+remembered its drawbacks. His unbrushed black clothes contrasted
+painfully with the native dress, especially when seen through the smoke
+of a camp-fire. He always carried about a little black handbag, out of
+which his tooth-brush was constantly falling. But his worst offence was
+that he spoke a language which we understood, and jabbered French at us
+from morning to night. He was in the employment of well-meaning friends
+whom he accompanied when they made business excursions into the
+interior. They had sent him to start us comfortably on the way; his
+knowledge of the amenities of life was to pave the road leading away
+from civilised methods of living.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was Ibrahim, a long, lean Turk with a smiling face. He put
+up the tents and rode in attendance upon us, and haggled with the
+villagers over milk and eggs. They had told me earlier in the day that
+Ibrahim was troubled in his mind; "never before had a woman looked him
+straight in the face and shown him a watch." Two Eastern precepts had
+been violated, and I had been the unwitting offender. It was at Brusa,
+which we had left with such difficulty that morning. We had arranged
+the night before to start at 8 o'clock. But 8 came, and 8.30 came, and
+9 came, and then the Zaptichs came who were to have come at 8 to escort
+us on the way; but there was no sign of our own retinue, of Constantin,
+of Ibrahim, of our own hired horses, of the arabas and muleteers with
+the baggage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The news of our departure had got about and the people of the hotel
+gradually collected at the door. "Where is your dragoman?" they said;
+"why do you not send for him?" We confessed to having engaged no
+dragoman. "No dragoman! that was very rash. We could speak the
+language, then?" No, we had only a Turkish dictionary. They gave us up
+then as hopeless. Another individual pushed his way up to us. "You will
+never get your men to start or do anything else," he said; "you do not
+realise what these Turks are."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I recognised him as a professional dragoman offered to us by Cook the
+week before. But he was only telling us what everybody else out of the
+trade had been dinning into our ears ever since we planned the journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I repaired to the inn where the men and horses had been collected the
+night before. In the open yard stood the araba, unpacked and horseless.
+Constantin sat on a roll of baggage near by, with a resigned expression
+and a settled look, as if he had been sitting there for hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pas possible, mademoiselle," he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ibrahim stood in the stable door, smoking complacently, and our
+muleteers were squabbling violently over the roping of a box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at this moment that I stepped up to Ibrahim and showed him my
+watch. He looked at me with a startled expression, his jaw dropped, and
+he turned hastily on the muleteers. But it was not till later that I
+learnt how his inmost susceptibilities had been roused. One is at a
+decided disadvantage with no knowledge of a suitable language, but by
+dint of gesticulating with my riding-whip and pointing at everybody in
+turn, I managed, at the end of another half-hour, to get the araba and
+the men under way, and mounting my own horse rode behind them to the
+hotel. In another five minutes we had sallied out on our road. X and I
+rode ahead with Ibrahim and Calphopolos and the two Zaptiehs, then came
+the araba with our baggage and the muleteers, then Constantin with
+bulging saddle-bags suggesting the intrusion of various forbidden
+cooking utensils.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our road ran unshaded and dusty through the outskirts of Brusa, with
+Mount Olympus towering above us. Bit by bit we left behind the staring
+tourists, the staring native children, the unconcerned stall-keepers
+displaying their wares of Brusa silk and printed cottons from England;
+then we passed the country people riding in on mules with their
+vegetables and chickens; we passed the little cultivated patches and
+got amongst the larger fields, stretching away on each side of the
+road. "Tutun," said Ibrahim, pointing at them with his riding-whip. I
+looked at him inquiringly. He tapped his cigarette and pointed again at
+the field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tutun," he repeated. "Tobacco, you understand, mademoiselle,
+tobacco&#8212;such as he is now smoking." Calphopolos always would insist on
+explaining the obvious. The day got hotter and the road got dustier. At
+midday we skirted a willow plantation, and a stream gurgled through the
+damp green patch, inviting us to come in and rest. We crawled out of
+the sun under the low willow bushes, and the men tied the horses to the
+stronger branches. This first lunching place will always remain
+indelibly printed on my memory: the slices of brown bread thickly
+spread with solid cream; the watermelons and the grapes; the men
+grouped about amongst the willows, eating great hunches of bread and
+cheese; the horses breaking loose and straying about, browsing the
+finer herbage which sprang up through the dried and yellow tufts of
+older grass; the joy of being out of the sun and the dust; the cool
+sound of the water in the brook; the sense of rest and freedom, the
+sense of having really escaped at last.... On recalling this lunch with
+X, after many adventures had made it seem very remote, I found that she
+retained equally vivid recollections of it. I heard her murmur
+reflectively to herself, "And we thought it was always going to be like
+that!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we had reluctantly left it all, the unwilling horses were pulled
+and dragged away, snatching at last bites, and we rode off on the dusty
+road again, until we reached the village near which we had arranged to
+camp. We had ridden round and chosen this site in the middle of the
+mysterious hillocks, which shut us out so effectually from everything
+except the stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were destined to spend many more such nights in camp; but perhaps
+none can give you exactly the same thrill as the one on which for the
+first time you sleep out in the open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is full of surprises; you expect it to be quiet, and you find the
+darkness and stillness is full of noise. Nothing escapes you: the
+breathing of men and animals, the crackling of the fire, the rustling
+of leaves and grass: there seems to be a continuous movement very close
+to you. You sit up many times expecting to see something in your tent;
+it all makes you very wakeful. You drop off into a disturbed sleep very
+late, and are awakened before sunrise by the stir in the camp. You are
+positive you have not slept all night and that strange people have been
+prowling round you in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet as one lay in this semi-wakeful state of excitement and mystery,
+one's strongest impression was that of wanting protection merely
+against a few primitive forces; with the wild beasts we shared the
+dangers of cold and hunger and attacks from man. Slowly and painfully
+you have crawled out of the net in which you have all this time been
+unconsciously enveloped, and emerging stripped and bewildered grope
+about for what is actually going to serve and protect you in this
+primeval state of battling against the primitive forces of nature; a
+state, moreover, where protection against the dictates of an organised
+society is no longer needed. To those who are confronted with this
+problem for the first time, it is almost impossible to walk straight
+out of the net and have an impartial look round. Tradition still clings
+to us in little bits, and we grope hopelessly about, wondering what
+will be an essential and what will not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking back now on these first few days of preparation for our journey
+in the wilderness, I realise that by far the hardest part of the
+journey was this initial disentanglement from the forces of tradition.
+If you are about to alter fundamentally your method of living, you must
+take care that you are discarding all those accessories which are due
+to tradition; you must either adopt those evolved by the tradition of
+the races among which you are about to travel, or you must bring
+abstract science to bear on the question of how to provide for your
+immediate wants under the changed conditions. A bare tent in a country
+where weather is still an interesting topic is a safe place for such
+reflections; the realities of the situation make one strictly
+practical. On getting out of bed our clothes were damp with dew and the
+grass was cold to our bare feet; at the next town we bought the strip
+of carpet, the idea of which we had rejected at Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="II">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER II
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRIGANDAGE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Brigandage. The capture of Miss Stone, ancient history as it now is,
+has served to give a vivid meaning to this word in the public mind. We
+were being continually asked if we wished to emulate Miss Stone.
+Travelling second-class through Bulgaria on our way to Constantinople
+our fellow-passengers, rough, good-natured farmers, joked about it; but
+they always added, "No, it will not happen to you." Then they would
+look at one another and laugh. The capture of Miss Stone did not seem
+to be looked upon seriously out there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was the Embassy at Constantinople. They were horribly
+nervous about international complications. As a matter of fact capture
+for ransom is a decided danger in the neighbourhood of larger towns in
+Asiatic Turkey. Not that there are any professional brigands prowling
+about, but there is a certain class of native ready to become a brigand
+on the spur of the moment, should they get wind of suitable prey. They
+are not Turks&#8212;no Turk would be bothered; they are, as a rule, Greeks,
+and always Christians. It is as well, therefore, on any expedition, not
+to make very great preparations and talk too much of your line of
+route; but as quietly and expeditiously as possible to get hold of your
+horses and men and start off before news of your movements has been
+noised abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not at all in our favour that X bore a name well known to
+fortune hunters; one of her uncles was in the habit of big-game
+shooting in this district, and his means were fabulously exaggerated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Calphopolos had been sent with us partly because he could be so
+thoroughly trusted to take all precautions. He certainly earned his
+reputation; he seemed to have been born with the fear of brigands in
+his soul; mere conversation about them caused him to break out into a
+profuse perspiration. He had talked to us very seriously on leaving
+Constantinople, as we sat on the deck of the steamer which took us
+across the Sea of Marmora on our way to Brusa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mesdemoiselles, soyez secr&#232;tes; la secr&#233;c&#233;,
+c'est tout."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"La secr&#233;c&#233;" became his by-word. If there was one thing he was more
+afraid of than anything else on earth it was X's surname. He implored
+her not to use it, but to call herself Miss Victoria. He had all our
+luggage labelled Miss Victoria; and if in casual conversation the
+dreaded name leaked out, beads of perspiration rolled down his face and
+he would glance nervously round to see who was within earshot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X was rather a reprobate on the subject. On our arrival at Madame
+Brot's well-known hotel at Brusa, from where we were making our final
+departure the next day, she marched up to Madame Brot and said, "I
+think you know my uncle"&#8212;mentioning him by name. Calphopolos, who was
+just behind, explaining that our name was Victoria pure and simple,
+turned green with horror. With bent back and staring eyes, shaking the
+same finger in warning which his subconscious self was trying to put on
+his lips, he endeavoured to attract X's attention from behind Madame
+Brot's broad back. But X went glibly on, quite oblivious of the panic
+she was creating. Calphopolos turned to me with the resigned expression
+of a man on whom death-sentence has been passed. "It is all over now,"
+he said, "everybody in Brusa will know about us in half an hour.
+Mesdemoiselles, did I not implore you for the love of God to respect
+the secrecy? Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then poor old Calphopolos, who was not without his sense of fun,
+laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "The only thing left to
+do," he went on, when he had sufficiently recovered to speak again, "is
+to pretend we are going to Angora and put them off the scent.
+Mesdemoiselles, for the love of God please try and remember that it is
+Angora you are going to. Tell everybody you are going to Angora. The
+secrecy it is everything."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must be confessed it was very difficult at that time to feel
+seriously alarmed about brigandage, for we seemed to be moving in
+ordinary respectable society, and Calphopolos's treatment of the
+subject merely caused us to think of it as a joke. Still, we fully
+realised that it was a real risk, against which it would not do to
+neglect taking ordinary precautions; and this sense was heightened by
+the extreme alarm of the Vice-Consul at Brusa to whom we applied for
+the escort of Zaptiehs, without whom one is not permitted to travel in
+Turkey with any guarantee of safety. He could not understand why we
+would not drive through to Nic&#230;a in a landau in one day, like the
+ordinary tourist; this, with a suitable escort, made the journey quite
+safe, and it is a common thing for travellers to do. But to ride there
+in three days with our camp, sleeping on the way, was another matter.
+Every extra hour spent loitering in any one district heightened the
+risk of being attacked by brigands. X tried to explain that it was for
+the sake of her health, which only made him more bewildered; surely a
+landau was more suitable for invalids!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding us, however, unmoved by his arguments, he promised to send us
+two men the next morning and implored us never to leave their sides for
+a moment. He must have rubbed the same instructions well into the
+Zaptiehs, for during the seven days which they accompanied us as far as
+Mekidje on the Anatolian Railway, they never were more than a couple of
+yards away from us, day and night. This certainly detracted from the
+sense of freedom we were otherwise experiencing. It seemed at first as
+if we had only escaped from one form of bondage to fall into another.
+But the fact that the men were unable to speak any language we
+understood prevented it from becoming irksome, and one was soon able to
+become nearly oblivious of the clanking sword at one's elbow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Calphopolos, however, was not so easily ignored. He had a sort of
+feeling that we were always running away from him, and tried to check
+this pernicious tendency on our part by engaging us in constant
+conversation in his broken French. The more we edged our horses away
+from his side and tried to put a silent Zaptieh between him and
+ourselves, the more persistently would he pursue us, propounding some
+new problem which required an answer. Our behaviour on breaking camp
+that morning had probably given rise to his state of mind. We had
+ordained that the start should be made at eight o'clock; but the usual
+procrastinations had ensued and the men seemed totally unable to get
+off. Calphopolos kept packing and unpacking his little bag in search of
+the missing tooth-brush, and tried to keep us calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is thus in this country, mademoiselle; have no anxiety&#8212;we shall
+go, we shall go."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X and I agreed that there was only one way to go. We had our horses
+saddled and rode away, in spite of Calphopolos's prayers and entreaties
+to wait till the whole camp was packed. The Zaptiehs, after the orders
+they had received, were obliged to ride after us. This left Calphopolos
+and the muleteers without Government protection, which so filled them
+with terror that in a very few minutes they also were on the way.
+Calphopolos came tearing down the road after us, the tails of his long
+black coat flying out behind, the tooth-brush sticking out of his
+pocket, and the perspiration rolling down his cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu!" he gasped as he caught us up, "pour l'amour de
+Dieu!" and then he had so much to say that he couldn't say it and
+relapsed into laughter and ejaculations of "Mais quelles demoiselles,
+mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second day our road lay across the great Jenishehr plain. Herds of
+buffaloes strayed about on the wilder parts, and here and there fields
+of corn and tobacco, suddenly springing up beside the stretches of
+rough grass, signalled the approach to an occasional village.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here also it was very difficult to think of brigands; the harmless look
+of peaceful cultivators did not suggest them. Besides which the country
+was so open that you could not be suddenly pounced upon; you would have
+ample opportunity of considering evil-doers as they approached you
+across the wide plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We encamped that evening near the small village of Jenishehr. The
+excitement of the novelty had worn off and we had had a long day in the
+open air. In consequence of this I had fallen into a profound sleep at
+once on going to bed. Suddenly I was awakened by a noise in the tent,
+and looking up distinctly saw the figure of a man coming cautiously
+through the tent door. In one moment I had hold of my revolver, kept
+loaded at the head of my bed, and had it levelled at him, wondering
+when the psychological moment for pulling the trigger would occur and
+whether I should manage to live up to its requirements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mademoiselle! pour l'amour de Dieu!" came in a
+terror-stricken voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I put down the weapon rather crossly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do you want?" I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Quels sont vos noms," stuttered out Calphopolos in great agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What on earth do you mean?" I said; "you know our names well enough."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, quels sont vos noms," he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I called out, "wake up and tell me what is the matter with
+Calphopolos&#8212;I think his head has been turned by this fright about your
+name; he is going about jibbering over it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X had a soothing influence on Calphopolos, and gradually extracted from
+him that the local Zaptieh had come up for our <i>tezkerehs</i> and
+wanted to know our names. His agitation over the revolver had been so
+great that he had been unable to explain articulately that it was our
+<i>tezkerehs</i> that he had come for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day the whole character of the country changed. The plain
+gradually oozed away into a more tumbled country and cultivation
+disappeared. We were about to cross the range of hills which shut out
+our view to the north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Zaptiehs were very much on the alert here; they unslung their
+rifles from behind and rode with them across their knees. We were told
+to keep close together and ride quietly without talking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mountains closed in on either side; they were bare, rounded hills
+for the most part, with stunted shrubs on the lower slopes, which one
+soon learnt to regard purely as cover for a possible enemy. There was
+no difficulty about realising possible dangers here; the broad road
+slowly narrowed, and at every turn in the winding path one almost
+expected to be confronted by a villain. At the snap of a twig or the
+rustle of a leaf our Zaptiehs grasped their rifles tighter, and without
+turning their heads moved their eyes in that direction. Once, on the
+wider road we had left, a cloud of dust had arisen in the distance, and
+a long line of camels laden with wood filed slowly past us in twos and
+threes. Our men exchanged a few monosyllabic words with the drivers,
+and in another minute or two the tinkling of the bells and the tramp of
+feet had subsided, the dust settled once more, and we were alone again
+with the silent hills and the crackling twigs, and wound our way in and
+out in single file across the rounded hillocks. Here and there the
+sight of a herd of sheep or goats, tended by peaceful looking natives,
+relieved the tension caused by our escort's precautions, for it is
+always difficult to associate danger with such rural scenes. At last
+there was a break in front; we were through the pass and began to
+descend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Calphopolos had been silent all this time; his conversational powers
+seem to have suffered a severe check. Now he brightened up, mopped his
+forehead, and murmured, "Gr&#226;ce &#224; Dieu nous voil&#224;."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half way down the hillside, perched on a projecting ledge just off the
+road, stood a lonely coffee-house. The Zaptiehs, pointing at it with
+their whips, hailed it with delight. They slid off their horses, and
+holding ours, helped us to dismount. We sat in the porch and sipped
+thick, hot Turkish coffee; below us the lake Ascanius lay like a blue
+sheet between the purple hills, its eastern end fringed round with a
+band of green, in which the minarets and domes of Isnik itself were
+just visible. All around us the stunted shrubs still formed harbour for
+the suspected brigands. Our Zaptiehs lay stretched on the ground in
+front, apparently asleep; but their rifles were never laid aside, and
+the least stir in the bushes made us realise their state of alert
+watchfulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not a living creature showed itself, and we rode on down and down
+the curving incline until we reached the green band of vegetation and
+our horses trod softly through grassy slopes of olive plantations,
+whose grey leaves shone like silver as the sun's low rays beat through
+them. Past the olive plantations lay a stretch of low-lying reedy
+marsh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You shall have a good supper to-night," said Ibrahim; and throwing his
+reins to a Zaptieh he plunged in on foot. He shot two snipe, and joined
+us again as we reached the outskirts of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old city of Nic&#230;a is now represented by a collection of a few
+hundred miserable houses forming the village of Isnik. But, as
+everywhere in the ancient towns of Asiatic Turkey, one is confronted at
+every point with tokens of former splendour. Four great gates in the
+old Roman walls give access to the town. Courses of brickwork are built
+in between the large stones of which the bulk of the walls consists;
+here and there semicircular towers rise up, their ruins still
+surmounting the ruins of the wall. One, more perfect than the rest, is
+said to mark the site of the church in which the Nicene Creed was
+framed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We fixed on a spot for the camp just inside the walls and outside the
+present town, where a green field, which merged into a cemetery, lay in
+the curve of a shallow brook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pots and pans were speedily tumbled out of Constantin's saddle-bags
+and Ibrahim had our tents up with European alacrity; but it was dark
+before the smell of roasted snipe pervaded the night air. We ate our
+supper by the light of a lantern hung on a forked stick. The fear of
+brigands departed and the sleep of the just fell upon the camp. Owls
+hooted in the green-covered walls of ruined Nic&#230;a, and away in the
+distance the still mountains kept guard over the dark waters of the
+lake as they lapped mournfully on the ruins of Roman baths on its stony
+shore. The Zaptieh on guard poked fresh sticks into the dying fire and
+sighed heavily between the snores of his companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In and out amongst the upright white stones of the cemetery a jackal
+prowled stealthily and sniffed the smell of snipe bones.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="III">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER III
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+One tree stood out in the middle of the field in which we were
+encamped. We spread our carpet under it and laid ourselves out for a
+lazy day. There were letters to write home and plans to make about the
+journey ahead. It was impossible to do such things comfortably after a
+day's ride and with the feeling of transitoriness engendered by a short
+night in camp. So we had decided to spend this Sunday at Isnik.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constantin got out all his pots and pans to give them an extra
+cleaning, and promised us a vast meal. He complained that he had never
+had time to show us what he could do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Animals and men alike were pervaded with that sense of rest which is in
+the air on a hot Sunday morning. The horses, after rolling on their
+backs, stretched themselves out motionless on their sides; the arabajis
+dozed in the araba. Calphopolos retired inside the men's tent, prepared
+to make up for the loss of sleep occasioned by anxious nights. We got
+out our books and papers and thought about all we should get through
+that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were encamped within the old walls of Nic&#230;a, and from where we sat
+were in full view of the outskirts of the present town. By and by some
+native women sallied out in our direction and, skirting the camp,
+peeped cautiously round our tents; then getting bolder they sidled
+towards us, smiling propitiatingly. We felt peacefully disposed towards
+the whole world and smiled back at them. Thus encouraged they advanced
+nearer and felt the substance of our clothes and examined our hats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, not finding themselves repulsed, they fingered our hair and
+stroked our hands. X hunted in her vocabulary for suitable remarks and
+delivered them at intervals. Meanwhile other women straggled out from
+the town, and, finding their sisters already so much at home, they also
+satisfied themselves as to the consistency of our clothes and skin. The
+earlier arrivals now established themselves on the ground around us,
+jabbering away amongst themselves and occasionally addressing a single
+word to us, which they repeated again and again, pointing at each of us
+in turn. X looked it up, and came to the conclusion that it meant
+"sister." So we shook our heads and looked up the word for "friend."
+The effect was magical; we had established social intercourse. More and
+more women arrived and joined the throng settled round us, all
+new-comers being initiated into the already acquired knowledge
+concerning us. Soon everybody had a word they wanted looked out in the
+dictionary, until X became fairly exhausted. We tried "goodbye" and "no
+more" with disappointing effect, and finally let them sit there gazing
+at us while we went on with our writing, keeping a sharp look-out on
+our hats, which every one was anxious to try on. It seemed to please
+them just as much to look at us as to talk to us, and they sat on in
+placid content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by Ibrahim hurried up and spoke to the women; they all darted to
+their feet and fled. We looked at Ibrahim inquiringly. He pointed in
+the direction of the town, and we saw two men arriving at a slow and
+dignified pace. Constantin appeared on the scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Gouverneur," he said, "faire visite."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X and I hastily donned our hats and sent for a seat for the
+"gouverneur." But Ibrahim could only find a saddle-bag. X turned over
+the leaves of the vocabulary in the hopes of finding suitable
+greetings. We bowed and scraped mutually, and X delivered herself of
+the first greeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We are very pleased."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The "gouverneur" bowed and made, no doubt, what was a suitable
+response; but as we could only attack single words we were no wiser.
+There was a pause while X collected the words for another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Beautiful country," she attempted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The "gouverneur" bowed very gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I hope I have said that," said X nervously, "he looks rather shocked."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment Constantin appeared with coffee and cigarettes, which
+gave us time to recover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I should not bother to talk to him," I said. "That is the best of
+these people&#8212;they understand how to sit happily in silence, just
+looking at you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But X determined to make another try; it was good practice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Health good?" she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The "gouverneur" turned to his companion and said a few words in
+Turkish. The young man looked rather terrified, and began to speak to
+us in what sounded like gibberish. Constantin came to take the cups
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Parle fran&#231;ais," he said, pointing to the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We strained our ears to try and catch an intelligible word, but could
+only shake our heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we all took refuge in silence and looked at one another. There was
+no sense of <i>g&#234;ne</i>. The Turk and his companion seemed as content
+to sit and look at us as the women had been. When he had finished his
+cigarette he rose, and, bowing once more in Turkish fashion, took his
+leave.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We picked up our papers once more, then Constantin came and said lunch
+was ready. We sat on saddle-bags outside the tent and ate chunks of
+mutton and onions out of the tin bowl keeping hot on the charcoal
+brazier at our side. Ibrahim filled our cups with water from the brook,
+and the grass tickled our hands each time we lifted them from the
+ground. The pots and pans lay about all around, and Constantin,
+squatting in the middle of them, brought the coffee to the boil three
+times in the little Turkish pot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Sheker, effendi?" he called out, "un, deux?" as he ladled in the
+sugar. Constantin's language was always of a hybrid nature, consisting
+of alternate words of French and Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we had returned to the carpet under the tree and sipped the thick,
+hot coffee out of the little Turkish cups, and sent thoughtful rings of
+smoke up into the branches of the tree above. And with the rings of
+smoke went up thoughts of the coffee they were drinking now in the
+drawing-rooms; the little cups there would have handles, and each one
+would help himself to sugar off a little tray.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+"I guess you find it slow here!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us
+off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of
+driving to Nic&#230;a in a landau.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We thought we would just look you up and see if you had got here all
+right, but we cannot stop a minute; we've only had an hour to see the
+walls, they were so long getting lunch."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You ought to see the tower on the site of the church where they
+discussed the Nicene Creed," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Nicene Creed&#8212;eh, what?" said the American, as he consulted his
+guide-book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Say, we just ought to have a look at that," he said to his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We shall miss the <i>Augusta Victoria</i> if you do," said the lady.
+Then she turned to us. "We go on to Smyrna in it to-morrow morning,"
+she explained, "so we must get back to-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landau appeared at that moment; time was up. Smyrna, Beyrout,
+Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Luxor had to be got in during the
+allotted time, and there had been no provision made for the Nicene
+Creed. So in they got and dashed away over the plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had come as a whirlwind over from the West, sweeping the surface
+of this Eastern land and catching up the loose fragments on it; but its
+traditions were too deeply rooted to be caught in the blast; these had
+merely bent their heads and let the blast pass by. Strong as it is, it
+cannot unloose the sway of ancient customs. Even for Americans the East
+will not move. The natives gazed at the landau, hardly wondering at it;
+then they forgot it. But we did not forget it so easily. For us an
+odour of the West was left hanging over the plain&#8212;and above all, our
+sense of time had been offended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A French engineer with his wife and family were the next to appear on
+the scene. They were the only Europeans living in the place, and
+rejoiced over the sound of their mother-tongue. The man poured out
+volumes of it, and was interesting about his work up to the point when
+we became fatigued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what it is to be in civilised company again! We live
+here from day to day and year after year, and have no one to speak
+with, no one with whom to exchange ideas. C'est comme la mort."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Do you not see anything of the natives?" we inquired. "They seem very
+friendly, and you can speak Turkish."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what can one do with such people? how can one
+associate with them? They are canaille, mere canaille."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We were talking to some of them," we said, "and thought them very
+intelligent."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held up his hands in horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But, mademoiselle, do you not understand? Certainly there are the
+Christian races, but for the most part, ce sont des Turques, des
+infid&#232;les, des chiens. There is Marie there, pauvre Marie! it is bad
+enough for me, but then I have my work; but Marie, the pauvre Marie,
+she dies of ennui, she can speak to no one but me and the children."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pauvre Marie seemed indeed to have lost the power of speech; she
+sat silently as her husband poured out his contempt of the canaille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had found the Greek women very entertaining in the morning, and they
+too had sat and looked at us in silence. But they had not been ashamed
+of their silence; Marie was, and felt awkward; so we all felt
+uncomfortable, and tried to talk to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One felt then how little actual language had to do with social
+intercourse. We could not get into touch with Marie, whose language we
+understood, in the same way that we had got into touch with the native
+women, whose language we did not understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat on and on; it was not until the sun began to send out long
+warning shoots of colour, heralding its disappearance behind the purple
+mountains, that they rose to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we, worn out with this final effort in sociability, gave ourselves
+up to the quiet of the deserted camp, and watched the shades of night
+creep once more over the ruined walls and the distant hills, over the
+houses of the French engineer and the canaille.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="IV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER IV
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead">
+I
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is something very weird and uncanny in the terminus of a railway
+in the middle of a wild and desolate country such as this. The Monster
+runs his iron fangs into the heart of its desolation and shoots you
+into it like a ball out of a cannon's mouth. Roaring and hissing and
+sending out jets of flame, he comes racing through the darkness to a
+certain definite spot; here he discharges you in the blackness of night
+and subsides. Next morning when you awake he is gone, and you are left
+to shift for yourself as best you can. But there is a certain human
+friendliness about this Monster while you are travelling with him. He
+seems to draw all the signs of life out of an apparently dead country
+and collect them at the stations for you to see. Great warehouses
+filled with sacks of corn testify to the productiveness of a country
+which, judging it from the train window after harvest time, one would
+dismiss as mere barren soil; an occasional MacCormick's "Daisy" reaper
+awaiting delivery on a side platform, native carts hanging about, and
+truck-loads of empty sacks tell the same tale. Groups of peasants, idly
+gossiping, gathered together by the whistle which heralds the Monster's
+approach, belie the impression of an uninhabited land; for Turkish
+villages are carefully designed so as not to attract attention. When
+one's eye gets more familiar with the seemingly uniform colour of the
+landscape, varied only by light and shade, one becomes aware of the
+low, flat-topped, mud-brick houses, which, even at close quarters,
+often seem but part of the natural rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even the unchanging East is powerless once the Monster's fangs have
+taken hold; he alone of all influences comes to stay and leave his
+mark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, perhaps, but very surely, he undermines with irresistible
+persistence the customs and habits which from time immemorial have held
+their own against the religious, educational, or military forces of
+stronger nations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This particular spot has long been the battlefield of the East and the
+West; now one, now the other, has had temporary ascendance; in the long
+run the East has always conquered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But already we can see what a power the East has to reckon with in the
+railway. For one thing it attacks the Eastern in one of his vital
+points&#8212;his conception of Time. Time waited for him when he had but
+camels to load; but the railway will not wait for him; the Monster
+screeches and is off. Sunrise or two hours after sunrise is not one and
+the same thing to him. Relentless as day and night he comes and goes,
+and there is no cheating him as the Eastern cheats Time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the railway is cheating the East out of its time-worn customs and
+ideas, and there is a certain sadness in the evidences of transition.
+All down the line picturesque native costumes are being replaced by
+ugly European clothes. The men wear terrible fancy trouserings from
+Manchester; the women spend more money on dress&#8212;and unfortunately it
+is European dress&#8212;and less on the old-fashioned wedding feasts. The
+turnover of the shops in the larger towns has increased fourfold in the
+last ten years. The bazaars are now a medley of stalls exhibiting
+native manufactures side by side with cheap trinkets from England and
+loud flannelettes from Italy. The price of wheat has doubled; and with
+that of wheat the prices of other exports have also risen. Opium, wool,
+mohair, hides, and salt are amongst the products of these great plains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two short days' ride from Nic&#230;a had brought us to Mekidje, a station on
+the Anatolian Railway half-way between Haida Pasha and Eskishehr. The
+single line went as far as Konia, and one train ran each way every day.
+It stopped for the right at Eskishehr, continuing the journey next
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due, and sat
+in the stationmaster's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything
+else to do. We said goodbye to the Zaptiehs and to the muleteers who
+were returning to Brusa, and watched them slowly disappear down the
+road we had come. Then we heard the low, familiar tinkle of camel bells
+and a score or more of laden animals paced slowly into the open ground
+round the station. They have a more discreet and tuneful way of
+announcing their arrival than the Monster, and when they appear on the
+scene they do so in a more dignified, calmer manner. Having arrived
+also, they do not look as if they were off again the next minute; they
+look as if they had come to stay for ever, and they give you time to
+think. One by one, in answer to a word of command, they knelt down in
+the dust, and the great baskets holding the goods were unfastened and
+rolled about on the ground. Their owners seemed too slack to do any
+more. They let them lie there while they looked at the sun. The Monster
+is slowly replacing these carriers of the East; but their day is not
+yet done by a long way, for they must feed him from the interior. His
+life is still dependent on the life of those he is working to destroy.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+At last we heard his distant shriek. Down upon us he came, dashing up
+all in a minute, in such a splutter and such a hurry, waking us all up.
+Officials rushed up and down the platform, and swore at the natives who
+were loading our baggage. Everybody talked at once to everybody else,
+and the Monster hissed impatiently, noisy even when he was standing
+still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were not many passengers; in a first-class carriage a Pasha
+travelled in solitary state; all his harem were delegated to a
+second-class carriage, where the blinds were pulled down. In the
+third-class were a few natives, who leaned out of the windows and
+gossiped with the camel owners, idle witnesses of the busy scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Monster is getting impatient; he hisses furiously and finally
+gives a warning shriek. Then off he goes, and we take a last look at
+the kneeling camels, munching away as unconcernedly as if their
+destroyer had never invaded their peaceful country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mekidje is practically at sea-level; Eskishehr is a tableland two
+thousand feet high; we had therefore a steady rise on the whole journey
+up the valley formed by the Kara Su, a river which has its source in
+the neighbourhood of Eskishehr. On each side rounded hills shut out the
+horizon, save where here and there a tributary valley would reveal,
+through steep-sided gorges, a distant view of purple ridges with
+snow-clad tops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was night when we arrived at Eskishehr, and we groped our way to the
+Grand H&#244;tel d'Anatolie, kept by Greeks. It was at this hotel that we
+first met Hassan, who was destined to play such a large part in our
+future travels. He was an Albanian Turk, and had been introduced to us
+by our friends in Constantinople, whom he accompanied on their shooting
+expeditions in this district. They had written to ask him to look after
+us during our brief stay at Eskishehr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ibrahim brought him into our room, and there he stood silently, after
+salaaming us in the usual way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ibrahim was a tall man, but Hassan towered above him. He wore a huge
+sheepskin coat, which added to his massive, impressive look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X looked up words in her Turkish book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They told us you would look after us here?" she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"As my eyes," he answered very quietly and simply. And thus began one
+of those friendships on which neither time nor distance can leave its
+mark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two days later X asked him whether he would accompany us on the next
+stage of our journey, across the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus
+Mountains to Mersina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you come with us and guard us well?" she said. He dropped on one
+knee and kissed her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"On my head be it," he said.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Eskishehr, before the days of the railway, was a purely Turkish town;
+it displayed the usual chaos of mud-brick and wooden houses, with their
+lower windows carefully latticed over for the concealment of the women;
+of narrow, winding bazaars, here a display of brightly coloured clothes
+and rugs, there a noisy street of smithies and carpenters' shops; and
+rising above it all the minarets of half a dozen mosques.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the railway's mark is on it to-day. The population has been
+increased by some five thousand Tartars and Armenians, whose houses,
+planted together near the line, have a neat, modern, shoddy look,
+contrasting with the picturesque squalor of the ancient Turkish town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The railway is slowly attacking the stronghold of the Turkish peasant,
+extending his operations on the wasted stretches of cultivable land,
+and slowly opening out dim vistas of prosperity athwart his present
+apathy. In the same way the railway is slowly affecting the town
+merchant. But one shudders here at the effect of prosperity
+unaccompanied by civilising influences. For in the rich merchant of the
+town you have the Turk at his worst. The simple, hospitable Turkish
+peasant is made of good stuff; the Turkish soldier of rank and file, if
+his fanatical tendencies are not encouraged, is equally good; the
+official Turk is corrupt, but only because the particular method of
+administering his country's laws obliges him to be so; the educated
+Turk of Constantinople is rapidly becoming a civilised being. But the
+rich middle-class Turk of towns has nothing to be said for him. The
+Christians have taught him to drink, and he is rich enough to keep a
+large harem. We had an introduction to one such person in Eskishehr.
+The polished Turkish phraseology of welcome could not conceal the
+coarseness and vulgarity of his mind, and we were glad to escape to the
+sacred inner chambers, where a very young and pretty woman sat in
+lonely state, the latest addition to his harem. There she sat, draped
+in the softest silks of gorgeous colourings, surrounded with all the
+evidences of luxury and comfort, as sulky as a little bear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were accompanied by a Greek lady, who talked French and Turkish and
+acted as our interpreter; but never a smile or more than a word could
+be drawn out of the cross little thing. She simply stared in front of
+her with an expression of acute boredom in her beautiful eyes. A
+good-natured, elderly serving-woman, who stood at the door, explained
+matters. She had been very much pampered at home, and she had had a
+good time; she saw all her young friends at the baths, the social
+resort for Turkish ladies. The rich merchant had been considered a
+great <i>parti</i>; but already she had had enough of it. She never
+went out except for an occasional drive in a closed carriage. She was
+tired of embroidery work, she was tired of eating sweets, she was tired
+of smoking, she was tired of her fine dresses. <i>"Am&#257;n</i>, but it
+would come all right&#8212;and the serving-woman winked and nodded, and
+stroked her mistress's listless hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it always like this?" we asked the Greek lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, mon Dieu! not at all! This man is very jealous, and she may not
+see her friends. He heaps on her what money can buy and thinks that is
+enough. But with the poor it is different. You will see. There is a
+wedding to-day in a poor family. I will arrange for you to go. Mon
+Dieu! no, it is not always thus. La pauvre petite."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The room in which we sat was draped in the usual Turkish manner with
+magnificent curtains in rich Eastern colourings. Round three walls ran
+low divans covered in the same way. There was not such a room in
+Eskishehr we were told. Had the decorations stopped there, and we had
+been able to forget the unfortunate prisoner, the general effect would
+have been decidedly pleasing. But as we sat there our eyes were kept
+glued, by some horrible attraction, on the glitter of a cheap gilt
+frame of the gaudiest description, containing a crude coloured print of
+the German Emperor; below this stood a gimcracky little table covered
+with a cheap tinselled cloth, on which was placed a glass and silver
+cake-basket in the vilest of European taste. It hit one terribly in the
+eye. It was a jarring note in the Monster's work.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We took leave of the sulky little lady, and left her once more to her
+sweets and her embroideries in the long, weary hours of lonely
+splendour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had only seen the second act of this bit of Turkish drama; when the
+curtain went down for us we had had enough of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But we were about to see Act I. in different surroundings. The Greek
+lady kept her word, and in due course we found ourselves ushered into
+the house of the bridegroom. The preliminary ceremonies had already
+begun&#8212;in fact they had been going on all day. There sat the bride at
+the end of a room which had been cleared of everything except the low
+stool which she occupied alone. She was a lumpy looking girl of
+seventeen or so, and sat there motionless with downcast eyes. On the
+floor sat dozens of women, packed as tight as the room could hold. The
+bride might neither look up nor speak, which seemed hard, for every
+woman in the room was both looking at her and speaking about her; the
+hubbub was terrible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose as we entered and kissed our hands; this much is apparently
+allowed on the arrival of strangers. The Greek lady explained that she
+was obliged to stand until we asked her to sit down again, and that she
+might not look at us. This was a good deal to ask on such an occasion;
+European ladies are not, as a rule, guests at the wedding of the
+Turkish poor, and we caught one or two surreptitious peeps from under
+her long eyelashes. We joined the throng on the floor and continued to
+gaze at her as every one else did. Marriage customs in general, and her
+own affairs in particular, were discussed for our benefit, the Greek
+lady interpreting in torrents of voluble French.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She may not speak to her husband for forty-eight hours. When he comes
+in he will lift the veil and see his bride for the first time. Then he
+puts a girdle round her waist and it is finished. His mother chose her
+for him. If he does not like her, no matter, he can choose another, for
+he is getting good wages, and can afford to keep two."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by a large tray was brought in, piled up with rounds of native
+bread and plates of chicken. It was placed on a low stool in the centre
+of us all, and, following everybody's example, we grabbed alternate
+bits of chicken and bread. Then followed hunches of cake made of nuts
+and honey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were still eating when we heard a noise of singing and musical
+instruments outside; it became louder and louder, and finally stopped
+by the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They are singing 'Behold the bridegroom cometh,'" said the Greek lady;
+"the man is being brought in a procession of all his friends."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The food was hastily removed, and all the guests were marshalled into
+an adjoining room, which already seemed as full as it could hold of
+babies and children and old hags, who presumably had been left to look
+after the younger ones. We were allowed to remain while the finishing
+touches were put on the bride. Her face was first plastered all over
+with little ornaments cut out of silver paper and stuck on with white
+of egg; then she was covered over entirely with a large violet veil.
+And so we left her sitting there, sheepish and placid in the extreme,
+in strange contrast to the voluble Greek lady and the excited friends.
+We met the bridegroom in the passage. He kissed his father, and stood
+first on one foot and then on the other. His mother took him by the
+shoulders, opened the door of the room we had just left, and shoved him
+in. Let us hope that the silver ornaments did their work and made his
+bride pleasing in his sight when he lifted the violet veil. What she
+thought of him need not concern us any more than it did her or her
+friends, for such thoughts may not enter the minds of Turkish brides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The show was over. The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.
+It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had
+previously witnessed.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskishehr to Konia. It took us a
+good fifteen hours by rail. We were now on the summit of the tableland;
+the bounded river valley gradually gave way to long stretches where
+signs of cultivation were more apparent. We were getting into the great
+wheat-growing district, which the railway is causing to extend year by
+year. At Karahissar, a town of 33,000 inhabitants, a gigantic rock with
+straight sides and castellated top rises abruptly out of the plain, and
+from here another corn-growing valley merges into the great plain
+stretching away to the north. Mount Olympus, whose base we had skirted
+on leaving Brusa, could be very dimly discerned on the sky-line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then darkness set in, and the Monster ran steadily on with us into the
+unknown. Towards eight o'clock there was a sudden stop; it had come to
+the end of its tether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had left Calphopolos and Ibrahim at Eskishehr, and now only
+Constantin remained as a link with civilisation. Hassan had appeared at
+the station at Eskishehr, prepared to accompany us round the world if
+need be. He wore a brown suit of Turkish trousers and zouave under his
+sheepskin cloak. His pockets bulged rather, so did the wide leather
+belt which he used as a pocket, otherwise his worldly goods were
+contained tied up in a white pocket-handkerchief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we arrived at Konia. Behind us was the railway, leading back to
+the things we knew, to the things we should hope to see again; before
+us was the plain, leading us to strange new things, things we should,
+perhaps, just see once and leave behind for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The iron Monster had dumped us down and was no further concerned with
+us; if we would go further it must be by taking thought for ourselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were horses and arabas to hire, there were provisions to lay in,
+there was the escort of Zaptiehs to be procured and the goodwill of the
+authorities to be obtained. We had letters of introduction to Ferid
+Pasha, then Vali of the Konia vilayet and since Grand Vizier of
+Constantinople. He was not as other Valis; he was called the great and
+the good, and had established law and order in his province. There need
+be no fear of brigandage while we were within the boundaries of his
+jurisdiction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government building, the Konak, occupied one side of the square in
+which stood our hotel, and we sent Hassan across to pay our respects.
+But Ferid Pasha was away, which caused us great disappointment; we
+could only see his Vekil, the acting Governor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking Hassan and Constantin with us, we went up the long flight of
+steps and down a corridor leading to the Vali's room. Peasants and
+ragged soldiers hung about the passage, and black-coated Jewish-looking
+men hurried in and out. A soldier showed us the way, holding back the
+curtains which concealed the entrance to various rooms, and from behind
+which the mysterious looking Jews were continually creeping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Vekil sat at a table covered over with official documents; a divan,
+higher and harder than those we had seen in private houses, ran round
+two walls, on which squatted several secretaries, holding the paper on
+which they wrote on the palms of their left hands. Beside the Vekil sat
+an old Dervish priest, and next him the Muavin, the Christian official
+appointed after the massacres to inform Valis of the wishes of
+Christians, and better known amongst those who know him as "Evet
+Effendi" (Yes, Effendi).
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+X was getting fluent in matters of Turkish greeting; she now reeled off
+a suitable string in reply to theirs. Hassan stood beside us, grave and
+dignified, and we noticed that all the men greeted him very
+courteously. X then endeavoured to explain our desire to travel to
+Mersina and requested the services of a suitable escort. Owing to
+limitations in her knowledge of the Turkish vocabulary, the nearest she
+could get to it was that the Consul at Mersina loved us dearly and
+wished us to come to him. Matters were getting to a deadlock; the
+officials appeared to be asking us what was the object of our journey,
+and we could only insist on the intense love of our English Consul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly another visitor was ushered in, and for the first time since
+leaving Nic&#230;a the strange sound of the English tongue fell upon our
+ears. The newcomer was Dr. Nakashian, an Armenian doctor living in
+Konia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He at once acted as interpreter. Officialdom for once put no obstacles
+in the way, and an escort was promised us for the journey. The Vekil
+inquired whether we should like to see the sights of Konia; and on our
+replying in the affirmative, he arranged that we should be taken round
+that afternoon; Dr. Nakashian also promised to accompany us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly we sallied out later on horseback with Hassan. Dr.
+Nakashian was mounted on a splendid Arab mare. The Government
+Protection, in the shape of two Zaptiehs and a captain, followed in a
+close carriage. We started off very decorously, but the Arab mare
+became excited and plunged and galloped down the street; our horses
+caught the infection, and we followed hard; the Government Protection
+put its head out of each window and shouted; the driver lashed his
+jaded horse, and the rickety carriage lurched after us in a cloud of
+dust. The natives lining the streets shouted encouragingly; finally we
+landed at the Dervish mosque. Dervishes are strong in Konia. Their
+founder is buried here, and his tomb is an object of pilgrimage. The
+chief feature of the mosque is its wonderful polished floor, where the
+dancing ceremonies take place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Konia, perhaps more than at Eskishehr, one is struck with the
+railway's influence in the passing order of things. There are many fine
+buildings in the last stages of decay in this ancient city of the
+Seljuk Turks; the palace, with its one remaining tower, the fragments
+of the old Seljuk walls found here and there in the middle of the
+modern town, the mosques lined with fa&#239;ence, beautiful even in its
+fragments. Contrast with this the squalor and the dirt of the present
+Turkish streets, the earth and wood houses, enclosed in walls of earth,
+the apathetic natives, and the general feeling of stagnation and decay.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="plains"><img src="images/002.jpg" alt="A Well in the Konia Plains" width="483" height="367"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">A Well in the Konia Plains.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, outside the town, the railway appears; modern European houses
+spring up round it&#8212;offices for the Company and an hotel. A whiff of
+stir and bustle brought in along with the iron fangs of the Monster
+brings a sense of fresh life to these people, whose existence seemed
+one long decay of better things, like that of the ruins amongst which
+they spend their days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And everywhere there was a whisper of yet closer touch with
+civilisation. The Anatolian Railway stops at Konia, but its
+continuation under the name of the Baghdad Railway was everywhere in
+the air.<a href="#note2" name="noteref2">
+<small>[2]</small></a> No one spoke openly about it; its coming seemed enveloped
+in such a shroud of mystery that one felt there was a sort of halo
+around its birth. At first one mentioned it baldly by name; and at once
+the official would put on his most discreet and impressive manner and
+refer to the will of Allah; the merchant would nod mysteriously and
+then wink with evident satisfaction. "It comes! oh yes, it comes! but
+it is better not to talk of it yet." And the Zaptieh would sigh
+heavily, thinking of his unpaid wages, and say, "Please God, it comes,"
+and then look hastily round to see who had overheard him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so at last we also learnt to speak of the Coming of the Monster
+with bated breath and lowered tones, and were duly infected with the
+impressiveness of his arrival&#8212;the arrival of the Being whose touch was
+to bring new life into this dead land.
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead">
+II
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was on the morning of the third day after our arrival at Konia that
+we made the plunge into the great plain from the spot where the Monster
+had left us. We collected in the square in front of the Konak. There
+were two covered arabas to convey the baggage, and in one of these
+Constantin and Hassan also rode; X and I rode horses, and had
+saddle-bags slung under our saddles. Our escort consisted of three
+Zaptiehs, a Lieutenant, Rejeb, and an ancient Sergeant, Mustapha.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The head of the police accompanied us a few miles out of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, riding at a foot's pace, we left it all behind, the squalid
+streets, the modern houses, the scraggy little trees; the lumpy road
+became a deeply rutted track bordering stubble fields; lumbering carts
+passed us, squeaking terribly as the wheels lurched out of the ruts to
+make way for us. The track became an ill-defined path, along which
+heavily laden pack-animals slowly toiled, raising clouds of dust.
+Turning in our saddles, all we could see of Konia was the minarets of
+its mosques standing above a confused blur on the horizon line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is a strange fascination in watching the slow disappearance of
+any object on the horizon, when that horizon is visible at every point
+round you. The exact moment never comes when you can state the actual
+disappearance of the object. You think it is still there, and then you
+slowly realise that it is not. And when you have realised this, you
+turn round again in the saddle once for all, and set your face steadily
+towards the horizon in front of you, which for so many hours on end has
+nothing to show and nothing to tell you, and yet whose very emptiness
+is so full of secret possibilities and hidden wonder.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We had got beyond the point where one met others on the road; we had
+now become our own world, a self-contained planet travelling with the
+sun through space. When he disappeared over the horizon line we pitched
+our camp and waited for his reappearance on the opposite side. At the
+first glimmer announcing his arrival the tents were hauled down, the
+arabas loaded up, and by the time his face peeped over the line we were
+in our saddles, ready once more to follow him to his journey's end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is a great half-desert plain, this part of Anatolia; desert only
+where it is waterless, and very fertile where irrigation is possible.
+In places it seemed to form one huge grazing ground; now it would be
+herds of black cattle munching its coarse, dried-up herbage; now flocks
+of mohair goats, now sheep, herded by boys in white sheepskin coats,
+tended by yellow dogs. Then we knew that a village would be somewhere
+about, although we did not always see it; for here too the villages are
+the colour of the surrounding country and perhaps only visible in very
+clear sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or it might be that we would ride slowly through a cluster of mud huts,
+and the yellow dogs would rush out and bark furiously at us, while the
+men and children stared silently, too listless even to wonder. At times
+we would stop in a village for our midday meal, sitting in the shade of
+its yellow mud walls. The Zaptiehs would stand round us and keep off
+the dogs until some of the village men would appear and call them away
+with a half-scared look&#8212;for the Zaptieh is the tax-collector, and they
+suffer from extortion at his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We visited the women in their houses, and found them always interested
+and friendly. Turkish was becoming more intelligible to us, and the
+conversation usually took the same form:&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who is your father?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is a Pasha in a far country."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where are your husbands?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We have no husbands."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How is that?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In our country the women are better than the men, and the men are
+afraid of us."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then our clothes are fingered all over and the cost of everything on us
+is asked. We rise to go, and they hang on to us and implore us to come
+again. But the sun has already begun to dip on his downward course, and
+we must hurry after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then would follow hours when no attempt at cultivation, or sign of
+herds and flocks, would be visible, and the desert country was only
+relieved by wonderful effects of mirage, in which we would chase
+elusive pictures of mountains and lakes and streams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One had time to take it all in: the wonderful exhilarating air, the
+silent stretches, the long, monotonous days of the shepherd boys,
+marked only by the gathering in of their flocks at night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How will it be when the Monster comes, roaring and snorting through
+these silent plains, polluting this clear air with his dust and smoke?
+At first these haughty, resentful shepherds will stand aloof from the
+invasion, the yellow dogs will bark in vain at the intrusion. Then
+slowly its daily appearance will come to them as the sun comes in the
+morning and the stars at night. Unconsciously it also will become a
+part of the routine of their lives. They will not cease to look at it
+with wonder, for they have never wondered. They will accept it, as they
+accept everything else. But use it? That is a different tale. It will
+be a long fight; but the Monster has always conquered in the end.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+On the third day we rode into Karaman. A medieval castle crowns the
+town, and is visible at some little distance across the plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old sergeant, Mustapha, startled us by suddenly greeting it from
+afar:&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, Karaman, you beautiful Karaman, city of peace and plenty. Ah,
+Karaman, beloved Karaman!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the Zaptiehs, taking up the refrain, made the silent plains ring
+with "Karaman! beautiful Karaman!"
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We pitched our tents on a grass plot in the centre of the town.
+Constantin began preparing the evening meal, and the natives hung round
+in groups staring at us, or bringing in supplies of fuel and milk and
+eggs. A seedy-looking European pushed his way up to our tent and began
+storming at us in French.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But it is impossible for you to camp here&#8212;it is not allowable; you
+must come at once to my house. There is nothing to say."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X and I tried to rouse our bewildered minds out of the Eastern sense of
+repose into which they had sunk through all these days. We concluded
+that Karaman must possess an urban district council, and that we were
+breaking some law of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We pressed for further enlightenment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But do you not see all these people looking at you? It is not for you
+to camp here. My house is ready for you. There are good beds and it is
+dry, but this ..." and he waved his hand at our preparations. "It is
+not possible; there is nothing to say."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time Hassan and Rejeb, into whose hands we had been entrusted
+for protection, came up and stood over us, looking threateningly at our
+gesticulating, excited friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I do not understand," I said. "Who says that we may not camp here?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But it is I that say it; it is not possible. My house is ready; there
+is nothing to say."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who are you?" I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am an Austrian," he answered. Then he lowered his voice, in that
+mysterious manner which we associated with the coming of the Monster.
+"I am here," he said, in an undertone, "as agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Very good," I answered; "and now tell us why we cannot camp here."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But it is damp," he said; "look at the mud."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, is that all?" I said. "We are much obliged to you for the offer of
+your house, but we always sleep out."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But I have good beds," he said, "and a dry room at your service. There
+is nothing to say."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point Rejeb could contain himself no longer. He spoke sternly
+to the Austrian in Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do you want?" he said. "These ladies are under my protection.
+What are you saying to them?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man poured out volumes of Turkish; Rejeb and he had a violent
+altercation, which seemed to be ending in blows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Come, come," I said to the man, "enough of this. We are much obliged
+to you for your offer of hospitality, but we prefer to remain outside."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed totally unable to understand that this could be the case. "If
+it is myself you do not care about," he said, in a crestfallen manner,
+"I can easily move from the house. The beds are clean and they are
+dry."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We finally consented to spend the evening at his house, and accompanied
+him through the streets, Rejeb and Hassan following closely on our
+heels. He showed us into a stuffy little sitting-room. Every corner was
+crammed with gimcracks; the whole place reeked of musty wool
+chairbacks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we followed him upstairs; we must at any rate "look at the
+beds"&#8212;he evidently thought the sight of them would prove irresistible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On calmer reflection the beds were, doubtless, no worse than the
+ordinary type to be found in commercial country inns; but to us, coming
+out of the sweet and wholesome atmosphere of the yet untainted plain,
+they seemed to be the very embodiment of stuffiness and discomfort. The
+windows, which had evidently not been opened for some time, were
+heavily draped, so as to effectually exclude all light and air even
+when open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There, now do you see? It is clean, it is dry. There is nothing humid
+here; but out there it is exposed, it is damp, it is not allowable."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We waived the question for the moment, reserving our forces for a later
+attack, and returned to the sitting-room, where a native woman was
+preparing the evening meal. We questioned our host on the arrival of
+the railway. He admitted being there to tout for trade <i>in case</i>
+it came; but who could tell, in a country like this, what would happen?
+Mon Dieu! it was a God-forsaken country, and all the inhabitants were
+canaille; there was no one he could associate with. He counted the days
+till his return. "When would that be?" "Ah," then he became mysterious
+once more and looked round at the door and window: "Ah, God knows;
+might it come soon!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The serving-woman appeared and said that our men wished to see us; they
+had been sitting on the doorstep ever since we entered the house and
+refused to go away. The Austrian went out to them; high words ensued,
+and we looked through the door. The Austrian, crimson with rage, was
+gesticulating violently and pouring out torrents of unintelligible
+Turkish. Rejeb stood in front of him, hitting his long riding-boot with
+his whip and answering with some heat. Above him towered Hassan, very
+calm and very quiet, slowly rolling up a cigarette and now and then
+putting in a single word in support of Rejeb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Austrian turned to us. "Can you not send these men away, ladies? It
+is an impertinence. They refuse to leave you here unless they
+themselves sleep in the house. They say they have orders never to leave
+you, but surely they can see what I am!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We calmed him down as best we could, and insisted on our intention of
+returning to our tents. He could not understand it, and I should think
+never will. But we got away, Rejeb and Hassan one on each side of us.
+When we were out on the road in cover of darkness both men burst into
+loud roars of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have we not done well, Effendi?" they said. "We have rescued you from
+the mad little man. The great doctor in London, has he not said, 'You
+shall sleep in the tent every night'?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, gathering round our camp-fire in the damp and the mud, we rejoiced
+with Hassan and Rejeb over their gallant assault and our fortunate
+escape.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Two days' further ride brought us to Eregli. We approached it in the
+dusk, riding during the last hour through what appeared to be low copse
+wood. The place seemed low and damp; we rode past the door of the khan,
+and the men besought us to go there instead of camping outside.
+Constantin said he was ill, the arabajis said their horses would be
+ill. But Rejeb and Hassan took our side and we had the tents pitched on
+a spot which seemed dry in the darkness. Next morning we awoke to find
+ourselves encircled by a loop of the river and in a dense white mist.
+It was so cold that the milk froze as we poured it into the tea. We ate
+our breakfast with our gloves on, walking up and down to keep warm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constantin said that he was still ill; the arabajis said their horses
+were now ill; but that was because the khan was comfortable. We
+decided, however, to give them a day's respite and ride out ourselves
+to Ivriz in search of the Hittite inscription at that place.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="hittite"><img src="images/003.jpg" alt="Hittite Bas-relief and Inscription" width="280" height="437"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">Hittite Bas-relief and Inscription. Ivriz.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour's ride took us clear of the mists, and the sun came out hot and
+strong. Our road lay up a gorgeous richly wooded river valley. For the
+first time on our journey we realised what the absence of water and
+trees had meant. Our horses' feet crackled over brown and red autumn
+leaves; autumn smells, crisp and fresh, filled the air; brown trout
+darted from under dark rocks in the stream. Away through gaps in the
+low encircling hills we got sudden visions of two gigantic white-topped
+mountain peaks, the first suggestion of our approach to the Taurus
+barrier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ivriz is a good three hours' ride from Eregli, and lies high on one of
+the lower hills. We left our horses in the village and climbed on foot
+to the spot where the river, rushing suddenly out of the bowels of the
+earth, has formed a cave in the limestone cliff. Below this the stream
+had cut its way through the rock, leaving steep sides of bare stone
+which tell a tale of untold geological age. At one point the ground
+shelved out on a level with the bed of the stream, and the waters here
+swept round a corner, so that the face of the rock overlooking them was
+almost hidden from any one on the same shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is on this face that the Hittite inscription is carved. A god, with
+a stalk of corn and a bunch of grapes in his hands, stands over a man
+who is in an attitude of adoration before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There it stands, hidden from the casual observer, visited by no one but
+the native who comes to cure his sickness in the sacred waters of the
+cave above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Away in the desolate hills, off the track of man, the god has looked
+down on the waters of the river through all those &#230;ons since the days
+of the Hittites, which count as nothing in the time which it took this
+same river to carve its bed out of the eternal hills. How much longer
+will its solitude be left unviolated? The "agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman" is established at Eregli as elsewhere. When the iron
+Monster comes bellowing into Eregli his shriek will be heard in these
+silent hills, and following in his footsteps countless hordes of
+tourists will invade this sacred spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With something akin to a feeling of shame I turned my Kodak on him; and
+a sorrowful thought of the many who would be following my example in
+the years to come shot across my mind.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+It was the sixth day after leaving Konia, and we were in full view of
+the Taurus Mountains. We were crossing the same stretch of barren
+plain, with its occasional patches of cultivation, its hidden villages
+with the flocks and herds trooping in at sundown. But the bounded
+horizon changed our conception of it; it was no longer a limitless
+plain. The nearer ranges stood out in dark purples and blues; behind
+and above towered the snow-clad heights which, looking down on to the
+Mediterranean shores, knew of the life and bustle of its sea-girt
+towns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had come out on the other side of the unknown plain and the aspect
+of things was changed. What drew us on now was not the mystery of
+unexplored space, but the feeling that here was a great barrier to
+cross. We were about to share with these heights the knowledge of what
+lay on the other side. But there was more than this&#8212;we were about to
+do what the Monster might possibly fail to do. As we drew near the
+barrier, the mysterious allusions to his approach all took the form of
+pointing at this barrier. "So far and no further he may come," they
+seemed to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I rode with Mustapha up a long, winding pass on the outskirts of the
+range he pointed at the valley below us. "The Turkish Railway," he said
+solemnly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A long line of laden camels wound slowly up the opposite side; for a
+full quarter of a mile they covered in single file the road winding up
+out of the valley. I pulled my horse up, and Mustapha stopped his
+alongside of mine. We both bent our heads forward and listened. The
+sound of their tinkling bells came faintly across the valley to us; the
+low, musical tones, the quiet, measured movement, all was in keeping
+with the towering mountains and the still, clear air. Hassan rode up
+with the other men and joined us. He put his hands up to his mouth and
+gave a shrill, prolonged whistle in exact imitation of the engine we
+had left at Konia. The men looked at one another and laughed. Then they
+shrugged their shoulders and pushed on up the path.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="V">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER V
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+IN THE TAURUS
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The Taurus range bounds in a semicircle the base of the plateau we had
+crossed. We had always been over 3,000 feet above sea-level, and now
+the heights of the Boulghar Dagh, as this part of the Taurus is called,
+rose high above us. The pass we were making for measured nearly 6,000
+feet, and it looked low in the level of the range. After leaving Eregli
+we had made a short day to Tchaym, some four hours' ride across a very
+barren stretch of country, with the snow mountains always in front of
+us. The next day was to be our last on the plains, for our destination
+was Ulu Kishla, well up on the hills. We had always great difficulty in
+deciding what the stages of our journey were to be. Maps and guidebooks
+were out of the question, the Zaptiehs had only very vague ideas as to
+distances, and local informants were hard to understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our destinations and the distances formed fruitful topics of
+conversation with the men, and generally ended in amicable wrangles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X having made out from the khanji<a href="#note3" name="noteref3">
+<small>[3]</small></a> that it was ten hours' ride from
+Tchaym to Ulu Kishla, asked Rejeb's opinion on the matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Rejeb.</span> Eleven hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mustapha.</span> No, no, twelve hours. Tchaym to Ulu Kishla twelve
+hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. No, no, ten hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Rejeb and Mustapha</span> (<i>in chorus</i>). No, no, the Pasha
+Effendi goes like the post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. It is ten hours; Rejeb and Mustapha go like camels. (<i>Roars of
+laughter.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Rejeb.</span> It is Mustapha and the little Pasha Effendi who go like
+camels, <i>javash, javash</i> (slowly, slowly).
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+At Ulu Kishla we lunched in a huge khan, half in ruins, the size of
+which suggested the almost inconceivable size of the caravans which
+must have passed in better days. Here we decided to send the arabas on
+with half the escort, to await us at the next stage on the main road.
+Taking Hassan and Rejeb and one of the Zaptiehs with us, we branched
+off to visit Boulghar Maden, the highest village of the Taurus, noted
+for its silver mines. It was a rough ride up; now over chunks of rock,
+now along slippery grass slopes, then rock again and sliding bits of
+stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hills shut us in all round until we neared the summit of the pass;
+here we reached a level above that of the heights we had skirted on the
+previous day, and we could see the whole long line of peaks ranging
+westward to the sea. In front of us the chain of mountains on the
+opposite side of the valley, whose heights looked down on the Cilician
+Plain, obscured the view in that direction. We rode towards them in a
+southerly direction and began the descent into the valley below.
+Boulghar Maden lies perched on the hillside, and stretches into the
+valley, so that standing outside the higher houses you looked down on a
+sea of flat roofs below you. Tall, thin poplar-trees, rising above the
+houses in rows, mark it out like a chess-board. The great hillside
+which backs it to the south and keeps off the sun till midday is
+scarred and marked with the entrances to the mines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A small party of horsemen rode out of the town and came clambering up
+the hill towards us. Rejeb confessed to having sent a telegram from Ulu
+Kishla announcing our arrival to the Kaimakam, and suggested that this
+was a deputation sent out by him to receive us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our spirits sank when we got near enough to distinguish European
+clothes on the leader of the party; we had been feeling ourselves
+tolerably safe from "agents commercials" at this altitude. Already from
+afar we were greeted in voluble French, which heightened our fears. The
+man was accompanied by a Turkish official and two Zaptiehs. The road
+was so steep that they dismounted and led their horses, both men and
+animals panting furiously. Our horses slid down the rough track,
+scattering the loose stones before them in all directions, and we
+joined the party below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Salutations from Monsieur le Kaimakam, and he bids you welcome to
+Boulghar Maden." The man took off his fez and bowed. We saw that he was
+a cut above the enemy we had been fearing and we felt happier. He then
+explained that he was the representative in Boulghar Maden of our
+merchant friends in Constantinople, that he was an Armenian, that the
+Kaimakam was most perturbed lest we should not be received in proper
+manner, and had commissioned him, Onik Dervichian, at our service, to
+make all arrangements for our comfort. We were to be the guests of the
+Kaimakam, and he had caused rooms to be got ready for us in the house
+of a Greek family, where he would send down the feast he was preparing.
+But first he was expecting us at the Konak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We all scrambled down the hill together and rode through the village to
+the Government buildings. A line of Zaptiehs was drawn up at the
+entrance and fired a salute as we passed. Then we dismounted, and were
+led through the usual mysterious curtain-hung doors into the Kaimakam's
+presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With our friend as interpreter, we felt sure the correct salutations
+would be delivered on our behalf. The health of the King of England and
+of our fathers, the great Pashas, was duly inquired after. Onik
+Dervichian then hustled us away to the Greek house. Here we found the
+women in a great state of perturbation and excitement. Our friend had
+sent down sheets for our beds, which were being constructed on the
+divans; would he show them where they were meant to go? Onik Dervichian
+threw off his coat and set to work on the beds himself, smoothing out
+the sheets with the fat Greek mother, who argued volubly with him the
+whole time. The two daughters of the house looked on and laughed; the
+little fat boy put his finger in his mouth and roared with laughter.
+Hassan stood in the doorway beaming with satisfaction. We were to sleep
+indoors, but was it not with Government sanction and under Government
+auspices? This was quite a different matter from the Karaman
+experience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rejeb was having a good time recounting our adventures to his brother
+officers at the Konak, whither he had hastened back after seeing us
+safely landed at the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A messenger arrived from the Kaimakam&#8212;were the ladies ready for the
+feast? The dishes had been prepared and the servants were awaiting
+commands. We invited Onik Dervichian to stay and help us through; for
+this was not the first time we had experienced Turkish hospitality and
+suspected that our powers would be taxed to the full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little low table was brought in, and Onik showed the Greek mother
+how to lay it "&#224; la Franka." The dishes began to arrive: curries and
+pilafs and roasted kid; dolmas and chickens and kebabs; and then the
+nameless sweet dishes which Turkish cooks only know how to prepare. At
+the fourth course I made an attempt to strike, but Onik Dervichian was
+shocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam," and he piled up my
+plate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the fifth course he anticipated me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sixth: "Now, mademoiselle."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I said; "Kaimakam or no Kaimakam, I can't."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Onik Dervichian's face was a study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mais, mademoiselle, <i>seulement</i> pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You will have to do it all yourself, then," I said; "he won't know
+which of us has eaten it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Onik rose manfully to the occasion and did his best. Only at the last
+dish did he lean back and, rubbing himself gently, murmur:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, mon Dieu! et tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+There were "written stones," they told us, in this neighbourhood too;
+accordingly next day we hired a native as guide and set off in search
+of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A road roughly cut on the side of the mountain led out of Boulghar
+Maden down the valley to the east; below it, precipitous sides shot
+into the river's bed; above it, the range we had crossed the previous
+day towered overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About a mile outside the village we turned off the road and wound up
+the mountain-side. Our horses pushed their way through the thorns and
+brambles which grew in rank profusion in and out amongst the rocky
+projections, until we had scrambled up to the summit of an outlying
+hill-top. Here a rocky projection stood out higher than the surrounding
+ones and showed a flat face of wall to the midday sun. It was just
+possible to make out that there was an inscription on this face. We
+could see that the characters were cut in relief and not incised. The
+Hittites were metal workers, and this characteristic of their
+inscriptions no doubt arose from their habit of embossing metal. That
+they were particularly fond of silver is suggested by the fact that
+many of their treaties were inscribed on tablets of that metal.
+Inscriptions are also found on stones near the Gumush Dagh, where
+silver-mines have been worked. We may presumably infer that the working
+of these mines at Boulghar Maden dates from Hittite times. The view in
+front of us was one vast breaking sea of mountain tops; the snow-clad
+heights forming the crests gleamed, in sudden flashes of sunlight, like
+the surf on a rising wave.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We left Boulghar Maden the next morning. The Kaimakam insisted that we
+should drive in his carriage down to Chifte Khan, the point on the main
+route where we were to meet our arabas. The road had only been made a
+few years and they were very proud of it; it was an exquisite road, we
+were told. The Kaimakam, we were also told, was very proud of his
+carriage. When he went to visit the mines he had it out; but his horse
+was led behind, for apparently his pride in it was not so great as
+regard for his own comfort, not to say safety. But here was an occasion
+for him to vaunt his pride with none of the accompanying discomforts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It arrived: a springless box on wheels, a hard and narrow seat on each
+side, the top encased in a heavy roof, with rattling glass windows. The
+whole was painted a bright primrose yellow, and was drawn by two small
+Turkish horses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X and I got in somewhat ruefully. It was a glorious fresh, sunny day,
+and we were about to pass through some of the finest scenery of the
+Taurus district.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Onik Dervichian, who came to start us on the way, and Hassan sat inside
+with us. The Kaimakam had sent his servants to ride our horses; they
+and the Zaptiehs followed in a long string behind. For the first mile
+or two the road was fairly smooth; the vehicle lumbered heavily along;
+when it struck a loose stone the glass rattled furiously. We peered
+longingly through the panes, trying to catch glimpses of the
+surroundings. Pine woods nodded in the light breeze, but the noise
+drowned their whispers. Valley and hills streaked with laughing shadows
+beckoned to us to come out and look at them. Every turn in the road
+displayed new vistas of pine-clad slopes, shooting long tongues of
+green into the brown-red rocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As time went on the road became very rough; great masses of solid rock
+lay across it, and the carriage, lurching up over them, jumped us about
+on the hard seats and knocked us up against one another. Hassan took it
+calmly; he merely ejaculated "Am&#257;n" when an extra lurch sent him flying
+off the seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Onik Dervichian, however, was sorely troubled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, mon Dieu!" he cried out at intervals, "et tout cela pour faire
+plaisir au Kaimakam."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At times it was not only painful but positively dangerous. The side of
+the hill would rise up in perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow
+ledge of road, cut at right angles to it, barely gave width enough for
+the wheels to pass; a jerk in the wrong direction would have
+precipitated us down the rocks into the valley beneath.<a href="#note4" name="noteref4">
+<small>[4]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At such moments Onik Dervichian, pink with terror and excitement,
+opening with difficulty the door at the back, would scramble out and
+follow on foot. The crisis over, his sense of humour would return and
+he would take his seat again, throw up his hands and ejaculate, "Et
+tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the carriage came to a dead stop. In front of us the ledge of rock
+had broken away, and two great boulders, fallen from above, blocked the
+narrow way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X pointed down the steep precipice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look, Hassan, look," she said, pretending to shudder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan looked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You go over, I go too," was his reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The driver got down and examined the obstruction. We all got out and
+examined it. The servants leading our horses behind, dismounted and
+examined it. The horses stood with their noses on it and stared
+stupidly. Then everybody took hold of the wheels and lifted and shoved
+the whole concern bodily over. With the wheels on one side falling well
+over the steep side, the driver carefully engineered horses and
+carriage round the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruised and exhausted, shaken in body and nerves, we were finally
+safely landed at Chifte Khan, where we found our men and arabas
+awaiting us. We flung ourselves down on the grass of a little orchard
+and thanked God for our delivery from the task of pleasing Kaimakams.
+Hassan stood over us and gazed thoughtfully at the yellow carriage
+standing by the roadside, while the driver devoured pilaf at the door
+of the khan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is well now," he said; "we have pleased the Kaimakam."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The driver clambered up on the seat again, and turned his horses' heads
+up the road we had left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Thank God," said Onik Dervichian, "that we are still alive to see it
+depart!"
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+From Chifte Khan we followed a good road, through the gorgeous vale of
+Bozanti, to Ak Kupru, where we pitched our camp for the night by the
+side of the river Chakut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The weather broke suddenly, and we reached the place in torrents of
+rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wind, tearing in gusts up the valley, shook the walls of the tent,
+and the ropes strained at the pegs. It drove the rain so hard against
+the white canvas that it forced the drops through almost against their
+will. It would have been so much easier for them just to run down the
+outside slope; but every force in nature seemed to be let loose to make
+the others worse. I moved my bed a little to try and get a clear course
+between two sets of drips. X surveyed my endeavours from where she sat,
+mechanically tilting a pool off her mackintosh rug when the accumulated
+drops showed signs of flowing in disastrous directions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's no use trying not to be wet," she said, "when there is no way of
+keeping dry."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A new drip in the centre of the two original ones forced me to accept
+her philosophy, and we sat silently watching the scene outside. In
+front of us a bridge crossed the river and from it wound the road we
+should follow, zigzagging up until it disappeared round a corner. The
+Taurus Mountains rose like a black barrier in front of us, towering
+aloft in gigantic walls of rock; then layers of black forest and grassy
+slopes, then misty tops showing white snow where the clouds parted. At
+their feet on the other side lay the great Cilician Plain, covered with
+yellow crops and brown earth and clothed with mud-coloured villages. On
+the other side also was the Mediterranean, blue and calm; there was sun
+and warmth and quiet, and people quietly basking in the heat. But on
+this side there was turmoil and cold and wet; the earth's face was hard
+and bare, and over it angry waters dashed in heedless, headlong fury;
+angry clouds overhead vied with them, shooting down relentless torrents
+of rain. On the other side, the blue Cydnus wound gently in and out
+through the level plain, and made marshes of its low banks as its
+waters lazily crawled round in long, curving loops. On this side the
+Chakut Su, goaded on by the maddened waterfalls, rushed its black
+waters impatiently against obstructing rocks and turning white with
+fury foamed round them in angry swirls and dashed on through narrow
+gorges, lashing at their mocking, immovable walls.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We sought refuge in the khan for the evening meal, sharing the fire
+with our own men and the Zaptiehs. Onik Dervichian, always merry and
+full of resources even on such an evening, made the men sit round so as
+to leave an empty space in the centre of the room. Then he produced a
+walking-stick and laid it flat on the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stand up, oh stick!" he said, waving his hand and addressing it in
+Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a sound could be heard in the room; all eyes were fixed on the
+stick, which slowly rose and stood up, apparently of itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ha! ha!" went round the room in deep murmurs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Lie down, oh stick!" said Onik.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the stick, after giving a hop or two, went slowly down on the floor
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For full half an hour did Onik Dervichian, by means of a fine thread
+invisible in the dim firelight, go through a series of tricks with the
+walking-stick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men never moved or took their eyes off it for a moment, but showed
+no curiosity about it. They took it, like everything else, as a matter
+of course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan and Rejeb, two silent men, talked together the whole night long
+just outside our tent. What with this and the wind and the rain, and
+the flapping of the tent and the drips, which, coursing down the
+canvas, found new points of entry at every moment, we got but little
+rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan greeted us with an anxious look next morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You were not frightened in the night, I hope?" he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I answered, "but we did not get much rest."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Rejeb and I," he went on, "were afraid you would be frightened by the
+noises, and we talked all night to show that we were close at hand."
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+The rain was still coming down in torrents. The khanji said it had come
+to stay, and he made a big fire, for he expected us to stay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But X was inexorable. If the bad weather had begun, she said, we must
+push on and get through the pass before we were snowed up; that would
+be worse than getting a wetting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had all got into the habit of doing what X told us; so Hassan went
+out grimly and packed up the sodden tents. "Am&#257;n, am&#257;n," he murmured
+now and again, "it is the whim of a woman." The arabajis dejectedly
+fetched out the horses, who drooped their heads in the rain and blinked
+reproachfully. "It is the will of Allah," said the men, and they loaded
+up the tents. The Zaptiehs and Rejeb fetched their horses and mounted.
+"It is the will of Allah," said also the Zaptiehs; but their Lieutenant
+held his peace. The rain might be the will of Allah, but to ride
+through it was the whim of a woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One by one we filed out over the bridge and up the winding road
+opposite. The arabas creaked; their sodden, wooden wheels squeaked as
+they lurched along after us; and the khanji stood in the doorway and
+wondered a little; then he went back to his fire. And we rode up and up
+silently. Thick rain mists shrouded the heights above us; gradually we
+reached the forest line, and the grassy slopes were level with us on
+the opposite side of the valley; and still we rode gently up and up.
+The rain lessened a little bit, and we raised our heads and told each
+other so. Onik Dervichian burst into song and made the hills echo with
+his ringing voice. Then the rain poured down again and we rode silently
+on into it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A string of camels laden with merchandise met us just as we were
+crossing a track, which was being temporarily turned into the bed of a
+stream for superfluous waters. Their great hoofs slipped on the greasy,
+muddy sides, and each one paused in its mechanical march as its turn
+came to slide down the slippery bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Y'allah, y'allah!" shouted the drivers, prodding them, and they
+resignedly put forward their great hoofs and floundered after their
+companions.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+The arabas made slow progress up the hill. We were getting wet through
+and decided to push on ahead with Rejeb and two of the Zaptiehs. Onik
+Dervichian announced his intention of returning; he could reach
+Boulghar Maden that evening if he went no further, and he did not
+relish the idea of another night such as the one he had just spent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At midday we arrived at Gulek Boghaz, where we found a new detachment
+of Zaptiehs awaiting us, for we had crossed the borders of the Konia
+vilayet and were now under the Vali of Adana. The men took our horses
+and led them into the stable. Streams of water ran off horses and men
+alike and collected in pools about the uneven floor. We brushed past
+the horses' heels and went on into the living room leading out of the
+stable, where a roaring wood fire blazed at the far end. We lay on the
+rough divan in the corner and thawed and dried. The men came in from
+seeing to their horses, and the fire drew clouds of thick steam out of
+their soaking clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rejeb sent out a Zaptieh to see if there was any sign of the arabas,
+but he returned with no news save that of increasing rain. We dozed
+round the hot fire; the Zaptiehs sat at the far end of the room and
+smoked; there was no sound but the beating of the rain outside and of
+the horses munching and stamping in the adjoining room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More than an hour passed and still no sign of the arabas. We roused
+ourselves and conjectured all the possibilities of mishap: a wheel had
+come off; they had stuck in the mud; they had lost their way; the roads
+were too heavy for the horses after the rain; they had been attacked by
+brigands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X, however, had her own suspicions. The arabajis had been very loth to
+leave Ak Kupru, and they knew of our intention of pushing on after the
+midday rest. They were dawdling on the road or sheltering somewhere out
+of the rain&#8212;we had passed an open shed&#8212;so as to ensure arriving too
+late for us to get on to the next stage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cast round for a method of outwitting them, and at last hit on one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You take two of the new Zaptiehs," she said, "and ride on with them to
+the next khan; I will wait here until the arabas turn up. We cannot
+leave you alone, and that will be an excuse to make the men come on."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I always did as X told me, and rose obediently from the warm corner. As
+I drew on my dry overcoat, hot from the fire, and looked out at the
+drenching rain, I felt strongly drawn in sympathy towards the arabajis.
+My horse was saddled and dragged outside, as loth to leave its
+companions as I was. I mounted, and bid farewell to Rejeb and Mustapha,
+who were returning to Konia. It was a tearful parting, for they had
+been with us now for eleven days and we were fast friends. X stood in
+the doorway of the stable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When you get to the khan," she called out after me, "say 'Atesh
+getir.'"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"All right," I said obediently. What "atesh getir" meant I did not
+know; but X said I was to say it and that was enough. I was awfully
+afraid of forgetting it, and it was too wet to make a note, so I kept
+on repeating it at intervals. The Zaptiehs rode one behind and one
+before me, for the road was narrow. By and by we entered a defile not
+more than three or four yards across, where the rocks towered above us
+quite perpendicularly on one side and overhung us on the other; the
+road became almost coincident with the bed of the stream, and a large
+piece of fallen rock nearly blocked the way. The Zaptieh in front of me
+pointed with his whip at the rock just over our heads and also at the
+one fallen in the bed of the stream. The rain was pouring over the
+faces of both, and obscured them, but it was just possible to make out
+that these also were "written stones," and I concluded that we must be
+riding through the famous Cilician Gates, round which the historical
+interest of the Taurus centres.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I repeated "Atesh getir" devoutly, and we hurried on. A two hours' ride
+brought us to a khan on the side of the road. One of the Zaptiehs
+galloped ahead to announce our arrival. The yard, ankle deep in mud,
+was full of dripping animals and men. The khanji helped me to dismount,
+and I said "Atesh getir." He nodded and smiled and talked away at me
+hard as he led me into a vast room, perfectly bare, without even the
+usual divan. There was a wood fire burning up a tumble-down chimney in
+the middle, and they fetched me a little three-legged stool to sit on.
+I thanked them and said "Atesh getir" once more. The Zaptiehs came and
+turned my hat and coat round and round in front of the fire to dry, as
+an excuse to dry their own. A boy appeared with more logs of wood,
+which he threw on the fire. Every now and then the khanji would come
+and jabber at me, and I smiled and nodded and said "Atesh getir." It
+seemed now to have become a sort of joke, for every time I said it the
+Zaptiehs and the other men laughed, and I caught the words repeatedly
+in their conversation amongst themselves. Every few minutes the boy
+came and threw more wood on the fire, then he would turn and ask me a
+question. I had nothing but "Atesh getir" to say. But I felt a little
+nervous about the size of the fire. It was exceeding the bounds of the
+hearth, and I was afraid would soon burn down the rotten old place, for
+the heat was terrific. So I would point at the fire and shake my head
+when he threw on the logs, but he only grinned and went off to return
+with some more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I sat there waiting for X, I knew that I should always remember once
+for all that warmth is the one thing in the world which really matters.
+I was hungry, for we had not tasted much food that day. There was not
+much to sit upon, the stool had got very hard; the room was dirty and
+bare, and the smell of wet animals came up from the sheds below; but
+the fire made up for it all. One felt one had really got all one
+wanted, and I would not have exchanged that fire for the best of meals
+or the downiest of beds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was quite content to sit by it and wait for X for ever if need be.
+She had shipped me off with two strange men to a strange place with two
+strange words whose meaning I did not know&#8212;but there was the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She arrived at last. The men all came tramping in with her and gathered
+round the blazing logs. Hassan fetched a bundle out of the araba, where
+the things had kept fairly dry, and made a seat for us. Constantin
+opened the last tin of sardines, and having demolished them we finished
+up with native bread and honey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan went out to look for a place to pitch the tent, and came back to
+say there was nothing but mud and water outside: should he put it up
+under an open shed just below the room? The floor was sodden with the
+smell of generations of passing caravans, but there seemed no other
+choice, and the tent was the only means of privacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late at night a sudden thought struck me. I turned towards X and saw
+that she was awake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I said, "what does 'atesh getir' mean?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It means 'get a fire,'" said X sleepily.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We were awakened early by the departure, before sunrise, of the men and
+animals who, quartered in the yard of which our shed formed part, had
+not given us much peace during the night. We were not loth, on our
+part, to leave the tent, which had caught and retained the smell rising
+up from the sodden earth floor, until we were nearly choked with the
+fumes. It was still raining, and the peaks we had ridden under the day
+before were shrouded in mist. We kept on descending slowly, and by and
+by came out on a piece of open moor land. The sun began to appear again
+now. We were leaving it all behind, the cold and the wet and the storms
+of the hills. We were getting into the stillness of the plains again.
+The men took off their overcoats and rolled them up on their saddles
+behind. One by one we shed the wraps which had seemed so thin and
+inefficient under the snowy heights; they were getting unbearable here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We expected at every turn to get a view of the sea. In spite of this,
+its first appearance was so sudden as to come as a surprise. We rounded
+a corner, and there it lay, as we had pictured it on the other side,
+still and bright, with no suggestion of storm and turmoil. It was not
+till that moment that we had the distinct feeling of having crossed the
+barrier. Each step forward now unrolled bit by bit the stretch of plain
+at our feet. There was the Cydnus winding its easy course through
+fertile lands as if there were no trouble in its rising waters. There
+was Tarsus, its flat roofs so sunk in gardens and fruit-trees that
+minarets and domes alone proclaimed the presence of a large town; and
+there, too, still faint and dim, but unmistakable, was the thin, moving
+line of smoke which proclaimed that we were nearing the land of the
+Monster once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Can it be that the day is not far distant when this one will join hands
+with its brother through the barrier we have crossed; and tearing
+through these silent plains and the rugged fastnesses of these great
+hills, destroy the mystery over which they have so long kept their
+sacred guard?
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="VI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VI
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+ROYAL PROGRESS
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+In the line of country stretching from Tarsus eastward to Urfa, there
+is a series of stations of the American Mission Board. Travelling as we
+did, in the direction of this line, we made these stations our stages,
+and hired horses and men afresh at each place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Tarsus we camped in the playground of the mission school run by Dr.
+Christie. On the evening of our arrival out of the Taurus Mountains we
+were eating off spotless cloths with knives and forks, and were singing
+"Onward, Christian soldiers" with a hundred Armenian and Greek
+students.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The plunge out of rough travelling into these oases of civilisation is
+very sudden, and the contrast gives a full meaning to the advantages
+and disadvantages of both forms of existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The missionaries are the embodiment of hospitality. They know also what
+the discomforts of our journey have been, for they have gone through
+much the same experience themselves in order to arrive at their present
+homes; and so we find hot baths awaiting us and fresh supplies of
+hairpins; buttons are sewn on, and clothes sent to the wash. We are
+started off on the road again clean and tidy, and with a linen bag full
+of home-made white bread, which will see us through many days. We also
+carry with us thoughts of the splendid work which is being done by
+them, and of the hardship and danger many of them have gone through in
+carrying out this work of education among these Eastern Christians.
+Gathered round the fire at night we would listen to tales of bloodshed
+and massacre, of domestic tragedies and individual heroism, of anxiety
+and hope all told with that simplicity and quietness which bears the
+stamp of a personal experience which has come face to face with the
+real facts of life in a barbaric land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, once we were on the road again, we were glad to be there, glad to
+hear only the sound of the Turkish tongue; glad to lie out once more
+under the stars and eat our meal round the camp-fire at night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Occasionally, too, we would get sudden reminders of the institutions we
+had left. A stray Armenian would accost us on the road with "Who are
+you? Where are you going? What is your name?" in the English tongue
+with a perceptible nasal twang. We would have a momentary unpleasant
+sense of impertinent familiarity. Then one would pull oneself together
+and remember the doctrine of universal brotherly love which was being
+instilled into the minds of mission students, and would try hard not to
+mind when the individual would proceed to tell us that we were his
+sisters, that he loved us very much, and would we give him a
+subscription towards a harmonium for his church.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was during this stage of our journey, also, that we were taken to be
+royalties and received at the larger towns with military honours. The
+idea seems to have emanated from Konia after our departure from there.
+We had left cards on the officials at the Konak. Now X's Christian name
+was Victoria, and her address printed on the card was Prince's Gate. To
+the Turkish mind this was conclusive evidence that she was a relation
+of the great queen, and instructions for our suitable reception were
+accordingly telegraphed on. At Adana we found ourselves indisputably
+"daughters of the King of Switzerland." It was of no use denying it:
+"naturally we wished to preserve an <i>incognito</i>."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were summoned to pay a state visit to the Vali of Adana and were
+accompanied by his secretary, who talked French.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> Welcome; you have come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. Gladly we have found ourselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> By your features and bearing I can see you are of the
+high aristocracy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Interpreter.</span> The ladies say that they also can see that you
+are a most high and noble prince. (<i>Turns to us.</i> You said that,
+didn't you?)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> And how do the noble ladies find Adana?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Interpreter.</span> The ladies find Adana the most charming and
+delightful spot in Turkey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. Please thank his Excellency for sending the Zaptiehs to meet us; we
+were very pleased with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> The ladies are most welcome; if they should wish for
+fifty Zaptiehs they would be at their service.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(<i>Mutual bows and salaams.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> And where do the ladies intend to travel after this?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We wish to go by Aintab and Diarbekr to Baghdad. Does his Excellency
+think the road is safe?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> Wherever the ladies go their safety is assured; they are
+the guests of the nation. There is not a governor in the land who has
+not received orders to look after them in every way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(<i>Further bows and expression of thanks.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali</span> (<i>continues</i>). The ladies, however, will find it
+most uncomfortable travelling at this time of year. I would urge them
+to give up the idea of this journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We are obliged to your Excellency for your advice, but we do not
+really mind the discomforts of travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali</span> (<i>turns to his Muavin, the</i> "Evet Effendi"
+<i>already mentioned</i>). This gentleman has just returned from
+Baghdad; he will tell you how very disagreeable the journey will be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Muavin.</span> Evet, Effendim; the road, of course, is safe as
+regards the tribes; but do not the ladies fear tigers and the many wild
+beasts which may be encountered?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> I assure you it is not safe for you. You hear what this
+gentleman says. If the ladies will wait till the spring I will arrange
+for them to accompany my brother, the Prince of Kurdistan, in his
+expedition to the mountains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding it impossible to dissuade us, the Vali then leads the way to
+the Council chamber, and makes X sit in the Presidential chair, where,
+he informs us, no one but the Vali has ever sat. He tells X she is now
+the Vali Pasha, this is her house, and he is at her commands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X promptly seizes the opportunity, and asks for favour to be extended
+to a friend we had met in the course of our travels, who had been
+banished from Adana owing to having incurred the Vali's displeasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> Because he was kind to you I will pardon him. He may
+come back if it will please the ladies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We are much obliged to your Excellency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> Many people have spoken to me for him, but I would not
+listen; but to please the ladies I will now forgive him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> Will it please the ladies to dine with me to-morrow?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We thank your Excellency, it would give us much pleasure. But we
+must apologise for our clothes; we are travelling, and have no suitable
+dresses for dining with your Excellency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali</span> (<i>waves his hand</i>). The ladies must not mention it.
+I can see by their appearance how noble they are, and their clothes are
+therefore of no significance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We will now say goodbye, and we thank your Excellency for all your
+kindness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Vali.</span> It is I that am indebted for your presence. Will you
+send my love to his Excellency your father? for he also is a Pasha, and
+we are brothers.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+From Adana our next stage was to Aintab. Our luggage had now all to be
+conveyed on pack-mules, for we were going over tracks where wheels
+could not pass. This made our party seem larger, for we needed three
+mules for the baggage, and they were accompanied by three muleteers,
+who also looked after our horses and the mules ridden by our men. Our
+escort here consisted of four Zaptiehs and a Captain. This was the
+lowest number to which we had been able to reduce the fifteen men the
+Vali had pressed upon us. Nominally, they received no pay from us, but
+the "baksheesh" which we were expected to give them no doubt
+compensated for the arrears of pay from which the Turkish soldier
+invariably suffers.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We had parted with Constantin at Adana. He was not very suitable for
+really rough camping work, and we had asked the missionaries at Adana
+to recommend us a less civilised person, who would be more competent in
+tight places. Through them we engaged an Armenian, Arten by name. He
+could only speak Turkish, so we were now entirely thrown on our own
+resources as to Turkish conversation. X, however, had acquired quite
+enough of the language to be intelligible to Hassan, who interpreted
+our wants to the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had hardly left Adana before incessant heavy rains came on, which
+turned the tracks into impassable mud swamps. We struggled on as far as
+Hamidieh, where we sought refuge in the house of an Austrian widow who
+ran a large cotton mill in the place. For three days the rain came down
+in torrents. I went to bed indoors with fever; X, however, still
+preferred to sleep out in the tent in pools of water, which the men
+vainly endeavoured to keep out by digging trenches all round. On the
+third day we sallied out again and pitched our camp in the middle of
+little green pasture fields in the bed of a lovely valley. Real milking
+cows strayed about in the little fields, and cocks and hens crowed and
+cackled familiarly close to us. This was a very different country from
+the one we had left. In spite of the fact that we had had to exchange
+wheels for pack-mules, it seemed far more civilised and cultivated.
+Trees and water everywhere gave one a feeling of life and growing
+things, unlike the stagnation of the waterless parts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Zaptiehs here, in greeting the town or village we were approaching,
+would always include in their praises its power of providing milk and
+eggs. Our former Zaptiehs had handed on to them that we had an
+insatiable desire for these luxuries, and they would use this as an
+inducement for us to come on to any place where they particularly
+desired to camp, a desire which generally arose from the vicinity of
+some large khan where they could spend a sociable evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, it is a lovely village; there are many eggs, there is much milk.
+The cows they are never dry, and the hens they never cease to lay. The
+chickens, too, they are not all legs, they are fat and juicy."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But we were getting out of the Cilician Plain and the Taurus was with
+us again. The branch which runs southwards from the main chain to the
+coast at Alexandretta, the beautiful Amanus range, still cut us off
+from the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For three days we rode on the outskirts, now climbing gentle, wooded
+slopes, now winding round a stony valley path; every evening we found
+ourselves at a higher altitude. We were getting into the Kurdish
+country. Their handsome women sat on the wide doorstep, which often
+formed the roof of a house beneath, grinding corn between two flat
+stones, or baking flat cakes of bread. They wore huge white headdresses,
+spotlessly clean, covered with silver ornaments, and short crimson
+zouave jackets. They were disposed to be very friendly, and used to
+come into our tent with offerings of oranges and eggs. At one small
+village we came in for a Kurdish wedding. We happened to arrive just as
+the bride was being torn, struggling and weeping, from her father's
+house by the bridegroom and his friends. At first we imagined ourselves
+witnesses of some domestic tragedy, but we were informed that the
+display of grief and resistance was part of the ceremony. The bride was
+plastered over with ornaments and her head was bedecked with a great
+crown of feathers. She was put, still sobbing, on a white horse, and
+led away to the bridegroom's village, to the sound of bagpipes and
+flutes and the shouts and laughter of a hundred brightly dressed
+natives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we had a precipitous ride up to Avjila, a wild, Kurdish village,
+3,000 feet above sea-level. Hidden away amongst the rocks, a few score
+of shepherds tended their mountain flocks. From Avjila the road wound
+round grassy hills and through richly wooded slopes, where the crimson
+berries of the carob-tree hung over our path and the leaves of the
+golden plane dazzled our eyes in the sunlight. The woodman would be
+busy too, and we would hear the sound of his axe in the pine-trees, or
+brush past a mule loaded with long, scratching bundles of firewood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Amanus range slopes very abruptly to the plain on the opposite
+side. It was not till the tenth day after leaving Adana, owing to our
+delay at Hamidieh, that we reached the gap in the trees at the summit
+of the pass which gives you one short glimpse of Aintab on the plain
+below. The muleteers stopped here to throw stones on a cairn beside the
+track and greeted the town with expressions of endearment and praise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give us a coin for luck, Pashas," they said, "and that no evil may
+befall us in the place."
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We rode straight into the Mission compound at Aintab, and found
+ourselves at once in a very academic atmosphere. The mission has been
+established here over sixty years and has a brave show of buildings: a
+college with five professors, a hospital, an orphanage, a girls' and a
+boys' boarding school, and a church. The women missionaries are mostly
+graduates of some American University, and one feels rather behind the
+times in conversation. Their work fills one with respect: there is no
+proselytising about it; their idea is to civilise by education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Aintab it is two short days' journey to the Euphrates. We were now
+in a country of rich red soils covered with olive groves and vineyards.
+Near the villages small sized black and yellow cattle, brought in from
+the pastures, munched maize straw in the rough enclosures of reed or
+straw round the houses. The road was lined with signs of primitive
+cultivation and luxurious crops, evident even in these winter months.
+But the peasants seemed miserably poor. They were partners mostly of
+city men, who provided the seed and the stock and took two-thirds of
+the produce in payment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Euphrates is visible a long way ahead as it winds southwards. At
+first you see it as a streak of light across the plain; then slowly you
+differentiate the banks, the alluvial shores, the flow of the waters.
+Then Birejik appears on the opposite side. Its houses, built on a
+limestone cliff four hundred feet high, rise up above the river tier
+upon tier; then the black marks on the face of the rock below the
+houses take on the shape of rock tombs. We descend a long, gentle slope
+towards the ferry, and find a few buildings on this side also. We wait
+while great herds of oxen and sheep going to the market at Killis are
+ferried across in the great, clumsy, flat-bottomed, flat-sided boat,
+whose one end rises up in a high, curved keel. Then our turn comes, and
+one by one our horses plunge into thick mud and up the slippery end of
+the boat, which lets down to form a gangway. Surely they are not going
+to take us all at once? Our horses get jammed up tighter and tighter at
+the far end as each animal enters the boat; they begin kicking and
+biting at one another. We draw our feet out of the stirrups and hunch
+them up on our horses' necks to be out of harm's way. There is no room
+now for the horses to kick&#8212;they are wedged too tight&#8212;but they
+struggle hard. We are shoved off the mud with long paddles, the cranky
+old boat lurches and wobbles, and we seem horribly near the water. The
+stream catches us and we are wafted down to a lower point on the
+opposite shore. Hassan, his great legs stretched up high and dry on his
+mule's neck, fumbles in his pouch and brings out the little bit of
+paper on which he writes down our expenses. He slowly puts on his
+spectacles and proceeds to write, holding the paper on the top of his
+thumb, and apparently oblivious of the struggles of his steed to kick
+the horse who is biting his flank behind. Then the gangway is let down
+and a terrific pandemonium ensues as each animal strives to get its
+saddle disentangled from the pack saddle of its neighbour and jump
+ashore. The hindmost land on the first, who have stuck hopelessly in
+the mud, the muleteers hit and shout, and we climb slowly on to firmer
+ground and wind up the steep path to the street at the top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day we ride slowly out of red soils and cultivation. The road
+is dangerous here, we are told; two extra Zaptiehs and a Yuzbashi are
+sent with us. We are in a desert plain again. A fearful storm of wind
+gets up and howls weirdly round us; the sun is getting low, and we have
+somehow missed the village where we should camp. The small cluster of
+huts that we pass or see in the distance have no accommodation for the
+horses, and the muleteers will not let them stand out on such a wild
+night. The Yuzbashi, who is a mysterious Kizilbash with a long black
+beard, gets anxious and makes us push on hard. At last we reach another
+cluster of huts, where the shepherds are calling in the flocks. It is
+nearly dark and we can go no further that night. The muleteers are
+sulky about the shelter for their horses, so we take a house for the
+purpose and the family cram in somewhere else. The tents are pitched
+with difficulty in the teeth of the wind. All night long the Yuzbashi,
+apart from the other men, walks up and down and round and round our
+tent, muttering in his black beard.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+The next day we ride over a bleak, stony country, exposed to fierce
+lashes of wind and rain. Smooth faces of rock lie across the scarcely
+perceptible path, less slippery for our flat-shod horses than the mud
+in which they are embedded. We can see nothing ahead but low, rounded
+hillocks covered with broken stone. Suddenly yellow dogs spring from
+under our very feet and tall figures emerge out of the bowels of the
+earth. We have stumbled into the middle of a Kurdish village. The huts
+are hollowed out of the earth and roofed over with the stones which
+cover the whole ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chief of the village welcomes us at the door of his hut, and we
+descend the dark passage, blinded by the smoke of the dried camel-dung
+fire. We sit on strips of felt, thankful to be out of the wind and the
+rain, and stretch our frozen hands and feet in the direction of the
+thickest fumes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tears run down our cheeks from the smarting of our eyes, but we
+hardly notice it, for it is heaven to be out of the bluster outside.
+Slowly our eyes get more accustomed to the darkness and the fumes, and
+we find the hut is full of arms and legs and motionless bodies, and
+gleaming eyes fixed on our eyes. But they are friendly and curious, and
+we feel at home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we crawl out to where Arten has prepared hot Maggi soup in the
+tent. It has been impossible to pitch ours, but they have tied the
+men's little tent on to the big stones forming the wall of our house,
+and the roof of another; we can see smoke mysteriously crawling out of
+the crevices of the ground at our feet. A sudden furious gust shakes
+the whole tent, and a Zaptieh's rifle, leant against the side, tumbles
+across and upsets the steaming soup. We pick our belongings ruefully
+out of the little trickling streams of thick liquid, and make a meagre
+meal by soaking bits of native bread in what remains. Then we get to
+bed as best we can, and all night long the wind howls and the tent
+flaps, and dogs sniff stealthily on the other side of the canvas.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+A hard, broad, high-road runs ostentatiously some miles out of Urfa on
+the side which we were approaching. From the town it looks as if it
+were going on like that for ever. We stumbled suddenly out of our stony
+track on to it&#8212;where it ends abruptly in the middle of nowhere. The
+native does not walk on it much; he prefers the soft places at the
+margin, where the caravans, also shunning it, still make wobbly tracks.
+At one place, where it passes through a deep gully, the bank has been
+made up to make a more level run; but even here, as we rode over it, we
+noticed an old man and a boy driving a couple of mules, slowly crawling
+up the narrow path down below, which marked the line of the original
+road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We could see Urfa some little way ahead of us, and wondered whether the
+missionaries would have heard of our arrival through their friends at
+Aintab. For the post travelled quicker than we did; it had passed us
+days ago, borne at a gallop by two mounted men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If ever we wanted cleaning up," I said, "it is at this moment; what
+with the rain and the mud and Maggi soup and camel-dung fumes, we are
+almost unfit to be seen even by a missionary."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words were hardly out of my mouth when a party of some twenty
+mounted soldiers appeared in the distance. As they got nearer they
+fired off a volley into the air and ranged up in a line down the road.
+The Captain rode up and saluted us. There was no mistaking it. We were
+Royalties once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Captain explained that the Governor was sending his carriage for
+their Royal Highnesses to make their entry into the town, and that he
+was expecting to receive them at the Konak. The carriage appeared up
+the road, a smart landau with red cushions, drawn by two splendid Arab
+horses, and followed by outriders in uniform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In we got. It is very difficult under such circumstances to feel the
+least royal. We were only conscious of our dishevelled looks and dirty
+clothes. We made Hassan get in with us, for he always had the air of a
+prince. The driver cracked his whip and we went off at a great pace,
+headed by the Captain and Zaptiehs, including our own escort, and
+followed by the outriders. Borne along in the cavalcade came Arten on
+his mule, looking worse than any of us, in a seedy old black overcoat
+and a red scarf round his neck. The inhabitants of Urfa lined the
+streets and waved and cheered lustily. Flags and decorations were hung
+out. We bow hard&#8212;it is getting easier to forget our dirty clothes. I
+begin to wonder if indeed we are not Royalties. Why not? Hassan looks
+more princelike than ever, sitting opposite to us, very erect and very
+gravely gracious, acknowledging salutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the main entrance to the town a smiling Armenian on a mule obstructs
+the way, and frantically waves a letter. The cavalcade stops, and
+riding up to the carriage he shoves a well-thumbed envelope into our
+hands. It is from the lady missionary, they tell us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Government," she writes, "are making great preparations for your
+entertainment, but I hope that you will not despise such hospitality as
+my house affords, and that you will spend your time in Urfa with me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What are the Government going to do with us? Once more I became
+conscious of our outward appearance. We sent a verbal message to say we
+would call later, and then we are dashed on again; the smiling Armenian
+whacking his mule and trying to keep pace with the formal, solemn
+officers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally we draw up in front of the Government buildings. A red carpet
+is unrolled before us, over which we walk gingerly in our muddy boots
+between rows of salaaming Turks. Hassan stalks after us, grave and
+dignified, returning salaams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are received by an official, corresponding to the Mayor of the town,
+and his secretary. X tried to deliver the sentences she had been
+concocting as we were driven through the streets, but the general
+bewilderment of the situation and uncertainty as to what we were
+expected to do was making intercourse more difficult than usual. We
+were almost at our wits' end when the Head of the Education Department
+appeared on the scene. He talked French fluently, and explained that
+rooms had been prepared for us in the building and that the Pasha
+Effendi expected us to be his guests. After giving us tea, and thereby
+showing familiarity with the customs of foreign Royal personages, they
+conducted us to the Vali. He was of a very different type from those we
+had previously seen. A young, pleasant-mannered, intelligent Turk, he
+received us in a reserved, Western way, with no flowery greetings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan, in whose hands we felt safe as regards points of Turkish
+etiquette, had whispered to us that we had better camp outside as
+usual, for the Pasha's harem was absent at the moment and we could not
+therefore visit the ladies. For this reason we declined as best we
+could his offers of hospitality. The Head of the Education Department,
+instructed by his chief, said the Pasha Effendi was "<i>d&#233;sol&#233;</i>" at
+our decision. Would we not reconsider it? We were causing his
+Excellency intense disappointment. His Excellency indeed looked
+crestfallen, and we would also have enjoyed being royally entertained,
+but we knew Hassan's judgment was never at fault, and thought it best
+to be on the safe side. We were also conscious of the fact that in all
+probability this was but a polite form of espionage, for Urfa is the
+centre of the district where the worst Armenian massacres took place;
+European visitors, therefore, especially those who say they are
+"travelling solely for their health" in all the discomforts of winter,
+are suspected of being mere gleaners of damaging facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we only accepted his Excellency's invitation to dine and, taking
+leave of him for the moment, were escorted to the Mission-house by the
+officers and Zaptiehs who had formed our escort, led by the smiling
+Armenian on the mule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus ended our triumphal entry into Urfa, which some call the ancient
+city of Abraham&#8212;"Ur of the Chaldees."
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="VII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son,
+and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went
+forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan;
+and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." And it happened that we,
+sojourning in this land, bethought ourselves of this journey of
+Abraham; we also, therefore, arose one morning and took two horses of
+the horses of Ur, and three Zaptiehs also upon horses, and we set our
+servants upon mules, and departed across the plain to visit this
+Harran, the city of Nahor; and there came with us a lady of the
+American Mission and her servant Jacobhan and a young Armenian friend;
+and they also were upon mules. And we all rode together across the
+plain of Mesopotamia, of which it is written: "When corn comes from
+Harran, then there is plenty; when no corn comes, then there is
+hunger." And, even as we rode, the villagers were gathering in barley,
+the clean white straw with its well-filled heads; and from time to time
+we came also upon a couple of sleek-skinned oxen drawing the wooden
+plough through the soil, making the furrows for the next year's seed;
+and the soil, where it was turned, was of a rich red colour, beside the
+yellow stubble which was yet unbroken. The villages stood at the space
+of one hour's ride apart, and by the side of every village, by the side
+of their bell-shaped huts, we saw great mounds of such a size that they
+covered as much ground as the villages themselves; and each of these
+mounds was of a rounded shape. And, looking across the plain as we
+rode, as far as we could see we saw also many such mounds far distant
+upon the horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we said to Hassan, "Wherefore these mounds?" And he answered and
+said, "Behold, Effendi, you see these villages at the space of one
+hour's ride apart, each with its cornfields and its unbroken stubble,
+its pasture and its flocks; so it was in the days when Abraham and
+Terah passed this way, even as you and I are now passing; but these
+villages that we see of the bell-shaped huts were not the villages that
+Terah and Abraham saw, for they are now buried under these same
+mounds."
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Now Harran is eight hours across the plain from Ur; four hours we rode
+to Rasselhamur, a village by the side of a stream, where we ate and
+drank and rested awhile, and yet another four hours we rode from
+Rasselhamur to Harran.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now consider the journey of Terah and Abraham. There were his women and
+his children, his camels, his man-servants and his maid-servants, his
+he asses and his she asses, his oxen and flocks of sheep; and they
+would cause him to delay on the road, for they cannot be over-driven:
+yet, even as the Arab tribes journey to-day, the caravan of Terah and
+Abraham would reach this Harran on the second day from the day they
+left Ur of the Chaldees; and the land of Canaan, the land towards which
+they journeyed, would still be far distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we, marvelling, pondered on the words of the learned man who has
+said that the Harran of Terah and Abraham lies not here but at one
+day's journey from the city of Damascus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But why should our souls be vexed over the words of learned men? for,
+whether it be that Terah stayed at this Harran, even the Harran we are
+approaching, or whether he journeyed on day by day over the plains to
+the city of Damascus, for us, as our noiseless steeds trod the soft
+earth, these silent plains yet echoed with the tinkling of his
+camel bells, the bleating of his innumerable herds, and the cries of
+his men-servants and his maid-servants.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+And the sun was yet high in the heavens when the walls of the city of
+Harran rose up before us; and as we rode through the fields without the
+city walls we looked, and behold there was a well in the field, and
+near it were gathered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, for it was
+out of that well that they watered the flocks. And it was at the time
+of the evening, the time that the women go out to draw water; and we
+drew rein and watched them, even as Jacob watched Rachel. And these
+daughters of the men of the city were dark-eyed and blue-smocked, and
+they balanced their pitchers on their heads; and they went down into
+the well, down the slippery stones which were worn by the feet of the
+generations which begat Rachel and Rebekah. And on beholding the
+strangers some of them ran back, even as Rebekah on beholding the
+servant of Isaac, and told their mothers; and some of them, even as
+Rachel on beholding Jacob, emptied their pitchers into the troughs and
+bade us water our horses. And the herdsmen gathered themselves together
+and looked at us in silence; and their look was long and straight, like
+the look of those who have the habit of looking far, as far as where
+the sun sinks on the horizon; and we, wondering, held our peace. Of
+what availed it, that we should vex ourselves as to whether this indeed
+were the Harran where Terah stayed on his way to the Land of Canaan,
+here are we in the fertile regions, without the walls of a city, by the
+side of a well where the maidens come down to fetch water and where the
+flocks are gathered at the going down of the sun. And we bethought
+ourselves of those ancient days, and we said unto the herdsmen, even as
+Jacob said unto the herdsmen as they tended the cattle of Laban,
+"Whence are ye?" and they answered us saying, "Of Harran are we."
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="jacob"><img src="images/004.jpg" alt="Jacob's Well. Harran." width="439" height="281"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">Jacob's Well. Harran.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And looking about us we saw also the black tents, the good camel-hair
+tents such as the Arabs use, and they stretched out from the side of
+the watering-place; and on the ground in front of them the young
+children rolled amongst the bleating flocks and herds. And the
+shepherds, haughty and silent amongst men, walked to the right and to
+the left in and out amongst the bleating flocks and herds; and their
+cloaks were of sheepskin, long and squarely cut&#8212;they hung from their
+shoulders, reaching nearly to the ankles; and looking at them we
+thought of Abraham who had left this city for the Land of Promise, of
+Isaac who sent his servant to seek out Rebekah, and of Jacob, who
+beheld Rachel even on this spot, and who tended the flocks of sheep and
+herds of cattle for her father Laban on these same fertile plains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as we tarried, marvelling on these things, there came out a
+messenger from the city, and he said, "Why standest thou without? we
+have prepared a house and room for thy horses"; and turning our horses'
+heads we followed him and rode into the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the people of Harran number at this day over 4,000 souls of the
+Moslem faith; of men there are 1,900, and of the women 2,300. And some
+of them live in the city and some of them live without, in the
+villages. Now in the generations that have passed Harran was a great
+city of merchants; they went forth to Tyre, they were her traffickers
+in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests
+of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harran lay also on the highway from the north to the Land of Canaan, on
+the highway from the west, from Assyria and Babylonia to the shores of
+the Cilician Sea; hence also was Harran a great fortified city. And
+looking about us as we rode through the city, many and ancient were the
+ruins that we saw, showing that Harran had been great indeed in her
+time; and there stands to this day a four-sided tower, the walls of
+which are perfect even now; and at the summit of this tower the bricks
+are exceeding hard and of a bright yellow colour speckled with black
+spots withal. And still riding in and out amongst the bell-shaped huts
+we came at last to the ruins of a great castle; and still riding, our
+good horses picked their way amongst the columns which were fallen, of
+which there were many, and under the massive stone arches which were
+not yet fallen. And we came at last to an open space set right in the
+midst of the castle, and on this space the grass grew green all about
+in amongst the fallen stones. And, dismounting, we climbed yet a little
+way further until we came to a room in the walls, well covered in and
+newly built up with stones, so that neither wind nor rain could enter
+in. And at the door of this well-built room stood the Shaykh of the
+Beni-Zeid. And he welcomed us, bowing after the fashion of his country,
+and we also greeted him, bowing after the fashion of our country; and
+speaking to Jacobhan, for we knew not his language, neither did he know
+ours, he bade us welcome, and said that meat and drink would be laid
+before us, and provender should be found for our horses. And we
+rejoiced, for we were exceeding hungry. But the sheep was yet roasting
+on the great fire in a hut in the ruins of the castle below, and we
+said to Jacobhan, "Send these men away, for we are weary and would rest
+awhile." And, taking Hassan only with us, we climbed up to where the
+ruins of a great tower looked away over the plain, even the plain over
+which we had ridden and beyond also on the other side further than
+where we had ridden; and sitting down here we rested awhile; and down
+below the servants tended the horses, and Jacobhan and the lady from
+the American Mission unpacked the neatly folded bundles&#8212;and, further
+below, lay the ruins of the great city, and between them the little
+bell-shaped huts; but above us there was nothing but the sky. And
+looking away from the city, over the walls and over the plain even unto
+the far horizon where the sun was now setting, for the day was far
+spent, I said unto Hassan: "What think you, Hassan, can this indeed be
+the city whence Abraham departed, and think you that this is the plain
+over which Jacob fled with his women and children, his men-servants and
+his maid-servants, his asses and camels, his cattle and his sheep?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Hassan knit his great brows and pondered awhile, and then he made
+answer: "What matters it, Effendi, whether this was the city of
+Abraham, and whether this was the plain over which Jacob fled before
+the wrath of Laban? Look down below and see these fallen ruins, which
+are all that is left of the great nations who conquered this city in
+the generations that have passed; and look down again, and you will see
+the miserable huts of the people who are left; what do they care for
+the great people who have lived and died within these walls where you
+and I are sitting? In a short time they also will be dead, and you and
+I will be dead, and therefore why should we care whether or not this
+was the city of Abraham? for, where Abraham is, there shall we soon be
+also."
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+As he was speaking we heard a shout from below, and looking down we saw
+Jacobhan beckoning to us, for the meat was now served. And we made
+haste to come down, and entered the room. Here on the earthen floor
+stood a well-filled bowl, all hot and smoking, for the meat was mixed
+with swelling rice well cooked in fat. Now Jacobhan fetched a little
+red carpet and spread it on the floor by the side of the bowl, and on
+this we sat, crossing our legs after the fashion of the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On one side of us sat the lady from the American Mission, and on the
+other side sat Hassan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they brought us flat cakes of bread, which we dipped into the bowl
+and scooping out the rice and meat, we ate it thus, for we had neither
+spoons nor forks. And round about us as we ate sat the dark-eyed Arabs
+in the white robes. When we had finished eating, one of them rose and
+fetched a pitcher of water and another brought a bowl, and they poured
+water over our hands until they were clean. Then, making way for those
+who had not yet eaten, we caused the carpet to be spread on the far
+side of the room, where, lying on it, we watched the men eating,
+gathered round the bowl. Now, when all had finished, one removed the
+empty bowl and another fetched a brush and swept the floor, for much
+rice had been spilt about. Then each man folded his cloak together, and
+sitting back against the wall gazed at us out of the dark corners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jacobhan the Armenian and his young friend, who was also of the
+same people, had no mind to sit thus quiet all the evening. For they
+were not as the Arabs are, content to smoke and make no sound. "Give us
+some song," he said to the assembled company, "that we may make merry,
+for the night is yet young."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they pushed forward, out of the far corner, a young man who seated
+himself at our feet. After looking at us awhile, there being no sound
+in the room, he began to sing softly, and these are the words that he
+sang, as they were told to us later by Jacobhan: "As the swallows from
+a far country winging their way from the north to the south, so you
+come to us for the day and on the morrow you are gone. You have the
+soft eyes of a dove, your hair is of silken threads, and your skin is
+as the soft skin of the pomegranate. Your little feet they are as the
+feet of swift gazelles&#8212;and they will bear you hence so that your going
+will be as swift and silent as your coming. Oh, may the snows come in
+the morning to stay your going away, for my heart will be sick when you
+are no longer here, and my eyes no longer behold your eyes. The land
+will mourn and be desolate; the herbs of the field will wither and the
+waters of the river will dry up in the wilderness."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the words of the song were finished, a silence fell upon us all;
+and the silence was so long in the quiet stillness of night that many
+of us fell half asleep sitting there in the dark room. And one by one
+the company glided out softly into the night until we were left only
+with our own men. There numbered thirteen of us in all, and wrapping
+ourselves each in his blanket we lay on the hard floor until morning.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Now on the morrow the son of the Shaykh came to us and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My father sends you word he will be absent until evening, for he rode
+away this morning two hours before the rising of the sun. To-night,
+however, he prepares a feast for you and will return, Inshallah, with
+glad tidings for his people. He bids me meanwhile ask of the ladies
+what their pleasure will be to-day; and I am at their commands."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we said to the son of the Shaykh:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Take now thy father's lance and these our horses, and we pray thee
+call out one of your companions and let us see how the men of your
+country fight their enemies."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the young chief, nothing loth, fetched the long spear which stood
+at the door of his father's house, and he mounted one of our horses;
+and he called another youth from amongst the many that would ride with
+him, and they rode out together into the field, without the city walls.
+And we climbed up upon the high walls of the castle which looked over
+the field that we should have the better view. And the two young men
+set their lances and rode their horses hard at one another, first to
+the one side and then to the other, now wheeling round, now holding the
+spear aloft, shouting with loud cries. And their cries were mingled
+with the cries of all the assembled company, and we also shouted with
+the others. For the space of an hour or more did they fight thus with
+one another until they and their horses were weary, but we were not
+weary with watching them.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Now as we were feasting that day at the time of the setting of the sun,
+the Shaykh entered the room where we sat, and greeted us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we, speaking through Jacobhan, said to him, "Has your business been
+well?" And he said, "Very well; to-day is a great day for myself and
+for my people."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we said, "Tell us, we pray thee, how that is?" And he seated
+himself in our midst, and he told us how his tribe, the tribe of the
+Beni-Zeid, had offended the great Kurdish chief, Ibrahim Pasha, head of
+the Hamidieh, who lived not far distant at Viran-shahir. For some
+amongst them had stolen camels and mules belonging to his people. The
+wrath of Ibrahim Pasha was very great, and he caused his men to harass
+their men, and their beasts were no longer safe. Now the Shaykh knew
+not which among his people were the offenders, but after a year had
+gone by there came certain of the tribe to him and said, "Behold these
+camels and mules, are they not those which were stolen from Ibrahim
+Pasha? We pray thee restore them that we may no longer live in fear of
+having ours stolen." Thus it was, that on this same day the Shaykh had
+ridden out with his men, driving these animals, and had delivered them
+back to the Pasha at Viran-shahir. Inshallah, now they would no longer
+live under fear of his displeasure. For those who offended Ibrahim
+Pasha had no mercy at his hands; but those who pleased him had much
+kindness shown them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we and the whole company rejoiced together over the good deed that
+had been done that day, and there was much feasting and singing that
+night.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+On the morrow we mounted our horses once more and rode away through the
+bell-shaped huts and past the ancient ruins, over the rich plains, back
+again into the city of Ur, at the foot of the grey hills.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="VIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+We were encamped in the khan, the native inn, at Severek, a dismal town
+in the dismal wilds of Mesopotamia; the weather and the depth of mud
+made it impossible for us to pitch our tent outside, and the dirty,
+windowless sheds round the courtyard, which afforded the only sleeping
+accommodation, were not inviting, so we had fixed our tent in a covered
+passage by tying the ropes to the pillars supporting the roof. The
+Zaptiehs deputed to guard us for the night hung about the door, plying
+Hassan and Arten with questions as to our sanity. Why should two
+foreign ladies choose the depth of winter to travel between Urfa and
+Diarbekr along the caravan route which had been long deserted owing to
+the raids of the Hamidieh Kurds? I had often asked myself the same
+question during the last few days, but had not yet thought of an
+answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pale, dishevelled young man in semi-European clothes slouched into
+the courtyard and joined the group. The Zaptiehs spoke roughly to him
+and he gave a cringing reply. He forced his way past them up to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Moi parle Fran&#231;ais," he said, with an accent corresponding to his
+grammar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So it seems," I answered, in the same language.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"To-morrow I travel with you," he went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Indeed!" I answered, with more of interrogation than cordiality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, you and my mother and sisters will go in an araba, and I and my
+brother will ride your horses."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made a closer inspection of the individual, but could detect no signs
+of insanity to harmonise with his utterances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who are you?" I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want
+to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an
+opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares
+pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for
+months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do
+thirteen hours to K&#8212;&#8212;."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a
+mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the
+regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so
+long on the road."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I began to get angry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I will have everything ready," he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you
+wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that
+we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we
+wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not
+my sister?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit,
+and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please
+understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our
+sisters' arabas."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found
+the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A
+covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of
+tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage
+scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there
+were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton
+coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight
+trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats,
+and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck,
+suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The
+whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep
+through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a
+furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was
+bitterly cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rode for hours through a dreary country of broken grey stones with
+no sign of vegetation or life of any kind. At last we arrived at a
+collection of tumble-down deserted huts, built of the stones lying
+round, and hardly distinguishable from the rest of the country until we
+were actually amongst them. We were cold and wet and had hardly come
+half-way to our destination, but as neither of us could stand long
+hours in the saddle without rest or food, we called a halt here to
+recruit. The Zaptiehs forming our escort begged us not to stop. They
+could not understand the strange ways of these mad foreigners, who not
+only travelled in such weather, but sat down to picnic in it instead of
+pushing on to the shelter of the khan at the journey's end. But we were
+inexorable, and they reluctantly fastened the horses on the sheltered
+side of the remaining walls, against which they stood with their backs
+tightly pressed, drawing their ragged coats closely round them. The
+village had been but lately ransacked and destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha,
+the redoubtable Kurdish chief; he was still abroad in the
+neighbourhood, and any detention on the road increased the chances of
+our falling in with him or some of his stray bands. The knowledge of
+this and the discomforts of the journey made the men fretful and
+anxious. We picked out the least dilapidated looking house and
+clambered over fallen stones and half-razed walls until we found a
+roofless room which boasted of three undestroyed angles. In one of
+these the cook tried to make a fire with the last remnants of charcoal;
+we huddled in another to avoid, if we could, the blast which rushed
+across the broken doorways and whistled through the chinks of the rough
+stone walls. The arabas, accompanied by their bedraggled followers,
+rumbled heavily past us; the noise gradually died away as they
+disappeared in the distance; desolation reigned on all sides; the
+howling blast moaned weird echoes of destruction round the ruined
+walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We managed to boil enough water to make tea; and then, yielding to the
+men's protests, we mounted and rode on. Hour after hour passed; the
+driving wind hurled the hailstones like a battery of small shot right
+into our faces; the rain collected in small pools in the folds of my
+mackintosh, and I guided their descent outwards and downwards with the
+point of my riding-whip. The drop which fell intermittently from the
+overflowing brim of my hat had been the signal for a downward bob to
+empty the contents; but now the wet had soaked through and I let it run
+down my face unconcernedly. We were a silent and melancholy band. X
+rode in front with her chin buried in her coat collar; her face was
+screwed up in her endeavour to face the elements; the hump in her
+shoulders betokened resigned misery. The soldiers' heads were too
+enveloped to allow any study of their expressions, but the outward
+aspect of their bodies was a sufficient indication of their inward
+feelings; the very outline of their soaked and tattered garments
+bespoke discomfort and dejection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pale-faced little officer, straight from the military school at
+Constantinople, urged his horse alongside mine. "Nazil?" he said. It
+was a laconic method, essentially Turkish, of saying "How?"
+<i>i.e.</i>, "How are you?" "How's everything?" "Hasta" (Ill), I
+answered. "Am&#257;n," he groaned. "Kach Saat daha?" I asked (How many hours
+more?). "Jarem Saat, Inshallah. Bak, khan bourda" (Half an hour,
+Inshallah. Look, the khan is there). I raised my head to follow the
+direction of his pointed whip; the jerk sent a trickle of wet down the
+back of my neck and the rain blinded my eyes. I dropped my head again.
+It was not worth while battling with the elements even to look upon our
+approaching haven of rest. I was too familiar with the aspect of the
+country to be particularly interested in the scenery; it had not
+altered at all for many days. If you looked in front, you saw an
+endless tract of slightly undulating country, the surface of which was
+a mass of stones; there were stones to the right, there were stones to
+the left, there were stones behind; you rode over stones, slippery,
+broken, loose, sliding stones; and now stones, stones of hail, were
+hurled at you from the heavens above. The very bread we had eaten for
+our midday meal seemed to have partaken of the nature of the country. I
+had accidentally dropped my share, and had to hunt for it,
+indistinguishable among the other particles on the ground. We were
+rapidly turning into stones ourselves. One seemed to be riding on a
+huge, dry river-bed, the waters of which had been drawn up into the
+heavens and were now being let down again by degrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer gave an order to a Zaptieh. The man tightened the folds of
+his cloak round him, wound the ends of his kafiyeh into his collar,
+and, digging his heels into the sides of his white mule, darted
+suddenly ahead. The crick in the back of my neck made it too painful
+for me to turn my head to look, but this must mean that we were near
+the khan and that he had gone on to announce our arrival. Visions of
+being otherwise seated than in a saddle faintly loomed in my brain; I
+hardly dared wander on to thoughts of a fire and something hot to
+drink. We turned at right angles off the track and plunged into a bed
+of mud, which led up to the door of a great, square, barrack-looking
+building with a low, flat roof and a general air of desolation. The
+Zaptieh stood grimly at the door. "Dollu" (Full), he said. Nevertheless
+we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in
+the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole
+enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with
+camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with
+bare legs and feet and dripping, ragged cloaks. The officer laid about
+him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the khanji (the
+innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with
+great English Pashas." The khanji waved his hand over the seething,
+jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is
+impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan. If we made way
+for the Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses.
+But they are welcome to what shelter there is."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We gazed with dismay at the reeking scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Two hours," was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's
+head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals,
+who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of approaching food
+and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded
+back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast
+and driving rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the
+uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones.
+One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and
+sure-footed beast who could be trusted to pick its own way. The hired
+Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left
+to himself he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it
+becomes so impossible that he stops and gazes in front of him in stupid
+despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins
+in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire
+not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in
+danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly
+lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the
+others. Weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and
+more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at
+his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We must push on, Hanum" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by
+sunset."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my
+broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate
+brute's skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly
+in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and
+the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows
+behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity
+for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb,
+petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the
+horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came
+the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was
+rushed away in the driving wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in
+the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of
+alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or
+was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains
+consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog,
+jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one
+did not care for how long.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but
+the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and
+the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms
+round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I
+thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as
+they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door
+of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole
+on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round
+me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X?" I muttered interrogatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hm," came from the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hm," I responded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously
+about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles,
+saddle-bags, wet cloaks, and muddy riding-boots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively and
+giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other,
+where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space
+in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried
+camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled
+with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let
+out the fumes; we opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a
+sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the
+smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down
+mercilessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow
+passage by our open door, on into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing
+bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard, square boxes
+stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their
+owners' yourghans, quilts which form the native bed, damp and muddy in
+spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown
+over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope which also fastened on
+a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to
+the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the
+enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable
+crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of
+their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs;
+mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching
+yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in
+gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the
+piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright
+waistcoats; stern Mahomedans, wrapped in long, severe cloaks, gazed
+with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier
+race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials
+stared at them with open-mouthed, grinning wonder. Our little captain
+sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner, deftly rolling up, with his
+delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes; a
+Zaptieh, with his face to the wall, bowed and murmured over the evening
+prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that
+disregard of his neighbour's presence which is so impressive in any
+crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human
+note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent waiting of
+the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their
+respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant,
+strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all; men and
+animals, side by side, are busy satisfying their bodily needs. It is a
+strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings
+and mode of life, savours of the beast; and the beast, with his outward
+aspect of patient and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements.
+We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and
+publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hind-quarters backed
+into the room, upsetting the pot of water on the fire. We had been
+anxiously waiting for its boiling point with the open teapot ready to
+hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal; and pushed it back;
+they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself
+out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform
+peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses
+require anything?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan courteously returned his salute. He was now seated cross-legged
+by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up
+together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. With the air of a king on his
+throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddle-bag:
+"Buyourun, Effendi, oturun" (Welcome; sit down). The man sat down,
+carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his
+inquiry and send many thanks. They have all they require."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterances seemed to
+dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as
+to the limitation of our wants and the methods of our Royal progress;
+he merely thought we were mad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative
+members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What will you have for supper?" he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long
+experience of limited possibilities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if
+he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in
+these places.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Get a fowl," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There is not one left here," he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humour of desperation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of
+lobster salad and maraschino cro&#251;stades?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held
+them. Everything was wet and slimy; a few bars of chocolate were soaked
+in Bovril emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains
+of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags
+contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting looking
+pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity.
+Could it be&#8212;yes, it had once been, protein flour, "eminently suitable
+for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal
+when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our
+respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly
+thought the matter out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the Bovril thrown
+in, or to drink Bovril with the chocolate thrown in?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't talk about it," said X, "cook everything up together, and let us
+hope individual flavours will be merged beyond recognition."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein.
+The chocolate and Bovril were added, after carefully picking out the
+bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which
+he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served
+as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable
+pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in
+triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Soan?" (Onion) we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable
+greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife
+out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the
+treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling
+pot. The cook sat stirring it all together with a wooden spoon; he kept
+raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled
+slowly back again he murmured complacently:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pirinje war, chocolad war, Inghiliz suppe war, soan war, su war"
+(There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is
+onion, there is water).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted
+the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Choc ehe, choc" (Very
+good&#8212;very), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X
+swallowed a few mouthfuls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology, as
+she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread
+and started chewing it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my
+heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I
+had been following with some interest for several days. It was always
+turning up, and I recognised it by a black, burnt mark resembling a
+figure 8. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had
+been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken legs and dried figs, and with
+wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other
+bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy
+fingers, but being unsatisfied with the consistency they had thrown it,
+along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking
+utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our
+diminishing supply and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away
+Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and
+slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various
+articles not calculated to increase the savouriness of its flavour. I
+was determined to see its end, and when X laid down half&#8212;no doubt
+meaning it for my share&#8212;I threw it on the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his
+greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he
+wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one
+side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Jarin" (To-morrow), he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we sit; a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of
+food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one
+or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the
+fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in or what dirt
+we have been eating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We roll our rugs round us and lie on the sodden earth floor. Hassan
+turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan,
+men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of the night I wake with a start; something had hit me on
+the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was; a
+piece of plaster had fallen off the walls, and the plaster, like the
+fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="part2">
+PART II
+</p>
+
+<p class="partname">
+DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+ "The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift
+ current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the
+ world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away,
+ another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<a name="IX">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER IX
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+AFLOAT
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+We rode into Diarbekr on Christmas Day, arriving just in time to share
+the plum-pudding at the house of Major Anderson, the Vice-Consul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They say of Diarbekr that its houses are black, that its dogs are
+black, and that the hearts of its people are black&#8212;and they say so
+truly. The first moment that one catches sight of it in the distance
+one is impressed by the blackness of its walls, built of a black
+volcanic stone. When one gets inside, the people look dourly at one,
+and the Zaptiehs ride closer together. But this may be because they
+have no other choice, the streets being often only four feet across. It
+is quite easy to cross a street from on high by jumping from one roof
+to another; and it is certainly cleaner, for down below we are ankle
+deep in mud, in which great boulders are embedded&#8212;relics, presumably,
+of ancient pavement or fallen houses. If you want to take the air at
+Diarbekr you walk round and round the flat roof of your house and watch
+the life of your neighbours on adjoining roofs; or else, closely
+accompanied by armed cavasses, you ride out into the bleak, stony
+country, and follow up some mud stream in the hopes of getting a shot
+at wild duck and snipe.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+A week later we sat on the banks of the Tigris by the Roman bridge
+which spans the river just below the black walls of Diarbekr. The raft
+on which we were about to embark was moored to the shore and the men
+were loading our belongings. A dancing-bear stumped about to the tune
+of a bagpipe made of the skin which answers so many purposes in the
+East. When inflated they can be used either for carrying water for
+people inside, or for carrying people on water outside. We were using
+260 of them in this latter way. They were tied on to two layers of
+poplar poles put crossways, forming a raft about eighteen feet square.
+At one end were two small huts made of felt stretched across upright
+poles; the fore end was weighted down with bags of merchandise laid
+side by side across the poles to form a rough floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two kalekjis (raftsmen) waded in and out with a great seeming sense
+of hurry but without appearing to accomplish anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Can't you hurry the men up?" said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I answered, "we are in the East."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You might try," she said; "you always leave me all the talking to do."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They do not understand my Turkish," I said apologetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It would not take you long to learn enough for that," went on X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I do know the swears," I answered humbly, and I stood up amongst the
+men and delivered myself of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Quick! quick! the Pasha is angry!" said the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our crew had assembled; there were our two personal attendants, Hassan
+and Arten. Hassan was now our interpreter, for, although he could only
+talk Turkish, he could interpret our signs to other Turks until we
+learnt the language. Arten, we found, was more Armenian than cook, and
+sang us Christian hymns in his native language when we felt low after
+meals. Then there were two kalekjis in charge of the raft; they were
+Kurds; we had yet to discover their qualifications. Two Zaptiehs
+forming our escort made up the number. We did not yet look upon them as
+individuals, but as part of an abstract r&#233;gime in the country with
+which we now felt tolerably familiar; the outward aspect of it was a
+ragged uniform and an antiquated rifle, which served many useful
+purposes but had forgotten how to eject bullets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hazir dir, hazir" (Ready, ready), shouted the kalekjis. The owner of
+the dancing-bear hurriedly thrust his fez under our noses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't give him anything," I said, "a bear has no business to be
+dancing in this country; he ought to be trying to eat us in a cave."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The demoralisation of the bear comes from the West," said X, who was
+studying the primitive habits of the natives, "we must pay for it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Does this abuse of the hat emanate from the same source?" I inquired,
+as she dropped a coin into the fez.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That would be an interesting point to inquire into," said X, and she
+made an entry in her notebook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The worst of X was that you never knew whether she was laughing at you.
+It is a most uncomfortable position, which men as a rule resent. But I
+was another woman, and took it philosophically, especially as X accused
+me of the same failing, and we never see ourselves as others see us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We boarded the raft: the coil of rope which had fastened it to the
+shore was hauled in, and we drifted slowly out into the centre of the
+muddy stream. We were followed by another raft, laden up with bags of
+merchandise, which was coming with us to share the protection of our
+escort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went into the sleeping-hut to ascertain the length of its
+possibilities. Boards had been nailed across the poles to form a floor,
+and on this was spread a thick native felt mat. Dwellers on land little
+know the feeling of luxury recalled to my mind in writing these
+words:&#8212;the luxury of being able to drop all the things addicted to
+dropping, especially when dressing, with the knowledge that they would
+not disappear for ever in the depths of the Tigris waters; the luxury
+of being able to walk in the ordinary biped method of placing one foot
+in front of the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was not the case in the open part of the raft, where the floor,
+formed of poles and sacks, exhibited a network of rounded interstices.
+The water gurgled and spluttered below them: one's foot invariably
+slipped into them when cautiously manipulating a journey across the
+raft by hopping from a slippery pole to a sliding sack; and unattached
+articles dropped through them on to the skins below, and were
+occasionally rescued in a dripping condition before they were washed
+away altogether. The water showed spiteful discrimination in its
+washing-away proclivities. I recall certain chinks in the more roughly
+boarded floor of the hut where we had our meals, through which the cook
+had a habit of brushing his cooking refuse, and where, if one was rash
+enough to look, there could be seen an accumulation of tea-leaves and
+bones and bits of decaying delicacies which one associated with meals
+of past ages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The felt walls of the hut were lined on the inside with white cotton
+tacked on the poles. There were two small glazed windows, one of which
+opened. The door was a single width of felt tied with tape. There was
+just room inside for our two camp-beds&#8212;with a space between, which
+would admit of one of us occupying it at a time. At the foot of each
+bed stood our two Eastern sacks, which contained all our worldly goods.
+I feel constrained, on mentioning this form of luggage, to say a word
+of warning concerning it. In one sense it is easy to pack, because you
+need not fold anything up, but can simply stuff it in and give the bag
+a shake; and it is easy to unpack, if you do it in a wholehearted
+manner&#8212;standing in the centre of a large room or a vast desert where
+you can turn it upside down and spill everything out on the ground. But
+under ordinary circumstances the bundle of hay with the needle in it is
+nothing to this sack with your clean handkerchief in it. X and I had a
+mutual understanding owing to which we never attacked a sack while the
+other was within hearing; but whenever she appeared in a half-fainting
+condition and asked the cook why on earth tea was so late, I knew what
+she had been doing. She had asked me, as a personal favour (the only
+one I've ever known her ask) not to attack my sack in the morning,
+because it was a pity to have the whole day spoilt, and if I did it in
+the evening to go to bed before she did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to return from this digression. Having examined our quarters, I
+arranged a rug on the open part of the raft and sat down to take in the
+surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten was unpacking cooking-pots in the second hut, and the other men
+sat about on the sacks smoking silently. The boatmen sat on a pile of
+sacks in the middle and manipulated the oars which served to steer the
+raft and keep it in the fast part of the current. The oars consisted of
+single young willow-trees, with short strips of split willow bound on
+one end with twigs, forming the blade; they were tied on to rough
+rowlocks made of twisted withies wound round heavily-weighted sacks.
+The Tigris at this point is singularly hideous. There was not a single
+blade of vegetation to be seen anywhere; the country was a stretch of
+mud hills and stony desert, and the mud banks of the river were only
+relieved by the hosts of water-birds that darted in and out or waded in
+the shallows. The high black escarpment, crowned by the massive black
+walls of Diarbekr, and fringed by a swampy tract of willow gardens,
+rose up sharply above the mud flats. As we were carried along the
+winding course of the sluggish river a higher mud bank shut it
+altogether from our view, and I felt we had severed that link with the
+world which one feels so strongly on arriving in any town of a distant
+uncivilised land, where a European mail occasionally arrives and a
+telegraph wire eliminates the isolation of its natural position.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were drifting into an unknown world at the mercy of these unknown
+Kurds. We were alone with the birds and the mud banks and the rippling
+waters.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="X">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER X
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+HELD UP
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The snow-capped mountains of Kurdistan were just visible on the horizon
+line; toward them rolled wave after wave of low brown tracts of land,
+utterly destitute of any form or sign of life. Behind, as in front,
+like the coils of a shining serpent, wound the thin white line of the
+Tigris bed, the one response to the light overhead, imparting a sense
+of weary pursuit in its never-ending course. Fresh coils unwound
+themselves ahead as we toiled after new yet familiar spots on a
+never-changing horizon. Now and then the raftsmen dipped their oars
+quietly into the water, and with a few strokes twisted the raft into
+the straightest part of the river; otherwise, we were helpless, in the
+hands of an arbitrary current which made us bide its time as it slunk
+pensively round unsuggesting corners, or sped us faster when it gurgled
+impatiently over a long reach, where grey rock vied momentarily with
+the endless grey mud. We had given ourselves up completely to Time, and
+sat all day contemplating one stretch of bank after another as we
+swirled along. The ripple of the water, the intermittent splash of the
+oars, the crooning songs of the raftsmen all added to the sense of
+drowsy contemplation already established by the surrounding view.
+Everything was in contemplative harmony: isolated herons fished from
+slippery stones, gazing with such intentness into the passing water
+that they hardly deigned to raise their heads towards us, and, if they
+ever deemed it wiser to move out of our way, they would do so by a very
+deliberate walk on to the shore, after fixing a resentful,
+half-wondering stare upon us. Flocks of black ducks, suddenly disturbed
+round a corner, would rise in silent indignation, and with a sharp
+whirr would pass over our heads and drop quietly down on to the waters
+behind, smoothing out their ruffled plumage. Fat, ungainly penguins,
+sitting in white rows, like surpliced choirs, on the shallow shore,
+would scuttle further back along the mud flat, and taking up attitudes
+of doubtful interrogation would stare us out of countenance. One and
+all they condescended to no notes of fright or alarm, and where any
+sound was uttered it impressed us only with a sense of resentful
+indignation or of mocking inquiry. We were intruders in specially
+reserved spots, and could only offer apologies to our unwilling hosts
+by showing our appreciation of their mode of life in a respectful
+silence; indeed, to have uttered any sound in such places would have
+seemed a crime against Nature. So we floated on, casually returning the
+stares of the would-be enemy, while we listened with lazy indifference
+to their taunts and threats. At times, when there was complete absence
+of life on the shore, we confined our attention to more personal
+reflections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were a strange assortment of human beings, whom accident had thrown
+together to live the same life for an allotted time in such close
+companionship on a small space. Here sat the Moslem in friendly
+relation with us, Western Christian infidels; the Armenian broke bread
+with the hated oppressor of his race and religion, while the Turk, on
+his side, had to endure the presence of his despised enemy. The Arab
+Zaptiehs and the Kurdish boatmen represented tribes whose traditions
+told of constant deadly feuds and warfare. The whim of one among us had
+gathered us together. What casual observer would realise what we had in
+common? For difference of language, custom, and appearance counts for
+little when all are equally exposed to the chance of circumstance; and
+the bonds that united us all with a common feeling were the hardships
+we endured alike from hunger, cold, and danger. We shivered together in
+wind and rain, and basked in the sun together; we suffered pangs of
+hunger together, and rejoiced together over a meal; we faced the same
+perils with the same chances of escape or annihilation. Whomsoever
+Fortune had chosen for her favourites in the ordinary run of life stood
+here on the same level as their less fortunate companions, to take
+their chance under the same conditions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We each had our several occupations when we felt that it was possible
+to snatch any time from contemplation. Hassan would retire into the hut
+at one end of the raft, and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, would
+chop up tobacco; whilst one of the Zaptiehs, seated at the door, would
+roll up the cigarettes. Now and then he would reach out one to
+me.&#8212;"Will you smoke, Effendi?"&#8212;and the other Zaptieh, seated outside,
+would strike me a match.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten might easily have worked all day, but he seemed to spend most of
+his time contemplating the brazier on which he occasionally cooked
+something. At intervals he blew up the live charcoal with measured
+puffs; or he would sit perilously near the extreme edge of the raft
+contemplating the sky, with the tails of his dirty black overcoat
+dangling in the water, holding the dishes in the river until most signs
+of the last meal were removed from them. Being an Armenian he was
+endowed with a more restless nature, and the apparent contemplation in
+his demeanour was but the dejection resulting from a broken spirit.
+When not engaged in his own pursuits he would break in on the silence
+by pointing out what he considered objects of interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look! look! there is a bird," he would say; and the true Easterns
+would gaze on without moving a muscle, neither looking at him nor the
+bird. Arten would look nervously round, knowing from long habit that he
+was being despised, but unable to understand the grating, silencing
+effect of allusions to the obvious at the moment when the obvious is
+being most thoroughly appreciated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two raftsmen were obliged to concentrate a certain amount of
+attention on the business of navigation, but they seized every moment
+they could spare from the task of guiding the raft, and, leaning on
+their oars, would devote it to contemplation. They too pointed out
+objects of interest, but only in their capacity as local guides, and in
+a monosyllabic manner in complete harmony with the occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Christian village," they would say, without looking round, pointing a
+thumb over their shoulders in the direction of a group of mud huts; or
+"Arab" when an encampment of black tents appeared on the bank. Hassan
+and the soldiers would respond by slowly turning their eyes in the
+particular direction; perhaps even going so far as to give vent to a
+sudden, sharp "Ha!" if the occasion was one of particular moment.
+Arten, however, would jump about the raft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A Christian village! Look, it is there; do you see, did you hear? A
+Christian village."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one would answer him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Did you hear, Hassan?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute of absolute stillness, and then Hassan's deep, deliberate
+voice, with no suggestion of impatience:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I heard."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But we did not always drift along in a smooth and idle manner; the mud
+banks gave way at times to steep, rocky sides, between which the waters
+flowed more rapidly, and careful steering with the oars was required to
+avoid rocks and whirlpools. And here there were not infrequent signs of
+life: rock tombs were cut in the walls of the rock, and we would have
+liked to stop and examine them further, but it was impossible to land
+the raft at such places, and the current hurried us on almost before we
+were aware of their existence. There was a certain relentlessness about
+the way we were torn past all objects of interest; it was like dealing
+with Time. We were conscious that things passed now were passed for
+ever, and that we should never have another opportunity for realising
+them. Evidences of ancient civilisation, episodes in the everyday life
+of the present tribes, all seemed to sweep past in bewildering,
+incredible swiftness; we found it hard sitting there to believe that it
+was we who swept past them. Now we would catch sight of a wedding
+procession on the bank;&#8212;the bride, plastered with feathers and
+ornaments, being escorted to the bridegroom's village amid a din of
+music and shouting, the sound of which would follow us long after they
+were lost to view. Now it would be a group of women washing their
+clothes at the river's edge, beating them on large, flat stones. Now a
+solitary horseman would stand motionless on the cliff above, his
+coloured cloak flowing over his horse's back, barely concealing the
+brilliant hues of his embroidered saddle; he would watch us out of
+sight and then turn and pursue his lonely road. Now a shepherd boy
+would be driving in the flocks of sheep and goats at sundown; and his
+weird calls, and the answering bleat of the animals, would echo and
+re-echo right away across the distant hills. Men and women on the bank
+hailed us as we passed; we could only cast one look at them and wave
+back a hurried and kindly greeting; they knew we must not stop and
+talk: we came out of a different world from theirs, and they paused for
+a moment to gaze at us and then returned, forgetful of the fleeting
+vision, to their own pursuits. Meditative oxen, chewing their cud,
+surveyed us wonderingly from the shore. "Why in such a hurry?" they
+seemed to say, and we answered, "We are not in a hurry, but we have no
+power to stop." And the eagles overhead peered in contemptuous security
+at us, vaunting with arrogant flaps the great wings with which they
+flew whither they listed, while we were being swept along uncertain
+currents. A hidden bird would pour forth his sweet song to cheer us on
+our way, and the owls utter a dismal note of warning as of unknown
+dangers yet to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there was some possibility of danger, for we were still in the land
+of the Sultan's irregular troops&#8212;the Hamidieh. Our friends, however,
+had been decidedly encouraging as we bade them goodbye. "You will
+probably meet with Kurds," they said, "but if they do shoot at you it
+will only be for the fun of sinking the raft; they may rob you and
+strip you, but if you don't resist they won't kill you." We had felt
+distinctly elated. We still clung to ideas of life; our clothes and
+provisions were a convenience, but no doubt sheepskins and rice would
+be always forthcoming if the worst happened. "What would you mind
+losing most?" I said to X, on the third day, as we lay on our backs on
+the raft, the muddy water rippling very close to our ears and the muddy
+banks swinging round as the current changed. "My hot-water bottle,"
+answered X reflectively; "and you?" "My camera first," I said, after a
+pause during which I had pictured X alone with the hot-water bottle,
+"and then my stylo." "Yes," said X sympathetically, "I really don't see
+how you could get on without them; but perhaps," she added consolingly,
+"if you persuaded the men that there was an evil spirit inside they
+would let you keep them." This was a decided inspiration. I booked it
+for possible contingencies; a hot-water bottle and a camera were
+obvious resting places for the evil eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We drifted on; the whirls of a slight rapid caught us&#8212;the top end of
+the raft where we lay dived suddenly into the water and then rose
+again, the bottom end followed suit, we became bowed for a second, then
+we were flat once more, and loose things which had started jumping
+about, lay still. I shook the water off my sleeve; X stretched out a
+hand, without turning her head, to feel whether the "Oxford Book of
+English Verse" had been washed away. "Mashallah, the Pashas like
+water," volunteered one of the kalekjis, a little, round-faced Kurd in
+a brightly-striped coat. "The Pashas are English," answered Hassan, in
+a tone of dignified rebuke. "The English fear nothing; why should they
+fear water?" The kalekji paused in his work; he was plying the two
+poplar poles, with which he guided the raft past shingles and kept it
+in the open part of the river. He started rolling up a cigarette. "May
+it please Allah to spare us from an attack from Ibrahim Pasha," he said
+devoutly, "or even these Pashas may have cause to fear." Hassan looked
+at him sternly and with some contempt. "The Pashas are English," he
+repeated, "and the Pashas are not afraid of Ibrahim Pasha." Reasons are
+superfluous to the Oriental mind; statements are conclusive; the
+kalekji lit his cigarette and resumed his task. The two Zaptiehs, Ali
+and Achmet, who had been aroused to a slight attention during the
+conversation, became listless as before and puffed away in silence
+after a simultaneous murmuring of "Aha, aha, Ibrahim Pasha." The
+remaining occupant of the raft, Arten, alone looked disturbed and
+uncomfortable. He was continually scouting the horizon, and retired
+behind the door of the hut whenever a black spot was visible. He burst
+into roars of forced merriment, "Ibrahim Pasha! who is afraid of
+Ibrahim Pasha? Let him come, and we shall give him a warm welcome!" His
+companions gazed in front of them in stolid, silent contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silence reigned again&#8212;only the splash of the oars was heard and the
+beating of the water against the skins. Nothing broke the monotony; the
+river wound its way slowly in and out round mud banks; the country as
+far as one could see was unbroken, endless mud; the water one drank and
+washed in and floated on was diluted mud; the occasional village on the
+banks was built of mud, the inhabitants were mud colour; the very sky
+gave one a feeling of mud. It was time for a diversion. Away in the
+distance, since early morning, there had been a black smudge on the
+horizon which was slowly taking more definite shape as we followed the
+course of the shiny loops of the river, the one break in this endless,
+monotonous waste. We had lazily fixed our eyes in its direction. Almost
+imperceptibly it had evolved itself into great masses of solid, black,
+limestone rock; a few more turns of the river and we shot right under
+them and were suddenly shut inside a narrow black gorge. Bare walls of
+rock rose straight up on either side, and above a narrow stretch of
+sky-line, with its broken edges formed by the turreted ends of rock, and
+in a row, on every point, silent, motionless, awe-inspiring, sat
+peering down at us, like sentinels on guard, great brown vultures of
+the desert. I fidgeted uneasily; an armed brigand flesh and blood could
+stand, but this penetrating, undivulging, inhospitable gaze was too
+uncanny. To appear unconcerned I took out my field-glasses and stared
+back; with deliberate scorn, and of one accord, they slowly spread out
+their great wings, shook them, and soared up in the air, dropped down
+the other side of the rocks, or took up a fresh stand-point a little
+further removed from the intruders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We floated rapidly through the gorge. Already, on one side, the rocks
+were giving way to mud banks, though on the right bank the sides rose
+steeply in high, jagged cliffs. I lay back with a sense of enjoyment of
+life and peace; my thoughts had strayed to Western scenes. We turned a
+sharp bend in the river, and I vaguely noticed a native woman carrying
+a child in her arms. All of a sudden the atmosphere seemed disquieted,
+the two Zaptiehs had seized their rifles and dropped on one knee as if
+marking prey; even the imperturbable Hassan was handling a dangerous
+and antiquated looking weapon. There were men on the shore hailing us,
+and our boatman was shouting back vociferously. "Pashas," said Hassan
+in a solemn voice, "put on your hats." I slowly woke to the situation
+as I obediently donned the insignia of our nationality. There were men
+each side of the bank; they were armed men, and their arms were pointed
+at us. "Why, X," I exclaimed ecstatically, "we're held up!" X looked at
+me with a pitying expression. "You've been rather a long time taking
+that in," she said. This was not the moment for feeling snubbed; I
+wished to show that I was now acting with cool deliberation. "X," I
+said, "before leaving England we took some trouble with revolver
+practice; with much inconvenience we conscientiously wore our revolvers
+all through the wilds of Mesopotamia and Armenia; for some weeks we
+slept with them, loaded, under our pillows in the Taurus Mountains;
+they are now hanging discarded on the walls of the hut. Do you not
+think the moment has arrived for giving ourselves some little return
+for all the bother they have been?" "They have been a bore," assented
+X; "perhaps it is our duty to have them now." I went and fetched them
+and solemnly handed X hers. "They are loaded," I said, "but they seem
+rather sticky and rusty; I wonder if they will go off." "Please point
+the other way if you are going to try," said X. I could not allow this
+challenge to my want of knowledge in firearms to pass, and replied with
+dignity, "Remember to aim at the middle of the man; then if you miss
+his heart you have a chance either way at his head or his legs." "I do
+not think I shall fire," said X, "because I cannot do it without
+shutting my eyes. I will just point."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The river had become very narrow, though the current was slow; the men
+could keep pace with us at a walk; they were masters of the situation.
+I gathered my wits together and debated our chances. The Kurds did not
+alarm me, but I cast nervous glances at Hassan. "X," I said at last,
+"if Hassan fires that blunderbuss, he cannot fail to hit either you or
+me." X surveyed the situation critically. "I don't think it will fire,"
+she said; "he was trying to shoot with it one day and it would not go
+off." I breathed more freely. "Effendi," said one of the soldiers to
+Hassan, "tell the ladies to go into the hut." "Pasha," said Hassan,
+"you would be more out of the way in the hut." X laughed, Hassan
+laughed, the Zaptiehs laughed, we all laughed, except Arten, he did not
+laugh&#8212;yet. Meanwhile, the Zaptiehs and the boatmen had been yelling
+and shouting at the brigands as they kept pace with us on the shore. As
+they spoke Kurdish we were unable to know what negotiations were going
+on, and could only await developments. They were a fine set of men,
+dark, handsome, well set-up, their long, black, curly hair worn down to
+the collar. They were dressed in bright colours, and armed to the teeth
+with long knives and pistols, besides the rifles they were flourishing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There do not seem any villages near," said X. "We shall be very cold
+if they take our clothes and we cannot get sheepskins." "Yes," I said,
+"and very hungry if we can get no rice. We have longed for this moment,
+but there do seem to be inconveniences connected with it." My heart
+suddenly warmed within me. "X," I said, "isn't this a splendid piece of
+luck?" "Glorious!" said X; and we gave ourselves up to the full
+enjoyment of the situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had got into a faster bit of current, and the men had to run to keep
+up with us. They seemed to be yielding to the importunities of our
+escort; one by one they dropped behind, and finally, with a few parting
+yells, stood and gazed at us as we floated on. Indignation swelled in
+my veins. "X," I said, in a voice struggling with emotion, "they are
+letting us go!" X's face reflected my disappointment and disgust. "And
+they did not even fire one little shot!" she said bitterly. "Or try to
+burst our skins," I gulped. X tried to take a cheerful view of the
+situation. "Never mind," she said, "cheer up, we may have another
+chance; we are not out of their country yet." But I was not so easily
+comforted; I wanted some outlet for my rage and disappointment, and
+seizing my revolver I fired six shots up into the air and flung the
+weapon across the raft. The reports rang out loud and clear, and the
+echoes slowly died away in the answering rocks. Arten's white face
+peered through a chink in the door. X turned to the Zaptiehs and
+demanded of them a full account of their conversation. "Effendi," said
+the officer, "it is merchandise they want; they dare not touch the
+personal effects of the English; they have had some good lessons."
+"But," I interrupted, "we are loaded with merchandise." "Effendi," said
+the officer, "we swore by Allah that it was all your luggage, and that
+if they took it the English Padishah would send his soldiers and kill
+them all." "Yes," broke in the other Zaptieh, "and we swore that his
+Excellency the English Consul was on board, and that if they fired a
+shot he would come out with his great weapon and blow them all into the
+next world." The little boatman's face beamed with radiant smiles. "Ah!
+the English are a great people," he said; "with you English we are
+safe. I have been down the river scores of times, and always at this
+place I have been robbed. You saw the solitary woman as we turned the
+corner; she was put there to signal when the rafts were coming; if you
+see a woman alone on a bank, you know what you are in for. The river
+here is narrow and the current slow&#8212;you have no chance. On the one
+side the banks are low, and they can draw the rafts on shore and unload
+the merchandise while the men on the other side, high up on the cliffs,
+cover you with their guns."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why do you not carry arms?" we said. The man smiled sadly. "Pasha,
+what are we against these men? If we float on, they sink the raft by
+shooting at the skins till they burst, and we lose raft and merchandise
+and all; if we submit quietly, they take what they want and let us go
+peaceably. Should we fire back at the men on the low bank within our
+range, we are at the mercy of the men on the cliffs, who have good
+ambush. No, Allah wishes it. Why should we resist?" There was silence
+for a few minutes. The Oriental's first refuge from the ills of the
+world is in his subservience to the will of Allah; his second is in his
+tobacco: our boatman slowly rolled up a cigarette. "It is not you
+English they will harm," he said, "they are afraid of punishment. It is
+we poor ones, who can get no redress. They take our little all, and
+know we must submit and they are safe." "Surely you can appeal to the
+local authorities?" we persisted. The man laughed&#8212;a low, quiet laugh.
+"The Governor!" he said; "poor man&#8212;he is no better off than the rest
+of us. He has no authority over these Hamidieh. Only last week he was
+set on and robbed himself by a party of them. They stripped him and
+threw him over a bridge; he was picked up half dead by a passing
+caravan next day. Am&#257;n&#8212;it is the will of Allah," and he took long,
+serene puffs at his cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the conversation Arten had emerged from his retreat, and, after
+casting furtive glances in all directions to make sure of the enemy's
+absence, he seated himself amongst us on the raft and started winking
+and giggling. "Ach, Pasha!" he said, "we scared them well. We are under
+the protection of God. Their shots came whizzing round our heads but
+none could hurt us; they fell round us in the water like hailstones and
+the air was black with them, and when we shot back we left them dying
+in hundreds on the bank and they were afraid to follow. Ah, ah, it was
+a great fight, and we shall be heroes in Stambul." "X," I said, "I fear
+this poor creature's head has been turned with fright; do you think a
+little quinine would be of any use? We have only that and the eye
+lotion left in the medicine case." X looked at me reprovingly. "You
+know you only hate him because he is an Armenian," she said; "you will
+not make allowances for his belonging to a down-trodden race. It is
+only natural he should boast when he knows what a coward he has been."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X was putting new ideas in my head; I transferred my thoughts from
+insanity and quinine and looked with fresh interest at Arten. He was a
+typical specimen of his race&#8212;sallow complexion, dark hair and eyes,
+and a huge hooked nose. He was closely buttoned up in a long, thin,
+black overcoat, which had evidently descended on his shoulders from
+those of a missionary; on his head he wore a dirty red fez, bound round
+with a still dirtier coloured handkerchief. He sat hunched up,
+shivering with cold or fright, and his eyes wandered about uneasily. I
+looked from him to Hassan, and the contrast was indeed striking. Hassan
+was the embodiment of strength: there was strength in the massive,
+well-balanced proportions of his huge frame; there was strength in the
+poise of his head and in the keen level look of his eyes; there was
+strength in the quiet repose of his mind and body. If these two men
+were to be taken as typical specimens of their respective races, there
+was indeed cause to reflect on the result of one race dominating and
+crushing another through the course of generations. I sat down to
+reflect about it. It was getting dusk; the waters were very still; we
+hardly moved. The sun was setting behind us, and the intense redness of
+the sky made the rocks underneath look absolutely dead black; the moon
+had arisen and cast a silver glimmer over the dark waters&#8212;dark from
+reflecting the blackness of the rocks; the kalekjis felt their day's
+work was over and crooned a low song. We drifted to the shore and made
+fast the raft with large stones laid on the ropes. A very unsavoury
+smell of cooking alone kept our thoughts well on the solid earth. Arten
+appeared at the door of the hut. "Supper is ready, Pashas," he said. So
+we ate our supper that night.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XI
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+A RECEPTION AND A DANCE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Hassan Kaif is the first place of any interest along the banks, and we
+arrived there early on the fourth day, having floated about eighty
+miles in that time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we approached the village the banks of the river rose
+perpendicularly in a wall of rock which was simply riddled with tombs.
+Many of them seemed to be quite inaccessible; those which had any sort
+of approach from the land side appeared to be inhabited by Kurds. We
+passed between the ruined buttresses of a Roman bridge of four arches,
+and then had a view of the whole village on the right bank. The
+mountains curve away from the river at this point and leave a
+semicircular level space, which is occupied by the ruins of an ancient
+Christian town. At the back, extending right up the curving side of the
+hill to where the topmost peak, surmounted by a castle, crowns the
+river, is a vast necropolis. The natives live in the tombs and in caves
+cut out of the rocks. We landed here and slowly toiled up the stony
+paths on the face of the rock, which led over the roofs of one
+habitation to the next above it. Near the top we were met by a local
+Zaptieh, who guided us to the house of the Mudir.<a href="#note5" name="noteref5">
+<small>[5]</small></a> We were not sorry
+to have this opportunity of examining the interior of the dwellings.
+The house consisted of a single room, into which we stumbled down a
+dark passage; the walls were roughly levelled off inside, the marks of
+the chisel everywhere apparent. A low divan ran down each side of the
+room. In one corner the rock had been hollowed out to form a cupboard,
+inside which, through the chinks of a rough wooden door, we caught
+glimpses of his Excellency's bedding&#8212;for the Oriental keeps his bed in
+a cupboard in the daytime and spreads it on the floor at night. With
+all the instincts of a wandering tribe, the Turk, however permanent his
+abode, conducts his household exactly as if it were in the nature of a
+tent. He lives in one room, sleeping, eating, and doing business.
+Should he wish to eat, his meal is carried in on a little low table,
+beside which he squats on the floor; the meal over, the table is
+carried out and the floor swept. Should he wish to write, he discards
+the rickety table occasionally found in an official dwelling, and
+writes upon his hand, balancing the ink-pot upon his knee as he sits
+cross-legged on the floor. When it is time to sleep, his bed is pulled
+out of the cupboard and laid upon the floor; his slumbers over, it is
+rolled up and put away again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mudir received us with salaams, and taking X by the hand led her to
+the seat of honour at the top end of the divan; our men ranged
+themselves below in order of rank, and a few ragged soldiers hung about
+the door. A servant appeared with cups of coffee and we were offered
+cigarettes. Then water-melon and sweets were handed round. Conversation
+was limited by our small knowledge of Turkish; but X was by this time
+proficient in the formal modes of greeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> How do the ladies like Turkey?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. We think Turkey is a very fine country, and everybody has been very
+kind to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> How could they be otherwise? are the ladies not the
+honoured guests of the Sultan? Have the ladies a kalek<a href="#note6" name="noteref6">
+<small>[6]</small></a> in London?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. No, we never saw one until we came here. We find it very
+comfortable. We should like to take one back with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> The ladies are sisters, then?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. No, we are friends; we were educated at the same college.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> The lady's father, is he a great Pasha?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> He is a very great Pasha and a friend of the Queen of
+England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(<i>Mutual salaams.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> Your father, the great Pasha, has he many sons?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X. Yes, he has five sons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> Mashallah! God has been good to your father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(<i>A pause, during which we were closely scrutinised.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> Have the ladies no husbands, then? Why are they not
+married?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> In England the ladies do not care about husbands. In
+that country they rule the men. If anything were to happen to these
+ladies, the Queen of England would send her soldiers out here to
+revenge them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(<i>The whole room gives vent to murmurs of "Mashallah," and every eye
+is fixed on us.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir.</span> The other lady (<i>nodding at me</i>), is she a servant
+that she does not speak?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> No, she too is a Pasha, but she cannot speak Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Mudir</span> (<i>incredulously</i>). No Turkish?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan</span> (<i>scornfully</i>). Well, only such words as "hot
+water," "tea," and "be quick," and "is my horse ready?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mudir then inquired calmly "how many times" we had been held up by
+brigands in his district, a strange satire on Turkish methods of
+government. There was not a doubt in his mind that we had not been
+waylaid and robbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then took us to visit another house which boasted of three rooms,
+all leading out of each other. The first one appeared to be the general
+living- and sleeping-room, absolutely bare save for strips of felt
+ranged down the far end and a pile of native quilts in a corner; the
+second room, which could only be reached through the first, was
+dedicated to the animals; and the third, which was almost pitch dark,
+was a larder and store-house. We were received by several women, who
+held us fast by the hands while they displayed their abode with great
+signs of pride. One of them was a strikingly handsome dark girl,
+dressed in gorgeous coloured native silks and velvet, and literally
+plastered with ornaments from the face and hair downwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On returning to the raft we were somewhat puzzled (one is never
+<i>surprised</i> in Turkish dominions) by finding it taken possession
+of by two women, magnificently dressed and closely veiled, accompanied
+by a man and a woman servant. They were sitting in a row on our beds
+examining all our belongings complacently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We are very pleased to have a visit from the ladies," said X to the
+local Zaptieh who had accompanied us back to the raft, "but they must
+go on land now, as we are starting at once."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But they will travel with you," said the Zaptieh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That would be very pleasant," said X, who never forgot to be polite,
+"but the raft is so small, I am afraid there will be no room for us all
+and they will not be comfortable."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, there is plenty of room," said the man reassuringly. "The ladies
+need not trouble themselves."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X turned to one of our Zaptiehs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you explain," she said, "that the raft is ours, and that we are
+very sorry but we are afraid we cannot take the ladies with us?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is an arrangement of the Mudir's," explained Ali; "he has been
+waiting for an opportunity to send the harem of a great Pasha to a
+neighbouring village, and he ordered them to travel with you. They will
+land before evening."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As there seemed no choice in the matter we expressed our tremendous
+appreciation of the honour, and instructed Hassan to keep an eye on
+their pockets. Hassan, who had looked somewhat perturbed from the
+outset, had resolutely ensconced himself at the farthest corner of the
+raft with his back turned to everything. He refused to change his
+position, and explained to us that the ladies were such very great
+Pashas that it would be "shame" for him to look in their direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards evening we reached a spot where two armed Kurds, with long
+black curls and magnificent striped coats, stood waiting with saddled
+horses. The servant woman carefully wrapped the great ladies up in
+their gaudy silk cloaks, and the man-servant helped them off the raft
+on to the backs of the horses. The little party rode away up a lonely
+looking mountain pass, and as we floated on we caught occasional
+glimpses of their bright colours in and out of the rocks until they
+disappeared entirely over the crest of a distant hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night we moored the raft at Sheveh, a village backed by high
+hills, the last spurs of a great range of snow mountains, at whose base
+we had been winding in and out. We arrived at sunset, just as the women
+were trooping down, with jars on their heads, to fetch water from the
+river. I went and sat on a rock above them, and one by one, having
+filled their jars, they filed up past me, and, stopping for an instant,
+fingered my garments and gently stroked my hair. Many and various
+questions they asked me, of which I could understand nothing beyond the
+note of interrogation, and they sailed on with that free and graceful
+carriage which is the gift of uncivilised races, balancing the jars at
+an angle on their white-veiled heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had finished supper and had stretched ourselves out on the raft
+under the stars, enjoying the quiet and beauty of the scene. The
+boatmen belonging to the two rafts had joined forces and pitched a tent
+on the shore close by. Most of the village had straggled down to the
+river and were flitting mysteriously about in waving white garments.
+All of a sudden a wild, savage noise of screaming and singing arose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The men have bought a piece of meat," said Ali, "and are singing to
+it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a weird sight: a roaring fire blazed in the gloaming; in the
+centre hung a large black pot containing the meat which was the object
+of this adoration. The men had joined hands and were dancing round the
+fire in a circle, dark figures in long white flowing robes which waved
+about in the semi-darkness as their owners flung their feet up or swung
+suddenly round. All at once the men dropped on the ground with a
+prolonged dwindling yell, which finally died off into an expectant
+silence. The head boatman fished out the meat and began to tear it to
+pieces with his hands, distributing it amongst his companions. A
+deathly silence reigned while the carcass was being consumed. This gave
+place, as time went on, to a murmuring ripple of satisfaction, which
+developed a little later into bursts of contented song. Then they
+sprang to their feet and flung themselves once more into a dance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let's join in," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We each seized a Zaptieh by the hand and were included in the circle.
+We sprang and kicked and stamped; we turned and hopped and stamped. One
+man stood in the middle clapping the time with his hands as he led the
+song. It was a war-dance; the circle broke into two lines and we dashed
+against one another. Then the lines receded and the song became a low
+murmur as of gathering hordes, whilst our feet beat slow time. The
+murmur swelled and our feet quickened; louder and louder we shouted,
+quicker and quicker we moved, and finally with a great roar the two
+lines dashed against one another. We gave one great stamp all together
+and stopped dead; another great stamp and a roar, then a hush, and the
+lines receded. Thoroughly exhausted, I fell out of the line while this
+proceeding was repeated. By this time the moon shone out bright and
+strong. On one side a great desert stretched away into the starry
+night; on the other the waters of the Tigris swept darkly past us. The
+wild shrieks flew up into the clear, silent air. X danced furiously on
+between Hassan and Ali. Her face was strangely white, lit up by the
+moon, amongst the dark complexions of her companions. They sprang and
+hopped and stamped, they turned and hopped and stamped; a white robe
+here, a red cloak there, a naked foot and a soldier's boot, hopping and
+turning and stamping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I said to myself, "you are mad, and I, poor sane fool, can only
+remember that I once did crotchet work in drawing-rooms."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A feeling of wild rebellion took hold of me; I sprang into the circle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Make me mad!" I cried out; "I want to be mad too!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men seized me and on we went, on and on with the hopping and
+turning and stamping. And soon I too was a savage, a glorious, free
+savage under the white moon.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Between Hassan Kaif and Jezireh, a distance of thirty-five miles, the
+scenery is very fine. The river winds through narrow gorges with steep
+walls of limestone rock riddled with rock tombs. Here and there in the
+black gorges the high turreted rocks would be skirted below with bands
+of vegetation; little spurts of glistening water shooting over the
+rocky tops, as they dashed down to join the river, shot between masses
+of ferns or trickled through beds of green moss. It was months since we
+had seen anything green, and we feasted our eyes and senses on the
+unaccustomed luxuriance. All the grim bareness and desolation of the
+stone and mud country through which we had passed seemed to serve a
+purpose now in heightening the intoxication of this scene. Reluctantly
+I had been compelled to admit, on more than one occasion, that Nature
+could be positively revolting in places where absence of life and
+colour were not relieved by any sense of stern ruggedness or the
+freedom of space; where day after day we had journeyed through a
+country of little meaningless hillocks strewn with grey stones, only
+getting round the corner of one to be confronted with another of the
+same appearance; where it seemed as if Nature had chosen a spot, far
+from the eye of man, to dump all the clinkers of life, all the stony
+refuse which even she could not turn to any profitable account&#8212;she,
+the great mother, of whom men say she knows no waste. We had discovered
+her ugly secret hidden away in this far corner; and now she was using
+her chief weapon, contrast, to make us feel the true extent of her
+power. She had wearied and revolted us, and now she seemed to make use
+of this very fact to give us an intenser appreciation of her best.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pretty view, isn't it?" said a voice in the native tongue at my side.
+Startled from another world, I turned round. Arten was rubbing some
+spoons with a dirty cloth and waved his hands towards the banks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Got anything like this in London?" he asked affably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at him in silence. He dived into the hut with a scared look,
+and complained later on to X that the other Pasha had an uncertain
+temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spell of enchantment was broken; but sentiment was in the air with
+the smell of wet earth and the sound of drinking vegetation; oleander
+bushes with bright red blossoms stood out against the dark rock,
+water-birds darted in and out and vultures hovered overhead. I had a
+sudden desire, awakened by Arten's interruption, to share the emotions
+called up by the surrounding scene. I glanced at X. She looked fairly
+sentimental, I thought, lying motionless in her favourite place at the
+extreme end of the raft, with a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I murmured softly, "what does this make you think about?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X was one of those rare people who always know what they are thinking
+about. She did not fail me on this occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It reminds me of Scotland," she said without hesitation. "Why, what
+does it make you think about?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had stopped thinking about it, and agreed that I had seen places
+like it in Scotland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pasha," said Hassan, "the boatmen want you not to sit so near the edge
+of the raft."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why," laughed X, "do they think I shall roll over?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," replied Hassan, pointing ahead, "but we are going to shoot a
+rapid and they say you will be frightened."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I would sooner be frightened than go through the awful exertion of
+moving on this raft," said X, and she gazed placidly at the line of
+foaming waters which we were rapidly nearing. There was only just room
+for the raft to rush between hard, sharp-edged boulders of rock, and it
+seemed as if we should inevitably be dashed to pieces or stranded at an
+acute angle on one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Zaptiehs helped with the oars, they and the boatmen keeping up one
+prolonged yell of "Allah! Allah!" They exerted themselves strenuously,
+a strange thing for Easterns to do; the raft creaked and rocked and
+plunged; there was a very disturbing sense of fuss and unseemly
+exertion on board; the cook was saying his prayers inside; Hassan, with
+an air of total unconcern or even apparent perception of what was going
+on, was laboriously adding up his accounts; and X, with equal
+unconcern, was mending her gloves. On such occasions one thinks of
+one's past sins and the future; I thought of the future. I stood up and
+leaned my back against the wall of the hut to steady myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I roared above the din, "I wonder what there is for supper
+to-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X looked at me with a bored expression. "The same, I should think," she
+said, "as we had last night and the night before and the night before
+that. Why this sudden interest in your food?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Because," I said, "I have an idea I shall enjoy my supper to-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," said X (she was always sympathetic), "this sort of weather does
+make one hungry."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further conversation was prevented by a sudden leap of water and raft
+right into the air, and with the leap went up a loud cry to Allah, as
+the men threw themselves, with one great determination, on the oars. We
+shot head downwards into the dark waters past the white froth of foam;
+there was a moment of turmoil, then everything became very still; the
+men rested exhausted on their oars, the roaring waters sounded faint in
+the distance. I looked round: Hassan was still at his accounts; X had
+finished her gloves, and was lying back with her eyes closed; the
+cook's prayers had ceased; we were through. The cook came out rubbing
+his hands jocosely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten," I said, "your prayers have saved us from some inconvenience."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten looked conscious. "What danger has there been?" he said; "was the
+Pasha afraid of the waters?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, indeed," I returned; "it was not the Pasha who was afraid of the
+waters, but she was afraid she might not get her supper to-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Pasha is hungry," said X; "we must have onions as well as potatoes
+to-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We arrived at Jezireh, without further adventure, at noon the next day.
+The River Jezeer runs into the Tigris at this point, so that the town
+can only be reached by wading through the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were making preparations to go on shore when we observed a little
+man being carried across the water on the back of a half-naked Arab. He
+had that incongruous look made up of the European overcoat with a fur
+collar, the black trousers, and the brown boots, all surmounted with a
+fez, which we had learnt to associate, curiously enough, both with the
+office of local Governor and with that of the native Christian Man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this case our visitor was the Kaimakam. He was spilt off the Arab's
+shoulders on to the raft, and landed in rather an unofficial position.
+We went through the usual pantomime of salaams, and after inquiries
+after the health and rank of our relations he invited us to come on
+shore and visit the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jezireh is a stronghold of the Hamidieh Kurds; the ragged soldiers
+about the streets bore their distinguishing mark, a silver star on the
+forehead. Their chief Mustafa had been murdered but a year ago, after
+devastating and burning the whole country round; and under the rule of
+his weaker son there was a temporary lull in hostilities. But Mustafa's
+name was still only mentioned in whispered words of awe, and this not
+by plundered natives alone, but by Turkish regulars and Turkish
+officials alike.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On returning to the raft we heard that an English Pasha had just ridden
+into the town and that he was coming to visit us. He had met Hassan,
+who had been buying supplies in the bazaars, and the following
+conversation had ensued, which Hassan now repeated for our benefit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Who are you?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> I am a cavasse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Who is your Pasha?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> Victoria Pasha.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Where is he?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> She is sitting on the raft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> What is she doing there?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> She is floating to Baghdad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Where did she come from?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> She came out of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Is she alone?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Hassan.</span> No, she has a friend, who is not her sister, neither
+is she her servant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">English Pasha.</span> Give the ladies my salaams and say that I will
+call upon them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X and I looked at one another. The meeting of an Englishman under such
+circumstances is no doubt, in one sense, an excitement; so would it be
+to meet a tiger in an English country lane. In a jungle, now, one
+expects a tiger, and, being prepared for his attack, does not resent
+it. In the same way one is prepared to meet an Englishman on common
+ground in England, but, in an Asiatic wild, one is not prepared for the
+onslaught and one is therefore taken at a disadvantage. It was ten days
+since we had seen ourselves, as the Man would see us, in a glass (and
+then it was only a missionary's glass), and we had lost nearly all our
+hairpins in the crevices of the raft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is my face as red as yours?" said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The question was evidently the outcome of the thoughts which assailed
+her mind during the few moments' silence in which we had gazed at each
+other, wondering whether we really looked like that too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your face is all right," I said, "it's only red in patches; but your
+hair is disgraceful. How's mine?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's all right," said X, critically, "it's only coming down in
+patches. But there is no time to do anything; here it is; we must
+brazen it out."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A young Englishman was boarding the raft; he was very spick and span,
+shaved, brushed, a clean collar, and polished boots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You must excuse me for calling upon you in this dishevelled manner,"
+he said as we shook hands, "but travellers have to come as they are; I
+daresay you can sympathise," and he glanced round at our <i>m&#233;nage</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X laughed. "Oh, as far as that goes," she said, "we are all in the same
+boat."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Raft," I corrected in a nervous flutter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Young Man looked at me and smiled. I realised that he thought I was
+trying to make a cheap joke, such as one might have been capable of in
+the country lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I must introduce myself," he went on. "I am Captain T&#8212;&#8212; of V&#8212;&#8212;. I
+am on my way there now. It's strange you should just have arrived
+to-day as I was crossing the river...."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I murmured something about tea and fled into the men's hut, where Arten
+was boiling the kettle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten," I stammered out in broken Turkish, "the English Pasha will
+have tea with us. You must bring the cups clean. The English never have
+dirty cups."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten smiled back very genially; he breathed into a cup and wiped it
+vigorously with one of his dirty cloths, by which I concluded that he
+understood what I had said to him. I had learnt up all the words about
+dirt and the desirability of washing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was raining slightly and we had to ask the Young Man under cover. X
+and I sat down on one of the camp-beds and the Young Man sat on the
+opposite bed, sticking his long legs out through the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You speak Turkish, then?" he said to me as I returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So he had heard my injunctions! I hastily denied any claim to a
+knowledge of the language. Arten came in with the tea, which he placed
+on the floor between the Young Man's top-boots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Pasha," he said, addressing X, "said you wanted something for tea
+which the English always have, only I did not understand what it was."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh," said X, turning to me, "what was it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I kicked X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Biscuits," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said Arten, persistently, "it wasn't biscuits; it was something
+which you don't usually have."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave Arten the look which he had learnt to associate with the
+advisability of his own retreat. The Young Man smiled again and looked
+the other way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," he said, "I don't know where we should be very often without
+biscuits in this country; they are so easy to carry."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew then that he had heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Young Man stayed about half an hour and then rose to go. His camp
+had gone on, and it was a two hours' ride to the place where they would
+spend the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had departed X and I thought it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You bet," I said fretfully, "he will have a five-course dinner
+to-night, on a table with clean plates and knives for each course, and
+probably a camp-chair to sit on."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," said X, "and a looking-glass hung on the wall of his tent, and
+hot water and a clean towel."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And that's what a man calls roughing it!
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE CREED OF THE KORAN
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+We left Jezireh early next morning. The scenery was now much tamer; the
+banks of the river were low; stretches of conglomerate and red rocks
+were interspersed with grassy slopes. The river was no longer disturbed
+by rocks and rapids, and our two kalekjis had been replaced by a
+bright-faced youth who was going to take us single-handed as far as
+Mosul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am not I a good kalekji?" he kept on saying to us, "see how quick I
+make the raft go. When you get to Mosul you will remember what a good
+kalekji I was," and, standing up on the raft, grasping the two oars, he
+would throw himself right backwards, causing the raft to shoot on
+through the sluggish stream. Then when we had got into a faster bit of
+current he would lean on his oars and roll up a cigarette, talking all
+the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The ladies like me, do they not? They see I am a good kalekji. They
+surely like me better than their other kalekjis?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six rafts laden with merchandise had followed us from Jezireh, and one
+with a hut similar to ours, and flying the Turkish crescent, was
+conveying a Turkish Yuzbashi with his harem to Mosul. The women were
+shut inside the hut the whole time, and occasionally, when the rafts
+drifted alongside, we caught glimpses of them peering shyly at us
+through the little glazed window. Did they envy us, sitting boldly
+outside, unveiled, open to the stares of all this crowd? Or, knowing no
+other lot, did they merely regard us with astonished curiosity, these
+so-called women from a strange land, who dressed like women but went
+about like men?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fat little officer in his smart uniform sat outside most of the
+day, smoking with Oriental listlessness or playing with his little fat
+boy, a miniature counterpart of himself, dressed in uniform with a toy
+sword.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On some of the merchandise rafts the kalekjis were accompanied by their
+families. The sacks were piled up to form a rough shelter, under which
+the women and children crouched all day and cooked their masters' food.
+More rafts joined on to us further down, until we numbered thirteen.
+All day we floated in and out amongst each other, the rafts twisting
+and turning with the vagaries of the current. The kalekjis yelled and
+shouted at one another; they raced for the fast bits of current ahead
+where only one raft could pass at a time; they jostled one another or
+got entangled in shallow places, and the other rafts passed them with
+jeers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our little kalekji put forth all his skill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"See, Pasha," he would say, excitedly, "see how we leave them behind!
+You have the best kalekji; do you see I always have the best of the
+river? Yah, yah, yah," and he roared derisive laughter at his pursuers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At night we all moored together and the kalekjis would land and sleep
+in the caves under overhanging rocks, or light a fire on the banks and
+stretch themselves out round it, taking turns at the night watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner was the raft drawn up along the banks than X and I would land
+to get as much exercise as possible in the remaining hour of daylight.
+The Zaptiehs, who were obliged to accompany us, wrung their hands over
+this display of energy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am&#257;n, am&#257;n. These English have strange habits. They land all in
+a minute, and before you know what they are doing one has rushed in one
+direction and one in another, and perhaps both are lost in the
+darkness, and we have orders from the Government never to lose sight of
+them. If the Government only knew what they were asking!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first evening after leaving Jezireh, Ali and I climbed to the
+highest point near the river, from where I obtained a good view of the
+surrounding country. The top of the hill on which we stood was a mass
+of stones and bulbous plants with withered leaves and tufts of rough
+grass. The country stretched away all round in strong, firm undulations
+to a distant horizon. To the west was the full glory of an Eastern
+sunset, intensifying the reddish hue of the rolling hills until they
+merged into blackness in the shadows. To the east the terminating range
+was snow-clad, and the setting sun, casting a pink glow over the white
+peaks, gave a gradation of colour which caused them to melt
+imperceptibly into the sky and mingle with the pale reflection of the
+sun's setting rays on the opposite horizon. What villages, what life
+lay concealed in the hollows of these rolling hills I do not know. To
+the eye there was nothing visible but the hill-tops in their naked
+immensity and intense desolation; on one side the flaming colours of
+the setting sun, on the other its pale reflection on the snowy peaks,
+and over it all the vast, inscrutable sky. We were alone, Ali and I,
+with "that silence which some call God." I liked Ali's companionship on
+these evening walks; his nature, truly Eastern, was in keeping with the
+country. He had been chatting away merrily all the way up, trying to
+teach me Turkish words; and now we both lapsed of one accord into
+silence and his merry face took on something of the sternness of the
+surroundings. He laid his rifle on the ground, and moving away a little
+distance, went through the evening prayer. Now upright, now bending,
+now on his knees, a misty black form in the dazzling red light, he
+murmured inaudibly the prescribed words, words which at that same hour
+were being uttered alike by so many thousands in the fevered rush of
+busy towns, on the house-tops, and in the crowded chambers. A form, a
+ritual of empty words this prayer may be, but up here, in Nature's
+loneliness, the prayer and the man seemed strangely relevant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was it not in such a place as this, alone with the great forces of
+Nature, that Mahomet formed his conception of God as an Irresistible
+Power?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Has there come to thee the story of the overwhelming?" he cries out at
+one time, and again: "Does there not come in man a portion of time when
+he is nothing worth mentioning?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great need of man is for expression; in places such as these his
+own insignificance is forced upon him by the overwhelming might of
+primeval forces. Alone with the great silence which his voice cannot
+fill, with the great space in which he, as a physical being, is lost;
+with the great mountains against which to measure his strength, with
+the stars which he cannot reach, and the floods which he cannot stem,
+his own personality seems so trivial that he doubts its very existence,
+until a strong feeling of participation in the forces themselves, of
+his own share in them, gives a truer sense of his own proportion; and
+the reaction of feeling, from this realization of his own impotence to
+that of his own magnificence in being part of them, produces an
+overwhelming desire for utterance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was it under such influences as these that Mahomet's longing,
+awe-struck soul first heard, "Cry, what shall I cry?" and subsequently
+gave forth that long blazonry of Nature's beauty in the Koran? There is
+something in the grand simplicity and childish acceptance of the
+unspoilt Eastern character at its best which seems to be a counterpart
+of the feeling inspired by Nature in this Eastern land itself. That it
+should be so seems natural when we remember how Mahomet was continually
+conjuring his followers to look at Nature and understand great things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look at the heaven how it is reared, and at the mountains how they are
+set up, and at the earth how it is spread out...."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you
+if you would understand...."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Lift up thine eyes to the heaven; dost thou see any flaw therein? Nay,
+lift up thine eyes again; thy sight returneth dim and dazed...."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The murmuring words of Ali's prayer had stopped; the sun sank behind
+the distant line of hills; a breeze sprang up and stirred the tufts of
+withered grass, whispering in the "still of night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We retraced our steps to the edge of the hill and dropped into the
+hidden valley, where the Tigris rushed along unheeded and unseen from
+above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten's voice rose with the sound of the waters, singing the well-worn
+words of an Armenian Protestant hymn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The kalekjis had lit fires at the mouth of the caves, and crouched
+round the black pot which contained the evening meal. From the far
+corner of one cave came the wail of a new-born infant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under "the splendour of the Night Star" we too retired to rest.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We were already afloat when I woke next morning. From my bed I could
+see the banks shooting past the little window of the hut. The reader
+must not imagine a continuous view, such as one would get through the
+window of a more civilized vehicle of locomotion. The banks at one
+moment would move straight past the window in the orthodox way; then
+they would be suddenly shooting past in the opposite direction, or we
+had a view of the river behind. It requires in many ways a certain
+amount of practice to live in a state of equilibrium on a raft. One is
+constantly being made aware of the truism that there are two sides to
+everything. First of all there are, as one would expect, two sides to
+the river; and owing to the particular method of our progression we
+were always being reminded, in a most irritating way, of this purely
+geological fact. No sooner had we become aware of the scenery on one
+side, and had decided that it was the right bank, than&#8212;swish&#8212;round
+went the raft, and the whole length of the right bank would be shot
+before our view like a circular panorama, and before you could take it
+in you were looking at the left bank; moreover, you would be looking at
+it moving past you upwards, though you were perfectly certain the raft
+could only be floating downwards. There was hardly time to reason this
+out when&#8212;swish&#8212;round you go the reverse way again, the left bank
+swings past you downwards and you are travelling up the right bank,
+although the raft, you are persuaded, is still pursuing its downward
+course. If you stood outside and fixed your eye with strenuous
+determination on some fixed and immutable spot of heaven or earth you
+might be able to keep your bearings with a strong mental effort. But
+when you observed the features of the landscape through the small
+window of your hut you gave it up&#8212;and simply gazed at the view as you
+would at a magic-lantern slide being slowly withdrawn through the
+porthole of an undulating steamer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was equally difficult to look steadily ahead from a mental point of
+view. Travelling by yourself you might be able to arrange your own
+philosophy, but it is upsetting when the other person sees the side
+which at any particular moment you do not happen to be looking at.
+When, for instance, we were delayed later that morning repairing burst
+skins, X was perfectly happy dwelling on the romance of navigating this
+noble and ancient river in the same way as those heroes whose feats
+were recorded on the tablets of Nineveh, until I unwittingly disturbed
+the harmony of these thoughts by complaining that I was unpleasantly
+reminded of a punctured bicycle on a lonely road of civilisation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How delightful this is," I said, in exuberant laziness, when we were
+floating on once more, "to be able to lose all conception of time and
+float on, as it were, to eternity."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Personally," said X, "I find myself counting the days with a most
+unpleasant conception of the lapse of time, for we have only food
+enough for one day, and owing to this delay there is no possibility of
+renewing our supply for two."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt an injury had been inflicted on me by being reminded of absence
+of dinner when I had been inflated with great thoughts. But I had not
+long to wait for my revenge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a picturesque man the kalekji is," X exclaimed suddenly. "I take
+such a delight in watching him shaking out his flowing garments and
+folding himself up in such graceful attitudes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Personally," I said, with some malice, "it gives me no pleasure since
+I became aware that he is only engaged in hunting for fleas."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X made no answer; I felt we were quits. She would have to think of the
+presence of fleas while I thought of the absence of dinner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We floated on very quietly that day. The banks were flatter and the
+patches of grass became more frequent. At long intervals we passed
+villages of mud huts built on the sides of the river where the banks
+rose to a higher point. Towards evening we swung round under a rocky
+prominence, on the top of which stood the village of Hassoni. There was
+no possibility of mooring the raft anywhere near it for the night. The
+banks rose up in a straight wall of rock, of such a height that the
+inhabitants of the village, peering down at us from above, seemed like
+pigmies on the sky-line. We floated on until the hills curved and the
+banks sloped down to a muddy flat. The other rafts were already moored
+along the shore and we drifted alongside of them. Ali and I landed, and
+we set off to walk back to the village in the hope of getting some eggs
+and milk to eke out our supply of provisions. We had some difficulty in
+scrambling up the wet, grassy places between edges of rock where the
+water oozed out and trickled down to the river below; and on reaching
+the top we found ourselves on the edge of an extensive tableland which
+ended abruptly in the escarpment under which we had floated. Below us
+we could see the river winding ahead through a low-lying country to the
+east. We walked for half a mile across the flat table-top towards the
+village; a long procession of black and yellow cattle were sauntering
+along in front of us, lowing quietly in answer to the shrill calls of a
+boy who stood motionless on a little hillock, a weird figure in the
+straight, square-cut sheepskin cloak of the natives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From all sides flocks of goats and sheep were coming in and filled the
+narrow streets, sharing the homes of their masters as a protection
+against the raids of Hamidieh chiefs. It was a partly Kurdish, partly
+Arab village, and the inhabitants mingled their curiosity at my
+appearance with fright at that of Ali's. Long experience had taught
+them that a visit from a Turkish Zaptieh meant extortion of some sort.
+A child in our path screamed aloud, rooted to the spot with terror.
+Ali's bright, laughing face clouded over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is what the children are taught to think of us," he said, "and I
+have my own little ones at home."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our demands for milk were received with sullen grimness, until the
+sight of the unwonted coin caused the faces to clear, and a further
+present of tobacco established quite a friendly footing. I sat down
+inside an enclosure of maize stalks at the door of a larger hut, where
+the cows were being milked, and the natives, clustering round, plied
+Ali with questions. One of the villagers offered to walk back with us
+and carry the milk. It was dark before we reached the edge of the
+tableland again, and I shouted down in the hopes of getting an answer
+which would guide us to the encampment below. The village boy held up
+his hand with a scared look: the call was only answered by its own
+echo, and the stones, slipping under our feet, rattled noisily down the
+steep slope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hush!" said Ali, "who knows but what Ibrahim Pasha may hear you," and
+we slid silently down the slippery banks in the darkness, until the
+light of a camp-fire gleamed out a welcome signal.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XIV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE EVIL ONE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+At noon on the tenth day after leaving Diarbekr and the fourth from
+Jezireh we caught sight of the minarets and cupolas of Mosul, and
+floated for a couple of miles under the chain of limestone cliffs on
+the end of which the town is built. We had hardly got within sight of
+the town itself when a fearful cannonading met our ears, accompanied by
+piercing screams and savage yells. It sounded as if the walls were
+being attacked by battering-rams, and all along the shore line at their
+base we could faintly distinguish a seething line of human beings
+brandishing some form of weapon. We were evidently going to be
+eye-witnesses of a tribal disturbance which would cause diplomatic
+unrest in Europe, and who knows but what our participation in it would
+not brand us with fame for the rest of time. I determined to make full
+use of the opportunity and prepared my camera and notebook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Zaptiehs, however, seemed quite unconcerned, and we understood from
+them that there was no cause for alarm, and that this sort of thing was
+of weekly occurrence in Mosul. On floating up to the scene of action we
+realised that it was indeed only Mosul's washing-day. All along the
+shore, as far as we could see, under the walls of the town stretched a
+continuous line of women beating clothes with flat sticks on the stones
+at the water's edge; and the screams resolved themselves into the
+ordinary sounds usually emitted where women congregate in large
+numbers. Truly, the men of the East are wise in their generation. They
+had thus solved the problem of washing-day and all its horrors, and
+were left in peaceful and undisputed possession of their hearths and
+tempers. The women were there in their hundreds, and, as we approached
+the bridge of boats which crossed the river lower down, we floated past
+a small army of them on the opposite shore, where a flat stretch of mud
+was covered with gaudy rags laid out to dry. Mosul, I believe, derives
+its name from the manufacture of muslin carried on there, and the
+guide-book informs us that it is chiefly remarkable for the Assyrian
+mounds found near it. I am bound to confess, however, that it is
+indelibly impressed on my mind solely in its connection with the vulgar
+art of washing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had to wait several days at Mosul while a new raft was being
+constructed, on to which our huts were bodily transferred. The skins on
+which we had floated so far were deflated and the kalekjis would return
+with them to Diarbekr by land on donkey back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We spent the time visiting the historic mounds of Koyunjik and
+Khorsabad, for detailed information on which I must refer the reader to
+the works of Layard and Botha and King. The site of Nineveh to the
+uninitiated eye is represented by the great mound of Koyunjik, which
+rises out of the flat country on the opposite side of the river to
+Mosul; it is surrounded by smaller tumuli representing parts of the
+ancient walls. Here and there are patches of cultivation, and at the
+time of our visit the bare brown earth was beginning to show promise of
+being covered by a scanty vegetation. Of winged bulls, of lettered
+slabs, of cylinders, of all the wondrous contents of the palaces of the
+ancient Assyrian kings, now ensconced in the museums of Western cities,
+the only indication we had on the spot were the subterranean tunnels,
+now choked with fallen d&#233;bris, from which these evidences had been
+removed; and the broken bits of masonry and pottery which were strewn
+promiscuously about the surface. From the summit we obtained a
+comprehensive view of the country: of Mosul at our feet standing on its
+limestone cliffs at the farther side of the Tigris, and of the distant
+country through which the river wandered southwards; a great plain
+dotted with villages round which patches of cultivated land were
+already green with the rising corn. Long strings of mules laden with
+cabbage and other vegetables came in from the outlying villages and
+swelled the motley coloured crowd at the stalls established on this
+side of the river, or passed on over the rickety wooden bridge to the
+bazaars inside the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The exertion of living on land for these few days had seemed so very
+great that we were not sorry when we found ourselves afloat once more
+on the new raft and with a new set of men. Achmet and Ali had bidden us
+a tearful farewell, and we now had one Zaptieh only as escort, an Arab
+also named Ali. He was a Chous,<a href="#note7" name="noteref7">
+<small>[7]</small></a> and I will give him his full title
+to distinguish him from our late friend. A picturesque kalekji is
+almost an essential in such close quarters as a raft, and up till now
+we had rejoiced in the brightly-striped Kurdish coats and turbans of
+our first kalekjis, and the clean, flowing, white abba of our Jezireh
+friend. The two men who were to take us from Mosul to Baghdad presented
+a very different appearance. Unlike most Arabs, they were both huge,
+stout men, and were dressed in rough brown camel-hair cloaks over
+unwashed white under-garments. One of them we nicknamed at once the
+Evil One; he had the most excruciatingly wicked face imaginable&#8212;and
+the terror of it was considerably heightened when he tried to
+superinduce a conciliating smile on his hideous expression of
+wickedness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The country below Mosul was decidedly tame; the dry brown plain was
+fringed by the already green banks of the river. The river itself was
+now much wider, and here and there its course would be divided by
+islands with low, swampy banks, round which the waters would lose
+themselves in marshy tracts, where herons waded in and out and
+innumerable black ducks dived and spluttered amongst the rushes. The
+jungle round was the haunt of the wild boar, jackal, and hyena. It was
+hard to believe that a few weeks later the first spring sun would call
+forth wild masses of gorgeous flowers and long, rank grasses, and that
+the whole country would be teeming with succulent vegetation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, indeed, a monotonous bit of country. The sun had not yet melted
+the snows of the distant Armenian hills, which later on would cause a
+rapid flood to the river, and we progressed very slowly in the low,
+sluggish waters. Our two kalekjis displayed no desire to hurry matters
+by their own exertions, and leant on their oars all day, disturbing the
+general harmony by constant quarrelling in harsh, grating voices. Now
+and then Ali Chous, who was fat and meek, would address himself to them
+in a soothing, almost pleading tone of voice. The purport of their
+remarks was lost to us, as their conversation was carried on in Arabic,
+and we found it hard to extract any information out of Ali, who could
+communicate with us in Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tell them they must stop talking and row," I said; "we are hardly
+moving at all."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Ali Chous would answer:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They will row, Effendi, indeed they will row." And the kalekjis rested
+on their oars as before, and the Evil One would smile at me, distorting
+his evil countenance with a diabolical grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, Ali informed us, in his anxious, conciliating tone, that they
+had brought no food with them and that they were hungry. If the Pashas
+would give them bread they could row; now they were faint. This was a
+favourite Eastern dodge with which we were well acquainted by this
+time. The kalekjis were always engaged with the understanding that they
+fed themselves, and knowing the fatal results of giving in on such
+points we hardened our countenances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tell them we cannot help that; they knew they had to bring their own
+food, and if they starve it is not our fault." And the Evil One, on
+hearing this through Ali's no doubt modified interpretation, gave us
+another grin, even more diabolical than before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we retired into the hut for our next meal I took the precaution of
+cutting a hole in the felt wall, and peeping through it, saw them
+comfortably ensconced at the furthest end of the raft, eating bread and
+scraps of meat out of a dirty linen bag, which they hastily sat on when
+we reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten was terribly afraid of them, and I knew what that meant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten," I said to him early in the day, "if you dare to give these men
+any food without my leave we will land you at the next village."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten hastily disclaimed any intention of giving them food, but he
+evidently cherished the thought as quite a good idea; after all, he was
+more alarmed of them even than he was of me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early on the second day we arrived at a small village, where it seemed
+as if we were expected. There was a crowd on the banks, and one of the
+men was waiting with a large sack. Ali explained to us that it
+contained the kalekjis' bread, and that we must land to take it on
+board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Evil One waded on shore with the rope, which he made fast to a
+rock. A little further down the banks were several natives making a
+raft, and I strolled down to have a look at them. One man sat on the
+ground with a pile of skins beside him. The skins had been cut off
+above the hind legs, and the man was engaged in tying up this end, and
+the openings of the fore legs, with string. One end of the string was
+tied round his big toe, and he worked the other end up and down round
+the gathered end of the skin until the tied ends were quite air-tight.
+Then he threw the skin to another man, who blew into the open fore end
+until it was inflated, when he tied it up. A third man stood in the
+water, tying the inflated skins on to the poplar poles with the ends of
+the same strings that had served to tie up the openings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After watching them a little time I returned to our raft. By this time
+the whole village had turned out, and a great uproar was going on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What's up?" I said to X, who had not left the raft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I've been trying to find out," said X. "The Evil One has displeased
+them somehow and they will not let him go."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We instructed Ali Chous to insist on our going on. The second kalekji,
+Jedan by name, seemed only too delighted; he kept winking at us and
+pointing derisively at the Evil One. He untied the rope and shoved off.
+A man on the shore promptly seized the rope and held us back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Get a stick," said X, "and give him a smack on his head."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X was of a peaceable disposition, and I daresay she was laughing at me.
+She enjoyed seeing me get angry. But it was in our contract that I
+should do all the manual labour connected with keeping order, so I
+obediently seized a long pole, and let it descend gently on the
+offender's shoulder. He turned round and stared, dropping the rope with
+an astonished grin. The crowd burst into joyous shouts and pointed at
+the Evil One, who still stood expostulating angrily in their midst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hit him!" they yelled, "he is the one to hit!" and quite believing
+them I transferred my attentions, along with the end of the pole, to
+his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Come!" I shouted. It sounds tame, but it was the only Arabic word I
+knew. The raft slowly drifted down-stream and the Evil One, dashing in
+up to his waist, clambered on board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ali explained to us that he refused to pay enough for his bread, and
+that the crowd would not let him go until he had done so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Evil One grinned, and, diving into the bag, offered me a dirty
+piece of native bread in his still dirtier fingers. He would share his
+food with us, though we refused to do so with him; a typical Eastern
+method of putting one in the wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waters were still sluggish, and the men seemed determined to do no
+work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am beginning to think they are in league with some one on shore,"
+said X. "It cannot be to their advantage to be so long on the way, as
+they are paid a lump sum to get us to Baghdad, and we are not feeding
+them. I quite expect we shall be held up and robbed before evening."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding that orders and threats were of no use and learning from Ali
+that Jedan, the second kalekji, was afraid of the Evil One, who would
+not allow him to row, I sat down facing them and produced my revolver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tell the bad kalekji," I said to Ali Chous, "that if he does not row I
+will shoot him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Evil One, greatly to my astonishment, appeared to believe in the
+possibility of bloodshed and set to work at the oars. All the rest of
+the day I sat with my revolver at his head. It was a most fatiguing, if
+effectual, process.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Supposing he does stop rowing," said X, "will you shoot him?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I cannot think what I shall do," I said; "the only way will be to fire
+over his head and pretend I've missed him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mind you do miss him," said X languidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Sure to," I answered hopefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some hours before sunset we were held up in a manner which admitted of
+no blame being attached to the Evil One. A strong head-wind arose,
+before which the raft refused to make headway, and we were forced to
+take refuge on a dreary mud bank which sloped down to the water's edge
+under a low line of shaley rocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men sat about cross and disconsolate. It was very unsafe, they
+said, to spend the night so far from a village. We should certainly be
+attacked; the Evil One had arranged this&#8212;wind and all. We might be
+there for days, and what should we do for food? Tired of looking at all
+their sulky faces, I clambered up the cliff above to see what I could
+see. The top of the hill was as level as if it had been flattened out
+by a giant with a hot iron. A low line of hills with equally flattened
+tops at a little distance hid the further view. I walked to the top of
+them, led on by the sort of fascination which makes one wish to see
+what is hidden between one and the horizon. Having reached the top
+there was nothing to be seen but repeated lines of naked, flat-topped
+hills. The dreary loneliness of the place, its utter nakedness, in
+which one seemed shut off from all the real things of life, colour,
+sound, space, and growth, descended like a physical weight on one's
+senses. It was all like one great senseless punishment, which from its
+sheer callousness held one, with mingled fascination and terror, rooted
+to the spot. With an effort I turned to retrace my steps, when my eye
+caught sight of a dark object on the same line of hills on which I
+stood, which made my blood turn cold. A wild-looking, half-naked Arab,
+who seemed to have dropped suddenly from the sky, was standing
+motionless gazing at me from a little distance. For one moment I stood
+transfixed with nameless dread; the whole feeling of terror which had
+been established by the mere aspect of the country seemed now to be
+concentrated and personified in this sudden apparition. What hordes of
+like beings might not be concealed behind these mysterious hillocks? He
+moved one step towards me and I turned and fled, down the slope and
+across the level plain to the edge of the cliff under which the raft
+was moored. The apparition pursued me silently. On reaching the edge of
+the cliff I peered over and could see the crew of the raft still
+occupying the disconsolate positions in which I had left them. My
+senses now slowly returned, and I sat down to await the arrival of the
+apparition out of consideration to my own self-respect. He was still
+some distance from me, and, on seeing me sit down, he also sat down and
+we gazed at one another. The comic element in the scene asserted
+itself. A savage and I holding each other at bay like two dogs
+preparing for a fight on the top of the cliff, and down below X sitting
+unconcernedly on the raft reading the "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius."
+I laughed out loud; the savage sprang to his feet with a yell,
+brandished his arms in the air, and darting up a neighbouring slope
+disappeared behind it as suddenly as he had appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I slid down the cliff and joined X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where have you been?" she said. "I was just going to send Ali to look
+for you; he says it is not safe to go out of sight of the raft."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I was only on the top," I answered, too ashamed to enter into further
+details.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We discussed our general situation in bed that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I said, "if you met a savage all alone in a wild piece of country
+what would you do?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, go up and speak to him, of course," said X; "it would be awfully
+interesting. What would you do?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I don't know," I answered; "I want to go to sleep now."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wind dropped in the night, and at the first break of day we were
+off once more.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XV
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+ARAB HOSPITALITY
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Fifty-three pairs of dark eyes were fixed upon us in unwavering
+scrutiny; it was dark and there was silence. The eyes, as they gleamed
+out of the darkness, might have belonged to a herd of wild beasts
+watching their prey; but we were privileged guests of the Arab Shaykh
+in whose tent we were sitting, and the gaze was but that of friendly
+curiosity. We had been placed on the seat of honour&#8212;a rush mat at one
+side of the tent; opposite to us squatted our host, a venerable old man
+with a white beard which flowed over his bare, wrinkled chest; with one
+arm he supported a small boy, who played with the beads round the old
+chief's neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between us, in the centre of the hut, glowed a dying fire, and beside
+it, silently watching the pot on the ashes, sat the coffee-maker. Now
+and then he scraped the ashes together round the pot. A thin veil of
+smoke rose up slowly and dispersed itself under the low roof of the
+tent. The silence was almost religious; the darkness suggested
+witchcraft rather than night; a hobgoblin might have sprung out of the
+coffee-maker's pot and not been out of keeping with the natural
+sequence of events.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All at once, at the back of the tent, a hand was raised and a bundle of
+fine brushwood came down on to the fire; in sudden blaze it momentarily
+lit up the fifty-three dark faces, flared an instant, flickered, then
+as rapidly died away, and we only felt the gaze we had seen before. We
+silently watched the coffee-maker and our host, who, being nearest to
+the fire, were dimly visible in its remaining light; the attention of
+the one was concentrated on his pot; that of the other, in common with
+his companions, was on us. There was no call for speech, for we spoke
+in tongues unintelligible to one another, and the only sound which
+fitfully broke the ghostly silence was that language understood by all
+nations alike, the wail of an infant in its mother's arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Salaam Aleikum," we had been received with as the Shaykh stood up to
+welcome us on our arrival, unexpected and uninvited, in the midst of
+his tribe. We had been guided to his tent by the long spear which stood
+upright at the door, and when he had offered us that token of Arab
+goodwill&#8212;the cup of coffee&#8212;we knew that we were amongst friends. He
+waved us to our seats, and then, seating himself, pulled the child
+towards him; he patted his own chest, and then pointed to the lad with
+pride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"His youngest child," interpreted Ali, who accompanied us, and who
+understood a few words of Arabic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We nodded back our looks of appreciation, and, these preliminary acts
+of courtesy having established the requisite good feeling, all need for
+further converse seemed at an end, and a comfortable silence fell upon
+us all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole village had followed us into their chief's tent as a matter
+of course, and those for whom there was no room inside herded together
+at the door. The Eastern standard of ideas, which allows respectful
+equality with one's superiors, was responsible for the total absence of
+ill-mannered jostling which would have characterised a civilised crowd
+under similar circumstances on the reception of strange foreigners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffee-maker reached out his hand without turning, and one amongst
+the crowd at his back handed him a massive iron spoon on to which was
+chained a copper ladle. The Shaykh's little son, obeying a nod from his
+father, pulled a bag out of a dark recess behind him; another bundle of
+brushwood was thrown upon the fire and by the light of its sudden,
+almost startling blaze, the lad untied the bag and carefully counted
+out the allotted number of coffee-berries. The coffee-maker dropped
+them into the spoon, for which he had raked out a hole in the ashes.
+The slight stir caused by these proceedings subsided, the blaze died
+away, and the attention of all was again riveted on us, save that only
+of the coffee-maker, who, sitting close up to the embers, now scraped
+the white ashes round the pot, now turned the roasting berries over
+with the ladle chained to the spoon. The Shaykh's hand stole on to the
+little boy's head, and the boy, looking up, stroked the old man's
+beard. On we sat in the dark silence, learning from these true masters
+of Time how neither to waste it nor to let it drag, but going step by
+step with it, to lay ourselves open to receive all that it had to give.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silence was so prolonged and so intense that, silently as time
+flies, we could almost hear its moments ticking away. It has been said
+that we take no note of time except when we count its loss. It might be
+said of all Easterns that they are unconscious of the time they lose,
+because they take no note of it; they live unconsciously up to the fact
+that, the past being beyond recall and the future unfathomable, the
+present only is in our power. And the Eastern is master of Time because
+he spends it absorbing the present.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the berries had blackened, and the man emptied them into a
+copper mortar. As he pounded them he caused the pestle to ring in tune
+against the sides of the bowl. The child laughed gleefully and pointed
+at him; the stern old man smiled and shot a proud glance over at us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Fiddle away, old Time," rang out the tones of the metal pestle. It
+seemed to give voice to our joyful derision of Time; here was Time
+trying to weary us with himself, and we only laughed at him.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"Fiddle away, old Time&#8212;</p>
+<p>Fiddle away, old Fellow!</p>
+<p>Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,</p>
+<p>Times both shrill and mellow.</p>
+<p>Fiddle away,</p>
+<p>Or grave or gay,</p>
+<p>For faces pink or yellow&#8212;</p>
+<p>Scrape your song a lifetime long,</p>
+<p>Fiddle away, old Fellow!"</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Not a soul moved. Outside in the dusk a stunted black cow thoughtfully
+chewed the maize stalks of which the enclosure round the tent was
+built, and a kid rubbed his head up and down against a child's bare
+leg. Beyond this the darkness had nothing to conceal. We were in the
+middle of a bare, largely uninhabited, desert land known only to a few
+wandering Arab tribes. Outside, the mysterious open vault of the dark
+sky with its many hundred points of light; inside, the mysterious
+recess of the dark tent with the fifty-three pairs of gleaming eyes,
+every one fixed upon ourselves. Now and then, as a flash of lightning
+in the sky at night will expose the immediate surroundings to view, so
+a sudden spark from the fire revealed the setting of the eyes&#8212;the
+solemn, dusky, Arab faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A splutter on the fire as the pot boiled over put an end alike to the
+tune and to the meditations called up by it. The man transferred the
+ground berries to a copper jug and, pouring the boiling water on to
+them, placed this second pot on the hot ashes. We had been sitting
+there for an hour watching these preparations, and it seemed as if we
+might now reasonably entertain hopes of tasting the results. Our
+expectations in this direction were also enhanced by the appearance of
+three tiny cups which had been unearthed from a dark corner, and handed
+to one of the men nearest the fire. He proceeded to rinse them out one
+by one with hot water, displaying a care and absorption in the process
+which contrasted strangely with the simplicity of his task.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffee on the fire came to the boil, the coffee-maker poured it
+back into the original pot, which he again set on the ashes. He then
+handed the empty jug to the cup-washer, who rinsed each cup out
+carefully with a few drops of the coffee left for this purpose. Very
+quietly, very precisely, he placed each cup on the ground within reach
+of the coffee-maker, and retreated into the background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffee on the fire boiled up; we straightened ourselves in
+expectation as the coffee-maker reached out his hand. But he emptied
+the boiling liquid back again into the original pot and replaced it on
+the ashes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fire now burned very dimly. Even the man's form bending over the
+glowing ashes was discernible only as a black shadow. The stillness for
+a few moments was so great, and the concentration of all so centred on
+the bubbling coffee-pot, that one felt as if all the meaning of life,
+the past, the present, and the future, was being distilled in the black
+liquid, and that an incantation was only necessary for the future to
+take shape and, rising out of the pot, become visible to us all in this
+mysterious darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the coffee boiled up. Again the man emptied the boiling liquid
+back into the other pot and replaced it on the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stillness and the concentration became more intense. Outside, a
+lamb's sudden cry and the mother's answering bleat rang out sharply in
+the black night, a distant reminder of a far-off world; it died away,
+and the broken silence was all the more intense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffee boiled up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time one had ceased to associate the drinking of coffee with
+the end of these mysterious rites. The coffee of Cook's hotels, the
+coffee of crowded railway stations, whole coffee, ground coffee, French
+coffee, coffee at 1s. 8d. a pound; the clatter of black saucepans, the
+hot and anxious cook, the bustling waiter, the impatient people of the
+world with only a minute to wait&#8212;calling for instantaneous coffee;
+what had coffee and all these associations to do with this? And so it
+was with a certain shock that we looked at this magician pouring the
+result of his black art into the cups, a few carefully measured drops
+only. Two are handed to us and one to the Shaykh. We sipped the oily
+black drink slowly and thoughtfully. A liquid which had been prepared
+with so much deliberation could not be quaffed down with the reckless
+indifference ordinarily displayed in the process. It was thick and
+bitter. We drained the last drop and returned the cups. Another
+spoonful was poured in and they were passed back to us. Etiquette
+required that we should not refuse till the third time of offering;
+then the remainder of the coffee was handed round to the rest of the
+company in order of rank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a stir amongst the crowd round the door, and a woman forced
+her way through with a baby in her arms. She squatted in front of us,
+and held the child down for our closer inspection by the firelight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Khasta" (Ill), said Ali Chous; "she wants medicine."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mother pointed to the sores on the child's face and body, the
+pleading eloquence in her dark eyes rendering unnecessary any
+explanations on the part of our interpreter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a pathetic instance of the suffering induced by man, even when
+living so akin to Nature, when he tries to superimpose his own crude
+ideas of beauty and expediency on to the human frame. The baby, though
+only a few months old, had been pierced in the nose and ears for the
+reception of the ornaments which were to enhance its charms in
+after-life, and of the blue bead which would ensure its safety from the
+one recognised enemy&#8212;the Evil Eye. The wounds were healing badly, and
+the irritation set up had caused fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tell her we can give her medicine," we said to Ali, "but it is not
+medicine to drink, it is to wash the wounds with. If the baby drinks
+it, it will die."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The message was interpreted. "Aha, aha, Mashallah," was murmured all
+through the crowd. The baby became an object of intense interest. Ali
+threw back his head and pretended to swallow, then he pointed
+significantly to heaven and to the unconscious victim at his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ha! ha!" murmured the crowd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan meanwhile had begun to fidget uneasily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There are fleas here," he said, "you must not stop any longer."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rose, and silently salaaming our host, passed out of the tent. It
+was lighter outside; the moon had risen, casting mysterious black
+shadows round the huts, where weird black and white forms flitted
+stealthily in and out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Owing to the shallowness of the water on the low shelving mud banks we
+had been unable to bring the raft right up to the shore, and it had
+been moored at a little distance out in the water. The kalekjis had
+carried us across on their backs and had returned to cook their evening
+meal on board. We now shouted across the water to them to come and
+carry us back. As we stood waiting, a woman came up to us dragging a
+child by the arm, who hid his head in his mother's dress and refused to
+allow himself to be examined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is ill too," said Ali, "like the other child."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We will give them some medicine when we get on the raft," we said;
+"tell them each to send a cup."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And this one says he is ill," the man went on, as a tall,
+sheepish-looking youth touched me on the arm; "they will all say they
+are ill now that they know you have medicine."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We can only give to those who are really ill," we answered; "what is
+the matter with this one?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He has fever, he cannot eat, and his head hurts."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had some quinine pills in my pocket, and I gave three to the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Tell him to take two now, and not to keep them in his mouth," I
+explained, "but drink some water and swallow them down; then, when the
+sun has risen one hour to-morrow, let him take the other one."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dozen interested spectators at once went through the whole process in
+pantomime; a pill was swallowed, and its downward course indicated by
+stroking the chest. "Ha!" was ejaculated all round. Then the second
+pill was swallowed with equally suggestive signs. The rising point of
+the sun was indicated, and one finger held up, and the third pill
+swallowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mashallah!" went up through the crowd, staring with bated breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We boarded the raft, and had scarcely established ourselves in our
+sleeping-hut when Hassan staggered to the door with a huge clay pitcher
+capable of holding several gallons; he deposited it at our feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"For the medicine," he said gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We said that the woman was to send a cup," we said; "the few drops of
+lotion will be lost in that."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"For the medicine," he answered, imperturbably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We had better send it in one of our cups," I said, and I measured out
+some lotion. Hassan took it; a few minutes later he returned laden with
+cups, jars, pitchers, and bowls of every size and description.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"For the medicine," he said, as he deposited them beside us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We looked at one another aghast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Say that we have no more," we said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have told them," he said, "but they will not go away."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went outside, where a tremendous hubbub had arisen. Our men were
+standing round the edge of the raft resolutely pushing would-be
+intruders back into the river. Up to their waists in water, hanging on
+to the raft at every point, shouting out their ailments, pointing to
+their throats, their eyes, their heads, were the whole male population
+of the place. In vain our men strove to keep them off; the raft was
+besieged at every point. In desperation we unmoored and floated out
+into the middle of the river; the most determined swam out after us,
+and holding on to the raft with one hand stroked their chests and
+pointed to the absent sun with the other. Finally, as we drifted
+down-stream, they gave up, and the last sight we had was that of a row
+of disconsolate invalids, suddenly endowed with great evidences of
+health and strength, careering wildly on the mud flats in the starlight
+round a discarded heap of empty bowls and pitchers.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XVI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+A STORM AND A LULL
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They are having a fight on board," said X, sleepily; "I suppose we
+must leave them at it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, well, kim bilior?" (Who knows?) I said out loud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who know what?" said Hassan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is going to happen to us?" I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Kim bilior?" repeated Hassan. "Allah bilior" (God knows), and then,
+after a minute's silence, he repeated:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Kim bilior? Allah bilior!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked up at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is so," he said, nodding his head solemnly; "Kim bilior? Allah
+bilior!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it really going to be a pudding?" said X, with an agonized
+expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried to recall what puddings looked like in England, and then
+remembered that I had never seen one at this stage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I cannot say till it is finished," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bak!" (Look) said Arten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bak!" said Hassan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bak!" said Ali.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bak!" said the kalekjis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a moment of extreme tension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I slipped it on to a plate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now look," said Arten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"See now what a cook she is!" said Hassan, "a wonderful cook."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mashallah," said Ali.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mashallah," said the kalekjis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It <i>is</i> a pudding," said X, "a real pudding."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is a pudding," said X again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I said, "where do you think we are floating to?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Baghdad," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said X, "I feel that I have lost all conception of time, and that
+we are floating on, as it were, to Eternity."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Do you?" I said dubiously; "I feel it's Oblivion we are getting to."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But we are only three days off Baghdad," insisted X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well," I answered, "I devoutly pray that we may get there first."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XVII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It was long after sunrise when we awoke next morning; the raft was
+still tied up and the men showed no signs of moving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hi!" shouted X to Hassan through the felt wall, "why haven't we
+started?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Mudir has not arrived yet, Effendi."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We waited another ten minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hi! Hassan, has the Mudir come?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, Effendi, he will come soon."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We turned over and had another doze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hi! Hassan, if the Mudir has not come we shall go without him. Send
+Ali to say we must start now."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, Effendi, he will go."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hi! Hassan, send Ali at once."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, yes, Effendi, this minute he goes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Do you think the Mudir will be angry with us for leaving him behind?"
+I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We turned on Ali for an explanation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We caught sight of a stranger in the men's hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who is that?" I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Mudir, Effendi."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How long has he been there?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Since sunrise, Effendi."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why did you say he had not come?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ach, Effendi, the kalekjis' bread was not ready; they could not go
+without bread."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Then I'll get off too," said X, "I want to see inside that mosque."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let's stroll on as far as the end of the street," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," I answered, "that seems a good idea."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't let's hurry," she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I replied, "we have plenty of time."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a funny baby's garment that is," said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd behind were beginning to push.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," I said, "I wonder how it gets outside the baby."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I hope Hassan will think of getting some spinach," I said, "there was
+some in the vegetable bazaar."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He knows you like it," X answered, "he is sure to get it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had come to the end of the row of stalls; we slowly turned and faced
+the mob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"This is the obvious moment for annihilation," I thought to myself, "I
+wonder why I'm not afraid."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&#8212;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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is all this crowd about?" he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+X told him; he made no answer and we walked on together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We got outside the gates of the town but were still a few minutes' walk
+from the river.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I'm tired," said X; "let's rest here a minute," and she lay down on
+the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two men had come up and stood looking at us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let's come on now," said X, sitting up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"One minute," I said, and I carefully picked out a nice round pebble.
+It hit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a baby you are!" said X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was sitting very near the edge looking into the dark waters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I don't want to die yet," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I answered. We were silent for a while, then Hassan spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&#8212;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.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XVIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE END OF THE RAFT
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We kicked our heels disconsolately on shore&#8212;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&#8212;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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="water"><img src="images/005.jpg" alt="Drawing Skins of Water" width="500" height="326"></a></div>
+<p class="caption">"<span class="sc">Drawing Skins of Water.</span>"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Raki?" (Whisky) he added, the note of inquiry tinged with apologetic
+scorn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&#8212;with his
+extraordinarily consistent inconsistency&#8212;he makes the town midden and
+the town watering-place one and the same spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"All&#257;h, All&#257;h, All&#257;h," they sang out as they swung. Round
+their heads circled and swooped white gulls talking of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="part2">
+PART III
+</p>
+
+<p class="partname">
+BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="titlepoem">
+<div class="titlestanza">
+<p>"I read on a porch of a palace bold,</p>
+<p>In a purple tablet letters cast&#8212;</p>
+<p>'A house though a million years old,</p>
+<p>A house of earth comes down at last;</p>
+<p>Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,</p>
+<p>And build the dome that shall not fall.'"</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XIX">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BABYLON
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the Sun-god pursues his journey in silence and unconcern across the
+dome of heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Sun-god had reached the pinnacle of his height, and covered the
+spot with the brightness of heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 d&#233;bris
+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&#8212;half-blocked with rubbish&#8212;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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shamash, the Sun-god, was nearing the western gate of heaven. The
+gate-bolts of the bright heavens were giving him greeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"O Shamash, thou art the judge of the world,</p>
+<p>Thou directest the decisions thereof...."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>
+Thus prayed the dwellers of the city four thousand years ago. And with
+the same light with which you lit the pomp and splendour of the works
+of their time, you light the decay and ruin and hideous desolation of
+the present.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Verily there is a God which judgeth the earth," say we, four thousand
+years later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as you smiled on those who worshipped you as the supreme God and
+Creator of all things, so you smile on us who look upon you, bound and
+fixed, with no will of your own, following the inevitable laws of
+Nature. Will you, four thousand years hence, light with the same light
+sojourners in this land, and will they wonder at our conception of your
+nature and function, as we wonder at the faith that your ancient
+worshippers had in you? Or will you, before them, have run your
+allotted course and consumed the whole world, whether in the fiery
+furnace of your wrath or in the uncontrolled madness of your broken
+bonds?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning we visited Babel, the mound we had passed the day
+before. We walked for more than a mile through the palm-groves by the
+river. Under the shade of the trees were numerous huts made of mud,
+covered and enclosed with piles of fine brushwood. There were various
+signs of human occupations. Two cows were toiling peacefully up and
+down an entrenchment, drawing water in skins over a rough windlass; the
+skins emptied themselves into a channel, and the water wandered about
+in vaguely directed irrigation. On the bank beside them lolled an Arab
+with a long pole, who prodded the sleepy beasts in the moments when he
+was more awake than they were. A large mass of brushwood was moving in
+front of us; it looked like one of the huts endowed with a pair of very
+thin brown legs. As we overtook it the mass half-turned towards us, and
+a woman's form, doubled in two, looked small in the middle of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the doors of the enclosures naked children sprawled about, all with
+gleaming white teeth and closely shaven heads, save for the one lock of
+hair, with which they are to be pulled up to heaven; women with
+tattooed faces and dangling ornaments pounded barley in primitive stone
+mortars, and baked thin cakes of bread on flat stones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Leaving the river-side we struck out to the right for half a mile
+across the bare, parched ground, where tufts of rough grass were trying
+to get a footing in the white, barren soil. We climbed up the mound,
+passing bands of workmen tunnelling in the sides and removing the
+bricks which lay about in tumbled heaps or in bits of standing walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the top of Babel we could look right over the tract of land once
+enclosed by the walls of Babylon. The descriptions of Herodotus enable
+the traveller to call up some sort of idea of the scene in his time. We
+learn from him that the city was built in the form of a square,
+surrounded by walls of enormous strength; each side of the square was
+fourteen miles long, each side had twenty-five gates of solid brass and
+was defended by square towers built above the wall; twenty-five streets
+went straight across the city each way from gate to gate. The city was
+thus cut into squares. The houses, three or four stories high, faced
+the street and were built at a little distance apart from each other;
+between them were gardens and plantations. A branch of the river ran
+through the city; its banks were one long quay. The larger buildings
+stood in the centre of a square, each apparently fortified and
+surrounded by walls of its own. It is of these smaller walls only that
+any trace can be detected. From the foot of Babel, where we stood,
+remains of earthen ramparts could be traced for two or three miles
+southwards; they then turned at right angles towards the river and
+extended as far as its eastern bank. The mounds they enclosed were
+presumably the site of the more important buildings. Babel itself is
+supposed to represent the temple of Belus. The Mujelibe, or Kasr, lying
+to the south of us, is identified with the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar and
+the hanging gardens; further south still was a lesser mound, Amram. We
+knew that Birs Nimroud, the great ruin which is looked upon as the
+Tower of Babel, lay beyond this again, although we could not see it
+from where we stood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole gleamed white in the strong sunshine. On our right the
+Euphrates rolled along, as unconcerned in his course as the Sun-god
+overhead. We could trace the direction of the river southwards to the
+horizon, marked by the palms along its banks. They made a thin, dark
+line across a wide, light plain&#8212;an alluvial tract which is only
+waiting to yield its hidden gifts on the day when Man joins hands with
+Nature and distributes the waters of the river. But not so the actual
+soil of Babylon; that soil, consisting as it does of building dust and
+d&#233;bris, is of a nature which destroys vegetation. "The Lord of Hosts
+hath swept it with the besom of destruction," and it is doomed
+perpetually to be a "dry land, a wilderness, a land wherein no man
+dwelleth."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we looked upon the great plain which stretched away all round until
+it carried the eye on into the sky above, we could almost believe with
+the ancients that the edge of the earth joined the dome of heaven and
+that both were supported by the waters of Apsn&#8212;the deep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great wave of silence rolled out of the desert and broke over us. It
+seemed natural to be immersed in silence; could anything else be
+expected from a land which had never been alive with the stir of
+humanity even in far-off ages, of which one might now feel the hush
+while listening for the echo? The desert had always been silent and
+would be silent for ever more&#8212;a dead, unconscious silence, with no
+significance save of absence of life. But when we looked at the site of
+Babylon stretched just beneath us, we became vividly conscious of a
+real, living silence; we were listening to the "hum of mighty
+workings"; voices of souls long since dead, the dust of whose bodies
+lay at our feet, were "wakening the slumbering ages." Had not
+Nebuchadnezzar entered into the House of the Dead in the great cavern
+Araltu, the Land of No Return? The dead had been stirred up, even the
+chief ones of earth, to greet him as he entered hell: "Art thou also
+become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought
+down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under
+thee, and the worms cover thee, ..." and they looked at him narrowly,
+saying, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And yet still for us "the wind uttered" and "the spirit heard" his
+vainglorious cry: "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built for
+the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honour of
+my majesty?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silent answer to it lay at our feet. And, listening, we heard the
+solemn warnings of Daniel, the sorrowful forebodings of Jeremiah, and,
+above all, the ironical voice of Isaiah:&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"Let them stand up and save thee,</p>
+<p>Mappers of heavens, Planet observers, Tellers of new moons,</p>
+<p>From what must befall thee."</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+As we listened again we heard the noise "like as of a great people; a
+tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A sound of battle is in the land and of great destruction....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon and great destruction from the
+land of the Chaldeans....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"One post ran to meet another post, and one messenger to meet another
+to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we heard a sound of much feasting and revelling; we heard a solemn
+hush when there came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote upon the
+wall. Even as we listened to the hush it seemed to grow into the great
+hush of ages, and we remembered that we stood alone in the living
+silence of these great dead, surrounded by the dead silence of an
+uninhabited land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Overhead the Sun-god silently vaunted his eternal existence; at our
+feet the Euphrates rolled fresh waters of oblivion from an eternal
+source to an eternal sea.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XX">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XX
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE SOUND OF THE DESERT
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The Syrian desert between Baghdad and Damascus; two white tents, a
+prowling jackal, and a starry sky.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+There was a sense of stir in camp; a rattle of tins and a neighing of
+animals; a faint odour of lighted charcoal was wafted in at the tent
+door. I opened one eye; X still slumbered peacefully at the opposite
+side of the tent. Arten appeared at the door with a jug of water and a
+light. "One o'clock," he said laconically as he placed them on the
+ground and retired. The stars were still shining, my bed was very warm.
+True, it was one o'clock in Turkish time only, but no Christian ought
+to be roused at that hour. X fell out of bed with a determined thump.
+"It's late," she said. I made no response, but, knowing from experience
+that X was always right, tried to reconstruct my ideas about time and
+reconcile the fact that it was late with its being one o'clock in the
+morning. Besides, if X ordained that it was late, in another half-hour
+the tent ropes would be loosened regardless of the stage our toilet had
+reached, and a falling tent, when one has just got one's back hair into
+shape, is exasperating if not damaging. I got up, and just managed to
+hurl myself through the door, mostly clothed, as the tent collapsed on
+the ground. X was already seated cross-legged on a rug outside, holding
+one blue hand over a few charcoal embers while she munched a piece of
+dry bread held in the other. "You need not think I have eaten all the
+butter," she said, "because there wasn't any." Satisfied with the
+explanation, I munched my bread in silence and swallowed a cup of thick
+tea; we had been carrying water for three days and it was getting
+opaque.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stillness of the night which reigned outside was being invaded by
+the cries and movements of men; dark forms flitted about as they
+watered the animals and adjusted the nose-bags for the morning's feed.
+A horse, impatient of his tether, had broken loose and was galloping
+defiantly round the camp, inspired to further mischief by the methods
+of his pursuers, whose idea of reassuming their authority over him was
+to rush in his direction flourishing whips and uttering piercing cries.
+He was finally brought to bay entangled in some tent ropes, and a
+sudden lull fell on the disturbed atmosphere. The Oriental can work
+himself into a pitch of excitement which would keep a European in
+hysterics for several hours, and then suddenly drop the matter and
+become instantly silent and unconcerned. There seems no half-way stage
+between excessive noise and an indifferent silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhat awakened by this incident, the men set to work to pack up the
+camp; the mules were unloosed and stood about with looks of resignation
+as the loads were adjusted on the creaking pack-saddles and secured
+with ropes. There was a subdued din and confusion without any sense of
+hurry. "All&#257;h! All&#257;h!" the native cries when he exerts himself in
+any way. "Aha, aha!" he cries with equal ardour, mingled with
+satisfaction, when his task is accomplished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now the last knot has been tied, the last cloak laid across the
+saddle; the last ember of the dying charcoal fire has been carefully
+raked out to light the cigarette, and we straggle slowly out into the
+gloom, leaving one charred spot and a sardine tin in the sandy waste.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There had been a suggestion of redness in the gathering light for the
+last few moments; streaks of silver and bars of gold lined the dusky
+sky. It is disconcerting to be travelling westwards when one wishes to
+be aware of a rising sun. I twisted myself round in the saddle and,
+leaving my horse to pick his way, advanced backwards. The whole scene
+was soon a vast glow of colour, the yellow sand of the desert holding
+and reflecting the brilliant reds and yellows; and now the sun appeared
+on the horizon line and slowly rose, until the whole disc of fire stood
+out in glowing magnificence and then gradually grew paler as he shared
+his substance with the surrounding sky. The long straggling line of our
+caravan, which had looked like a black serpent twisting through a sea
+of fire, became less black in the growing light, and men and animals
+assumed individual shapes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In another half-hour the broad light of day showed the surroundings in
+their common aspect. I twisted round again in the saddle, and, having
+turned my back on poetry and romance, became only conscious of the
+temperature of my extremities. The cold was intense; X and the soldiers
+were far ahead; the caravan lagged behind; I was alone with cold hands
+and feet. Poets and philosophers have talked of being alone with the
+sun and the earth: if ever conditions were favourable for enjoying the
+sole companionship of these two elements, it might seem to be under the
+present circumstances. But in the desert one can be more alone even
+than this, for in some frames of mind the sky and the earth give one no
+sense of companionship. Cold and implacable the grim silent desert
+stretched away in front beyond the realms of space; the hard blue sky
+overhead stared into the abyss of Time, offering no link between Nature
+and Man. There was nothing one could take hold of; no cloud in the sky
+of which to ask the question "Whither?"; no shadow on the earth to
+which one could say "Whence?" You were thrown back on yourself, were
+only conscious of your beating heart and a void. The words of a great
+lover of nature rose up in my mind: "There is nothing human in nature.
+The earth, though loved so dearly, would let you perish on the ground
+and neither bring forth food nor water. Burning in the sky the great
+sun, of whose company I have been so fond, would merely burn on and
+make no motion to assist me." You felt keenly alive in the middle of
+this cold dead space, and you knew there was something alive in you
+which demanded something of it: had you no place in the economy of this
+great silent Universe? was there no way of making yourself heard or
+felt? Is it that the soul of man must be there to make things alive,
+and you were now crossing earth where no soul of man had crossed
+before, and all things were dead? From sheer agony I cried out; no
+answering echo followed; the sound fell flat and dead. The cold heavens
+stared placidly on, the surface of the earth was unruffled. I drew rein
+and listened intently: I heard the roar of London streets; the cry of
+the newsboy, the milkman's call, the tramp of a million hurrying feet;
+I heard the rush of trains and the screech of engines; I heard a
+thousand discordant voices in divers tongues where men were struggling
+and rushing after material ends. And dominating all this, infinitely
+louder and more distinct, making itself heard supreme and all powerful,
+filling the great space in which one had seemed eternally lost, I
+heard&#8212;the Silence of the desert. Why wish to make one's self
+heard?&#8212;better be still and listen to the voice of silence; let its
+words sink into you and become part of you, and so take some of its
+quiet and peace back with you into those crowded cities of men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If there is a link between anything in you and this grim stretch of
+barren sand and impassive depth of distant sky, it is the response of
+its silence to the silence in you. It is the material aspect of silence
+in its crudest form appealing to and recognising in you the unspeakable
+realms of silence which exist in the region you are dimly conscious of
+beyond your senses. As we pray to the sea for its depth and calm, to
+the wind for its freedom, to the sun for its light, so we pray to the
+desert for its silence. Let your nature expand to the width of this
+horizon, to the height and depth of this sky, and fill it all with the
+eternity of this silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ask of the sun why it shines, and if there is light in you it will
+answer; ask of the wind why it blows, and to fettered and free alike it
+gives its answer; ask of the desert why it is silent, and if there is
+silence in you you need no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Is there any calm for you in the sea until you put it there? Do you
+feel any freedom in the wind until you have created it? But can you, in
+any mood or under any circumstance, evade the silence of the desert?
+Its influence extends alike to those who receive it and those who
+resent it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men who have no region of silence in themselves are under the power
+of its physical aspect; to them it is oppressive, wearying, and
+deadening; there is an absence of life, a presence of monotony from
+which there is no escape. But once we recognise its silence as being of
+the nature of what we possess in ourselves, the shadow of monotony and
+oppressiveness is lifted. Can its effect be better described than it is
+in that fundamental doctrine of Islam, where it almost coincides with
+the teachings of Christianity in its endeavour to give expression to
+the truth? "Islam," that is the resignation of our own will to that of
+one great power, the effacement of self, the futility of putting our
+own will or mind against that of the great, silent, all powerful,
+inevitable laws of Nature&#8212;the Moslem idea of Fate and Power&#8212;the
+Christian's blending of his own will with the Divine will&#8212;the
+scientist's recognition of Law&#8212;you may put it how you will; are they
+not but different interpretations of the unseen power, which, silent in
+itself and only understood in silence, holds supreme sway in moments of
+silence, and, when expressed in its physical aspect in these barren
+regions of the earth, appeals through our eyes and ears to the regions
+in us, beyond these senses, where it exists in its essential condition?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rode on; the sun had warmed my left side through and the right was
+beginning to thaw. My shadow, which had been keeping pace with the
+horse on the right, now began to creep in front as the sun rose higher.
+By the time its burning rays poured straight down overhead the
+foreshortened shadow seemed to be leading the way along the desert
+track. In time the heat became almost unbearable, and, suddenly
+awakening to the stern realities of physical discomfort, I brought my
+whip down on the horse's flank; he leaped, startled, in the air, and
+then flew after his shadow in a settled gallop. Air, of which one had
+become unconscious, rushed past one's face, and the muffled thud of his
+hoofs on the sand seemed to measure time and space. I dashed up to X
+and stopped dead beside her. She looked round inquiringly. "Let's eat,"
+I said. She looked at her watch. "We have been riding four hours," she
+said; "we might stop at the next good place." I looked ahead
+significantly. "One place looks much the same as another," I said. "I
+think there is a dip in the ground further on," she answered, "where we
+might get a little shelter." There did seem to be a slight wave in the
+flat expanse and we rode on to it, but, like all dips in this country,
+when we arrived at it, it did not seem to be there. We had had so much
+experience in riding after delusive dips that we decided to stop here,
+and slid off our horses. The cook unpacked the lunch from his
+saddle-bags and placed hard-boiled eggs, biscuits, and dates beside us.
+He carefully filled a cup with a thick, brown liquid from the bottom of
+his waterskin. "Bitdi," he said, by which expression he conveyed that
+the fresh water was now finished. Then he and the men retired a few
+yards and ate their lunch. Nothing was heard but the steady munch of
+human jaws. Then they stretched themselves on the sand and absolute
+silence reigned, broken by occasional snores. We too lay back, each
+concealed from the other under two huge umbrellas, which seemed rather
+to focus the sun's rays than shade them from us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When one was alone the desert had seemed full of unqualified silence;
+in company with others the silence seemed even greater, for the slight
+sounds which there were made one more conscious of the sound which was
+not. The clank of the horses' bits, the quiet breathing of one's
+companions, the stir of a foot, made one realise the intensity of the
+silence of the whole vast expanse. The far-off tinkling of the mule
+bells in the approaching caravan gave one a sense of distance in a way
+one would hardly experience by simply gazing at an unapproachable
+horizon. The heat and the slight fatigue added a feeling of drowsiness
+which would make even the solid things around one seem shadowy and
+distant. It was a waking sleep; one's senses were numb because of the
+absence of anything to call them into play, though one might "see,
+hear, feel, outside the senses." In the same way that one is alone in a
+London street one can live in a whirl in the desert; the throb of
+humanity&#8212;&#8212; X's umbrella shut with a bang. "Wake up, the caravan is
+coming." A cloud of dust, a stamping of animals, a shouting of men, and
+we were off once more. It was our habit to keep pace with the camp in
+the latter half of the day, and for the next three hours we dawdled
+along at caravan pace. It was a motley crew. The muleteers trudge along
+behind the laden animals, taking turns on the back of a patient,
+sorrowful donkey, on which they ride sideways with dangling legs,
+pricking its side with a long needle, the secondary object of which is
+the repairing of broken straps. The pack-mules go doggedly on in front,
+jostling one another with their unwieldy loads. Occasionally one gets
+off the track and wanders aside, only to be urged back into line with
+yells and blows. Another stops dead, feeling its load slip round
+sideways. The men rush at it with shouts of "All&#257;h! All&#257;h!" the
+load is shoved up and the ropes tightened. There is a general din of
+shouting and swearing and jangling of bells; and above it all the
+disdainful camel moves deliberately on with measured step and arched
+neck, unmindful of the petty skirmishes so far below it; its owner,
+infected by its spirit, rocking on the top, surveys the whole scene
+with a dejected, uninterested air. Bringing up the rear, motionless and
+erect on small donkeys, ride one or two older Arabs, wrapped in long
+sheepskin cloaks, their faces entirely concealed in the folds of a
+keffiyeh, save where two stern and solemn eyes gaze unceasingly at you
+with expressionless imperturbability. Wild sons of the desert, product
+of this eternal silence, are you so much a part of it that you are
+unconscious of its power?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only gay and careless element is introduced by the Turkish
+soldiers. Mounted on splendid Arab mares they ride in front, sometimes
+dashing ahead at a wild gallop, holding out their rifles at arm's
+length, wheeling suddenly round and coming to a dead stop in front of
+an imaginary enemy, upright in their stirrups; in their more subdued
+moments breaking into song with the mournful Eastern refrains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so, forming one small world of our own, we "follow and follow the
+journeying sun," and as it sinks lower on the horizon and its fierce
+rays cease to beat pitilessly down on the parched ground and thirsty
+animals, a silence falls on the moving band. The spirit of the desert
+again holds sway. The men cease quarrelling, the animals' heads sink
+lower, the donkey looks more resigned, the mule more dogged, the camel
+more superior, the silent Arab more stern and forbidding; the soldier
+hums where he sang before. Then at last the walls of a solitary
+guard-house heave in sight. The men hail it with joyful cries, the
+soldiers dash ahead, the pack-animals prick their ears and quicken
+their steps to an amble. There is a general rush and tumble,
+culminating in a dead halt on the ground which has formed the place for
+caravans since caravans crossed the desert. All is noise and confusion.
+The loads are unloosed and fall in promiscuous heaps amongst the medley
+of animals, who, released of their burdens, roll over on their backs
+kicking up the dust. A line of men draw water from the well, pulling at
+a squeaky chain and invoking the aid of Allah in chorus as they pull. A
+fight is going on in one corner; men are knocking one another down,
+encouraged by a circle of yelling spectators. The din of excited
+quarrelling voices, the hammering of tent pegs, dominates everything,
+broken at times by the sudden neigh of a horse bitten by its neighbour
+or the harsh, imperious cry of the camel for its supper. And in the
+middle of it all the Turkish soldier spreads his cloak upon the ground,
+turns his face to Mecca, and offers up his murmured prayer to Allah,
+the one restful form in this scene of chaos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Allah Akbar" (God is great), prays this son of Islam, and with his
+hands upon his knees, he bows his head; "Subhana 'llah" (I praise God),
+and he falls upon his knees; "Allah Akbar" (God is great), and he bows
+his head to touch the earth; "Subhana 'llah, subhana 'llah, subhana
+'llah," and he sits upon his heels; "Allah Akbar," and he again
+prostrates himself; "Allah Akbar, subhana 'llah."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And on this scene the sun casts his final rays of gold and red. As the
+shades of night draw in, quiet reigns once more; the men collect round
+the blazing camp-fire, and in its light we see the outline of their
+dark forms seated cross-legged, as they eat out of the common bowl or
+take turns at the bubbling narghile; to one side the mules are tethered
+in two lines forming a half square; a muleteer is grooming them, and
+one hears the rattle of his scraper and the ever tinkling bell. The
+cook is stirring our evening meal in a pot on the fire outside our
+tent. Hassan fetches our rugs and spreads them on the ground; we lie
+down and he covers us over with his sheepskin cloak. "Rahat" (Rest),
+he says, and lifts his hands over us as if pronouncing a blessing. Then
+he sits down beside us and lights a cigarette. "Bourda ehe," he goes
+on, describing the universe with a sweep of his hand. "Kimse yok" (It
+is well here&#8212;there is no one). "Is Allah here?" asks X. "Allah is
+here," he answers with simple reverence, "Allah is everywhere"; and we
+all lie motionless under the stars, unwilling to probe the silence by
+the sound of uttered thoughts. The murmur of the men's voices gradually
+dies away as, one by one, they doze off; a jackal cries in the
+distance; a star falls down to earth. The day is over, and in this land
+of the Oriental there is no thought of the morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The passive silence of sleep; the active silence of communing souls;
+the silence of night&#8212;all fitful expressions of the one great Silence
+brooding over all, be one asleep or awake, by night and by day, in
+desert places and in busy haunts of men.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XXI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+PALMYRA
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It burst upon us all at once, Palmyra, in the desert&#8212;a chaos of golden
+pillars in the glow of the setting sun. We had been riding all day
+towards an indefinite shape on the horizon; slowly it had resolved
+itself into a barrier of yellow rock with dark lines becoming
+distinguishable against it. We had passed through the patches of rising
+corn, making green holes in the brown desert; we had wound through the
+gardens of pomegranate and plantations of palm trees and turned the
+corner of the ugly konak which barred the ruins from our view; and
+there it lay, the desert-girt city, in the unutterable lonely
+magnificence of its reckless confusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We drew rein under the Triumphal Arch; from here the eye is led on down
+the great colonnade from column to column, now upright, now fallen, to
+where a mile away a castle crowns a peak of the range under which
+Palmyra crouches&#8212;an old time harbour for the sand sea beyond.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="arch"><img src="images/006.jpg" alt="Palmyra. Triumphal Arch." width="449" height="310"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">Palmyra. Triumphal Arch.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind us the present village of Tadmor was concealed inside the walls
+of the great Temple of the Sun; its mud hovels lie rotting behind the
+gigantic columns of the inner court in the dirt which chokes the
+massive archways. Here it is that the present life of Palmyra, such as
+it is, is slowly obliterating the remaining evidences of her past;
+while on the opposite side of the ruins, where the hills cleave to form
+a lonely valley, the dead of Palmyra, buried in a line of square
+tomb-towers, still keep alive the memory of her ancient greatness.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Was it the sun only, with its light on the yellow columns, that made
+one think of Palmyra purely as a city of gold? Or were one's thoughts
+unconsciously influenced by the fact that its traditions all rest on
+the getting of gold; its power was built up on trade; its great men
+were the successful traffickers of the desert; its statues and columns
+were raised to the memory of those who brought the caravans of goods
+from India and Persia unharmed through the dangers of the desert; its
+temples were dedicated to the Sun-god by those whose lives were spared
+in their getting of great wealth, or to the memory of those who
+perished in the attempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those were the days when it was a man's boast that the blood of a
+merchant ran in his veins&#8212;when a youth could aspire to no higher goal
+than that of being a merchant prince of his proud city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her prosperity had been her ruin; the gold had led to her undoing; and
+now the Sun, to whom the temples had been raised at the time of her
+pride, mocked her ruins by giving them the semblance of scattered gold.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+This is the best way to realise Palmyra&#8212;to make it the culmination of
+a long and tedious journey through the desert. The first sight of it
+under any conditions must indeed be wonderful, but coming in from
+Damascus, which is the natural approach for visitors to the ruins, one
+could never feel about it in quite the same way. Civilisation is only
+five days behind you; the country you pass through, moreover, although
+desert enough in a way, does not give you the same sense of being
+utterly cut off from everything in limitless space; there are chains of
+mountains to be seen in the distance, and cultivated patches stretching
+round villages are more frequent. Then when you arrive at Palmyra you
+ride first through the valley of tombs&#8212;it is the dead that give you
+the first greeting; you get glimpses through the opening ahead of the
+highest columns, and are slowly prepared for what is coming, until,
+emerging finally through the gap, the whole scene is laid out before
+you, with the gleaming desert beyond.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+But approach it from the desert side, and all the meaning and force of
+its one time existence is borne in upon you with an overwhelming
+realisation. For three weeks you have been following the old trade
+route from the Persian Gulf. You have made one of a caravan amongst the
+doggedly jogging mules and the slow stepping camels, both heavily laden
+with the clumsy pack-saddles holding bales of merchandise; the sound of
+their jangling bells is the only sound you hear through the long,
+monotonous ride under the blazing sun; you have spent night after night
+in the circle round the camp-fire, with the men crouched under the
+bales of goods piled up on the ground to form a rude shelter; the
+places where you stop have been the regular halting places for caravans
+for all time&#8212;now they are oases big enough to support a village, now
+it is merely a well and a guard-house. As you ride through the
+immeasurable expanse every dark object on the horizon line forms a
+subject for speculation. Its appearance is a signal for the hasty
+consolidation of the straggling line of men and animals, arms are
+looked to, you all close up and ride on, apparently unconcerned, but
+equally prepared for a sudden onslaught or a friendly greeting. For it
+is not only the difficulties and dangers due to Nature's barrenness
+that have to be guarded against. What must it have been in the days
+when the countless hordes of wealth of a huge caravan were at stake,
+and when the whole desert was beset with marauding tribes specially on
+the look-out for such prey? What must have been the feelings of those
+responsible for its safe conduct when they once more saw the first dim
+outline of the Palmyra hills in the distance? The goal would be reached
+that day; the troubles, the anxieties, the sleeplessness of the
+watching nights would be over; proud and triumphant they would ride
+down the long colonnade, the pack animals jostling one another in the
+unaccustomed crush of the bounded way, and the noise of shouting
+drivers and jangling bells sounding strangely loud and near in the
+confining space. Down on them from the columns above would look the
+statues put up to honour those who had achieved the same feat which
+they themselves had just accomplished. Their names too would now be
+written up and handed down from generation to generation in remembrance
+of the service they had rendered their State. For such deeds as these
+had built up the great city, and their fellow-citizens honoured them in
+this way.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="hassan"><img src="images/007.jpg" alt="Hassan" width="281" height="460"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">Hassan.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first it would seem that Tadmor was merely an Arab encampment, a
+stopping place amongst others for the passing caravans. The abundance
+of its water and its position on the meeting point of two great trade
+routes would gradually cause it to become an important centre. Dues
+were levied on all goods passing in and out, and even the privilege of
+using the wells was heavily taxed. Slowly it became the market-place of
+the East and the West; its inhabitants were the carriers between the
+Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. As the foundations of the city
+were built up on trade, so commerce was a pursuit for its aristocracy,
+involved as it was with all the elements of warfare and danger. Its
+merchants would be pure Arabs of good blood, welcomed as equals by the
+shaykhs of the desert tribes through whose territory their goods had to
+pass. Palmyra had thus gradually built up her own existence as an
+independent State. Political events then added to her power. The wars
+of Rome with Persia made her an important military post; recognised by
+Rome more as a partner State than a dependency, she was able to pursue
+her own policy with such effect that she tried to assert her entire
+independence and cut herself adrift from the Western power. Taking
+advantage of the temporary ascendance of Persia over the Roman arms,
+the desert Queen, Zenobia, fulfilled her ambition as sole Queen of the
+East. After her defeat by Aurelian the town was partially destroyed; a
+change in the political factors which had contributed to her importance
+now hastened her downfall by lessening the significance of her
+geographical position; safer trade routes further south led to the
+decay of her commercial prosperity. Bit by bit she loses her place in
+historical records, and at the present day Palmyra stands a lonely ruin
+on a deserted trade route, inhabited by a score of Arab families.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one sense Time has dealt gently with her; there is no decay from the
+growth of vegetation in this dry climate. Neither moss nor ivy has
+softened the aspect of destruction; the overturned columns show as true
+and sharp a face now as the day they were set up, and the ornate
+carving stands out in the same relief. One thinks of the place as built
+entirely of columns; they lie in rank profusion everywhere, like a
+great forest of trunks overturned by a gale. The great central avenue
+runs from the Temple of the Sun in a north-westerly direction to the
+castle on the range of hills which bounds the city to the north. It has
+been calculated that it alone contains 1,500 columns. Much of this
+still remains standing, but the gaps become more frequent, until at the
+castle end the whole thing has collapsed, forming a perfect sea of
+broken columns and fragments of carved pilasters. It is evident that
+the minor streets also were lined with pillars in the same way; short
+rows of them stand up here and there in various directions. Groups of
+twos and threes suggest also their attachment to some public building
+or temple. The statues were placed on brackets projecting from the
+upper part of the pillars, and the inscriptions below, which have
+escaped destruction, give the names and dates of those whom they were
+intended to honour.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+As we had entered Palmyra with a vivid conception of its life, so we
+left it with an equally vivid conception of its death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing guard like a row of sentinels at the base of the hills are the
+square tomb-towers in which Palmyra buried its dead. The proud
+merchants seem to have been imbued with two main ideas: the erection of
+columns in their lifetime and of resting places for their families in
+death. Many of the towers are over a hundred feet high and consist of
+five and six stories. The bodies were arranged in tiers in the recesses
+on either side of a central chamber. Some of these buildings are still
+nearly perfect, others are practically heaps of ruins. The bones of the
+proud merchants are mingled with the bones of the wild beasts who have
+sought refuge there through the long ages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We turn our backs on the city and ride away through the gap in the
+hills. The city is hidden from view, but the tomb-towers still stand in
+silent rows down the valley on either side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We forget the golden pillars and all the ruined magnificence; we can
+think of nothing but these ghostly towers seeing us out, as it were,
+from this city of the dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+High up on the hill above, in the still morning air, a shepherd boy
+pipes merrily at them, and flocks of goats and sheep browse
+unconcernedly at their feet.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XXII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead">
+I. <span class="sc">Arten.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten was an Armenian; he was quick, thin, methodical, dirty,
+intelligent, and untruthful; he was also the cook. I say <i>the</i>
+cook advisedly, for <i>a</i> cook he was not. No doubt he would have
+made an excellent cook if he had known anything about the art; but it
+was not till after we had engaged him in this capacity that we
+discovered that he had not thought this qualification necessary. At any
+rate, he knew, being a hungry man himself, that we were in need of food
+of some sort at stated intervals. In this he was a decided improvement
+on the Greek cook we had just dismissed; this man had a habit of coming
+to us, after we had been waiting hours in momentary expectation of a
+meal, and saying with a languid air, "Do you wish to eat?" He was a
+good cook, but always seemed overcome with astonishment when we
+expected him to cook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten was a dirty man, and he looked dirtier than he was owing to his
+dark complexion and hairy hands; besides this, his unbrushed and greasy
+black European clothes showed off to disadvantage amongst the simpler
+Eastern garments of his companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten is not a clean cook," Hassan would say, and Arten would smile
+sadly. He must have been slightly conscious of this defect, for he
+never handed me a plate or a spoon without saying "Temiz" (clean) as a
+forestalling measure before I had even looked at it. He spent a good
+deal of time rubbing smeary plates with a blackish cloth, murmuring
+"Temiz, temiz."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had a sincere desire to please us; but he always imagined this
+object was attained by the vigorous assertion of any fact that seemed
+necessary for our pleasure. "Taze" (fresh) he would say every time he
+handed me an egg; and, when I cut off the top and an explosion
+followed, "Taze" he would say again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Eat it yourself then," I would suggest, handing it back to him; after
+putting his great nose right into it, "Taze," he would say. But he
+never ate it; he kept it for omelettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His nose was his chief feature. One saw the nose first and then the man
+behind it. On cold days, when we all wrapped our heads and faces
+entirely in keffiyehs, Arten would be always distinguishable from the
+others by this protrusion. He had a jet black drooping moustache which
+he was always wiping furtively with a jet black pocket-handkerchief,
+for Arten was a greedy man and the only person who loved the taste of
+his own cookery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I like to see him getting fat," X would say; "he looked half starved
+when he came to us."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Hassan and I were not so charitable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look," Hassan would say, "the door of the tent is shut; that pig Arten
+is stealing the food," and he would go and kick at the tent until Arten
+looked out, guiltily wiping his moustache.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are cold, I suppose," says Hassan with lofty sarcasm. Arten mops
+his perspiring brow&#8212;he was always perspiring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How cold?" he answers with well feigned surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Because you shut the tent door," answers Hassan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am&#257;n," rejoins Arten, "what am I to do? if the muleteers see me
+cooking they come and ask for food; they are such greedy men, the
+muleteers."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan returns to us snorting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten says the muleteers are greedy men. Mashallah! greedy men! We
+know who is the greedy man!" And he slaps his thigh vehemently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten's notions of cookery were, as I have said, limited. His staple
+dish was a mixture of mutton, potatoes, onions, and rice, which were
+all cooked up together in the same pot, each ingredient being thrown in
+according to the length of time it took to cook. It certainly tasted
+very good, and I would suggest the method to those in England who
+dislike washing many saucepans. His other idea of cooking mutton was
+less satisfactory in results, though simpler in method, and I have no
+hesitation in not recommending it to English housewives, though I
+append the recipe as a matter of interest from its originality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Take a piece of sheep, and with an axe cut it into chunks, regardless
+of bones or gristle; take a chunk and throw it on to red-hot charcoal
+in a brazier; when there is a distinct smell of burning and the hissing
+has nearly ceased, turn it over on the other side. When it resembles a
+piece of burnt charcoal, remove it and serve at once; swallow whole, as
+if you try to bite it your teeth will remind you of it for a
+considerable time, and in any case you will be conscious of its
+resting-place for the remainder of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When staying at a consulate in the middle of our tour, the consul's
+wife, horrified at our fare, offered to let her cook teach Arten a few
+simple dishes which would considerably add to our comfort. Arten
+acquiesced with very good grace, and was inducted, amongst other
+things, in the art of making cutlets. On our departure our kind
+hostess, moreover, provided us with a piece of meat suitable for
+cutlets. The first evening there was an undercurrent of excitement in
+the air; there were to be cutlets for dinner. Arten had an important,
+self-conscious bustle about him and looked mysterious; the Zaptiehs
+seemed awed and asked questions under their breath; the greedy
+muleteers were distinctly interested; we pretended to be unmoved.
+Finally, with a modest air, through which bumptiousness glared
+furiously, Arten announced that supper was ready. There was a covered
+dish keeping warm under the brazier; Arten very deliberately placed it
+before us and with a dramatic flourish removed the cover. We were only
+conscious of a yellow-looking crumby paste.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where are the cutlets?" we asked, keeping up our courage nobly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is cutlets, Pasha."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We tasted it; it appeared to consist of fried eggs and breadcrumbs. We
+felt justified in contradicting him, but he still persisted that it was
+cutlets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But we want the cutlets, like those the Effendi's cook showed you how
+to make."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, that is it, Pasha; that is what the Effendi's cook showed me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But cutlets are meat," we persisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, Pasha; but that is cutlets without the meat."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This reasoning was incontrovertible. We tried to fill up with dates and
+rice and went to bed crestfallen and hungry. The next day we returned
+to the charge. I undertook to show Arten how to cook cutlets, though I
+had not the smallest idea myself how it ought to be done. I had an
+inkling, however, that egg and breadcrumbs were in it somehow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Arten," I said, "cut the meat as the Effendi's cook did for cutlets."
+Arten obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Make egg and breadcrumb," I said. He did this also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now do with it what the Effendi's cook did," I said. Arten smeared the
+meat with it. I began to see light and breathed more freely, but I had
+still one venture to make.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now cook the meat as the Effendi's cook did," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I held my breath; for all I knew they might now have to be boiled in a
+saucepan or toasted on a fork. But Arten appeared to know what he was
+doing. He took a frying-pan and fried them in fat. A glow of
+satisfaction crept all over me as I watched them beginning to resemble
+the finished appearance I was acquainted with. When they were actually
+on a dish, I said loftily:&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Please remember for the future that when we say we want cutlets, this
+is what we mean."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"As you please," he answered affably; "I call them frisolen. I knew how
+to cook them before the Effendi's cook showed me," he went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why did you never let us have them, then?" I said severely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How could I know you would like them?" he answered with injured
+innocence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How did you know we liked tough chunks burnt on a brazier?" was my icy
+retort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arten shrugged his shoulders; there never has been any accounting for
+the whims of women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Small differences of opinion such as these were continually cropping up
+between us; and I would tell him in calm and measured tones, though in
+forcible English, what I thought of him. As the language was
+unintelligible to him, this method had the advantage of relieving my
+feelings without hurting his. But there were secret bonds of sympathy
+between us. We both suffered intensely from the cold, and Arten would
+carefully wrap things round me so that the apertures and crevices were
+not on the windward side. There is a good deal of art in this, and he
+did it very scientifically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Little things feel the cold," he would say compassionately, and in
+such a kindly spirit that, for the moment, I forgave him his greed and
+forgot to feel undignified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were also on common ground when I tried to cook dishes which I did
+not know how to cook. Currents of great sympathy ran between us when
+things did not seem to be turning out right and Arten would tentatively
+suggest various ways and means. But he never did what a foolish or
+disagreeable person would have done: he never expressed in his looks
+that I was no better than himself, which obviously would not have been
+true, since I did not pretend to be a cook, while Arten did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then when the critical moments of our existence arrived and we
+placed the dish before X, we both watched with the same intensity for
+the expression of her face after the first mouthful. X was singularly
+appreciative, and, when she kept assuring us how excellent it was,
+Arten would glance at me encouragingly and appear to share the delight
+I experienced at my own prowess. X thought Arten's cookery good, too,
+but then she never knew what she was eating, and, if you do not know
+the name of the dish, how can you judge whether or not it is cooked as
+it ought to be?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is this?" X would ask one day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Mutton," Arten would answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is this?" she would say the next day, when the identical
+substance was handed to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Chicken," Arten would answer. And X was perfectly satisfied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day it would be "tinned meat," and it was all the same to
+her&#8212;and to me; but then I knew what a liar Arten was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His kindness of heart and his desire to please us made it all the more
+difficult not to be irritated with him when circumstances did not draw
+out the better side of his nature. It is uncomfortable to despise
+people in a qualified manner, and I found it impossible to despise
+Arten unreservedly and therefore happily. There was no doubt that he
+was a horrible coward. If he had said, "I am a coward&#8212;I am afraid," he
+would have enlisted my sympathy for what it was worth, because I was a
+coward myself and admired sincerity. If he had even preserved a decent
+silence on the subject I should have been unable altogether to despise
+him, for that was the course I pursued myself. But when any real or
+imaginary danger was past he would come out with assumed and aggressive
+hilarity, and make tales about it and his prowess, which latter he had
+already made conspicuous enough by its absence. Yet his position was no
+doubt complicated: he knew that the Turks in our train despised not
+only him but his race; there was no one to suggest his courage if he
+did not do it himself, and, as he was unable to exhibit it in deeds, I
+have no doubt he saw no other course to pursue but that of publishing
+it by word of mouth. Moreover, he had suffered personally from bad
+treatment; the tale was a piteous one. Near his native town of Adana he
+had a small mill where he ground corn through the season. On one
+occasion he had done well and was on his way back to his wife and
+children in the town, carrying his earnings, which were to keep them
+through the winter. Half way home he was attacked by a band of robbers,
+who relieved him not only of his gold but of all his clothes. He had to
+remain in hiding by the roadside until some one passed from whom he
+could borrow a garment in which to return starved and penniless to his
+expectant family. Small wonder that the poor man shuddered at the word
+"Khursus" (brigand) which we laughingly joked about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is it to you?" he said one day; "you have rich relations, kind
+friends, and a just Government. If you are robbed, justice is done to
+you. But what can I expect but more abuse and ill-treatment?&#8212;and I
+have a wife and small children into the bargain!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was not posing as a hero, he was posing as a feature in the
+landscape. This was particularly exasperating, for no amount of pity
+for his condition would turn him into a picturesque martyr, even in the
+foreground of ancient ruins. No sooner was my camera produced than
+Arten produced himself. The only occasion on which I knew him keep out
+of sight was when I was trying to get a snap-shot of the band of Kurds
+who held us up on the Tigris. He seemed to have no desire to show
+himself, although I was considerate enough to invite him to occupy a
+prominent position for once. His appearance was not calculated to
+enhance the effect of any picture. He was like a starved black
+scarecrow dressed up in tight and clerical garments, with a fez on the
+top&#8212;and then there was the nose. He would have made any warm desert
+scene look cold, as it would not be obvious that he was perspiring, and
+in any group of picturesque natives he would look ludicrous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I recall, as I write, isolated moments of exasperation&#8212;when, for
+instance, he sat, singing a hymn, kicking up the dust with his heels,
+when we were trying to inflate ourselves with worthy feelings on the
+contemplation of Babylon, awed by the silence and desolation of the
+scene around us. Or again, how in a fit of nervousness he hurled the
+whole of our dinner in agitation on the floor, while we, after an
+unusually long fast, could have cried for food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But reviewing him calmly at a distance, one remembers a man that one
+alternately laughed at and pitied; who annoyed one by his transparent
+faults, but who commanded one's sympathy by his tragic condition, and
+one's admiration by his cheerful willingness in trying circumstances. A
+man who was meant by nature to be light-hearted and happy, kind to his
+fellows, energetic and interested in his work, ambitious for his
+children; but who fate dictated was to have his spirit quenched, his
+nature hardened, and mean and cowardly qualities developed owing to the
+fear, injustice, and poverty in which, like the rest of his countrymen,
+he was condemned to live.
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="subhead">
+II. <span class="sc">Hassan.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan was an Albanian Turk; he belonged to one of the old Turkish
+families and looked every inch the gentleman that he was. Introduced to
+us by a common friend, he accompanied us during our seven months'
+wandering through Asiatic Turkey in a semi-professional capacity, but
+what that capacity was it would be difficult to define by any
+particular name. A dragoman he was not, though he called himself our
+"tergeman." "Tergeman," literally translated, being "interpreter," he
+could claim nothing entitling him to this function, for he spoke no
+European language, and it was not till we learnt Turkish that we could
+hold any spoken communication with him. Briefly, he acted as a sort of
+amateur dragoman without any of the qualifications usually expected of
+these gentlemen&#8212;and possessing a great many of the virtues in which,
+as a rule, they are sadly lacking. Essentially he was our Figure-head,
+and a splendid one he made, six foot six in stature and broad in
+proportion, as straight as a die and as supple as a willow, with a
+handsome head set well back on strong shoulders, and keen, kindly eyes
+which looked out very straight from under shaggy eyebrows. When he
+walked he put into his great stride a grace and dignity which soon
+earned for him the nickname of "the Prince." His chief characteristics
+were that gentleness which comes of great strength under perfect
+command; the courtesy which arises from a sense of other people's worth
+measured by a sense of his own; and an imperturbability which could be
+as irritating as it was admirable. "Ne faidet?" (what is the use?), was
+a favourite expression of his, and "ne faidet," he looked all over. In
+scenes of human quarrel, excitement, or danger, one was chiefly
+conscious of his calm indifference of mind and manner as he silently
+surveyed his companions in fear of brigands or in joy over a piece of
+meat. Yet he was a man full of the passions of his race, capable of an
+iron self-control when he thought fit to make use of it, but
+occasionally roused into a state of temper bordering on madness. On
+these occasions he would afterwards say his "jan" had had him by the
+throat, and he did not know what he was doing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great man with a great imprisoned soul, as free and light-hearted as
+a careless boy when roaming in the great forests or on the bare
+mountain-side of his native home, fettered and fretful when the bonds
+of artificial civilisation held him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a Kallabalak! what is the use of this Kallabalak?" he would say
+with a wave of disgust when he got into the middle of a noisy crowd.
+"This is good, this is keyf," was his comment, with great gasps of
+enjoyment, when we three sat on the ground together in some lonely spot
+of a lonely desert. One felt he was breathing freely again. A silent
+man by nature, he could not bear loquacious people. "Burra, burra,
+burra," he would say, pointing his thumb at them; "burra, burra, burra,
+what is the use of all this talking?" If the remarks were addressed to
+him, they were always answered with stern courtesy. A talkative young
+Armenian rode with us one day and tried to draw him into conversation.
+"Is not that mirage in front of us? What a wonderful sight&#8212;trees and
+water and mountains! Do you not think it must be mirage, Effendi?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"With the eyes that Allah has given me, it does seem to be so, young
+man," was Hassan's grim answer, and he rode on without turning his head
+to right or left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet on occasion he enjoyed a refined "Kallabalak." One night in Cairo,
+when we had done for the time with camping and were seated in
+cleanliness and finery in the hotel garden, a confetti feast was going
+on. Serious young men and maidens, larky old men and festive matrons,
+were diverting themselves in the essentially hilarious proceeding of
+scattering confetti on one another. The garden was hung with Chinese
+lanterns; fireworks hissed and spluttered, shooting flames of colour.
+Hassan sat in convulsed enjoyment of the gay scene. It was a revelation
+to him of the lighter side of life. And when a charming young lady,
+bolder than the many who cast coy and curious glances at the handsome
+Turk, came and administered a dose of confetti down the back of his
+neck, he was overcome with glee and merriment. Afterwards, on
+subsequent wanderings in wilds and deserts, he would turn to us after
+hours of silence, and, bursting into a deep roar of laughter, would
+say, "Do you remember the paper and the foolish men and women?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His function, as I have said, was first and foremost that of
+Figure-head; he escorted us on our visits to Turkish officials and
+dignitaries, and, with grave dignity and courtly manner, unembarrassed
+by his own unshaven chin or the stains and dust of travel on our
+weather-worn and unwashed garments, he would make the most of anything
+entitling us to belong to "the great ones of England." He cast a
+general air of respectability over us, and we always felt it was
+largely due to him that we were shown so much consideration in a land
+where all travellers are treated with suspicion, and where women are
+not regarded in a particularly chivalrous light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But beside this, he was general caretaker of our personal comforts: he
+put up our camp-beds and arranged our tent; he always sat beside us at
+meals, which we took seated cross-legged on the ground, either outside
+by the camp-fire, or in bad weather on the floor of the tent. His first
+self-constituted duty was to peel the oranges with which we generally
+finished a meal; he removed the peel to form two cups, in which he
+neatly piled the sections and placed them beside us, carefully counting
+the pieces to make sure that he had treated us alike. "Shimdi" (now) he
+would say when we had finished the first course and we would ask for
+dates. "Shimdi" he would say again when the last of these were
+demolished. "Shimdi Kahiveh," and coffee would come in its turn.
+"Shimdi." "Nothing more." "Nothing," he would exclaim; "nothing?" "We
+will smoke now." "T&#252;t&#252;n (tobacco), aha, Shimdi t&#252;t&#252;n," and he would
+light us each a cigarette. Then, when this too was finished,
+"Shimdi"&#8212;"Shimdi Rahat" (now rest), we answer&#8212;and he makes pillows
+for us with our saddle-bags and covers us over with rugs. This process
+was repeated every day until it became a stock joke. His jokes were all
+of this kind; there were certain standing ones which had to be gone
+through periodically. My Turkish was limited to about fifty words, so
+that conversation between us did not flow, but X, who had learned to
+speak more fluently, would ride with him for hours together, holding
+endless conversations on Turkish religion, habits, and ideas. When X
+and he fell out he would come and joke with me: one day I teazed him
+about being a better friend to her than to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How can that be?" he said gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Because," I answered, "you quarrel with the Vali Pasha" (X was the
+Vali Pasha and I was the Padishah), "and then you make it up and are
+great friends again. But you are never cross with me. If I were your
+friend you would quarrel with me, too. But I am glad I am not your
+friend, or you would get angry with me." This idea seemed to tickle him
+immensely, and every day after this conversation there would be a
+moment when he would ride alongside of me, and, feigning an air of
+great disgust, would shrug his shoulders and say, "Istemen, istemen" (I
+do not want you). It was his singularly primitive way of acting a
+quarrel with me, and thereby showing that he and I were also friends. X
+would also attack him on the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why don't you go and scold the Padishah?" she said on one occasion;
+"she thinks the same as I do about these things, only she cannot talk
+Turkish, so she does not say them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Padishah is but a child," he answered; "it would hurt her. It
+would be a shame to hurt a child."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a matter of fact I was older than X in months, but her bodily
+proportions were larger than mine, and everything goes by size in the
+East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As time went on, however, we too had our little rubs, and his methods
+of making friends again were what one would expect from his schoolboy
+nature. If I was in the tent, he would throw stones at it until I
+looked out smiling; this was taken as a sign that the quarrel was over;
+he would roll up an extra large cigarette for me, and we would sit on
+the ground and have a smoke of peace together. Our friendship was of a
+silent nature. I made my fifty words express everything I had to say,
+and to simplify matters only used the verbs in the infinitive and nouns
+in the nominative. Long custom had established a certain meaning to
+various sentences between us which would have been unintelligible to
+any other Turk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What Turkish, am&#257;n, what Turkish she speaks!" he used to say to X,
+holding up his hands in amused dismay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We taught him a few English sentences, of which he was very proud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pull it up," he invariably said when he held out his hand to help us
+off the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pull it down," was his formula when he arranged our habit skirts after
+mounting us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pull it off," when he helped us off with our oats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was in a temper I made him say, "I am a silly man," which he
+pronounced:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am&#8212;&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A Silliman."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although he did not know the meaning of the words, he connected them
+with his own misdemeanours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Silliman yok (not), silliman yok," he used to say fiercely when he was
+beginning to repent and get ashamed of himself. He always said
+"Good-bight" for "Goodbye," confusing it with "Good-night."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Great was his pleasure whenever in the course of our travels we came
+across a European, or any one who could speak a language which I
+understood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"See now," he would exclaim at the unwonted sight of me talking with
+any one, "she has found a friend!" And then, when we parted and I
+relapsed into silence: "See now, how sad she looks! She is thinking of
+her friend."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he would ride up to me compassionately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where is your friend now, Padishah?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where, indeed?" I answer. "I have no friend; you must buy me one in
+the bazaars next time we get to a town."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And how much money must I give for him, Padishah?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You must not give much, because I am poor, but you must get a very
+good one."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am&#257;n, am&#257;n, see now what she says: I must get a good one, and
+yet not give much money. Do you hear, Vali Pasha?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when he came back from the bazaars:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have bought the friend, Padishah."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where is he? I don't see him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is here, in my bag."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How much did you give for him?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ten piastres."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He cannot be a good one if he is as cheap as that, and so small that
+he will go in your bag."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh yes, he is a good friend," and he produces a roll of tobacco; "a
+good friend and little money. That was what you said, wasn't it,
+Padishah?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I reflect that there is many a true word spoken in jest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Has she no friend in England," he asked X one day, "or does she never
+speak in England either?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," said X, "she has a friend in England, and she does not speak
+because she is thinking of him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And you, Vali Pasha, have you also a friend in England?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," I answered for X; "she has twenty-nine friends in England, and
+you are only the thirtieth."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Hassan would ride on in silence, pondering over the strange ways of
+English ladies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amongst his other duties he had to purchase the food, pay the muleteers
+and soldiers, and give tips; and it fell to my lot to do up the
+accounts with him periodically. The unusual mental exertion required by
+this he found very trying. His imperturbability would forsake him
+completely. On the first occasion he broke down altogether. "What can I
+do with figures?" he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks; "let me
+go back to my hills and forests; I am only a poor hunter. She brings
+out her little book and I shall not know how the piastres have gone,
+and she will think I have taken her piastres," and he laid his head on
+his knees and groaned aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we became better acquainted, however, "hisab" (accounts) became a
+joke, though they always caused him to perspire profusely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first my entire ignorance of the language made our intercourse over
+the account-book somewhat difficult. We would sit on the ground
+opposite one another, and Hassan would fumble in the folds of his belt
+until he had found his spectacles and his account-book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Are you ready?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Peki (very good), Effendim; yimurta (eggs), 2 piastres." I would write
+it down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yasdin me?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ne yasdin me?" (what is "yasdin me?").
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have not the smallest idea what "yasdin me" means, but I pretend to
+write it down and then say:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How many piastres was it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan makes a gesture of despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?" he repeats again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"X," I shout across the tent, "what does 'yasdin me' mean? I suppose
+it's some sort of food, only he won't tell me how many piastres it
+costs."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It means 'Have you written it?'" said X calmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yasdin me?" repeats Hassan again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," I answer meekly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Aha, now she know," says Hassan, and he mops his forehead vigorously.
+"I say 'Yasdin me' and she says, 'How many piastres?' Am&#257;n,
+am&#257;n!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Peki, Effendim" (very good), he goes on. "Etmek (bread), 3 piastres.
+Have you written it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Peki, Effendim. Et (meat), 12 piastres. Have you written it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Peki, Effendim. Pilij (chicken), 3 piastres."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ne Pilij?" (what is pilij?).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pilij, <i>pilij</i>, <span class="sc">pilij</span>."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, but what is it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pilij, pilij&#8212;she doesn't know pilij, and she learns it every day."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He begins to crow like a cock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh yes, I know."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, ah, now she knows! Peki; pilij 3 piastres. Have you written it?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Peki, Effendim."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we go on through all the items, and finally add up the total in
+our respective languages. By means of holding up our ten fingers a
+large number of times, we ascertain whether the results tally, for in
+those early days I could only count in Turkish up to twenty-nine, and
+knew the words for a hundred and a thousand. Then Hassan would give a
+great sigh, close his book, fold his spectacles, take off his fez, and
+wipe his head all over, and finally forget his troubles under the
+soothing influence of tobacco.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="desert"><img src="images/008.jpg" alt="Syrian Desert" width="425" height="274"></a></div>
+<p class="caption"><span class="sc">Erech. Syrian Desert.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so the days slipped away. At the end of six months we landed out of
+the Syrian desert into Damascus. An immense change came over Hassan
+when he was released from the anxieties of piloting us through
+impossible places and rumoured dangers. He became more boyish and
+cheerful and amused at everything. His first care on arriving at the
+end of our journey was, after spending several hours in a public bath,
+to go a clean and happy man to the Mosque, to return thanks to Allah
+for having brought us safely through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had been to call at the consulate, and, as we drove up to the hotel
+on our return, I caught sight of Hassan in the street with a crowd
+round him; he was strutting up and down in his shirt-sleeves, with his
+head even more thrown back than usual and a wild look in his eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Good heavens," I said to X, "the Prince must have got into one of his
+tempers and killed a few people in the street," and I anxiously looked
+round for signs of gore. The Prince took no notice of us, but stalked
+up and down, the crowd making way before him with looks of awe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What are we to do?" I said; "he looks as if he had gone off his head
+and would knock down any one who comes near him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He does look like a prize-fighter," said X; "I have never seen him
+look like that before."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our cook was standing on the steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is the matter with Hassan?" I said to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man stared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Nothing," he said, "it's only his new shirt."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went inside, telling him to fetch Hassan to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Prince stalked into the room with the same air with which he had
+been stalking the streets, and stood in front of us with an excited and
+expectant expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The cook is right," said X; "it is his new shirt. He is overcome with
+pride and conceit; he is on parade, that's all."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He certainly had something to be conceited about. The shirt was of fine
+silk in gorgeous yellow and red stripes; round his waist was a wide,
+bright-coloured kammerband, round his head a new keffiyeh flashed all
+the colours of the rainbow. Clean and shaven, his tight-fitting shirt
+showing up the strong outline of his muscular frame, he exhibited, to
+say the least of it, a striking spectacle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were evidently expected to be overcome at the magnificence of his
+appearance, and certainly we did not disappoint him in this respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are grand," said X to him in his own language; "you quite surprise
+us."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan put his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted up and down
+the room, speechless with delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who would have thought you could be such a turkey-cock, you old
+gander!" I said in English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is she saying?" said Hassan to X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She says you are just like a very magnificent bird we have in
+England," answered X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan beamed triumphantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You have fine clothes," he said; "I must not disgrace you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is he always going about in his shirt-sleeves, I wonder?" I inquired.
+X asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is quite usual in my country not to wear a coat in hot weather," he
+said; "my coat is old and dirty, and my shirt is new and clean: why
+should I wear my coat?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he rarely put it on again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He loved to see us in nice clothes, and took great delight in wandering
+about the bazaars with us buying presents for the "twenty-nine friends"
+in England. But we used to sigh over the good old camping days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hebsi bitdi" (all is over), he would say dolefully, when anything
+particularly brought them back to our thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rode down Palestine and took him over to Egypt with us. Evading with
+difficulty the importunities of Cook, and the rush of tourists on the
+beaten track, we tried to steal days which brought back a sense of our
+old free-and-easy times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there came a day when there was an end to it all, an end to the
+long silent rides, an end to the quiet smokes in desert places, an end
+to the little daily jokes, an end to the serious talks and the foolish
+quarrels, an end to the Kallabalaks and the Keyfs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stood on the steamer which was to take Hassan back to his old life
+in the forests of the Turkmendagh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You will soon be going a long journey with some one else," said X
+cheeringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, indeed," he said; "I should take care not to go with two ladies
+again, and I shall not go with a man, for no man would be so much of a
+fool as to wish to go such a mad journey."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The steamer gave vent to its first hideous whistle. We put our fingers
+to our ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Good-bight, little Padishah," he said, as we clasped hands for the
+last time; "good-bight. Go home to your friend in England; he will be
+glad to see you looking so fat."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Silly man," I said with a lump in my throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Silliman yok," he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whistle blew again, we turned and went our different ways. If there
+had been a stone he would have thrown it after me; as it was, when I
+turned he made a face and shouted, "Istemen, istemen!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, looking back on those days, there rises invariably before us
+the memory of this companion in our many adventures&#8212;the memory of a
+simple-minded, honourable man, a trusted friend, a pleasant companion,
+and a devoted servant, who, whether he was sharing the discomforts and
+dangers of winter travel in a wild and lawless country, or experiencing
+the joyous freedom of the roaming desert life we loved so well, or
+enduring the terrors of critical and carping civilisation, invariably
+put us in the foremost place, and, without swerving an inch from the
+traditions of his race, never offended the susceptibilities of ours.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="XXIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+RETROSPECTIVE
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Last night we were dirty, isolated, and free; to-night we are clean,
+sociable, and trammelled. Last night the setting sun's final message
+written in flaming signs of gold was burnt into us, and the starry
+heights carried our thoughts heavenward and made them free as
+themselves. To-night the sunset passed all unheeded and we gaze, as we
+retire from the busy rush of the trivial day, at a never-ending,
+twisting, twirling pattern on the four walls that imprison us,
+oppressed by the confining ceiling of our room in the Damascus Palace
+Hotel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are no longer princesses whose hands and feet are kissed, whose word
+is law, sharing the simple hospitality of proud and dignified wayfarers
+in desert kingdoms. Our word is law according to the depth of our
+purses, our hands and feet are kissed according to the height of our
+floor in the hotel. We are no longer in a land where men and women are
+judged by their capacities for being men and women: the cost of our
+raiment apportions our rank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are now no longer amongst people to whom we say what we mean and are
+silent when we have nothing to say. We are in surroundings where to say
+what you mean is an offence, where silence is not understood and looked
+upon askance as an uncanny visitor. The less we have to say, the more
+we make an effort to say it; and the more we have to say, the greater
+the effort to suppress it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everything seems unreal or unnecessary, everything is dressed up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All these people moving about, sitting still, in a hurry, catching
+trains, eating long dinners, dressing themselves, looking at each other
+dressed&#8212;what does it all mean? Was all this going on when we were in
+that other world which we have just left, that great silent world where
+everything was itself and big, and not confused by accessories? Was all
+this din and bustle going on? It is strange that we should have had no
+inkling of it, for it seems of so much importance to all these people,
+idle with a great restlessness; it seems essential to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is hard, too, to realise that that other world still exists out
+there in the distance, and that it would be quite possible to reach it
+by merely riding out on a camel. Can it indeed be true that the same
+sun which lights all these moving streets, these buyers and sellers,
+these catchers of trains, is lighting the desert out there as
+imperturbably as it lit us, journeying on after it day after day in the
+silent places; did it see all these people from its inaccessible
+height, and, sharing its gifts equally with them and with us, give us
+no hint of what it was looking down upon? It showed then no more favour
+to us than to these dwellers in towns, and yet was it not more to us?
+Were we not more conscious of its innumerable gifts; and did we not
+receive more from it as a result of our greater appreciation? No bars
+of windows, no roofy outlines, no sleepy oblivion hid the glory of its
+first appearance for us. As far as its rays could range, so far, and
+further, could we see. Not a pale silver thread or wiry line of gold,
+or faint reflection of its glowing colours on the opposite horizon, was
+lost to our vision; and, as we rode through the chilly morning air,
+were we not conscious of every separate ray of warmth as it grew and
+grew until we were bathed in its delicious heat, and all day it served
+as our sole guide, indicating direction in boundless space and hour in
+limitless time. No finger-posts, no winding up of clocks; only this sun
+with its fixed and unalterable decrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sun, then, we share, although apparently in divers degrees. But was
+not the moon more for us alone? For they can shut it out from their
+lives altogether. It, too, looked down upon this city, but not on the
+noise and chaos of it. As far as it was concerned all the bustlers were
+dead, buried away in their roofed houses behind their shuttered
+windows. The silence of night is the moon's heritage, and it exercises
+its autocratic sway to the full; it admits no disturbing rush or
+unseemly hurry beneath its gaze. What do they know of you who pull down
+blinds and light up the gas and dwell in curtained rooms? Accident may
+cause a benighted traveller to look at you with a passing sense of
+rest, a casual tossing sleeper may be half conscious of your charm, the
+weary toiler at the end of a long day may momentarily bless your
+soothing light, and in so far as they take hold of you they make
+themselves akin with us out there. But you are not a part of them, as
+you are a part of us; you do not enter into the very heart of their
+existence and carry their minds up, night after night, to the realms
+where you live serene and calm, making us forget the saddle rubs, the
+parching thirst, the driven sand, the fire that would not light, the
+kettle that would not boil&#8212;all the little near things, the things
+which matter so much in the day, and which you remind us do not matter
+at night. But here they matter so much more at night, all shut up with
+us inside these confining walls&#8212;inside these muslin curtains. The
+darkness and the enclosed space make them assume exaggerated
+dimensions; all the little trivialities in the room accentuate their
+importance. We see them cropping up again and again in that blue flower
+on the wall paper, or running round and round the red coils on the
+dado. We raise our eyes to heaven and encounter the fixed, inane smile
+of a painted lady with a wand, seated in a wreath of flowers. We shut
+our eyes, determined to forget her, but a terrible fascination makes us
+peep again and again, and always that same inane smile; and when at
+last the kindly shades of night hide it altogether in darkness, we are
+still conscious of her only, smiling away there, looking at us while we
+cannot see her. And all the time outside the steadfast moon and the
+stars eternally twinkling are telling the same tale that they told out
+in that other world, but we have shut them out and will not listen to
+their silent teaching.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In vain the Prophet of the Desert has said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And we have adorned the lower heaven with lamps and set them to pelt
+the devils with ... we touched the heavens, and found them filled with
+a mighty guard and shooting stars, and we did sit in certain seats
+thereof to listen; but whoso of us listens now finds a shooting star
+for him on guard."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Emblems of all the great abiding truths have been set up on high,
+where, one would have thought, every poor, striving mortal could not
+fail to see them; vastness and distance is displayed as a rest to those
+wearied with the smallness and nearness of things; solidity and
+eternity are there to comfort the grievers over passing men and
+disappointed hopes; the kindly darkness which hides us intermittently
+from our fellows is pierced with points of guiding light. And yet we do
+not habitually, and as a matter of course, accept these gifts for which
+no price is asked; we go blundering on, intensifying the grim blackness
+of night by shutting ourselves up with it, surrounded with all the
+small things of earth, and this when we might forget them by reason of
+their very smallness in the vast distances of the vaulted heavens. It
+almost seems as though we would deliberately wish to hide from
+ourselves and each other the few simple sufficient laws of existence,
+for in this as in other things we not only avoid the truth but appear
+ashamed of it, and dress it up in every possible accessory of human
+invention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We dress everything up&#8212;our bodies, our minds, our food. I look down
+this long <i>table d'h&#244;te</i>, and what do I see? I see a crowd of
+people dressed up, exchanging dressed-up commonplaces, eating
+dressed-up food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I feel that nothing is real.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this unreality is so real that I ask:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have, then, the unrealities, the non-essentials of existence become
+the realities, and have we, emerging from a world where only the
+essentials of existence concerned us, given them an undue importance?
+Coming out of a state of primitive civilisation, are we unable to
+appreciate the true meaning of our surroundings? These people wear the
+burdens of fashion so lightly, they talk these complicated nothings so
+simply, they toil so contentedly discontented through these endless
+disguised dishes: what is it behind it all that our minds cannot
+grasp?" I look again: I talk to them and they answer me; I eat another
+dressed-up dish. Here I feel a weary heart, there I touch a bored mind;
+now one gets a flash of intellect, now a gleam of soul, all alike so
+carefully wrapped up, and yet with a longing to be out. Why this
+unnatural dread of truth and simplicity? I am getting positively
+affected by it. I sit here amongst these smart people in my travelling
+clothes, and I confess to a new strange sense of discomfort in
+consequence. I feel ashamed of my old clothes. Opposite to me is a lady
+with a kindly face and a comfortable look about her; her mauve dress
+gives a pleasing sense of colour, but as she moves two beaded flaps
+keep jumping about, which detracts from the sense of repose suggested
+by her comfortable look; when she leans back an array of stitched beads
+catches on the carved projection of the chair, and she has to be
+disengaged by the waiter. Her sleeves drooping gracefully from the
+elbow require elaborate gymnastics to prevent them dipping into her
+plate as she eats, and twice they caught in the pepper-pot and
+overturned its contents on the floor. But she bore it all with a
+pleasant apologetic smile which called out my admiration for such a
+display of schooled temper under these trying circumstances. Then, with
+an unconscious transition of thought, I found myself comparing her to
+the Arab woman who brought the bowl of youart off which we supped last
+night. I recalled how I envied her the dignified carriage of her free
+unfettered form, the natural grace of her untrammelled manners. I
+recalled the simple graceful folds of her clinging single garment, so
+much a part of herself that she was quite unconscious of it, and I
+compare this lady trying to adapt herself to the elaborate creation in
+which she is enthralled. Long custom prevents her from realising how
+her form and movements are rendered artificial and ungraceful. As the
+Chinese lady, unconscious of her deformity in feet, would resent or
+wonder at our pity for her enslaved by the idea of a barbarous custom,
+so would my neighbour resent or wonder should I feel pity for her at
+this moment, equally a slave to a Western idea.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+I glanced at my battered old coat and was pervaded with a sense of
+remorse at having been ashamed of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, in the middle of this bewildering appearance of unreality, it
+was telling me of so many solid facts. How often had it not covered
+the aching pangs of hunger, and the satisfied sense of that hunger
+appeased; it had felt the thumping of my heart stirred by danger, or
+hastened by exhilarating motion; it had known the long-drawn breaths of
+quiet enjoyment at a peaceful scene. That tear was made on the rocks
+the day we climbed to the "written stone" at the top of the Boulghar
+Mountains, and I mended it one long quiet evening by the Euphrates. I
+lost this button the night we scrambled up to the castle at Palmyra, my
+little friend Maydi pulled me up a rock by it and it broke. That burnt
+mark was made by Mahmet, who dropped the live charcoal with which I was
+lighting my cigarette in the shaykh's hut at Harran. All this and more
+is what my coat says to me.... I am no longer ashamed of it. I feel
+sure if the kind lady opposite realised all this she would not regard
+me as an outcast, for there is something very honest about the coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had got no further away from the feeling of unreality. I tried to
+recall what it had felt like to live in civilisation, but all I could
+remember was how difficult it had been to disentangle ourselves from
+it. While we were still in it, we had not known what we should want
+outside it. But, once outside, all these difficulties had disappeared:
+everything at once seemed to happen naturally; we missed nothing of the
+things we had left behind. And as it had been difficult while we were
+still in it to get disentangled from it, so now we experienced a
+difficulty in entering it again&#8212;a difficulty in once more taking up
+and using the things we had discarded for a time. It was as if we had
+never used them, so strange did they seem, and so little did we
+understand their meaning. Entering it differed, moreover, in this way
+from our entrance into the new life outside it; once in it nothing
+seemed to happen naturally. This was the more disconcerting since
+civilisation was not altogether a new world to us, in the sense that
+the other had been. We had spent many long years in it, and yet on
+returning we found it all strange and incomprehensible.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+We rose and left the table. Hassan joined us at the door, and we all
+sat down on a red plush settee. Waiters hurried past us with trays of
+coffee and stronger drinks; ladies in bright colours rustled about the
+passage; and in the corners men in evening dress lounged and smoked.
+Hassan stroked the settee gingerly. "It is very soft," he said, "but
+the sand was better." Then he looked round and paused. "What are all
+these people doing?" he asked irritably; "why can't they sit down and
+be quiet. There is no quiet here; the sand was better." Earlier in the
+day he had been pleased with the bright colours and the sense of
+movement, but now they seemed to vex him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why do they keep on looking at us?" he went on; "is it because you are
+great Pashas?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," I answered, "they have no idea that we are great Pashas."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My countrymen in the desert looked at you because you were strangers
+from another country and they had not seen women like you before; but
+these are your own countrymen: why do they stare at you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is because we are not dressed like them," I said; "we have not got
+our beautiful clothes yet; when these come they will no longer look at
+us."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But can they not see that you are travelling?" he said. "The people of
+my country, the Valis and the Kaimakams who prepared feasts for us,
+knew that you also had beautiful clothes in your own country."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, but our travelling clothes are not quite the same as those worn
+by our countrymen here," I explained, "so they do not understand us."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But why," persisted Hassan, "should that cause them not to understand
+you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We all do alike in our country," I explained; "if one person wears no
+pockets and big sleeves, then we all do the same."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who is this person then?" said Hassan; "he must be a very great
+Pasha."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We none of us know who he is," I said; "in fact, he is not any one
+particular person; it is more like a sort of jinn who spreads about an
+unwritten law."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hassan looked perplexed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And are there no written words," he said, "to tell you the meaning of
+this law?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," I said; "the people in our land who have the most money write
+out the meaning of the law."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And if you do not follow the law, what then?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your fellow-creatures are rather afraid of you; they do not ask you to
+their feasts, neither do they give you places of command, however
+capable you may be."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it this jinn that makes your men wear the hard black hats and the
+tight black clothes?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded assent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And it is not only our clothes," I added; "the jinn says we may not
+think differently from other people, or if we do, we must hide it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it a sin that your country has committed that it is thus
+condemned," he went on, "or is the jinn an evil spirit under whose
+curse it lies?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We do not know," I said. "There are some of the younger men who are
+trying to discover; they do not do as the jinn says, and so they do not
+live happily amongst others; many of them live apart, and we call them
+cranks and are afraid of them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Are they wicked men, then?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, they are good men as a rule, but in our country we do not
+understand the people who do not do what others do."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But if you all do the same," said Hassan, "how can you progress? We in
+the East have not changed our customs, so we do not progress. Do you
+never change then either, you in the West?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We change very slowly," I answered, "because we tend to the thought
+that if a thing has always been, then it is good."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am&#257;n, am&#257;n," said Hassan.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<a name="appendix">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+APPENDIX
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+ITINERARY OF JOURNEY
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+ <span class="sc">Konia to Tarsus.</span>
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Chumra.</li>
+<li>Kisilkeui.</li>
+<li>Karaman.</li>
+<li>Adeteppe.</li>
+<li>Buadjik.</li>
+<li>Eregli.</li>
+<li>Tchaym.</li>
+<li>Ulu Kishla.</li>
+<li>Boulghar Maden.</li>
+<li>Chiftekhan.</li>
+<li>Ak Kupru.</li>
+<li>Gulek Boghaz.</li>
+<li>A Khan.</li>
+<li>Tarsus.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+(These stages are from 5 to 8 hours.)
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="ctr">
+<span class="sc">Adana to Diarbekr.</span> (18 stages.)
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Stages and times of journey">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="center">Hours.</td>
+<td class="hang">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Missis</td>
+<td class="right">4&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Small village with khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Hamidieh</td>
+<td class="right">4&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Cotton-mills and town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Kalakeui</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Small Kurdish village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Osmanieh</td>
+<td class="right">1&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Bagtsche</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Shekasskeui</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village with khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Avjilar</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Small Kurdish village. No khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Aintab</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Urral</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village with khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Birejik</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town. Ferry across Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Abermor</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Kurdish huts.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Karekeui</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Kurdish huts.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Urfa</td>
+<td class="right">3&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Sheksheligher</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Mismischen</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Large khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Severek</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Kaimach</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Large khan.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Gergeli</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Small Kurdish village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Diarbekr</td>
+<td class="right">3&#189;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<span class="sc">Baghdad to Damascus.</span> (27 stages.)
+</p>
+
+<table summary="Stages and times of journey">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="center">Hours.</td>
+<td class="hang">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Menasseyeh</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">No village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Fellujah</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Rumadeyeh</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place"><i>Hit</i></td>
+<td class="right">10&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Bagdadi</td>
+<td class="right">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Ruined water-mill on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Hadittah</td>
+<td class="right">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Fukaymeh</td>
+<td class="right">6&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Large khan on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place"><i>Ana</i></td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Niteyah</td>
+<td class="right">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Guard-house on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Gayyim</td>
+<td class="right">9&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Guard-house on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Abu Kamal</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village on Euphrates.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Salihiyyeh</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Khan with a few Arab huts.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Micardin</td>
+<td class="right">9&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Deir-el-Zor</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Town.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Pools of brackish water</td>
+<td class="right">2&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Guard-house</td>
+<td class="right">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Well of bad water.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Bir Jeddid</td>
+<td class="right">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Well of bad water.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Suknak</td>
+<td class="right">9&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village with hot sulphur springs.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Erek</td>
+<td class="right">8&#189;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Tadmor</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Palmyra.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Baytha</td>
+<td class="right">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Khan with bad water.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Gusayr</td>
+<td class="right">16&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">(Camping-place half-way, where water is found early in the year).</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Karietein</td>
+<td class="right">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Nasariyeh</td>
+<td class="right">12&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Kutayfah</td>
+<td class="right">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">Village.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Guard-house</td>
+<td class="right">2&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="place">Damascus</td>
+<td class="right">4&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="hang">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<br>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE END.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<b>Footnotes</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note1" href="#noteref1">[1]</a> A native cart.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note2" href="#noteref2">[2]</a> The Baghdad Railway is now running as far as Bulgurlu, a point some
+seven miles beyond Eregli.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note3" href="#noteref3">[3]</a> Innkeeper.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note4" href="#noteref4">[4]</a> We heard later that the official who had been mainly responsible
+for the construction of the road met his death in this manner shortly
+after our visit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note5" href="#noteref5">[5]</a> Local Governor.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note6" href="#noteref6">[6]</a> Raft.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note7" href="#noteref7">[7]</a> Sergeant.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By Desert Ways to Baghdad
+
+Author: Louisa Jebb
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2011 [EBook #38319]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+
+
+_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._
+
+
+THE GREAT BOER WAR. _Arthur Conan Doyle._
+COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. _G. W. E. Russell._
+REMINISCENCES. _Sir Henry Hawkins._
+LIFE OF LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. _R. Barry O'Brien._
+FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. _E. S. Grogan._
+A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. _Dean Hole._
+LIFE OF FRANK BUCKLAND. _George C. Bompas._
+A MODERN UTOPIA. _H. G. Wells._
+WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM. _G. W. Steevens._
+THE UNVEILING OF LHASA. _Edmund Candler._
+LIFE OF LORD DUFFERIN. _Sir A. Lyall._
+ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL. _John Foster Fraser._
+LITERATURE AND DOGMA. _Matthew Arnold._
+SPURGEON'S SERMONS. _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D._
+MY CONFIDENCES. _Frederick Locker-Lampson._
+SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. _Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P._
+THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER. _Colonel Durand._
+LIFE OF GENERAL GORDON. _Demetrius C. Boulger._
+POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN. _Mrs. Earle._
+THE RING AND THE BOOK. _Robert Browning._
+THE ALPS FROM END TO END. _Sir W. Martin Conway._
+THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. _Walter Bagehot._
+LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. _Lord Morley._
+LIFE OF PARNELL. _R. Barry O'Brien._
+HAVELOCK'S MARCH. _J. W. Sherer._
+UP FROM SLAVERY. _Booker Washington._
+WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. _H. Hesketh Prichard._
+HISTORICAL MYSTERIES. _Andrew Lang._
+THE STRENUOUS LIFE. _Theodore Roosevelt._
+MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY. _Dr. John Kerr._
+LIFE OF DANTON. _Hilaire Belloc._
+A POCKETFUL OF SIXPENCES. _G. W. E. Russell._
+THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL. _James Milne._
+A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. _S. Reynolds Hole._
+RANDOM REMINISCENCES. _Charles Brookfield._
+THE LONDON POLICE COURTS. _Thomas Holmes._
+THE AMATEUR POACHER. _Richard Jefferies._
+THE BANCROFTS. _Sir Squire Bancroft._
+AT THE WORKS. _Lady Bell._
+MEXICO AS I SAW IT. _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._
+EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIGNETTES. _Austin Dobson._
+GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR. _Edward Whymper._
+THE EARLY HISTORY OF C. J. FOX. _Sir G. O. Trevelyan._
+THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA. _H. Hesketh Prichard._
+BROWNING AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND
+ RELIGIOUS TEACHER. _Professor Henry Jones._
+LIFE OF TOLSTOY. _Charles Sarolea._
+PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND. _Harry de Windt._
+LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL. _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood._
+A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS. _Eugene Andre._
+THE MANTLE OF THE EAST. _Edmund Candler._
+LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.
+JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET. _Prince Ranjitsinhji._
+
+_Etc., etc._
+
+_Others to follow._
+
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF AUTHOR'S ROUTE]
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUISA JEBB
+(MRS. ROLAND WILKINS)
+
+
+THOMAS NELSON & SONS
+
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
+AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+ "Oft have I said, I say it once more,
+ I, a wanderer, do not stray from myself;
+ I am a kind of parrot; the mirror is holden to me;
+ What the Eternal says, I, stammering, say again."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+PART I
+
+BRUSA TO DIARBEKR
+
+PROLOGUE 13
+
+ I. DISENTANGLEMENT 23
+
+ II. BRIGANDAGE 34
+
+ III. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 46
+
+ IV. THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY 55
+
+ V. IN THE TAURUS 88
+
+ VI. ROYAL PROGRESS 112
+
+ VII. HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM 132
+
+ VIII. THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA 146
+
+
+PART II
+
+DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
+
+ IX. AFLOAT 167
+
+ X. HELD UP 175
+
+ XI. A RECEPTION AND A DANCE 194
+
+ XII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN 204
+
+ XIII. THE CREED OF THE KORAN 215
+
+ XIV. THE EVIL ONE 227
+
+ XV. ARAB HOSPITALITY 241
+
+ XVI. A STORM AND A LULL 254
+
+ XVII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS 267
+
+XVIII. THE END OF THE RAFT 277
+
+
+PART III
+
+BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS
+
+ XIX. BABYLON 287
+
+ XX. THE SOUND OF THE DESERT 302
+
+ XXI. PALMYRA 316
+
+ XXII. AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK 325
+
+XXIII. RETROSPECTIVE 354
+
+APPENDIX 367
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+MAP _Frontispiece_
+
+A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS 64
+
+HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ 129
+
+JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN 160
+
+"DRAWING SKINS OF WATER" 225
+
+PALMYRA. TRIUMPHAL ARCH 256
+
+HASSAN 321
+
+ERECH. SYRIAN DESERT 352
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+It was a hot midsummer's day; X and I sat on the long grass under an
+apple-tree: she had a map of Asia and I had a Murray's Handbook. We
+were about to travel together in the East. X was going primarily in
+search of health; but she had studied comparative religions and was
+prepared to be incidentally intelligent about it--visit mosques and
+tombs, identify classical spots, and take rubbings of inscriptions.
+
+I was merely going with X. She had unearthed me from a remote
+agricultural district in the West of England with the idea that contact
+with the agricultural labourer would have fitted me for dealing with
+the male attendants who were incident to our proposed form of travel.
+
+We were fully agreed on one fundamental point--that we should choose a
+country which could be reached otherwise than by sea; and that, having
+reached it, its nature should be such that we could travel indefinitely
+in it without reaching the sea.
+
+Now of all the continents Asia Minor is the one best adapted for this
+purpose; for if you were a giant you could easily step across the bit
+of inland sea which separates Europe from Asia in the neighbourhood
+of Constantinople; and once landed on the other side your field of
+operations is practically unlimited, extending even into the adjoining
+continent of Africa; for any one who could step across the Bosphorus
+could also step across the Suez Canal.
+
+But having once settled on the particular continent, our ideas were
+somewhat vague. How indeed can they be otherwise if you propose
+travelling in a country which has not yet been ticketed and docketed
+for the tourist? This product of a modern age can, thanks to Messrs.
+Cook and Lunn, already tell, in the corner of his own fireside, the
+exact hour at which he will be gazing at the dome of St. Sophia on any
+particular day, or at which he will be eating his dinner, with the
+number of courses specified, in the hotel the outside appearance of
+which is already depicted on the itinerary. But it was not to be so
+with us. What we should eat and what we should gaze upon was still
+wrapt in the mystery of the great unknown.
+
+X took a pencil and marked a straight line from Constantinople across
+the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus Mountains to Tarsus. "That looks a
+good point to make for," she said, "Alexander led an army over the
+Taurus." Then, having stopped within measurable distance of the sea,
+she drew her pencil eastwards across the Euphrates to a point on the
+Tigris high up in the Kurdistan mountains; from here she drew another
+line following the Tigris to Baghdad. At this point we were coming
+dangerously near the sea, so turning back she marked a line in the
+contrary direction across the Syrian desert to Damascus.
+
+"That will do for a start," she said; "we can fill in the details when
+we get there."
+
+Now this method of undertaking a journey might have its disadvantages
+in what is known as a civilised country; for here we are all such
+servers of time that unless we arrange everything beforehand, as
+everybody else does, we are apt to get pushed aside; you must,
+therefore, take your place in the general hustle and secure your bed
+and your dinner and your right to look at sights by ticket long before
+you are in need of them. In short, you must make a plan. But in the
+untravelled parts of the East you reign supreme; there is no need to go
+about securely chained to a gold watch which metes out with inexorable
+exactitude the dictates of railway time-tables, steamers, diligences,
+and _table d'hote_ summonses. Ignore Time, and he is at once your
+servant; treat him with respect, and he at once becomes your master. In
+those countries where Time has become master he develops a system of
+locomotion to which you must conform or lose its benefits; it will not
+accommodate itself to you. But in the East, do you but recognise the
+principle of making Time your own and at once plans become unnecessary.
+Systems of locomotion, for instance, spring up in answer to a
+preliminary wish in your brain; and their existence being solely due to
+you, it is possible to use them when and where you will. You want to
+get from one point to another: your wish is passed on, and a mule or an
+araba appears at your door; and whether it be punctual, or whether, as
+is more usual in the East, it be late, it is of no consequence, for
+Time is waiting for you and will wait for ever. Once you are started,
+moreover, the stopping-places are not arbitrary; you have merely to
+wish, and at once the mule or the araba stops. In the same way when you
+wish to sleep your bed is where you make it; and when you wish to eat
+you need wait for no summons. And should it so happen that you have
+been misguided enough to make a plan, it is of no consequence should
+you think fit to change it. One only asks, "Why have made the plan?"
+
+Thus it was that, without any more preparation than this preliminary
+idea of our route, X and I were able to carry it out in detail exactly
+as we had sketched it in the rough.
+
+The drawbacks of course were there. Sometimes we had nothing to eat
+through not having arranged for food; and sometimes we slept out in the
+wet. But does this never happen to those who have made elaborate plans
+against all possible contingencies? And have they not had the worst of
+it after all, for they have had the planning with no result, and have
+suffered the annoyance of having their best laid plans mislaid.
+
+Is it possible, moreover, to judge this method of travel by our
+standard of ideas in the West? In a civilised country where beds abound
+and it is merely a matter of arrangement to acquire one, there is no
+delight in passing the night under a damp hedge with drips down your
+back; there is shelter round the corner, and you merely curse yourself
+for your own stupidity, or pretend you like it, and take care not to do
+it again. But when you lie on your back on a sandy desert with nothing
+within measurable distance of you, and the rain beats mercilessly down
+or the wind howls through the crevices of your garments, you are
+conscious of battling against great primeval forces akin to the unknown
+elements of your own being; you cannot escape from them, for there is
+no shelter round the corner: you are brought up face to face with
+something fundamental; all the little accessories with which we have
+learnt to shield ourselves fall away, and you are just there, stripped
+yourself, and in the middle of naked realities. And if only you have
+been wet enough, or cold enough, or hungry enough, it has been worth
+while, for you never forget it; and the remembrance of it will come to
+you ever and anon when you are once more tied up in the bonds of
+convention and are struggling to keep a true idea of what is a reality
+and what is not.
+
+So it is, perhaps, that in setting out to write any account of such a
+journey, one is dominated by the remembrance chiefly of facts which in
+this country seem trivial. All the little details of life take on an
+exaggerated form; for what in civilisation we are apt to ignore and
+take as a matter of course, occurring almost unnoticed in the ordinary
+routine of daily life, becomes out there of enormous importance. A good
+meal, for instance, seems of far greater moment than an attack by
+brigands, because of its rarer and more unexpected occurrence.
+
+If you are travelling for no particular purpose, with people whose
+language you do not understand, and in a country where the manners and
+customs are not familiar to you and you are merely moving on slowly
+from day to day--all you can get is a passing impression of outside
+things. If you are not a scientist or an archaeologist or a politician
+striving to catalogue each new acquisition on your particular subject;
+if, in fact, you have no particular knowledge of any sort, but your
+pores are wide open to receive passing impressions, what you get is a
+vivid idea of the appearance of things. This is all that you can hope
+to pass on.
+
+In the following pages I do not propose to give a connected account of
+the various places we visited or of the many adventures which befell
+us; this is not a travel book. I shall have no intelligent remarks to
+make on the historic spots we passed, journeying slowly through this
+country so rich with still undiscovered monuments of ancient times; a
+country which is also destined to become, as civilisation advances with
+the Baghdad Railway, the centre of future political interest. What
+justification is there then for writing a book at all?
+
+The Danes have given us a definition of their idea of education: "It
+is," they say, "what is left after everything that has been learnt is
+forgotten." So it is with any form of travel; the value of it to the
+traveller himself is what is left after lapse of time has effaced all
+recollection of minor incidents and softened the vividness of strong
+impressions. In very slow travelling through desert countries, where
+day after day the same trivial events occur in similar yet different
+settings, the essential facts of that country sink into you
+imperceptibly, until at the end they are so woven into the fibres of
+your nature that, even when removed from their influence, you will
+never quite lose them.
+
+There are certain notes in the East which form part of a tune sung all
+the world over, but which give a clearer and more definite sound in the
+land which first gave them birth. The sketches given in the following
+pages are framed on them; they are what I have left, and what I would
+fain pass on to the reader.
+
+If I have succeeded in striking these notes true, there is no need of
+an apology to those who have already heard them in the country whence
+they spring; for any one who has ever travelled in the East welcomes
+anything that will once more touch that particular chord, at whatever
+time or place. And if I have succeeded in striking them so that here
+and there amongst those to whom the East is still but a name, there are
+some who may hear a faint echo of the real thing, I shall feel that
+there has been some justification for this contribution to the
+literature of the desert.
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+BRUSA TO DIARBEKR
+
+
+ "It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not,
+ I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or
+ ever so many generations hence.
+ Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
+ Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of
+ a crowd;
+ Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
+ bright flow, I was refresh'd;
+ Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
+ current, I stood, yet was hurried."...
+
+
+
+
+BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DISENTANGLEMENT
+
+
+It was our first night in camp; little mysterious hillocks shut us into
+a world of our own; we had it all to ourselves and only the stars
+overhead knew, and they seemed to be congratulating us on our escape;
+they twinkled and winked and beckoned. Constantin had lit a fire, and
+this at once became the centre of our world; the door of our tent
+looked out on it, the muleteers, the Zaptiehs, and our men sat round
+it, our supper was cooking on it, and we all thought about that; the
+horses and mules, tethered in a semicircle, turned that way and blinked
+at it; far away a jackal saw it and barked. It drew us all together,
+and its smoke went quietly up towards the beckoning stars.
+
+They would be eating their dinner now in the hotel at Brusa just the
+same as last night; the thin young man who had asked us what we should
+do if it rained, the old lady who wanted to know if we were doing it
+for pleasure, and the middle-aged spinster who thought we had no
+business to expose ourselves to such dangers unless it were for
+missionary work. The waiters would be bustling about; good Madame Brot
+would be carving diligently at the side table with an anxious look;
+bells would be ringing; men and women would be coming and going and
+talking and laughing and scolding; down below in the hot kitchen the
+men wash one pile of dirty plates after another.... Yes, it is very
+quiet out here; the men speak in undertones and the fire crackles in
+the cool, still air. Constantin lifted the pot off the fire. "Mangez,"
+he said. He was Greek but could speak a word or two of French. He
+ladled the onions and rice on to two plates and picked out the bits of
+mutton; then after handing us the plates, he began to beat up eggs for
+an omelette.
+
+We had been stretched out on the ground; we drew ourselves up, and
+sitting cross-legged balanced the plates on our knees. The food tasted
+excellent although it had been cooked in one pot. Constantin had wanted
+to bring three pots; he had been camp cook to the best people on
+hunting expeditions--three courses for dinner, with clean plates and
+knives for each course. He looked the part: his clothes were European,
+except for the fez. He remained on the border-line of civilisation and
+reminded us of what we had left. We had had a scene with him before
+leaving Constantinople; he had accumulated a large assortment of
+saucepans and kettles, of pans for frying and pans for stewing, of pots
+for boiling and pots for washing; we had gone through them critically
+and disregarded everything but a stew-pan, a frying-pan, and one pot
+for boiling water. Constantin was in despair. "Pas possible,
+mademoiselle," he kept on ejaculating, "pas possible, comment faire
+cuisine?" But we were adamant; we wished to travel light and live
+largely on native food.
+
+As it was we had a whole araba[1] loaded up with our belongings; there
+were the two tents for ourselves and the men, our camp-beds and sacks
+of clothes, and the cooking utensils. It all seemed a great deal now,
+and yet we were only taking necessaries. But then it had been so very
+hard to know what necessaries were; it is very hard to get disentangled
+from the forces of tradition. We had escaped now and would know better.
+Life was becoming extraordinarily easy, for we had left behind most
+things and forgotten all the injunctions and warnings of our friends.
+
+ [1] A native cart.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But there was still Constantin in his European clothes and his
+aristocratic ideas and his broken French.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+However, he does make delicious omelettes; we will forgive him for
+smuggling in that omelette-pan in defiance of our orders.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is getting very dark; we could no longer see the hillocks, but we
+knew that they were there. We could hardly see the horses tethered
+beyond the fire, but we could hear them munching and stamping, and now
+and then one would neigh suddenly.
+
+Constantin lit a lantern and hung it on a stick; then he washed up the
+dishes. The other men sat on by the fire and we looked through the
+smoke at them. There was Calphopolos. Now Calphopolos was a Greek, and
+he was a mistake. We have said that Constantin was on the border-line
+of civilisation and reminded us of what we had left. But Calphopolos
+was right in it without really being of it--so that when he was about
+one forgot that there was anything to be said for civilisation and only
+remembered its drawbacks. His unbrushed black clothes contrasted
+painfully with the native dress, especially when seen through the smoke
+of a camp-fire. He always carried about a little black handbag, out of
+which his tooth-brush was constantly falling. But his worst offence was
+that he spoke a language which we understood, and jabbered French at us
+from morning to night. He was in the employment of well-meaning friends
+whom he accompanied when they made business excursions into the
+interior. They had sent him to start us comfortably on the way; his
+knowledge of the amenities of life was to pave the road leading away
+from civilised methods of living.
+
+Then there was Ibrahim, a long, lean Turk with a smiling face. He put
+up the tents and rode in attendance upon us, and haggled with the
+villagers over milk and eggs. They had told me earlier in the day that
+Ibrahim was troubled in his mind; "never before had a woman looked him
+straight in the face and shown him a watch." Two Eastern precepts had
+been violated, and I had been the unwitting offender. It was at Brusa,
+which we had left with such difficulty that morning. We had arranged
+the night before to start at 8 o'clock. But 8 came, and 8.30 came, and
+9 came, and then the Zaptichs came who were to have come at 8 to escort
+us on the way; but there was no sign of our own retinue, of Constantin,
+of Ibrahim, of our own hired horses, of the arabas and muleteers with
+the baggage.
+
+The news of our departure had got about and the people of the hotel
+gradually collected at the door. "Where is your dragoman?" they said;
+"why do you not send for him?" We confessed to having engaged no
+dragoman. "No dragoman! that was very rash. We could speak the
+language, then?" No, we had only a Turkish dictionary. They gave us up
+then as hopeless. Another individual pushed his way up to us. "You will
+never get your men to start or do anything else," he said; "you do not
+realise what these Turks are."
+
+I recognised him as a professional dragoman offered to us by Cook the
+week before. But he was only telling us what everybody else out of the
+trade had been dinning into our ears ever since we planned the journey.
+
+I repaired to the inn where the men and horses had been collected the
+night before. In the open yard stood the araba, unpacked and horseless.
+Constantin sat on a roll of baggage near by, with a resigned expression
+and a settled look, as if he had been sitting there for hours.
+
+"Pas possible, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+Ibrahim stood in the stable door, smoking complacently, and our
+muleteers were squabbling violently over the roping of a box.
+
+It was at this moment that I stepped up to Ibrahim and showed him my
+watch. He looked at me with a startled expression, his jaw dropped, and
+he turned hastily on the muleteers. But it was not till later that I
+learnt how his inmost susceptibilities had been roused. One is at a
+decided disadvantage with no knowledge of a suitable language, but by
+dint of gesticulating with my riding-whip and pointing at everybody in
+turn, I managed, at the end of another half-hour, to get the araba and
+the men under way, and mounting my own horse rode behind them to the
+hotel. In another five minutes we had sallied out on our road. X and I
+rode ahead with Ibrahim and Calphopolos and the two Zaptiehs, then came
+the araba with our baggage and the muleteers, then Constantin with
+bulging saddle-bags suggesting the intrusion of various forbidden
+cooking utensils.
+
+Our road ran unshaded and dusty through the outskirts of Brusa, with
+Mount Olympus towering above us. Bit by bit we left behind the staring
+tourists, the staring native children, the unconcerned stall-keepers
+displaying their wares of Brusa silk and printed cottons from England;
+then we passed the country people riding in on mules with their
+vegetables and chickens; we passed the little cultivated patches and
+got amongst the larger fields, stretching away on each side of the
+road. "Tutun," said Ibrahim, pointing at them with his riding-whip. I
+looked at him inquiringly. He tapped his cigarette and pointed again at
+the field.
+
+"Tutun," he repeated. "Tobacco, you understand, mademoiselle,
+tobacco--such as he is now smoking." Calphopolos always would insist on
+explaining the obvious. The day got hotter and the road got dustier. At
+midday we skirted a willow plantation, and a stream gurgled through the
+damp green patch, inviting us to come in and rest. We crawled out of
+the sun under the low willow bushes, and the men tied the horses to the
+stronger branches. This first lunching place will always remain
+indelibly printed on my memory: the slices of brown bread thickly
+spread with solid cream; the watermelons and the grapes; the men
+grouped about amongst the willows, eating great hunches of bread and
+cheese; the horses breaking loose and straying about, browsing the
+finer herbage which sprang up through the dried and yellow tufts of
+older grass; the joy of being out of the sun and the dust; the cool
+sound of the water in the brook; the sense of rest and freedom, the
+sense of having really escaped at last.... On recalling this lunch with
+X, after many adventures had made it seem very remote, I found that she
+retained equally vivid recollections of it. I heard her murmur
+reflectively to herself, "And we thought it was always going to be like
+that!"
+
+Then we had reluctantly left it all, the unwilling horses were pulled
+and dragged away, snatching at last bites, and we rode off on the dusty
+road again, until we reached the village near which we had arranged to
+camp. We had ridden round and chosen this site in the middle of the
+mysterious hillocks, which shut us out so effectually from everything
+except the stars.
+
+We were destined to spend many more such nights in camp; but perhaps
+none can give you exactly the same thrill as the one on which for the
+first time you sleep out in the open.
+
+It is full of surprises; you expect it to be quiet, and you find the
+darkness and stillness is full of noise. Nothing escapes you: the
+breathing of men and animals, the crackling of the fire, the rustling
+of leaves and grass: there seems to be a continuous movement very close
+to you. You sit up many times expecting to see something in your tent;
+it all makes you very wakeful. You drop off into a disturbed sleep very
+late, and are awakened before sunrise by the stir in the camp. You are
+positive you have not slept all night and that strange people have been
+prowling round you in the dark.
+
+Yet as one lay in this semi-wakeful state of excitement and mystery,
+one's strongest impression was that of wanting protection merely
+against a few primitive forces; with the wild beasts we shared the
+dangers of cold and hunger and attacks from man. Slowly and painfully
+you have crawled out of the net in which you have all this time been
+unconsciously enveloped, and emerging stripped and bewildered grope
+about for what is actually going to serve and protect you in this
+primeval state of battling against the primitive forces of nature; a
+state, moreover, where protection against the dictates of an organised
+society is no longer needed. To those who are confronted with this
+problem for the first time, it is almost impossible to walk straight
+out of the net and have an impartial look round. Tradition still clings
+to us in little bits, and we grope hopelessly about, wondering what
+will be an essential and what will not.
+
+Looking back now on these first few days of preparation for our journey
+in the wilderness, I realise that by far the hardest part of the
+journey was this initial disentanglement from the forces of tradition.
+If you are about to alter fundamentally your method of living, you must
+take care that you are discarding all those accessories which are due
+to tradition; you must either adopt those evolved by the tradition of
+the races among which you are about to travel, or you must bring
+abstract science to bear on the question of how to provide for your
+immediate wants under the changed conditions. A bare tent in a country
+where weather is still an interesting topic is a safe place for such
+reflections; the realities of the situation make one strictly
+practical. On getting out of bed our clothes were damp with dew and the
+grass was cold to our bare feet; at the next town we bought the strip
+of carpet, the idea of which we had rejected at Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BRIGANDAGE
+
+
+Brigandage. The capture of Miss Stone, ancient history as it now is,
+has served to give a vivid meaning to this word in the public mind. We
+were being continually asked if we wished to emulate Miss Stone.
+Travelling second-class through Bulgaria on our way to Constantinople
+our fellow-passengers, rough, good-natured farmers, joked about it; but
+they always added, "No, it will not happen to you." Then they would
+look at one another and laugh. The capture of Miss Stone did not seem
+to be looked upon seriously out there.
+
+Then there was the Embassy at Constantinople. They were horribly
+nervous about international complications. As a matter of fact capture
+for ransom is a decided danger in the neighbourhood of larger towns in
+Asiatic Turkey. Not that there are any professional brigands prowling
+about, but there is a certain class of native ready to become a brigand
+on the spur of the moment, should they get wind of suitable prey. They
+are not Turks--no Turk would be bothered; they are, as a rule, Greeks,
+and always Christians. It is as well, therefore, on any expedition, not
+to make very great preparations and talk too much of your line of
+route; but as quietly and expeditiously as possible to get hold of your
+horses and men and start off before news of your movements has been
+noised abroad.
+
+It was not at all in our favour that X bore a name well known to
+fortune hunters; one of her uncles was in the habit of big-game
+shooting in this district, and his means were fabulously exaggerated.
+
+Calphopolos had been sent with us partly because he could be so
+thoroughly trusted to take all precautions. He certainly earned his
+reputation; he seemed to have been born with the fear of brigands in
+his soul; mere conversation about them caused him to break out into a
+profuse perspiration. He had talked to us very seriously on leaving
+Constantinople, as we sat on the deck of the steamer which took us
+across the Sea of Marmora on our way to Brusa.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mesdemoiselles, soyez secretes; la secrece,
+c'est tout."
+
+"La secrece" became his by-word. If there was one thing he was more
+afraid of than anything else on earth it was X's surname. He implored
+her not to use it, but to call herself Miss Victoria. He had all our
+luggage labelled Miss Victoria; and if in casual conversation the
+dreaded name leaked out, beads of perspiration rolled down his face and
+he would glance nervously round to see who was within earshot.
+
+X was rather a reprobate on the subject. On our arrival at Madame
+Brot's well-known hotel at Brusa, from where we were making our final
+departure the next day, she marched up to Madame Brot and said, "I
+think you know my uncle"--mentioning him by name. Calphopolos, who was
+just behind, explaining that our name was Victoria pure and simple,
+turned green with horror. With bent back and staring eyes, shaking the
+same finger in warning which his subconscious self was trying to put on
+his lips, he endeavoured to attract X's attention from behind Madame
+Brot's broad back. But X went glibly on, quite oblivious of the panic
+she was creating. Calphopolos turned to me with the resigned expression
+of a man on whom death-sentence has been passed. "It is all over now,"
+he said, "everybody in Brusa will know about us in half an hour.
+Mesdemoiselles, did I not implore you for the love of God to respect
+the secrecy? Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+
+And then poor old Calphopolos, who was not without his sense of fun,
+laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "The only thing left to
+do," he went on, when he had sufficiently recovered to speak again, "is
+to pretend we are going to Angora and put them off the scent.
+Mesdemoiselles, for the love of God please try and remember that it is
+Angora you are going to. Tell everybody you are going to Angora. The
+secrecy it is everything."
+
+It must be confessed it was very difficult at that time to feel
+seriously alarmed about brigandage, for we seemed to be moving in
+ordinary respectable society, and Calphopolos's treatment of the
+subject merely caused us to think of it as a joke. Still, we fully
+realised that it was a real risk, against which it would not do to
+neglect taking ordinary precautions; and this sense was heightened by
+the extreme alarm of the Vice-Consul at Brusa to whom we applied for
+the escort of Zaptiehs, without whom one is not permitted to travel in
+Turkey with any guarantee of safety. He could not understand why we
+would not drive through to Nicaea in a landau in one day, like the
+ordinary tourist; this, with a suitable escort, made the journey quite
+safe, and it is a common thing for travellers to do. But to ride there
+in three days with our camp, sleeping on the way, was another matter.
+Every extra hour spent loitering in any one district heightened the
+risk of being attacked by brigands. X tried to explain that it was for
+the sake of her health, which only made him more bewildered; surely a
+landau was more suitable for invalids!
+
+Finding us, however, unmoved by his arguments, he promised to send us
+two men the next morning and implored us never to leave their sides for
+a moment. He must have rubbed the same instructions well into the
+Zaptiehs, for during the seven days which they accompanied us as far as
+Mekidje on the Anatolian Railway, they never were more than a couple of
+yards away from us, day and night. This certainly detracted from the
+sense of freedom we were otherwise experiencing. It seemed at first as
+if we had only escaped from one form of bondage to fall into another.
+But the fact that the men were unable to speak any language we
+understood prevented it from becoming irksome, and one was soon able to
+become nearly oblivious of the clanking sword at one's elbow.
+
+Calphopolos, however, was not so easily ignored. He had a sort of
+feeling that we were always running away from him, and tried to check
+this pernicious tendency on our part by engaging us in constant
+conversation in his broken French. The more we edged our horses away
+from his side and tried to put a silent Zaptieh between him and
+ourselves, the more persistently would he pursue us, propounding some
+new problem which required an answer. Our behaviour on breaking camp
+that morning had probably given rise to his state of mind. We had
+ordained that the start should be made at eight o'clock; but the usual
+procrastinations had ensued and the men seemed totally unable to get
+off. Calphopolos kept packing and unpacking his little bag in search of
+the missing tooth-brush, and tried to keep us calm.
+
+"It is thus in this country, mademoiselle; have no anxiety--we shall
+go, we shall go."
+
+X and I agreed that there was only one way to go. We had our horses
+saddled and rode away, in spite of Calphopolos's prayers and entreaties
+to wait till the whole camp was packed. The Zaptiehs, after the orders
+they had received, were obliged to ride after us. This left Calphopolos
+and the muleteers without Government protection, which so filled them
+with terror that in a very few minutes they also were on the way.
+Calphopolos came tearing down the road after us, the tails of his long
+black coat flying out behind, the tooth-brush sticking out of his
+pocket, and the perspiration rolling down his cheeks.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu!" he gasped as he caught us up, "pour l'amour de
+Dieu!" and then he had so much to say that he couldn't say it and
+relapsed into laughter and ejaculations of "Mais quelles demoiselles,
+mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"
+
+The second day our road lay across the great Jenishehr plain. Herds of
+buffaloes strayed about on the wilder parts, and here and there fields
+of corn and tobacco, suddenly springing up beside the stretches of
+rough grass, signalled the approach to an occasional village.
+
+Here also it was very difficult to think of brigands; the harmless look
+of peaceful cultivators did not suggest them. Besides which the country
+was so open that you could not be suddenly pounced upon; you would have
+ample opportunity of considering evil-doers as they approached you
+across the wide plain.
+
+We encamped that evening near the small village of Jenishehr. The
+excitement of the novelty had worn off and we had had a long day in the
+open air. In consequence of this I had fallen into a profound sleep at
+once on going to bed. Suddenly I was awakened by a noise in the tent,
+and looking up distinctly saw the figure of a man coming cautiously
+through the tent door. In one moment I had hold of my revolver, kept
+loaded at the head of my bed, and had it levelled at him, wondering
+when the psychological moment for pulling the trigger would occur and
+whether I should manage to live up to its requirements.
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mademoiselle! pour l'amour de Dieu!" came in a
+terror-stricken voice.
+
+I put down the weapon rather crossly.
+
+"What do you want?" I said.
+
+"Quels sont vos noms," stuttered out Calphopolos in great agitation.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" I said; "you know our names well enough."
+
+"Pour l'amour de Dieu, quels sont vos noms," he repeated.
+
+"X," I called out, "wake up and tell me what is the matter with
+Calphopolos--I think his head has been turned by this fright about your
+name; he is going about jibbering over it."
+
+X had a soothing influence on Calphopolos, and gradually extracted
+from him that the local Zaptieh had come up for our _tezkerehs_ and
+wanted to know our names. His agitation over the revolver had been so
+great that he had been unable to explain articulately that it was our
+_tezkerehs_ that he had come for.
+
+The next day the whole character of the country changed. The plain
+gradually oozed away into a more tumbled country and cultivation
+disappeared. We were about to cross the range of hills which shut out
+our view to the north.
+
+The Zaptiehs were very much on the alert here; they unslung their
+rifles from behind and rode with them across their knees. We were told
+to keep close together and ride quietly without talking.
+
+The mountains closed in on either side; they were bare, rounded hills
+for the most part, with stunted shrubs on the lower slopes, which one
+soon learnt to regard purely as cover for a possible enemy. There was
+no difficulty about realising possible dangers here; the broad road
+slowly narrowed, and at every turn in the winding path one almost
+expected to be confronted by a villain. At the snap of a twig or the
+rustle of a leaf our Zaptiehs grasped their rifles tighter, and without
+turning their heads moved their eyes in that direction. Once, on the
+wider road we had left, a cloud of dust had arisen in the distance, and
+a long line of camels laden with wood filed slowly past us in twos and
+threes. Our men exchanged a few monosyllabic words with the drivers,
+and in another minute or two the tinkling of the bells and the tramp of
+feet had subsided, the dust settled once more, and we were alone again
+with the silent hills and the crackling twigs, and wound our way in and
+out in single file across the rounded hillocks. Here and there the
+sight of a herd of sheep or goats, tended by peaceful looking natives,
+relieved the tension caused by our escort's precautions, for it is
+always difficult to associate danger with such rural scenes. At last
+there was a break in front; we were through the pass and began to
+descend.
+
+Calphopolos had been silent all this time; his conversational powers
+seem to have suffered a severe check. Now he brightened up, mopped his
+forehead, and murmured, "Grace a Dieu nous voila."
+
+Half way down the hillside, perched on a projecting ledge just off the
+road, stood a lonely coffee-house. The Zaptiehs, pointing at it with
+their whips, hailed it with delight. They slid off their horses, and
+holding ours, helped us to dismount. We sat in the porch and sipped
+thick, hot Turkish coffee; below us the lake Ascanius lay like a blue
+sheet between the purple hills, its eastern end fringed round with a
+band of green, in which the minarets and domes of Isnik itself were
+just visible. All around us the stunted shrubs still formed harbour for
+the suspected brigands. Our Zaptiehs lay stretched on the ground in
+front, apparently asleep; but their rifles were never laid aside, and
+the least stir in the bushes made us realise their state of alert
+watchfulness.
+
+But not a living creature showed itself, and we rode on down and down
+the curving incline until we reached the green band of vegetation and
+our horses trod softly through grassy slopes of olive plantations,
+whose grey leaves shone like silver as the sun's low rays beat through
+them. Past the olive plantations lay a stretch of low-lying reedy
+marsh.
+
+"You shall have a good supper to-night," said Ibrahim; and throwing his
+reins to a Zaptieh he plunged in on foot. He shot two snipe, and joined
+us again as we reached the outskirts of the town.
+
+The old city of Nicaea is now represented by a collection of a few
+hundred miserable houses forming the village of Isnik. But, as
+everywhere in the ancient towns of Asiatic Turkey, one is confronted at
+every point with tokens of former splendour. Four great gates in the
+old Roman walls give access to the town. Courses of brickwork are built
+in between the large stones of which the bulk of the walls consists;
+here and there semicircular towers rise up, their ruins still
+surmounting the ruins of the wall. One, more perfect than the rest, is
+said to mark the site of the church in which the Nicene Creed was
+framed.
+
+We fixed on a spot for the camp just inside the walls and outside the
+present town, where a green field, which merged into a cemetery, lay in
+the curve of a shallow brook.
+
+The pots and pans were speedily tumbled out of Constantin's saddle-bags
+and Ibrahim had our tents up with European alacrity; but it was dark
+before the smell of roasted snipe pervaded the night air. We ate our
+supper by the light of a lantern hung on a forked stick. The fear of
+brigands departed and the sleep of the just fell upon the camp. Owls
+hooted in the green-covered walls of ruined Nicaea, and away in the
+distance the still mountains kept guard over the dark waters of the
+lake as they lapped mournfully on the ruins of Roman baths on its stony
+shore. The Zaptieh on guard poked fresh sticks into the dying fire and
+sighed heavily between the snores of his companions.
+
+In and out amongst the upright white stones of the cemetery a jackal
+prowled stealthily and sniffed the smell of snipe bones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
+
+
+One tree stood out in the middle of the field in which we were
+encamped. We spread our carpet under it and laid ourselves out for a
+lazy day. There were letters to write home and plans to make about the
+journey ahead. It was impossible to do such things comfortably after a
+day's ride and with the feeling of transitoriness engendered by a short
+night in camp. So we had decided to spend this Sunday at Isnik.
+
+Constantin got out all his pots and pans to give them an extra
+cleaning, and promised us a vast meal. He complained that he had never
+had time to show us what he could do.
+
+Animals and men alike were pervaded with that sense of rest which is in
+the air on a hot Sunday morning. The horses, after rolling on their
+backs, stretched themselves out motionless on their sides; the arabajis
+dozed in the araba. Calphopolos retired inside the men's tent, prepared
+to make up for the loss of sleep occasioned by anxious nights. We got
+out our books and papers and thought about all we should get through
+that day.
+
+We were encamped within the old walls of Nicaea, and from where we sat
+were in full view of the outskirts of the present town. By and by some
+native women sallied out in our direction and, skirting the camp,
+peeped cautiously round our tents; then getting bolder they sidled
+towards us, smiling propitiatingly. We felt peacefully disposed towards
+the whole world and smiled back at them. Thus encouraged they advanced
+nearer and felt the substance of our clothes and examined our hats.
+
+Finally, not finding themselves repulsed, they fingered our hair and
+stroked our hands. X hunted in her vocabulary for suitable remarks and
+delivered them at intervals. Meanwhile other women straggled out from
+the town, and, finding their sisters already so much at home, they also
+satisfied themselves as to the consistency of our clothes and skin. The
+earlier arrivals now established themselves on the ground around us,
+jabbering away amongst themselves and occasionally addressing a single
+word to us, which they repeated again and again, pointing at each of
+us in turn. X looked it up, and came to the conclusion that it meant
+"sister." So we shook our heads and looked up the word for "friend."
+The effect was magical; we had established social intercourse. More
+and more women arrived and joined the throng settled round us, all
+new-comers being initiated into the already acquired knowledge
+concerning us. Soon everybody had a word they wanted looked out in the
+dictionary, until X became fairly exhausted. We tried "goodbye" and "no
+more" with disappointing effect, and finally let them sit there gazing
+at us while we went on with our writing, keeping a sharp look-out on
+our hats, which every one was anxious to try on. It seemed to please
+them just as much to look at us as to talk to us, and they sat on in
+placid content.
+
+By and by Ibrahim hurried up and spoke to the women; they all darted to
+their feet and fled. We looked at Ibrahim inquiringly. He pointed in
+the direction of the town, and we saw two men arriving at a slow and
+dignified pace. Constantin appeared on the scene.
+
+"Gouverneur," he said, "faire visite."
+
+X and I hastily donned our hats and sent for a seat for the
+"gouverneur." But Ibrahim could only find a saddle-bag. X turned over
+the leaves of the vocabulary in the hopes of finding suitable
+greetings. We bowed and scraped mutually, and X delivered herself of
+the first greeting.
+
+"We are very pleased."
+
+The "gouverneur" bowed and made, no doubt, what was a suitable
+response; but as we could only attack single words we were no wiser.
+There was a pause while X collected the words for another.
+
+"Beautiful country," she attempted.
+
+The "gouverneur" bowed very gravely.
+
+"I hope I have said that," said X nervously, "he looks rather shocked."
+
+At that moment Constantin appeared with coffee and cigarettes, which
+gave us time to recover.
+
+"I should not bother to talk to him," I said. "That is the best of
+these people--they understand how to sit happily in silence, just
+looking at you."
+
+But X determined to make another try; it was good practice.
+
+"Health good?" she said.
+
+The "gouverneur" turned to his companion and said a few words in
+Turkish. The young man looked rather terrified, and began to speak to
+us in what sounded like gibberish. Constantin came to take the cups
+away.
+
+"Parle francais," he said, pointing to the young man.
+
+We strained our ears to try and catch an intelligible word, but could
+only shake our heads.
+
+So we all took refuge in silence and looked at one another. There was
+no sense of _gene_. The Turk and his companion seemed as content to
+sit and look at us as the women had been. When he had finished his
+cigarette he rose, and, bowing once more in Turkish fashion, took his
+leave.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We picked up our papers once more, then Constantin came and said lunch
+was ready. We sat on saddle-bags outside the tent and ate chunks of
+mutton and onions out of the tin bowl keeping hot on the charcoal
+brazier at our side. Ibrahim filled our cups with water from the brook,
+and the grass tickled our hands each time we lifted them from the
+ground. The pots and pans lay about all around, and Constantin,
+squatting in the middle of them, brought the coffee to the boil three
+times in the little Turkish pot.
+
+"Sheker, effendi?" he called out, "un, deux?" as he ladled in the
+sugar. Constantin's language was always of a hybrid nature, consisting
+of alternate words of French and Turkish.
+
+Then we had returned to the carpet under the tree and sipped the thick,
+hot coffee out of the little Turkish cups, and sent thoughtful rings of
+smoke up into the branches of the tree above. And with the rings of
+smoke went up thoughts of the coffee they were drinking now in the
+drawing-rooms; the little cups there would have handles, and each one
+would help himself to sugar off a little tray.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"I guess you find it slow here!"
+
+An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us
+off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of
+driving to Nicaea in a landau.
+
+"We thought we would just look you up and see if you had got here all
+right, but we cannot stop a minute; we've only had an hour to see the
+walls, they were so long getting lunch."
+
+"You ought to see the tower on the site of the church where they
+discussed the Nicene Creed," said X.
+
+"The Nicene Creed--eh, what?" said the American, as he consulted his
+guide-book.
+
+"Say, we just ought to have a look at that," he said to his wife.
+
+"We shall miss the _Augusta Victoria_ if you do," said the lady.
+Then she turned to us. "We go on to Smyrna in it to-morrow morning,"
+she explained, "so we must get back to-night."
+
+The landau appeared at that moment; time was up. Smyrna, Beyrout,
+Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Luxor had to be got in during the
+allotted time, and there had been no provision made for the Nicene
+Creed. So in they got and dashed away over the plain.
+
+They had come as a whirlwind over from the West, sweeping the surface
+of this Eastern land and catching up the loose fragments on it; but its
+traditions were too deeply rooted to be caught in the blast; these had
+merely bent their heads and let the blast pass by. Strong as it is, it
+cannot unloose the sway of ancient customs. Even for Americans the East
+will not move. The natives gazed at the landau, hardly wondering at it;
+then they forgot it. But we did not forget it so easily. For us an
+odour of the West was left hanging over the plain--and above all, our
+sense of time had been offended.
+
+A French engineer with his wife and family were the next to appear on
+the scene. They were the only Europeans living in the place, and
+rejoiced over the sound of their mother-tongue. The man poured out
+volumes of it, and was interesting about his work up to the point when
+we became fatigued.
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what it is to be in civilised company again! We live
+here from day to day and year after year, and have no one to speak
+with, no one with whom to exchange ideas. C'est comme la mort."
+
+"Do you not see anything of the natives?" we inquired. "They seem very
+friendly, and you can speak Turkish."
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle, what can one do with such people? how can one
+associate with them? They are canaille, mere canaille."
+
+"We were talking to some of them," we said, "and thought them very
+intelligent."
+
+He held up his hands in horror.
+
+"But, mademoiselle, do you not understand? Certainly there are the
+Christian races, but for the most part, ce sont des Turques, des
+infideles, des chiens. There is Marie there, pauvre Marie! it is bad
+enough for me, but then I have my work; but Marie, the pauvre Marie,
+she dies of ennui, she can speak to no one but me and the children."
+
+The pauvre Marie seemed indeed to have lost the power of speech; she
+sat silently as her husband poured out his contempt of the canaille.
+
+We had found the Greek women very entertaining in the morning, and they
+too had sat and looked at us in silence. But they had not been ashamed
+of their silence; Marie was, and felt awkward; so we all felt
+uncomfortable, and tried to talk to her.
+
+One felt then how little actual language had to do with social
+intercourse. We could not get into touch with Marie, whose language we
+understood, in the same way that we had got into touch with the native
+women, whose language we did not understand.
+
+They sat on and on; it was not until the sun began to send out long
+warning shoots of colour, heralding its disappearance behind the purple
+mountains, that they rose to go.
+
+And we, worn out with this final effort in sociability, gave ourselves
+up to the quiet of the deserted camp, and watched the shades of night
+creep once more over the ruined walls and the distant hills, over the
+houses of the French engineer and the canaille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY
+
+
+I
+
+There is something very weird and uncanny in the terminus of a railway
+in the middle of a wild and desolate country such as this. The Monster
+runs his iron fangs into the heart of its desolation and shoots you
+into it like a ball out of a cannon's mouth. Roaring and hissing and
+sending out jets of flame, he comes racing through the darkness to a
+certain definite spot; here he discharges you in the blackness of night
+and subsides. Next morning when you awake he is gone, and you are left
+to shift for yourself as best you can. But there is a certain human
+friendliness about this Monster while you are travelling with him. He
+seems to draw all the signs of life out of an apparently dead country
+and collect them at the stations for you to see. Great warehouses
+filled with sacks of corn testify to the productiveness of a country
+which, judging it from the train window after harvest time, one would
+dismiss as mere barren soil; an occasional MacCormick's "Daisy" reaper
+awaiting delivery on a side platform, native carts hanging about, and
+truck-loads of empty sacks tell the same tale. Groups of peasants, idly
+gossiping, gathered together by the whistle which heralds the Monster's
+approach, belie the impression of an uninhabited land; for Turkish
+villages are carefully designed so as not to attract attention. When
+one's eye gets more familiar with the seemingly uniform colour of the
+landscape, varied only by light and shade, one becomes aware of the
+low, flat-topped, mud-brick houses, which, even at close quarters,
+often seem but part of the natural rock.
+
+Even the unchanging East is powerless once the Monster's fangs have
+taken hold; he alone of all influences comes to stay and leave his
+mark.
+
+Slowly, perhaps, but very surely, he undermines with irresistible
+persistence the customs and habits which from time immemorial have held
+their own against the religious, educational, or military forces of
+stronger nations.
+
+This particular spot has long been the battlefield of the East and the
+West; now one, now the other, has had temporary ascendance; in the long
+run the East has always conquered.
+
+But already we can see what a power the East has to reckon with in the
+railway. For one thing it attacks the Eastern in one of his vital
+points--his conception of Time. Time waited for him when he had but
+camels to load; but the railway will not wait for him; the Monster
+screeches and is off. Sunrise or two hours after sunrise is not one and
+the same thing to him. Relentless as day and night he comes and goes,
+and there is no cheating him as the Eastern cheats Time.
+
+But the railway is cheating the East out of its time-worn customs and
+ideas, and there is a certain sadness in the evidences of transition.
+All down the line picturesque native costumes are being replaced by
+ugly European clothes. The men wear terrible fancy trouserings from
+Manchester; the women spend more money on dress--and unfortunately it
+is European dress--and less on the old-fashioned wedding feasts. The
+turnover of the shops in the larger towns has increased fourfold in the
+last ten years. The bazaars are now a medley of stalls exhibiting
+native manufactures side by side with cheap trinkets from England and
+loud flannelettes from Italy. The price of wheat has doubled; and with
+that of wheat the prices of other exports have also risen. Opium, wool,
+mohair, hides, and salt are amongst the products of these great plains.
+
+Two short days' ride from Nicaea had brought us to Mekidje, a station on
+the Anatolian Railway half-way between Haida Pasha and Eskishehr. The
+single line went as far as Konia, and one train ran each way every day.
+It stopped for the right at Eskishehr, continuing the journey next
+morning.
+
+We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due, and sat
+in the stationmaster's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything
+else to do. We said goodbye to the Zaptiehs and to the muleteers who
+were returning to Brusa, and watched them slowly disappear down the
+road we had come. Then we heard the low, familiar tinkle of camel bells
+and a score or more of laden animals paced slowly into the open ground
+round the station. They have a more discreet and tuneful way of
+announcing their arrival than the Monster, and when they appear on the
+scene they do so in a more dignified, calmer manner. Having arrived
+also, they do not look as if they were off again the next minute; they
+look as if they had come to stay for ever, and they give you time to
+think. One by one, in answer to a word of command, they knelt down in
+the dust, and the great baskets holding the goods were unfastened and
+rolled about on the ground. Their owners seemed too slack to do any
+more. They let them lie there while they looked at the sun. The Monster
+is slowly replacing these carriers of the East; but their day is not
+yet done by a long way, for they must feed him from the interior. His
+life is still dependent on the life of those he is working to destroy.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At last we heard his distant shriek. Down upon us he came, dashing up
+all in a minute, in such a splutter and such a hurry, waking us all up.
+Officials rushed up and down the platform, and swore at the natives who
+were loading our baggage. Everybody talked at once to everybody else,
+and the Monster hissed impatiently, noisy even when he was standing
+still.
+
+There were not many passengers; in a first-class carriage a Pasha
+travelled in solitary state; all his harem were delegated to a
+second-class carriage, where the blinds were pulled down. In the
+third-class were a few natives, who leaned out of the windows and
+gossiped with the camel owners, idle witnesses of the busy scene.
+
+But the Monster is getting impatient; he hisses furiously and finally
+gives a warning shriek. Then off he goes, and we take a last look at
+the kneeling camels, munching away as unconcernedly as if their
+destroyer had never invaded their peaceful country.
+
+Mekidje is practically at sea-level; Eskishehr is a tableland two
+thousand feet high; we had therefore a steady rise on the whole journey
+up the valley formed by the Kara Su, a river which has its source in
+the neighbourhood of Eskishehr. On each side rounded hills shut out the
+horizon, save where here and there a tributary valley would reveal,
+through steep-sided gorges, a distant view of purple ridges with
+snow-clad tops.
+
+It was night when we arrived at Eskishehr, and we groped our way to the
+Grand Hotel d'Anatolie, kept by Greeks. It was at this hotel that we
+first met Hassan, who was destined to play such a large part in our
+future travels. He was an Albanian Turk, and had been introduced to us
+by our friends in Constantinople, whom he accompanied on their shooting
+expeditions in this district. They had written to ask him to look after
+us during our brief stay at Eskishehr.
+
+Ibrahim brought him into our room, and there he stood silently, after
+salaaming us in the usual way.
+
+Ibrahim was a tall man, but Hassan towered above him. He wore a huge
+sheepskin coat, which added to his massive, impressive look.
+
+X looked up words in her Turkish book.
+
+"They told us you would look after us here?" she said.
+
+"As my eyes," he answered very quietly and simply. And thus began one
+of those friendships on which neither time nor distance can leave its
+mark.
+
+Two days later X asked him whether he would accompany us on the next
+stage of our journey, across the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus
+Mountains to Mersina.
+
+"Will you come with us and guard us well?" she said. He dropped on one
+knee and kissed her hand.
+
+"On my head be it," he said.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Eskishehr, before the days of the railway, was a purely Turkish town;
+it displayed the usual chaos of mud-brick and wooden houses, with their
+lower windows carefully latticed over for the concealment of the women;
+of narrow, winding bazaars, here a display of brightly coloured clothes
+and rugs, there a noisy street of smithies and carpenters' shops; and
+rising above it all the minarets of half a dozen mosques.
+
+But the railway's mark is on it to-day. The population has been
+increased by some five thousand Tartars and Armenians, whose houses,
+planted together near the line, have a neat, modern, shoddy look,
+contrasting with the picturesque squalor of the ancient Turkish town.
+
+The railway is slowly attacking the stronghold of the Turkish peasant,
+extending his operations on the wasted stretches of cultivable land,
+and slowly opening out dim vistas of prosperity athwart his present
+apathy. In the same way the railway is slowly affecting the town
+merchant. But one shudders here at the effect of prosperity
+unaccompanied by civilising influences. For in the rich merchant of the
+town you have the Turk at his worst. The simple, hospitable Turkish
+peasant is made of good stuff; the Turkish soldier of rank and file, if
+his fanatical tendencies are not encouraged, is equally good; the
+official Turk is corrupt, but only because the particular method of
+administering his country's laws obliges him to be so; the educated
+Turk of Constantinople is rapidly becoming a civilised being. But the
+rich middle-class Turk of towns has nothing to be said for him. The
+Christians have taught him to drink, and he is rich enough to keep a
+large harem. We had an introduction to one such person in Eskishehr.
+The polished Turkish phraseology of welcome could not conceal the
+coarseness and vulgarity of his mind, and we were glad to escape to the
+sacred inner chambers, where a very young and pretty woman sat in
+lonely state, the latest addition to his harem. There she sat, draped
+in the softest silks of gorgeous colourings, surrounded with all the
+evidences of luxury and comfort, as sulky as a little bear.
+
+We were accompanied by a Greek lady, who talked French and Turkish and
+acted as our interpreter; but never a smile or more than a word could
+be drawn out of the cross little thing. She simply stared in front of
+her with an expression of acute boredom in her beautiful eyes. A
+good-natured, elderly serving-woman, who stood at the door, explained
+matters. She had been very much pampered at home, and she had had a
+good time; she saw all her young friends at the baths, the social
+resort for Turkish ladies. The rich merchant had been considered a
+great _parti_; but already she had had enough of it. She never
+went out except for an occasional drive in a closed carriage. She was
+tired of embroidery work, she was tired of eating sweets, she was tired
+of smoking, she was tired of her fine dresses. _"Aman_, but it
+would come all right--and the serving-woman winked and nodded, and
+stroked her mistress's listless hand.
+
+"Is it always like this?" we asked the Greek lady.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu! not at all! This man is very jealous, and she may not
+see her friends. He heaps on her what money can buy and thinks that is
+enough. But with the poor it is different. You will see. There is a
+wedding to-day in a poor family. I will arrange for you to go. Mon
+Dieu! no, it is not always thus. La pauvre petite."
+
+The room in which we sat was draped in the usual Turkish manner with
+magnificent curtains in rich Eastern colourings. Round three walls ran
+low divans covered in the same way. There was not such a room in
+Eskishehr we were told. Had the decorations stopped there, and we had
+been able to forget the unfortunate prisoner, the general effect would
+have been decidedly pleasing. But as we sat there our eyes were kept
+glued, by some horrible attraction, on the glitter of a cheap gilt
+frame of the gaudiest description, containing a crude coloured print of
+the German Emperor; below this stood a gimcracky little table covered
+with a cheap tinselled cloth, on which was placed a glass and silver
+cake-basket in the vilest of European taste. It hit one terribly in the
+eye. It was a jarring note in the Monster's work.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We took leave of the sulky little lady, and left her once more to her
+sweets and her embroideries in the long, weary hours of lonely
+splendour.
+
+We had only seen the second act of this bit of Turkish drama; when the
+curtain went down for us we had had enough of it.
+
+But we were about to see Act I. in different surroundings. The Greek
+lady kept her word, and in due course we found ourselves ushered into
+the house of the bridegroom. The preliminary ceremonies had already
+begun--in fact they had been going on all day. There sat the bride at
+the end of a room which had been cleared of everything except the low
+stool which she occupied alone. She was a lumpy looking girl of
+seventeen or so, and sat there motionless with downcast eyes. On the
+floor sat dozens of women, packed as tight as the room could hold. The
+bride might neither look up nor speak, which seemed hard, for every
+woman in the room was both looking at her and speaking about her; the
+hubbub was terrible.
+
+She rose as we entered and kissed our hands; this much is apparently
+allowed on the arrival of strangers. The Greek lady explained that she
+was obliged to stand until we asked her to sit down again, and that she
+might not look at us. This was a good deal to ask on such an occasion;
+European ladies are not, as a rule, guests at the wedding of the
+Turkish poor, and we caught one or two surreptitious peeps from under
+her long eyelashes. We joined the throng on the floor and continued to
+gaze at her as every one else did. Marriage customs in general, and her
+own affairs in particular, were discussed for our benefit, the Greek
+lady interpreting in torrents of voluble French.
+
+"She may not speak to her husband for forty-eight hours. When he comes
+in he will lift the veil and see his bride for the first time. Then he
+puts a girdle round her waist and it is finished. His mother chose her
+for him. If he does not like her, no matter, he can choose another, for
+he is getting good wages, and can afford to keep two."
+
+By and by a large tray was brought in, piled up with rounds of native
+bread and plates of chicken. It was placed on a low stool in the centre
+of us all, and, following everybody's example, we grabbed alternate
+bits of chicken and bread. Then followed hunches of cake made of nuts
+and honey.
+
+We were still eating when we heard a noise of singing and musical
+instruments outside; it became louder and louder, and finally stopped
+by the house.
+
+"They are singing 'Behold the bridegroom cometh,'" said the Greek lady;
+"the man is being brought in a procession of all his friends."
+
+The food was hastily removed, and all the guests were marshalled into
+an adjoining room, which already seemed as full as it could hold of
+babies and children and old hags, who presumably had been left to look
+after the younger ones. We were allowed to remain while the finishing
+touches were put on the bride. Her face was first plastered all over
+with little ornaments cut out of silver paper and stuck on with white
+of egg; then she was covered over entirely with a large violet veil.
+And so we left her sitting there, sheepish and placid in the extreme,
+in strange contrast to the voluble Greek lady and the excited friends.
+We met the bridegroom in the passage. He kissed his father, and stood
+first on one foot and then on the other. His mother took him by the
+shoulders, opened the door of the room we had just left, and shoved him
+in. Let us hope that the silver ornaments did their work and made his
+bride pleasing in his sight when he lifted the violet veil. What she
+thought of him need not concern us any more than it did her or her
+friends, for such thoughts may not enter the minds of Turkish brides.
+
+The show was over. The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.
+It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had
+previously witnessed.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskishehr to Konia. It took us a
+good fifteen hours by rail. We were now on the summit of the tableland;
+the bounded river valley gradually gave way to long stretches where
+signs of cultivation were more apparent. We were getting into the great
+wheat-growing district, which the railway is causing to extend year by
+year. At Karahissar, a town of 33,000 inhabitants, a gigantic rock with
+straight sides and castellated top rises abruptly out of the plain, and
+from here another corn-growing valley merges into the great plain
+stretching away to the north. Mount Olympus, whose base we had skirted
+on leaving Brusa, could be very dimly discerned on the sky-line.
+
+Then darkness set in, and the Monster ran steadily on with us into the
+unknown. Towards eight o'clock there was a sudden stop; it had come to
+the end of its tether.
+
+We had left Calphopolos and Ibrahim at Eskishehr, and now only
+Constantin remained as a link with civilisation. Hassan had appeared at
+the station at Eskishehr, prepared to accompany us round the world if
+need be. He wore a brown suit of Turkish trousers and zouave under his
+sheepskin cloak. His pockets bulged rather, so did the wide leather
+belt which he used as a pocket, otherwise his worldly goods were
+contained tied up in a white pocket-handkerchief.
+
+And so we arrived at Konia. Behind us was the railway, leading back to
+the things we knew, to the things we should hope to see again; before
+us was the plain, leading us to strange new things, things we should,
+perhaps, just see once and leave behind for ever.
+
+The iron Monster had dumped us down and was no further concerned with
+us; if we would go further it must be by taking thought for ourselves.
+
+There were horses and arabas to hire, there were provisions to lay in,
+there was the escort of Zaptiehs to be procured and the goodwill of the
+authorities to be obtained. We had letters of introduction to Ferid
+Pasha, then Vali of the Konia vilayet and since Grand Vizier of
+Constantinople. He was not as other Valis; he was called the great and
+the good, and had established law and order in his province. There need
+be no fear of brigandage while we were within the boundaries of his
+jurisdiction.
+
+The Government building, the Konak, occupied one side of the square in
+which stood our hotel, and we sent Hassan across to pay our respects.
+But Ferid Pasha was away, which caused us great disappointment; we
+could only see his Vekil, the acting Governor.
+
+Taking Hassan and Constantin with us, we went up the long flight of
+steps and down a corridor leading to the Vali's room. Peasants and
+ragged soldiers hung about the passage, and black-coated
+Jewish-looking men hurried in and out. A soldier showed us the way,
+holding back the curtains which concealed the entrance to various
+rooms, and from behind which the mysterious looking Jews were
+continually creeping.
+
+The Vekil sat at a table covered over with official documents; a
+divan, higher and harder than those we had seen in private houses, ran
+round two walls, on which squatted several secretaries, holding the
+paper on which they wrote on the palms of their left hands. Beside the
+Vekil sat an old Dervish priest, and next him the Muavin, the
+Christian official appointed after the massacres to inform Valis of
+the wishes of Christians, and better known amongst those who know him
+as "Evet Effendi" (Yes, Effendi).
+
+ * * * * *
+
+X was getting fluent in matters of Turkish greeting; she now reeled
+off a suitable string in reply to theirs. Hassan stood beside us,
+grave and dignified, and we noticed that all the men greeted him very
+courteously. X then endeavoured to explain our desire to travel to
+Mersina and requested the services of a suitable escort. Owing to
+limitations in her knowledge of the Turkish vocabulary, the nearest
+she could get to it was that the Consul at Mersina loved us dearly and
+wished us to come to him. Matters were getting to a deadlock; the
+officials appeared to be asking us what was the object of our journey,
+and we could only insist on the intense love of our English Consul.
+
+Suddenly another visitor was ushered in, and for the first time since
+leaving Nicaea the strange sound of the English tongue fell upon our
+ears. The newcomer was Dr. Nakashian, an Armenian doctor living in
+Konia.
+
+He at once acted as interpreter. Officialdom for once put no obstacles
+in the way, and an escort was promised us for the journey. The Vekil
+inquired whether we should like to see the sights of Konia; and on our
+replying in the affirmative, he arranged that we should be taken round
+that afternoon; Dr. Nakashian also promised to accompany us.
+
+Accordingly we sallied out later on horseback with Hassan. Dr.
+Nakashian was mounted on a splendid Arab mare. The Government
+Protection, in the shape of two Zaptiehs and a captain, followed in a
+close carriage. We started off very decorously, but the Arab mare
+became excited and plunged and galloped down the street; our horses
+caught the infection, and we followed hard; the Government Protection
+put its head out of each window and shouted; the driver lashed his
+jaded horse, and the rickety carriage lurched after us in a cloud of
+dust. The natives lining the streets shouted encouragingly; finally we
+landed at the Dervish mosque. Dervishes are strong in Konia. Their
+founder is buried here, and his tomb is an object of pilgrimage. The
+chief feature of the mosque is its wonderful polished floor, where the
+dancing ceremonies take place.
+
+At Konia, perhaps more than at Eskishehr, one is struck with the
+railway's influence in the passing order of things. There are many fine
+buildings in the last stages of decay in this ancient city of the
+Seljuk Turks; the palace, with its one remaining tower, the fragments
+of the old Seljuk walls found here and there in the middle of the
+modern town, the mosques lined with faience, beautiful even in its
+fragments. Contrast with this the squalor and the dirt of the present
+Turkish streets, the earth and wood houses, enclosed in walls of earth,
+the apathetic natives, and the general feeling of stagnation and decay.
+
+[Illustration: A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS.]
+
+Then, outside the town, the railway appears; modern European houses
+spring up round it--offices for the Company and an hotel. A whiff of
+stir and bustle brought in along with the iron fangs of the Monster
+brings a sense of fresh life to these people, whose existence seemed
+one long decay of better things, like that of the ruins amongst which
+they spend their days.
+
+And everywhere there was a whisper of yet closer touch with
+civilisation. The Anatolian Railway stops at Konia, but its
+continuation under the name of the Baghdad Railway was everywhere in
+the air.[2] No one spoke openly about it; its coming seemed enveloped
+in such a shroud of mystery that one felt there was a sort of halo
+around its birth. At first one mentioned it baldly by name; and at once
+the official would put on his most discreet and impressive manner and
+refer to the will of Allah; the merchant would nod mysteriously and
+then wink with evident satisfaction. "It comes! oh yes, it comes! but
+it is better not to talk of it yet." And the Zaptieh would sigh
+heavily, thinking of his unpaid wages, and say, "Please God, it comes,"
+and then look hastily round to see who had overheard him.
+
+ [2] The Baghdad Railway is now running as far as Bulgurlu, a
+ point some seven miles beyond Eregli.
+
+And so at last we also learnt to speak of the Coming of the Monster
+with bated breath and lowered tones, and were duly infected with the
+impressiveness of his arrival--the arrival of the Being whose touch was
+to bring new life into this dead land.
+
+
+II
+
+It was on the morning of the third day after our arrival at Konia that
+we made the plunge into the great plain from the spot where the Monster
+had left us. We collected in the square in front of the Konak. There
+were two covered arabas to convey the baggage, and in one of these
+Constantin and Hassan also rode; X and I rode horses, and had
+saddle-bags slung under our saddles. Our escort consisted of three
+Zaptiehs, a Lieutenant, Rejeb, and an ancient Sergeant, Mustapha.
+
+The head of the police accompanied us a few miles out of the town.
+
+Slowly, riding at a foot's pace, we left it all behind, the squalid
+streets, the modern houses, the scraggy little trees; the lumpy road
+became a deeply rutted track bordering stubble fields; lumbering carts
+passed us, squeaking terribly as the wheels lurched out of the ruts to
+make way for us. The track became an ill-defined path, along which
+heavily laden pack-animals slowly toiled, raising clouds of dust.
+Turning in our saddles, all we could see of Konia was the minarets of
+its mosques standing above a confused blur on the horizon line.
+
+There is a strange fascination in watching the slow disappearance of
+any object on the horizon, when that horizon is visible at every point
+round you. The exact moment never comes when you can state the actual
+disappearance of the object. You think it is still there, and then you
+slowly realise that it is not. And when you have realised this, you
+turn round again in the saddle once for all, and set your face steadily
+towards the horizon in front of you, which for so many hours on end has
+nothing to show and nothing to tell you, and yet whose very emptiness
+is so full of secret possibilities and hidden wonder.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We had got beyond the point where one met others on the road; we had
+now become our own world, a self-contained planet travelling with the
+sun through space. When he disappeared over the horizon line we pitched
+our camp and waited for his reappearance on the opposite side. At the
+first glimmer announcing his arrival the tents were hauled down, the
+arabas loaded up, and by the time his face peeped over the line we were
+in our saddles, ready once more to follow him to his journey's end.
+
+It is a great half-desert plain, this part of Anatolia; desert only
+where it is waterless, and very fertile where irrigation is possible.
+In places it seemed to form one huge grazing ground; now it would be
+herds of black cattle munching its coarse, dried-up herbage; now flocks
+of mohair goats, now sheep, herded by boys in white sheepskin coats,
+tended by yellow dogs. Then we knew that a village would be somewhere
+about, although we did not always see it; for here too the villages are
+the colour of the surrounding country and perhaps only visible in very
+clear sunlight.
+
+Or it might be that we would ride slowly through a cluster of mud huts,
+and the yellow dogs would rush out and bark furiously at us, while the
+men and children stared silently, too listless even to wonder. At times
+we would stop in a village for our midday meal, sitting in the shade of
+its yellow mud walls. The Zaptiehs would stand round us and keep off
+the dogs until some of the village men would appear and call them away
+with a half-scared look--for the Zaptieh is the tax-collector, and they
+suffer from extortion at his hands.
+
+We visited the women in their houses, and found them always interested
+and friendly. Turkish was becoming more intelligible to us, and the
+conversation usually took the same form:--
+
+"Who is your father?"
+
+"He is a Pasha in a far country."
+
+"Where are your husbands?"
+
+"We have no husbands."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"In our country the women are better than the men, and the men are
+afraid of us."
+
+Then our clothes are fingered all over and the cost of everything on us
+is asked. We rise to go, and they hang on to us and implore us to come
+again. But the sun has already begun to dip on his downward course, and
+we must hurry after him.
+
+Then would follow hours when no attempt at cultivation, or sign of
+herds and flocks, would be visible, and the desert country was only
+relieved by wonderful effects of mirage, in which we would chase
+elusive pictures of mountains and lakes and streams.
+
+One had time to take it all in: the wonderful exhilarating air, the
+silent stretches, the long, monotonous days of the shepherd boys,
+marked only by the gathering in of their flocks at night.
+
+How will it be when the Monster comes, roaring and snorting through
+these silent plains, polluting this clear air with his dust and smoke?
+At first these haughty, resentful shepherds will stand aloof from the
+invasion, the yellow dogs will bark in vain at the intrusion. Then
+slowly its daily appearance will come to them as the sun comes in the
+morning and the stars at night. Unconsciously it also will become a
+part of the routine of their lives. They will not cease to look at it
+with wonder, for they have never wondered. They will accept it, as they
+accept everything else. But use it? That is a different tale. It will
+be a long fight; but the Monster has always conquered in the end.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the third day we rode into Karaman. A medieval castle crowns the
+town, and is visible at some little distance across the plain.
+
+The old sergeant, Mustapha, startled us by suddenly greeting it from
+afar:--
+
+"Ah, Karaman, you beautiful Karaman, city of peace and plenty. Ah,
+Karaman, beloved Karaman!"
+
+And the Zaptiehs, taking up the refrain, made the silent plains ring
+with "Karaman! beautiful Karaman!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We pitched our tents on a grass plot in the centre of the town.
+Constantin began preparing the evening meal, and the natives hung round
+in groups staring at us, or bringing in supplies of fuel and milk and
+eggs. A seedy-looking European pushed his way up to our tent and began
+storming at us in French.
+
+"But it is impossible for you to camp here--it is not allowable; you
+must come at once to my house. There is nothing to say."
+
+X and I tried to rouse our bewildered minds out of the Eastern sense of
+repose into which they had sunk through all these days. We concluded
+that Karaman must possess an urban district council, and that we were
+breaking some law of the town.
+
+We pressed for further enlightenment.
+
+"But do you not see all these people looking at you? It is not for you
+to camp here. My house is ready for you. There are good beds and it is
+dry, but this ..." and he waved his hand at our preparations. "It is
+not possible; there is nothing to say."
+
+By this time Hassan and Rejeb, into whose hands we had been entrusted
+for protection, came up and stood over us, looking threateningly at our
+gesticulating, excited friend.
+
+"I do not understand," I said. "Who says that we may not camp here?"
+
+"But it is I that say it; it is not possible. My house is ready; there
+is nothing to say."
+
+"Who are you?" I said.
+
+"I am an Austrian," he answered. Then he lowered his voice, in that
+mysterious manner which we associated with the coming of the Monster.
+"I am here," he said, in an undertone, "as agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman."
+
+"Very good," I answered; "and now tell us why we cannot camp here."
+
+"But it is damp," he said; "look at the mud."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" I said. "We are much obliged to you for the offer of
+your house, but we always sleep out."
+
+"But I have good beds," he said, "and a dry room at your service. There
+is nothing to say."
+
+At this point Rejeb could contain himself no longer. He spoke sternly
+to the Austrian in Turkish.
+
+"What do you want?" he said. "These ladies are under my protection.
+What are you saying to them?"
+
+The man poured out volumes of Turkish; Rejeb and he had a violent
+altercation, which seemed to be ending in blows.
+
+"Come, come," I said to the man, "enough of this. We are much obliged
+to you for your offer of hospitality, but we prefer to remain outside."
+
+He seemed totally unable to understand that this could be the case. "If
+it is myself you do not care about," he said, in a crestfallen manner,
+"I can easily move from the house. The beds are clean and they are
+dry."
+
+We finally consented to spend the evening at his house, and accompanied
+him through the streets, Rejeb and Hassan following closely on our
+heels. He showed us into a stuffy little sitting-room. Every corner was
+crammed with gimcracks; the whole place reeked of musty wool
+chairbacks.
+
+Then we followed him upstairs; we must at any rate "look at the
+beds"--he evidently thought the sight of them would prove irresistible.
+
+On calmer reflection the beds were, doubtless, no worse than the
+ordinary type to be found in commercial country inns; but to us, coming
+out of the sweet and wholesome atmosphere of the yet untainted plain,
+they seemed to be the very embodiment of stuffiness and discomfort. The
+windows, which had evidently not been opened for some time, were
+heavily draped, so as to effectually exclude all light and air even
+when open.
+
+"There, now do you see? It is clean, it is dry. There is nothing humid
+here; but out there it is exposed, it is damp, it is not allowable."
+
+We waived the question for the moment, reserving our forces for a later
+attack, and returned to the sitting-room, where a native woman was
+preparing the evening meal. We questioned our host on the arrival of
+the railway. He admitted being there to tout for trade _in case_
+it came; but who could tell, in a country like this, what would happen?
+Mon Dieu! it was a God-forsaken country, and all the inhabitants were
+canaille; there was no one he could associate with. He counted the days
+till his return. "When would that be?" "Ah," then he became mysterious
+once more and looked round at the door and window: "Ah, God knows;
+might it come soon!"
+
+The serving-woman appeared and said that our men wished to see us; they
+had been sitting on the doorstep ever since we entered the house and
+refused to go away. The Austrian went out to them; high words ensued,
+and we looked through the door. The Austrian, crimson with rage, was
+gesticulating violently and pouring out torrents of unintelligible
+Turkish. Rejeb stood in front of him, hitting his long riding-boot with
+his whip and answering with some heat. Above him towered Hassan, very
+calm and very quiet, slowly rolling up a cigarette and now and then
+putting in a single word in support of Rejeb.
+
+The Austrian turned to us. "Can you not send these men away, ladies? It
+is an impertinence. They refuse to leave you here unless they
+themselves sleep in the house. They say they have orders never to leave
+you, but surely they can see what I am!"
+
+We calmed him down as best we could, and insisted on our intention of
+returning to our tents. He could not understand it, and I should think
+never will. But we got away, Rejeb and Hassan one on each side of us.
+When we were out on the road in cover of darkness both men burst into
+loud roars of laughter.
+
+"Have we not done well, Effendi?" they said. "We have rescued you from
+the mad little man. The great doctor in London, has he not said, 'You
+shall sleep in the tent every night'?"
+
+And, gathering round our camp-fire in the damp and the mud, we rejoiced
+with Hassan and Rejeb over their gallant assault and our fortunate
+escape.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Two days' further ride brought us to Eregli. We approached it in the
+dusk, riding during the last hour through what appeared to be low copse
+wood. The place seemed low and damp; we rode past the door of the khan,
+and the men besought us to go there instead of camping outside.
+Constantin said he was ill, the arabajis said their horses would be
+ill. But Rejeb and Hassan took our side and we had the tents pitched on
+a spot which seemed dry in the darkness. Next morning we awoke to find
+ourselves encircled by a loop of the river and in a dense white mist.
+It was so cold that the milk froze as we poured it into the tea. We ate
+our breakfast with our gloves on, walking up and down to keep warm.
+
+Constantin said that he was still ill; the arabajis said their horses
+were now ill; but that was because the khan was comfortable. We
+decided, however, to give them a day's respite and ride out ourselves
+to Ivriz in search of the Hittite inscription at that place.
+
+[Illustration: HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ.]
+
+An hour's ride took us clear of the mists, and the sun came out hot and
+strong. Our road lay up a gorgeous richly wooded river valley. For the
+first time on our journey we realised what the absence of water and
+trees had meant. Our horses' feet crackled over brown and red autumn
+leaves; autumn smells, crisp and fresh, filled the air; brown trout
+darted from under dark rocks in the stream. Away through gaps in the
+low encircling hills we got sudden visions of two gigantic white-topped
+mountain peaks, the first suggestion of our approach to the Taurus
+barrier.
+
+Ivriz is a good three hours' ride from Eregli, and lies high on one of
+the lower hills. We left our horses in the village and climbed on foot
+to the spot where the river, rushing suddenly out of the bowels of the
+earth, has formed a cave in the limestone cliff. Below this the stream
+had cut its way through the rock, leaving steep sides of bare stone
+which tell a tale of untold geological age. At one point the ground
+shelved out on a level with the bed of the stream, and the waters here
+swept round a corner, so that the face of the rock overlooking them was
+almost hidden from any one on the same shore.
+
+It is on this face that the Hittite inscription is carved. A god, with
+a stalk of corn and a bunch of grapes in his hands, stands over a man
+who is in an attitude of adoration before him.
+
+There it stands, hidden from the casual observer, visited by no one but
+the native who comes to cure his sickness in the sacred waters of the
+cave above.
+
+Away in the desolate hills, off the track of man, the god has looked
+down on the waters of the river through all those aeons since the days
+of the Hittites, which count as nothing in the time which it took this
+same river to carve its bed out of the eternal hills. How much longer
+will its solitude be left unviolated? The "agent commercial du chemin
+de fer Ottoman" is established at Eregli as elsewhere. When the iron
+Monster comes bellowing into Eregli his shriek will be heard in these
+silent hills, and following in his footsteps countless hordes of
+tourists will invade this sacred spot.
+
+With something akin to a feeling of shame I turned my Kodak on him; and
+a sorrowful thought of the many who would be following my example in
+the years to come shot across my mind.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was the sixth day after leaving Konia, and we were in full view of
+the Taurus Mountains. We were crossing the same stretch of barren
+plain, with its occasional patches of cultivation, its hidden villages
+with the flocks and herds trooping in at sundown. But the bounded
+horizon changed our conception of it; it was no longer a limitless
+plain. The nearer ranges stood out in dark purples and blues; behind
+and above towered the snow-clad heights which, looking down on to the
+Mediterranean shores, knew of the life and bustle of its sea-girt
+towns.
+
+We had come out on the other side of the unknown plain and the aspect
+of things was changed. What drew us on now was not the mystery of
+unexplored space, but the feeling that here was a great barrier to
+cross. We were about to share with these heights the knowledge of what
+lay on the other side. But there was more than this--we were about to
+do what the Monster might possibly fail to do. As we drew near the
+barrier, the mysterious allusions to his approach all took the form of
+pointing at this barrier. "So far and no further he may come," they
+seemed to say.
+
+As I rode with Mustapha up a long, winding pass on the outskirts of the
+range he pointed at the valley below us. "The Turkish Railway," he said
+solemnly.
+
+A long line of laden camels wound slowly up the opposite side; for a
+full quarter of a mile they covered in single file the road winding up
+out of the valley. I pulled my horse up, and Mustapha stopped his
+alongside of mine. We both bent our heads forward and listened. The
+sound of their tinkling bells came faintly across the valley to us; the
+low, musical tones, the quiet, measured movement, all was in keeping
+with the towering mountains and the still, clear air. Hassan rode up
+with the other men and joined us. He put his hands up to his mouth and
+gave a shrill, prolonged whistle in exact imitation of the engine we
+had left at Konia. The men looked at one another and laughed. Then they
+shrugged their shoulders and pushed on up the path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN THE TAURUS
+
+
+The Taurus range bounds in a semicircle the base of the plateau we had
+crossed. We had always been over 3,000 feet above sea-level, and now
+the heights of the Boulghar Dagh, as this part of the Taurus is called,
+rose high above us. The pass we were making for measured nearly 6,000
+feet, and it looked low in the level of the range. After leaving Eregli
+we had made a short day to Tchaym, some four hours' ride across a very
+barren stretch of country, with the snow mountains always in front of
+us. The next day was to be our last on the plains, for our destination
+was Ulu Kishla, well up on the hills. We had always great difficulty in
+deciding what the stages of our journey were to be. Maps and guidebooks
+were out of the question, the Zaptiehs had only very vague ideas as to
+distances, and local informants were hard to understand.
+
+Our destinations and the distances formed fruitful topics of
+conversation with the men, and generally ended in amicable wrangles.
+
+X having made out from the khanji[3] that it was ten hours' ride from
+Tchaym to Ulu Kishla, asked Rejeb's opinion on the matter.
+
+ [3] Innkeeper.
+
+REJEB. Eleven hours.
+
+MUSTAPHA. No, no, twelve hours. Tchaym to Ulu Kishla twelve hours.
+
+X. No, no, ten hours.
+
+REJEB AND MUSTAPHA (_in chorus_). No, no, the Pasha Effendi goes
+like the post.
+
+X. It is ten hours; Rejeb and Mustapha go like camels. (_Roars of
+laughter._)
+
+REJEB. It is Mustapha and the little Pasha Effendi who go like camels,
+_javash, javash_ (slowly, slowly).
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At Ulu Kishla we lunched in a huge khan, half in ruins, the size of
+which suggested the almost inconceivable size of the caravans which
+must have passed in better days. Here we decided to send the arabas on
+with half the escort, to await us at the next stage on the main road.
+Taking Hassan and Rejeb and one of the Zaptiehs with us, we branched
+off to visit Boulghar Maden, the highest village of the Taurus, noted
+for its silver mines. It was a rough ride up; now over chunks of rock,
+now along slippery grass slopes, then rock again and sliding bits of
+stone.
+
+The hills shut us in all round until we neared the summit of the pass;
+here we reached a level above that of the heights we had skirted on the
+previous day, and we could see the whole long line of peaks ranging
+westward to the sea. In front of us the chain of mountains on the
+opposite side of the valley, whose heights looked down on the Cilician
+Plain, obscured the view in that direction. We rode towards them in a
+southerly direction and began the descent into the valley below.
+Boulghar Maden lies perched on the hillside, and stretches into the
+valley, so that standing outside the higher houses you looked down on a
+sea of flat roofs below you. Tall, thin poplar-trees, rising above the
+houses in rows, mark it out like a chess-board. The great hillside
+which backs it to the south and keeps off the sun till midday is
+scarred and marked with the entrances to the mines.
+
+A small party of horsemen rode out of the town and came clambering up
+the hill towards us. Rejeb confessed to having sent a telegram from Ulu
+Kishla announcing our arrival to the Kaimakam, and suggested that this
+was a deputation sent out by him to receive us.
+
+Our spirits sank when we got near enough to distinguish European
+clothes on the leader of the party; we had been feeling ourselves
+tolerably safe from "agents commercials" at this altitude. Already from
+afar we were greeted in voluble French, which heightened our fears. The
+man was accompanied by a Turkish official and two Zaptiehs. The road
+was so steep that they dismounted and led their horses, both men and
+animals panting furiously. Our horses slid down the rough track,
+scattering the loose stones before them in all directions, and we
+joined the party below.
+
+"Salutations from Monsieur le Kaimakam, and he bids you welcome to
+Boulghar Maden." The man took off his fez and bowed. We saw that he was
+a cut above the enemy we had been fearing and we felt happier. He then
+explained that he was the representative in Boulghar Maden of our
+merchant friends in Constantinople, that he was an Armenian, that the
+Kaimakam was most perturbed lest we should not be received in proper
+manner, and had commissioned him, Onik Dervichian, at our service, to
+make all arrangements for our comfort. We were to be the guests of the
+Kaimakam, and he had caused rooms to be got ready for us in the house
+of a Greek family, where he would send down the feast he was preparing.
+But first he was expecting us at the Konak.
+
+We all scrambled down the hill together and rode through the village to
+the Government buildings. A line of Zaptiehs was drawn up at the
+entrance and fired a salute as we passed. Then we dismounted, and were
+led through the usual mysterious curtain-hung doors into the Kaimakam's
+presence.
+
+With our friend as interpreter, we felt sure the correct salutations
+would be delivered on our behalf. The health of the King of England and
+of our fathers, the great Pashas, was duly inquired after. Onik
+Dervichian then hustled us away to the Greek house. Here we found the
+women in a great state of perturbation and excitement. Our friend had
+sent down sheets for our beds, which were being constructed on the
+divans; would he show them where they were meant to go? Onik Dervichian
+threw off his coat and set to work on the beds himself, smoothing out
+the sheets with the fat Greek mother, who argued volubly with him the
+whole time. The two daughters of the house looked on and laughed; the
+little fat boy put his finger in his mouth and roared with laughter.
+Hassan stood in the doorway beaming with satisfaction. We were to sleep
+indoors, but was it not with Government sanction and under Government
+auspices? This was quite a different matter from the Karaman
+experience.
+
+Rejeb was having a good time recounting our adventures to his brother
+officers at the Konak, whither he had hastened back after seeing us
+safely landed at the house.
+
+A messenger arrived from the Kaimakam--were the ladies ready for the
+feast? The dishes had been prepared and the servants were awaiting
+commands. We invited Onik Dervichian to stay and help us through; for
+this was not the first time we had experienced Turkish hospitality and
+suspected that our powers would be taxed to the full.
+
+The little low table was brought in, and Onik showed the Greek mother
+how to lay it "a la Franka." The dishes began to arrive: curries and
+pilafs and roasted kid; dolmas and chickens and kebabs; and then the
+nameless sweet dishes which Turkish cooks only know how to prepare. At
+the fourth course I made an attempt to strike, but Onik Dervichian was
+shocked.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam," and he piled up my
+plate.
+
+At the fifth course he anticipated me.
+
+"Now, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+At the sixth: "Now, mademoiselle."
+
+"No," I said; "Kaimakam or no Kaimakam, I can't."
+
+Onik Dervichian's face was a study.
+
+"Mais, mademoiselle, _seulement_ pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+"You will have to do it all yourself, then," I said; "he won't know
+which of us has eaten it."
+
+Onik rose manfully to the occasion and did his best. Only at the last
+dish did he lean back and, rubbing himself gently, murmur:
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu! et tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There were "written stones," they told us, in this neighbourhood too;
+accordingly next day we hired a native as guide and set off in search
+of them.
+
+A road roughly cut on the side of the mountain led out of Boulghar
+Maden down the valley to the east; below it, precipitous sides shot
+into the river's bed; above it, the range we had crossed the previous
+day towered overhead.
+
+About a mile outside the village we turned off the road and wound up
+the mountain-side. Our horses pushed their way through the thorns and
+brambles which grew in rank profusion in and out amongst the rocky
+projections, until we had scrambled up to the summit of an outlying
+hill-top. Here a rocky projection stood out higher than the surrounding
+ones and showed a flat face of wall to the midday sun. It was just
+possible to make out that there was an inscription on this face. We
+could see that the characters were cut in relief and not incised. The
+Hittites were metal workers, and this characteristic of their
+inscriptions no doubt arose from their habit of embossing metal. That
+they were particularly fond of silver is suggested by the fact that
+many of their treaties were inscribed on tablets of that metal.
+Inscriptions are also found on stones near the Gumush Dagh, where
+silver-mines have been worked. We may presumably infer that the working
+of these mines at Boulghar Maden dates from Hittite times. The view in
+front of us was one vast breaking sea of mountain tops; the snow-clad
+heights forming the crests gleamed, in sudden flashes of sunlight, like
+the surf on a rising wave.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We left Boulghar Maden the next morning. The Kaimakam insisted that we
+should drive in his carriage down to Chifte Khan, the point on the main
+route where we were to meet our arabas. The road had only been made a
+few years and they were very proud of it; it was an exquisite road, we
+were told. The Kaimakam, we were also told, was very proud of his
+carriage. When he went to visit the mines he had it out; but his horse
+was led behind, for apparently his pride in it was not so great as
+regard for his own comfort, not to say safety. But here was an occasion
+for him to vaunt his pride with none of the accompanying discomforts.
+
+It arrived: a springless box on wheels, a hard and narrow seat on each
+side, the top encased in a heavy roof, with rattling glass windows. The
+whole was painted a bright primrose yellow, and was drawn by two small
+Turkish horses.
+
+X and I got in somewhat ruefully. It was a glorious fresh, sunny day,
+and we were about to pass through some of the finest scenery of the
+Taurus district.
+
+Onik Dervichian, who came to start us on the way, and Hassan sat inside
+with us. The Kaimakam had sent his servants to ride our horses; they
+and the Zaptiehs followed in a long string behind. For the first mile
+or two the road was fairly smooth; the vehicle lumbered heavily along;
+when it struck a loose stone the glass rattled furiously. We peered
+longingly through the panes, trying to catch glimpses of the
+surroundings. Pine woods nodded in the light breeze, but the noise
+drowned their whispers. Valley and hills streaked with laughing shadows
+beckoned to us to come out and look at them. Every turn in the road
+displayed new vistas of pine-clad slopes, shooting long tongues of
+green into the brown-red rocks.
+
+As time went on the road became very rough; great masses of solid rock
+lay across it, and the carriage, lurching up over them, jumped us about
+on the hard seats and knocked us up against one another. Hassan took it
+calmly; he merely ejaculated "Aman" when an extra lurch sent him flying
+off the seat.
+
+Onik Dervichian, however, was sorely troubled.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu!" he cried out at intervals, "et tout cela pour faire
+plaisir au Kaimakam."
+
+At times it was not only painful but positively dangerous. The side of
+the hill would rise up in perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow
+ledge of road, cut at right angles to it, barely gave width enough for
+the wheels to pass; a jerk in the wrong direction would have
+precipitated us down the rocks into the valley beneath.[4]
+
+ [4] We heard later that the official who had been mainly
+ responsible for the construction of the road met his death in
+ this manner shortly after our visit.
+
+At such moments Onik Dervichian, pink with terror and excitement,
+opening with difficulty the door at the back, would scramble out and
+follow on foot. The crisis over, his sense of humour would return and
+he would take his seat again, throw up his hands and ejaculate, "Et
+tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam!"
+
+Then the carriage came to a dead stop. In front of us the ledge of rock
+had broken away, and two great boulders, fallen from above, blocked the
+narrow way.
+
+X pointed down the steep precipice.
+
+"Look, Hassan, look," she said, pretending to shudder.
+
+Hassan looked.
+
+"You go over, I go too," was his reply.
+
+The driver got down and examined the obstruction. We all got out and
+examined it. The servants leading our horses behind, dismounted and
+examined it. The horses stood with their noses on it and stared
+stupidly. Then everybody took hold of the wheels and lifted and shoved
+the whole concern bodily over. With the wheels on one side falling well
+over the steep side, the driver carefully engineered horses and
+carriage round the corner.
+
+Bruised and exhausted, shaken in body and nerves, we were finally
+safely landed at Chifte Khan, where we found our men and arabas
+awaiting us. We flung ourselves down on the grass of a little orchard
+and thanked God for our delivery from the task of pleasing Kaimakams.
+Hassan stood over us and gazed thoughtfully at the yellow carriage
+standing by the roadside, while the driver devoured pilaf at the door
+of the khan.
+
+"It is well now," he said; "we have pleased the Kaimakam."
+
+The driver clambered up on the seat again, and turned his horses' heads
+up the road we had left.
+
+"Thank God," said Onik Dervichian, "that we are still alive to see it
+depart!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From Chifte Khan we followed a good road, through the gorgeous vale of
+Bozanti, to Ak Kupru, where we pitched our camp for the night by the
+side of the river Chakut.
+
+The weather broke suddenly, and we reached the place in torrents of
+rain.
+
+The wind, tearing in gusts up the valley, shook the walls of the tent,
+and the ropes strained at the pegs. It drove the rain so hard against
+the white canvas that it forced the drops through almost against their
+will. It would have been so much easier for them just to run down the
+outside slope; but every force in nature seemed to be let loose to make
+the others worse. I moved my bed a little to try and get a clear course
+between two sets of drips. X surveyed my endeavours from where she sat,
+mechanically tilting a pool off her mackintosh rug when the accumulated
+drops showed signs of flowing in disastrous directions.
+
+"It's no use trying not to be wet," she said, "when there is no way of
+keeping dry."
+
+A new drip in the centre of the two original ones forced me to accept
+her philosophy, and we sat silently watching the scene outside. In
+front of us a bridge crossed the river and from it wound the road we
+should follow, zigzagging up until it disappeared round a corner. The
+Taurus Mountains rose like a black barrier in front of us, towering
+aloft in gigantic walls of rock; then layers of black forest and grassy
+slopes, then misty tops showing white snow where the clouds parted. At
+their feet on the other side lay the great Cilician Plain, covered with
+yellow crops and brown earth and clothed with mud-coloured villages. On
+the other side also was the Mediterranean, blue and calm; there was sun
+and warmth and quiet, and people quietly basking in the heat. But on
+this side there was turmoil and cold and wet; the earth's face was hard
+and bare, and over it angry waters dashed in heedless, headlong fury;
+angry clouds overhead vied with them, shooting down relentless torrents
+of rain. On the other side, the blue Cydnus wound gently in and out
+through the level plain, and made marshes of its low banks as its
+waters lazily crawled round in long, curving loops. On this side the
+Chakut Su, goaded on by the maddened waterfalls, rushed its black
+waters impatiently against obstructing rocks and turning white with
+fury foamed round them in angry swirls and dashed on through narrow
+gorges, lashing at their mocking, immovable walls.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We sought refuge in the khan for the evening meal, sharing the fire
+with our own men and the Zaptiehs. Onik Dervichian, always merry and
+full of resources even on such an evening, made the men sit round so as
+to leave an empty space in the centre of the room. Then he produced a
+walking-stick and laid it flat on the ground.
+
+"Stand up, oh stick!" he said, waving his hand and addressing it in
+Turkish.
+
+Not a sound could be heard in the room; all eyes were fixed on the
+stick, which slowly rose and stood up, apparently of itself.
+
+"Ha! ha!" went round the room in deep murmurs.
+
+"Lie down, oh stick!" said Onik.
+
+And the stick, after giving a hop or two, went slowly down on the floor
+again.
+
+For full half an hour did Onik Dervichian, by means of a fine thread
+invisible in the dim firelight, go through a series of tricks with the
+walking-stick.
+
+The men never moved or took their eyes off it for a moment, but showed
+no curiosity about it. They took it, like everything else, as a matter
+of course.
+
+Hassan and Rejeb, two silent men, talked together the whole night long
+just outside our tent. What with this and the wind and the rain, and
+the flapping of the tent and the drips, which, coursing down the
+canvas, found new points of entry at every moment, we got but little
+rest.
+
+Hassan greeted us with an anxious look next morning.
+
+"You were not frightened in the night, I hope?" he said.
+
+"No," I answered, "but we did not get much rest."
+
+"Rejeb and I," he went on, "were afraid you would be frightened by the
+noises, and we talked all night to show that we were close at hand."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The rain was still coming down in torrents. The khanji said it had come
+to stay, and he made a big fire, for he expected us to stay.
+
+But X was inexorable. If the bad weather had begun, she said, we must
+push on and get through the pass before we were snowed up; that would
+be worse than getting a wetting.
+
+We had all got into the habit of doing what X told us; so Hassan went
+out grimly and packed up the sodden tents. "Aman, aman," he murmured
+now and again, "it is the whim of a woman." The arabajis dejectedly
+fetched out the horses, who drooped their heads in the rain and blinked
+reproachfully. "It is the will of Allah," said the men, and they loaded
+up the tents. The Zaptiehs and Rejeb fetched their horses and mounted.
+"It is the will of Allah," said also the Zaptiehs; but their Lieutenant
+held his peace. The rain might be the will of Allah, but to ride
+through it was the whim of a woman.
+
+One by one we filed out over the bridge and up the winding road
+opposite. The arabas creaked; their sodden, wooden wheels squeaked as
+they lurched along after us; and the khanji stood in the doorway and
+wondered a little; then he went back to his fire. And we rode up and up
+silently. Thick rain mists shrouded the heights above us; gradually we
+reached the forest line, and the grassy slopes were level with us on
+the opposite side of the valley; and still we rode gently up and up.
+The rain lessened a little bit, and we raised our heads and told each
+other so. Onik Dervichian burst into song and made the hills echo with
+his ringing voice. Then the rain poured down again and we rode silently
+on into it.
+
+A string of camels laden with merchandise met us just as we were
+crossing a track, which was being temporarily turned into the bed of a
+stream for superfluous waters. Their great hoofs slipped on the greasy,
+muddy sides, and each one paused in its mechanical march as its turn
+came to slide down the slippery bank.
+
+"Y'allah, y'allah!" shouted the drivers, prodding them, and they
+resignedly put forward their great hoofs and floundered after their
+companions.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The arabas made slow progress up the hill. We were getting wet through
+and decided to push on ahead with Rejeb and two of the Zaptiehs. Onik
+Dervichian announced his intention of returning; he could reach
+Boulghar Maden that evening if he went no further, and he did not
+relish the idea of another night such as the one he had just spent.
+
+At midday we arrived at Gulek Boghaz, where we found a new detachment
+of Zaptiehs awaiting us, for we had crossed the borders of the Konia
+vilayet and were now under the Vali of Adana. The men took our horses
+and led them into the stable. Streams of water ran off horses and men
+alike and collected in pools about the uneven floor. We brushed past
+the horses' heels and went on into the living room leading out of the
+stable, where a roaring wood fire blazed at the far end. We lay on the
+rough divan in the corner and thawed and dried. The men came in from
+seeing to their horses, and the fire drew clouds of thick steam out of
+their soaking clothes.
+
+Rejeb sent out a Zaptieh to see if there was any sign of the arabas,
+but he returned with no news save that of increasing rain. We dozed
+round the hot fire; the Zaptiehs sat at the far end of the room and
+smoked; there was no sound but the beating of the rain outside and of
+the horses munching and stamping in the adjoining room.
+
+More than an hour passed and still no sign of the arabas. We roused
+ourselves and conjectured all the possibilities of mishap: a wheel had
+come off; they had stuck in the mud; they had lost their way; the roads
+were too heavy for the horses after the rain; they had been attacked by
+brigands.
+
+X, however, had her own suspicions. The arabajis had been very loth to
+leave Ak Kupru, and they knew of our intention of pushing on after the
+midday rest. They were dawdling on the road or sheltering somewhere out
+of the rain--we had passed an open shed--so as to ensure arriving too
+late for us to get on to the next stage.
+
+She cast round for a method of outwitting them, and at last hit on one.
+
+"You take two of the new Zaptiehs," she said, "and ride on with them to
+the next khan; I will wait here until the arabas turn up. We cannot
+leave you alone, and that will be an excuse to make the men come on."
+
+I always did as X told me, and rose obediently from the warm corner. As
+I drew on my dry overcoat, hot from the fire, and looked out at the
+drenching rain, I felt strongly drawn in sympathy towards the arabajis.
+My horse was saddled and dragged outside, as loth to leave its
+companions as I was. I mounted, and bid farewell to Rejeb and Mustapha,
+who were returning to Konia. It was a tearful parting, for they had
+been with us now for eleven days and we were fast friends. X stood in
+the doorway of the stable.
+
+"When you get to the khan," she called out after me, "say 'Atesh
+getir.'"
+
+"All right," I said obediently. What "atesh getir" meant I did not
+know; but X said I was to say it and that was enough. I was awfully
+afraid of forgetting it, and it was too wet to make a note, so I kept
+on repeating it at intervals. The Zaptiehs rode one behind and one
+before me, for the road was narrow. By and by we entered a defile not
+more than three or four yards across, where the rocks towered above us
+quite perpendicularly on one side and overhung us on the other; the
+road became almost coincident with the bed of the stream, and a large
+piece of fallen rock nearly blocked the way. The Zaptieh in front of me
+pointed with his whip at the rock just over our heads and also at the
+one fallen in the bed of the stream. The rain was pouring over the
+faces of both, and obscured them, but it was just possible to make out
+that these also were "written stones," and I concluded that we must be
+riding through the famous Cilician Gates, round which the historical
+interest of the Taurus centres.
+
+I repeated "Atesh getir" devoutly, and we hurried on. A two hours' ride
+brought us to a khan on the side of the road. One of the Zaptiehs
+galloped ahead to announce our arrival. The yard, ankle deep in mud,
+was full of dripping animals and men. The khanji helped me to dismount,
+and I said "Atesh getir." He nodded and smiled and talked away at me
+hard as he led me into a vast room, perfectly bare, without even the
+usual divan. There was a wood fire burning up a tumble-down chimney in
+the middle, and they fetched me a little three-legged stool to sit on.
+I thanked them and said "Atesh getir" once more. The Zaptiehs came and
+turned my hat and coat round and round in front of the fire to dry, as
+an excuse to dry their own. A boy appeared with more logs of wood,
+which he threw on the fire. Every now and then the khanji would come
+and jabber at me, and I smiled and nodded and said "Atesh getir." It
+seemed now to have become a sort of joke, for every time I said it the
+Zaptiehs and the other men laughed, and I caught the words repeatedly
+in their conversation amongst themselves. Every few minutes the boy
+came and threw more wood on the fire, then he would turn and ask me a
+question. I had nothing but "Atesh getir" to say. But I felt a little
+nervous about the size of the fire. It was exceeding the bounds of the
+hearth, and I was afraid would soon burn down the rotten old place, for
+the heat was terrific. So I would point at the fire and shake my head
+when he threw on the logs, but he only grinned and went off to return
+with some more.
+
+As I sat there waiting for X, I knew that I should always remember once
+for all that warmth is the one thing in the world which really matters.
+I was hungry, for we had not tasted much food that day. There was not
+much to sit upon, the stool had got very hard; the room was dirty and
+bare, and the smell of wet animals came up from the sheds below; but
+the fire made up for it all. One felt one had really got all one
+wanted, and I would not have exchanged that fire for the best of meals
+or the downiest of beds.
+
+I was quite content to sit by it and wait for X for ever if need be.
+She had shipped me off with two strange men to a strange place with two
+strange words whose meaning I did not know--but there was the fire.
+
+She arrived at last. The men all came tramping in with her and gathered
+round the blazing logs. Hassan fetched a bundle out of the araba, where
+the things had kept fairly dry, and made a seat for us. Constantin
+opened the last tin of sardines, and having demolished them we finished
+up with native bread and honey.
+
+Hassan went out to look for a place to pitch the tent, and came back to
+say there was nothing but mud and water outside: should he put it up
+under an open shed just below the room? The floor was sodden with the
+smell of generations of passing caravans, but there seemed no other
+choice, and the tent was the only means of privacy.
+
+Late at night a sudden thought struck me. I turned towards X and saw
+that she was awake.
+
+"X," I said, "what does 'atesh getir' mean?"
+
+"It means 'get a fire,'" said X sleepily.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were awakened early by the departure, before sunrise, of the men and
+animals who, quartered in the yard of which our shed formed part, had
+not given us much peace during the night. We were not loth, on our
+part, to leave the tent, which had caught and retained the smell rising
+up from the sodden earth floor, until we were nearly choked with the
+fumes. It was still raining, and the peaks we had ridden under the day
+before were shrouded in mist. We kept on descending slowly, and by and
+by came out on a piece of open moor land. The sun began to appear again
+now. We were leaving it all behind, the cold and the wet and the storms
+of the hills. We were getting into the stillness of the plains again.
+The men took off their overcoats and rolled them up on their saddles
+behind. One by one we shed the wraps which had seemed so thin and
+inefficient under the snowy heights; they were getting unbearable here.
+
+We expected at every turn to get a view of the sea. In spite of this,
+its first appearance was so sudden as to come as a surprise. We rounded
+a corner, and there it lay, as we had pictured it on the other side,
+still and bright, with no suggestion of storm and turmoil. It was not
+till that moment that we had the distinct feeling of having crossed the
+barrier. Each step forward now unrolled bit by bit the stretch of plain
+at our feet. There was the Cydnus winding its easy course through
+fertile lands as if there were no trouble in its rising waters. There
+was Tarsus, its flat roofs so sunk in gardens and fruit-trees that
+minarets and domes alone proclaimed the presence of a large town; and
+there, too, still faint and dim, but unmistakable, was the thin, moving
+line of smoke which proclaimed that we were nearing the land of the
+Monster once more.
+
+Can it be that the day is not far distant when this one will join hands
+with its brother through the barrier we have crossed; and tearing
+through these silent plains and the rugged fastnesses of these great
+hills, destroy the mystery over which they have so long kept their
+sacred guard?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ROYAL PROGRESS
+
+
+In the line of country stretching from Tarsus eastward to Urfa, there
+is a series of stations of the American Mission Board. Travelling as we
+did, in the direction of this line, we made these stations our stages,
+and hired horses and men afresh at each place.
+
+At Tarsus we camped in the playground of the mission school run by Dr.
+Christie. On the evening of our arrival out of the Taurus Mountains we
+were eating off spotless cloths with knives and forks, and were singing
+"Onward, Christian soldiers" with a hundred Armenian and Greek
+students.
+
+The plunge out of rough travelling into these oases of civilisation is
+very sudden, and the contrast gives a full meaning to the advantages
+and disadvantages of both forms of existence.
+
+The missionaries are the embodiment of hospitality. They know also what
+the discomforts of our journey have been, for they have gone through
+much the same experience themselves in order to arrive at their present
+homes; and so we find hot baths awaiting us and fresh supplies of
+hairpins; buttons are sewn on, and clothes sent to the wash. We are
+started off on the road again clean and tidy, and with a linen bag full
+of home-made white bread, which will see us through many days. We also
+carry with us thoughts of the splendid work which is being done by
+them, and of the hardship and danger many of them have gone through in
+carrying out this work of education among these Eastern Christians.
+Gathered round the fire at night we would listen to tales of bloodshed
+and massacre, of domestic tragedies and individual heroism, of anxiety
+and hope all told with that simplicity and quietness which bears the
+stamp of a personal experience which has come face to face with the
+real facts of life in a barbaric land.
+
+But, once we were on the road again, we were glad to be there, glad to
+hear only the sound of the Turkish tongue; glad to lie out once more
+under the stars and eat our meal round the camp-fire at night.
+
+Occasionally, too, we would get sudden reminders of the institutions we
+had left. A stray Armenian would accost us on the road with "Who are
+you? Where are you going? What is your name?" in the English tongue
+with a perceptible nasal twang. We would have a momentary unpleasant
+sense of impertinent familiarity. Then one would pull oneself together
+and remember the doctrine of universal brotherly love which was being
+instilled into the minds of mission students, and would try hard not to
+mind when the individual would proceed to tell us that we were his
+sisters, that he loved us very much, and would we give him a
+subscription towards a harmonium for his church.
+
+It was during this stage of our journey, also, that we were taken to be
+royalties and received at the larger towns with military honours. The
+idea seems to have emanated from Konia after our departure from there.
+We had left cards on the officials at the Konak. Now X's Christian name
+was Victoria, and her address printed on the card was Prince's Gate. To
+the Turkish mind this was conclusive evidence that she was a relation
+of the great queen, and instructions for our suitable reception were
+accordingly telegraphed on. At Adana we found ourselves indisputably
+"daughters of the King of Switzerland." It was of no use denying it:
+"naturally we wished to preserve an _incognito_."
+
+We were summoned to pay a state visit to the Vali of Adana and were
+accompanied by his secretary, who talked French.
+
+VALI. Welcome; you have come.
+
+X. Gladly we have found ourselves.
+
+VALI. By your features and bearing I can see you are of the high
+aristocracy.
+
+INTERPRETER. The ladies say that they also can see that you are a most
+high and noble prince. (_Turns to us._ You said that, didn't you?)
+
+VALI. And how do the noble ladies find Adana?
+
+INTERPRETER. The ladies find Adana the most charming and delightful
+spot in Turkey.
+
+X. Please thank his Excellency for sending the Zaptiehs to meet us;
+we were very pleased with them.
+
+VALI. The ladies are most welcome; if they should wish for fifty
+Zaptiehs they would be at their service.
+
+(_Mutual bows and salaams._)
+
+VALI. And where do the ladies intend to travel after this?
+
+X. We wish to go by Aintab and Diarbekr to Baghdad. Does his
+Excellency think the road is safe?
+
+VALI. Wherever the ladies go their safety is assured; they are the
+guests of the nation. There is not a governor in the land who has not
+received orders to look after them in every way.
+
+(_Further bows and expression of thanks._)
+
+VALI (_continues_). The ladies, however, will find it most
+uncomfortable travelling at this time of year. I would urge them to
+give up the idea of this journey.
+
+X. We are obliged to your Excellency for your advice, but we do not
+really mind the discomforts of travel.
+
+VALI (_turns to his Muavin, the_ "Evet Effendi" _already mentioned_).
+This gentleman has just returned from Baghdad; he will tell you how
+very disagreeable the journey will be.
+
+MUAVIN. Evet, Effendim; the road, of course, is safe as regards the
+tribes; but do not the ladies fear tigers and the many wild beasts
+which may be encountered?
+
+VALI. I assure you it is not safe for you. You hear what this
+gentleman says. If the ladies will wait till the spring I will arrange
+for them to accompany my brother, the Prince of Kurdistan, in his
+expedition to the mountains.
+
+Finding it impossible to dissuade us, the Vali then leads the way to
+the Council chamber, and makes X sit in the Presidential chair, where,
+he informs us, no one but the Vali has ever sat. He tells X she is now
+the Vali Pasha, this is her house, and he is at her commands.
+
+X promptly seizes the opportunity, and asks for favour to be extended
+to a friend we had met in the course of our travels, who had been
+banished from Adana owing to having incurred the Vali's displeasure.
+
+VALI. Because he was kind to you I will pardon him. He may come back
+if it will please the ladies.
+
+X. We are much obliged to your Excellency.
+
+VALI. Many people have spoken to me for him, but I would not listen;
+but to please the ladies I will now forgive him.
+
+VALI. Will it please the ladies to dine with me to-morrow?
+
+X. We thank your Excellency, it would give us much pleasure. But we
+must apologise for our clothes; we are travelling, and have no
+suitable dresses for dining with your Excellency.
+
+VALI (_waves his hand_). The ladies must not mention it. I can see by
+their appearance how noble they are, and their clothes are therefore
+of no significance.
+
+X. We will now say goodbye, and we thank your Excellency for all your
+kindness.
+
+VALI. It is I that am indebted for your presence. Will you send my
+love to his Excellency your father? for he also is a Pasha, and we are
+brothers.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From Adana our next stage was to Aintab. Our luggage had now all to be
+conveyed on pack-mules, for we were going over tracks where wheels
+could not pass. This made our party seem larger, for we needed three
+mules for the baggage, and they were accompanied by three muleteers,
+who also looked after our horses and the mules ridden by our men. Our
+escort here consisted of four Zaptiehs and a Captain. This was the
+lowest number to which we had been able to reduce the fifteen men the
+Vali had pressed upon us. Nominally, they received no pay from us, but
+the "baksheesh" which we were expected to give them no doubt
+compensated for the arrears of pay from which the Turkish soldier
+invariably suffers.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We had parted with Constantin at Adana. He was not very suitable for
+really rough camping work, and we had asked the missionaries at Adana
+to recommend us a less civilised person, who would be more competent in
+tight places. Through them we engaged an Armenian, Arten by name. He
+could only speak Turkish, so we were now entirely thrown on our own
+resources as to Turkish conversation. X, however, had acquired quite
+enough of the language to be intelligible to Hassan, who interpreted
+our wants to the others.
+
+We had hardly left Adana before incessant heavy rains came on, which
+turned the tracks into impassable mud swamps. We struggled on as far as
+Hamidieh, where we sought refuge in the house of an Austrian widow who
+ran a large cotton mill in the place. For three days the rain came down
+in torrents. I went to bed indoors with fever; X, however, still
+preferred to sleep out in the tent in pools of water, which the men
+vainly endeavoured to keep out by digging trenches all round. On the
+third day we sallied out again and pitched our camp in the middle of
+little green pasture fields in the bed of a lovely valley. Real milking
+cows strayed about in the little fields, and cocks and hens crowed and
+cackled familiarly close to us. This was a very different country from
+the one we had left. In spite of the fact that we had had to exchange
+wheels for pack-mules, it seemed far more civilised and cultivated.
+Trees and water everywhere gave one a feeling of life and growing
+things, unlike the stagnation of the waterless parts.
+
+The Zaptiehs here, in greeting the town or village we were approaching,
+would always include in their praises its power of providing milk and
+eggs. Our former Zaptiehs had handed on to them that we had an
+insatiable desire for these luxuries, and they would use this as an
+inducement for us to come on to any place where they particularly
+desired to camp, a desire which generally arose from the vicinity of
+some large khan where they could spend a sociable evening.
+
+"Oh, it is a lovely village; there are many eggs, there is much milk.
+The cows they are never dry, and the hens they never cease to lay. The
+chickens, too, they are not all legs, they are fat and juicy."
+
+But we were getting out of the Cilician Plain and the Taurus was with
+us again. The branch which runs southwards from the main chain to the
+coast at Alexandretta, the beautiful Amanus range, still cut us off
+from the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.
+
+For three days we rode on the outskirts, now climbing gentle, wooded
+slopes, now winding round a stony valley path; every evening we found
+ourselves at a higher altitude. We were getting into the Kurdish
+country. Their handsome women sat on the wide doorstep, which often
+formed the roof of a house beneath, grinding corn between two flat
+stones, or baking flat cakes of bread. They wore huge white headdresses,
+spotlessly clean, covered with silver ornaments, and short crimson
+zouave jackets. They were disposed to be very friendly, and used to
+come into our tent with offerings of oranges and eggs. At one small
+village we came in for a Kurdish wedding. We happened to arrive just as
+the bride was being torn, struggling and weeping, from her father's
+house by the bridegroom and his friends. At first we imagined ourselves
+witnesses of some domestic tragedy, but we were informed that the
+display of grief and resistance was part of the ceremony. The bride was
+plastered over with ornaments and her head was bedecked with a great
+crown of feathers. She was put, still sobbing, on a white horse, and
+led away to the bridegroom's village, to the sound of bagpipes and
+flutes and the shouts and laughter of a hundred brightly dressed
+natives.
+
+Then we had a precipitous ride up to Avjila, a wild, Kurdish village,
+3,000 feet above sea-level. Hidden away amongst the rocks, a few score
+of shepherds tended their mountain flocks. From Avjila the road wound
+round grassy hills and through richly wooded slopes, where the crimson
+berries of the carob-tree hung over our path and the leaves of the
+golden plane dazzled our eyes in the sunlight. The woodman would be
+busy too, and we would hear the sound of his axe in the pine-trees, or
+brush past a mule loaded with long, scratching bundles of firewood.
+
+The Amanus range slopes very abruptly to the plain on the opposite
+side. It was not till the tenth day after leaving Adana, owing to our
+delay at Hamidieh, that we reached the gap in the trees at the summit
+of the pass which gives you one short glimpse of Aintab on the plain
+below. The muleteers stopped here to throw stones on a cairn beside the
+track and greeted the town with expressions of endearment and praise.
+
+"Give us a coin for luck, Pashas," they said, "and that no evil may
+befall us in the place."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We rode straight into the Mission compound at Aintab, and found
+ourselves at once in a very academic atmosphere. The mission has been
+established here over sixty years and has a brave show of buildings: a
+college with five professors, a hospital, an orphanage, a girls' and a
+boys' boarding school, and a church. The women missionaries are mostly
+graduates of some American University, and one feels rather behind the
+times in conversation. Their work fills one with respect: there is no
+proselytising about it; their idea is to civilise by education.
+
+From Aintab it is two short days' journey to the Euphrates. We were now
+in a country of rich red soils covered with olive groves and vineyards.
+Near the villages small sized black and yellow cattle, brought in from
+the pastures, munched maize straw in the rough enclosures of reed or
+straw round the houses. The road was lined with signs of primitive
+cultivation and luxurious crops, evident even in these winter months.
+But the peasants seemed miserably poor. They were partners mostly of
+city men, who provided the seed and the stock and took two-thirds of
+the produce in payment.
+
+The Euphrates is visible a long way ahead as it winds southwards. At
+first you see it as a streak of light across the plain; then slowly you
+differentiate the banks, the alluvial shores, the flow of the waters.
+Then Birejik appears on the opposite side. Its houses, built on a
+limestone cliff four hundred feet high, rise up above the river tier
+upon tier; then the black marks on the face of the rock below the
+houses take on the shape of rock tombs. We descend a long, gentle slope
+towards the ferry, and find a few buildings on this side also. We wait
+while great herds of oxen and sheep going to the market at Killis are
+ferried across in the great, clumsy, flat-bottomed, flat-sided boat,
+whose one end rises up in a high, curved keel. Then our turn comes, and
+one by one our horses plunge into thick mud and up the slippery end of
+the boat, which lets down to form a gangway. Surely they are not going
+to take us all at once? Our horses get jammed up tighter and tighter at
+the far end as each animal enters the boat; they begin kicking and
+biting at one another. We draw our feet out of the stirrups and hunch
+them up on our horses' necks to be out of harm's way. There is no room
+now for the horses to kick--they are wedged too tight--but they
+struggle hard. We are shoved off the mud with long paddles, the cranky
+old boat lurches and wobbles, and we seem horribly near the water. The
+stream catches us and we are wafted down to a lower point on the
+opposite shore. Hassan, his great legs stretched up high and dry on his
+mule's neck, fumbles in his pouch and brings out the little bit of
+paper on which he writes down our expenses. He slowly puts on his
+spectacles and proceeds to write, holding the paper on the top of his
+thumb, and apparently oblivious of the struggles of his steed to kick
+the horse who is biting his flank behind. Then the gangway is let down
+and a terrific pandemonium ensues as each animal strives to get its
+saddle disentangled from the pack saddle of its neighbour and jump
+ashore. The hindmost land on the first, who have stuck hopelessly in
+the mud, the muleteers hit and shout, and we climb slowly on to firmer
+ground and wind up the steep path to the street at the top.
+
+The next day we ride slowly out of red soils and cultivation. The road
+is dangerous here, we are told; two extra Zaptiehs and a Yuzbashi are
+sent with us. We are in a desert plain again. A fearful storm of wind
+gets up and howls weirdly round us; the sun is getting low, and we have
+somehow missed the village where we should camp. The small cluster of
+huts that we pass or see in the distance have no accommodation for the
+horses, and the muleteers will not let them stand out on such a wild
+night. The Yuzbashi, who is a mysterious Kizilbash with a long black
+beard, gets anxious and makes us push on hard. At last we reach another
+cluster of huts, where the shepherds are calling in the flocks. It is
+nearly dark and we can go no further that night. The muleteers are
+sulky about the shelter for their horses, so we take a house for the
+purpose and the family cram in somewhere else. The tents are pitched
+with difficulty in the teeth of the wind. All night long the Yuzbashi,
+apart from the other men, walks up and down and round and round our
+tent, muttering in his black beard.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The next day we ride over a bleak, stony country, exposed to fierce
+lashes of wind and rain. Smooth faces of rock lie across the scarcely
+perceptible path, less slippery for our flat-shod horses than the mud
+in which they are embedded. We can see nothing ahead but low, rounded
+hillocks covered with broken stone. Suddenly yellow dogs spring from
+under our very feet and tall figures emerge out of the bowels of the
+earth. We have stumbled into the middle of a Kurdish village. The huts
+are hollowed out of the earth and roofed over with the stones which
+cover the whole ground.
+
+The chief of the village welcomes us at the door of his hut, and we
+descend the dark passage, blinded by the smoke of the dried camel-dung
+fire. We sit on strips of felt, thankful to be out of the wind and the
+rain, and stretch our frozen hands and feet in the direction of the
+thickest fumes.
+
+The tears run down our cheeks from the smarting of our eyes, but we
+hardly notice it, for it is heaven to be out of the bluster outside.
+Slowly our eyes get more accustomed to the darkness and the fumes, and
+we find the hut is full of arms and legs and motionless bodies, and
+gleaming eyes fixed on our eyes. But they are friendly and curious, and
+we feel at home.
+
+Then we crawl out to where Arten has prepared hot Maggi soup in the
+tent. It has been impossible to pitch ours, but they have tied the
+men's little tent on to the big stones forming the wall of our house,
+and the roof of another; we can see smoke mysteriously crawling out of
+the crevices of the ground at our feet. A sudden furious gust shakes
+the whole tent, and a Zaptieh's rifle, leant against the side, tumbles
+across and upsets the steaming soup. We pick our belongings ruefully
+out of the little trickling streams of thick liquid, and make a meagre
+meal by soaking bits of native bread in what remains. Then we get to
+bed as best we can, and all night long the wind howls and the tent
+flaps, and dogs sniff stealthily on the other side of the canvas.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A hard, broad, high-road runs ostentatiously some miles out of Urfa on
+the side which we were approaching. From the town it looks as if it
+were going on like that for ever. We stumbled suddenly out of our stony
+track on to it--where it ends abruptly in the middle of nowhere. The
+native does not walk on it much; he prefers the soft places at the
+margin, where the caravans, also shunning it, still make wobbly tracks.
+At one place, where it passes through a deep gully, the bank has been
+made up to make a more level run; but even here, as we rode over it, we
+noticed an old man and a boy driving a couple of mules, slowly crawling
+up the narrow path down below, which marked the line of the original
+road.
+
+We could see Urfa some little way ahead of us, and wondered whether the
+missionaries would have heard of our arrival through their friends at
+Aintab. For the post travelled quicker than we did; it had passed us
+days ago, borne at a gallop by two mounted men.
+
+"If ever we wanted cleaning up," I said, "it is at this moment; what
+with the rain and the mud and Maggi soup and camel-dung fumes, we are
+almost unfit to be seen even by a missionary."
+
+The words were hardly out of my mouth when a party of some twenty
+mounted soldiers appeared in the distance. As they got nearer they
+fired off a volley into the air and ranged up in a line down the road.
+The Captain rode up and saluted us. There was no mistaking it. We were
+Royalties once more.
+
+The Captain explained that the Governor was sending his carriage for
+their Royal Highnesses to make their entry into the town, and that he
+was expecting to receive them at the Konak. The carriage appeared up
+the road, a smart landau with red cushions, drawn by two splendid Arab
+horses, and followed by outriders in uniform.
+
+In we got. It is very difficult under such circumstances to feel the
+least royal. We were only conscious of our dishevelled looks and dirty
+clothes. We made Hassan get in with us, for he always had the air of a
+prince. The driver cracked his whip and we went off at a great pace,
+headed by the Captain and Zaptiehs, including our own escort, and
+followed by the outriders. Borne along in the cavalcade came Arten on
+his mule, looking worse than any of us, in a seedy old black overcoat
+and a red scarf round his neck. The inhabitants of Urfa lined the
+streets and waved and cheered lustily. Flags and decorations were hung
+out. We bow hard--it is getting easier to forget our dirty clothes. I
+begin to wonder if indeed we are not Royalties. Why not? Hassan looks
+more princelike than ever, sitting opposite to us, very erect and very
+gravely gracious, acknowledging salutes.
+
+At the main entrance to the town a smiling Armenian on a mule obstructs
+the way, and frantically waves a letter. The cavalcade stops, and
+riding up to the carriage he shoves a well-thumbed envelope into our
+hands. It is from the lady missionary, they tell us.
+
+"The Government," she writes, "are making great preparations for your
+entertainment, but I hope that you will not despise such hospitality as
+my house affords, and that you will spend your time in Urfa with me."
+
+What are the Government going to do with us? Once more I became
+conscious of our outward appearance. We sent a verbal message to say we
+would call later, and then we are dashed on again; the smiling Armenian
+whacking his mule and trying to keep pace with the formal, solemn
+officers.
+
+Finally we draw up in front of the Government buildings. A red carpet
+is unrolled before us, over which we walk gingerly in our muddy boots
+between rows of salaaming Turks. Hassan stalks after us, grave and
+dignified, returning salaams.
+
+We are received by an official, corresponding to the Mayor of the town,
+and his secretary. X tried to deliver the sentences she had been
+concocting as we were driven through the streets, but the general
+bewilderment of the situation and uncertainty as to what we were
+expected to do was making intercourse more difficult than usual. We
+were almost at our wits' end when the Head of the Education Department
+appeared on the scene. He talked French fluently, and explained that
+rooms had been prepared for us in the building and that the Pasha
+Effendi expected us to be his guests. After giving us tea, and thereby
+showing familiarity with the customs of foreign Royal personages, they
+conducted us to the Vali. He was of a very different type from those we
+had previously seen. A young, pleasant-mannered, intelligent Turk, he
+received us in a reserved, Western way, with no flowery greetings.
+
+Hassan, in whose hands we felt safe as regards points of Turkish
+etiquette, had whispered to us that we had better camp outside as
+usual, for the Pasha's harem was absent at the moment and we could not
+therefore visit the ladies. For this reason we declined as best we
+could his offers of hospitality. The Head of the Education Department,
+instructed by his chief, said the Pasha Effendi was "_desole_" at
+our decision. Would we not reconsider it? We were causing his
+Excellency intense disappointment. His Excellency indeed looked
+crestfallen, and we would also have enjoyed being royally entertained,
+but we knew Hassan's judgment was never at fault, and thought it best
+to be on the safe side. We were also conscious of the fact that in all
+probability this was but a polite form of espionage, for Urfa is the
+centre of the district where the worst Armenian massacres took place;
+European visitors, therefore, especially those who say they are
+"travelling solely for their health" in all the discomforts of winter,
+are suspected of being mere gleaners of damaging facts.
+
+So we only accepted his Excellency's invitation to dine and, taking
+leave of him for the moment, were escorted to the Mission-house by the
+officers and Zaptiehs who had formed our escort, led by the smiling
+Armenian on the mule.
+
+Thus ended our triumphal entry into Urfa, which some call the ancient
+city of Abraham--"Ur of the Chaldees."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM
+
+
+"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son,
+and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went
+forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan;
+and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." And it happened that we,
+sojourning in this land, bethought ourselves of this journey of
+Abraham; we also, therefore, arose one morning and took two horses of
+the horses of Ur, and three Zaptiehs also upon horses, and we set our
+servants upon mules, and departed across the plain to visit this
+Harran, the city of Nahor; and there came with us a lady of the
+American Mission and her servant Jacobhan and a young Armenian friend;
+and they also were upon mules. And we all rode together across the
+plain of Mesopotamia, of which it is written: "When corn comes from
+Harran, then there is plenty; when no corn comes, then there is
+hunger." And, even as we rode, the villagers were gathering in barley,
+the clean white straw with its well-filled heads; and from time to time
+we came also upon a couple of sleek-skinned oxen drawing the wooden
+plough through the soil, making the furrows for the next year's seed;
+and the soil, where it was turned, was of a rich red colour, beside the
+yellow stubble which was yet unbroken. The villages stood at the space
+of one hour's ride apart, and by the side of every village, by the side
+of their bell-shaped huts, we saw great mounds of such a size that they
+covered as much ground as the villages themselves; and each of these
+mounds was of a rounded shape. And, looking across the plain as we
+rode, as far as we could see we saw also many such mounds far distant
+upon the horizon.
+
+And we said to Hassan, "Wherefore these mounds?" And he answered and
+said, "Behold, Effendi, you see these villages at the space of one
+hour's ride apart, each with its cornfields and its unbroken stubble,
+its pasture and its flocks; so it was in the days when Abraham and
+Terah passed this way, even as you and I are now passing; but these
+villages that we see of the bell-shaped huts were not the villages that
+Terah and Abraham saw, for they are now buried under these same
+mounds."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now Harran is eight hours across the plain from Ur; four hours we rode
+to Rasselhamur, a village by the side of a stream, where we ate and
+drank and rested awhile, and yet another four hours we rode from
+Rasselhamur to Harran.
+
+Now consider the journey of Terah and Abraham. There were his women and
+his children, his camels, his man-servants and his maid-servants, his
+he asses and his she asses, his oxen and flocks of sheep; and they
+would cause him to delay on the road, for they cannot be over-driven:
+yet, even as the Arab tribes journey to-day, the caravan of Terah and
+Abraham would reach this Harran on the second day from the day they
+left Ur of the Chaldees; and the land of Canaan, the land towards which
+they journeyed, would still be far distant.
+
+And we, marvelling, pondered on the words of the learned man who has
+said that the Harran of Terah and Abraham lies not here but at one
+day's journey from the city of Damascus.
+
+But why should our souls be vexed over the words of learned men? for,
+whether it be that Terah stayed at this Harran, even the Harran we are
+approaching, or whether he journeyed on day by day over the plains to
+the city of Damascus, for us, as our noiseless steeds trod the soft
+earth, these silent plains yet echoed with the tinkling of his
+camel bells, the bleating of his innumerable herds, and the cries of
+his men-servants and his maid-servants.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And the sun was yet high in the heavens when the walls of the city of
+Harran rose up before us; and as we rode through the fields without the
+city walls we looked, and behold there was a well in the field, and
+near it were gathered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, for it was
+out of that well that they watered the flocks. And it was at the time
+of the evening, the time that the women go out to draw water; and we
+drew rein and watched them, even as Jacob watched Rachel. And these
+daughters of the men of the city were dark-eyed and blue-smocked, and
+they balanced their pitchers on their heads; and they went down into
+the well, down the slippery stones which were worn by the feet of the
+generations which begat Rachel and Rebekah. And on beholding the
+strangers some of them ran back, even as Rebekah on beholding the
+servant of Isaac, and told their mothers; and some of them, even as
+Rachel on beholding Jacob, emptied their pitchers into the troughs and
+bade us water our horses. And the herdsmen gathered themselves together
+and looked at us in silence; and their look was long and straight, like
+the look of those who have the habit of looking far, as far as where
+the sun sinks on the horizon; and we, wondering, held our peace. Of
+what availed it, that we should vex ourselves as to whether this indeed
+were the Harran where Terah stayed on his way to the Land of Canaan,
+here are we in the fertile regions, without the walls of a city, by the
+side of a well where the maidens come down to fetch water and where the
+flocks are gathered at the going down of the sun. And we bethought
+ourselves of those ancient days, and we said unto the herdsmen, even as
+Jacob said unto the herdsmen as they tended the cattle of Laban,
+"Whence are ye?" and they answered us saying, "Of Harran are we."
+
+[Illustration: JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN.]
+
+And looking about us we saw also the black tents, the good camel-hair
+tents such as the Arabs use, and they stretched out from the side of
+the watering-place; and on the ground in front of them the young
+children rolled amongst the bleating flocks and herds. And the
+shepherds, haughty and silent amongst men, walked to the right and to
+the left in and out amongst the bleating flocks and herds; and their
+cloaks were of sheepskin, long and squarely cut--they hung from their
+shoulders, reaching nearly to the ankles; and looking at them we
+thought of Abraham who had left this city for the Land of Promise, of
+Isaac who sent his servant to seek out Rebekah, and of Jacob, who
+beheld Rachel even on this spot, and who tended the flocks of sheep and
+herds of cattle for her father Laban on these same fertile plains.
+
+And as we tarried, marvelling on these things, there came out a
+messenger from the city, and he said, "Why standest thou without? we
+have prepared a house and room for thy horses"; and turning our horses'
+heads we followed him and rode into the city.
+
+Now the people of Harran number at this day over 4,000 souls of the
+Moslem faith; of men there are 1,900, and of the women 2,300. And some
+of them live in the city and some of them live without, in the
+villages. Now in the generations that have passed Harran was a great
+city of merchants; they went forth to Tyre, they were her traffickers
+in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests
+of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar.
+
+Harran lay also on the highway from the north to the Land of Canaan, on
+the highway from the west, from Assyria and Babylonia to the shores of
+the Cilician Sea; hence also was Harran a great fortified city. And
+looking about us as we rode through the city, many and ancient were the
+ruins that we saw, showing that Harran had been great indeed in her
+time; and there stands to this day a four-sided tower, the walls of
+which are perfect even now; and at the summit of this tower the bricks
+are exceeding hard and of a bright yellow colour speckled with black
+spots withal. And still riding in and out amongst the bell-shaped huts
+we came at last to the ruins of a great castle; and still riding, our
+good horses picked their way amongst the columns which were fallen, of
+which there were many, and under the massive stone arches which were
+not yet fallen. And we came at last to an open space set right in the
+midst of the castle, and on this space the grass grew green all about
+in amongst the fallen stones. And, dismounting, we climbed yet a little
+way further until we came to a room in the walls, well covered in and
+newly built up with stones, so that neither wind nor rain could enter
+in. And at the door of this well-built room stood the Shaykh of the
+Beni-Zeid. And he welcomed us, bowing after the fashion of his country,
+and we also greeted him, bowing after the fashion of our country; and
+speaking to Jacobhan, for we knew not his language, neither did he know
+ours, he bade us welcome, and said that meat and drink would be laid
+before us, and provender should be found for our horses. And we
+rejoiced, for we were exceeding hungry. But the sheep was yet roasting
+on the great fire in a hut in the ruins of the castle below, and we
+said to Jacobhan, "Send these men away, for we are weary and would rest
+awhile." And, taking Hassan only with us, we climbed up to where the
+ruins of a great tower looked away over the plain, even the plain over
+which we had ridden and beyond also on the other side further than
+where we had ridden; and sitting down here we rested awhile; and down
+below the servants tended the horses, and Jacobhan and the lady from
+the American Mission unpacked the neatly folded bundles--and, further
+below, lay the ruins of the great city, and between them the little
+bell-shaped huts; but above us there was nothing but the sky. And
+looking away from the city, over the walls and over the plain even unto
+the far horizon where the sun was now setting, for the day was far
+spent, I said unto Hassan: "What think you, Hassan, can this indeed be
+the city whence Abraham departed, and think you that this is the plain
+over which Jacob fled with his women and children, his men-servants and
+his maid-servants, his asses and camels, his cattle and his sheep?"
+
+And Hassan knit his great brows and pondered awhile, and then he made
+answer: "What matters it, Effendi, whether this was the city of
+Abraham, and whether this was the plain over which Jacob fled before
+the wrath of Laban? Look down below and see these fallen ruins, which
+are all that is left of the great nations who conquered this city in
+the generations that have passed; and look down again, and you will see
+the miserable huts of the people who are left; what do they care for
+the great people who have lived and died within these walls where you
+and I are sitting? In a short time they also will be dead, and you and
+I will be dead, and therefore why should we care whether or not this
+was the city of Abraham? for, where Abraham is, there shall we soon be
+also."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As he was speaking we heard a shout from below, and looking down we saw
+Jacobhan beckoning to us, for the meat was now served. And we made
+haste to come down, and entered the room. Here on the earthen floor
+stood a well-filled bowl, all hot and smoking, for the meat was mixed
+with swelling rice well cooked in fat. Now Jacobhan fetched a little
+red carpet and spread it on the floor by the side of the bowl, and on
+this we sat, crossing our legs after the fashion of the country.
+
+On one side of us sat the lady from the American Mission, and on the
+other side sat Hassan.
+
+And they brought us flat cakes of bread, which we dipped into the bowl
+and scooping out the rice and meat, we ate it thus, for we had neither
+spoons nor forks. And round about us as we ate sat the dark-eyed Arabs
+in the white robes. When we had finished eating, one of them rose and
+fetched a pitcher of water and another brought a bowl, and they poured
+water over our hands until they were clean. Then, making way for those
+who had not yet eaten, we caused the carpet to be spread on the far
+side of the room, where, lying on it, we watched the men eating,
+gathered round the bowl. Now, when all had finished, one removed the
+empty bowl and another fetched a brush and swept the floor, for much
+rice had been spilt about. Then each man folded his cloak together, and
+sitting back against the wall gazed at us out of the dark corners.
+
+But Jacobhan the Armenian and his young friend, who was also of the
+same people, had no mind to sit thus quiet all the evening. For they
+were not as the Arabs are, content to smoke and make no sound. "Give us
+some song," he said to the assembled company, "that we may make merry,
+for the night is yet young."
+
+And they pushed forward, out of the far corner, a young man who seated
+himself at our feet. After looking at us awhile, there being no sound
+in the room, he began to sing softly, and these are the words that he
+sang, as they were told to us later by Jacobhan: "As the swallows from
+a far country winging their way from the north to the south, so you
+come to us for the day and on the morrow you are gone. You have the
+soft eyes of a dove, your hair is of silken threads, and your skin is
+as the soft skin of the pomegranate. Your little feet they are as the
+feet of swift gazelles--and they will bear you hence so that your going
+will be as swift and silent as your coming. Oh, may the snows come in
+the morning to stay your going away, for my heart will be sick when you
+are no longer here, and my eyes no longer behold your eyes. The land
+will mourn and be desolate; the herbs of the field will wither and the
+waters of the river will dry up in the wilderness."
+
+When the words of the song were finished, a silence fell upon us all;
+and the silence was so long in the quiet stillness of night that many
+of us fell half asleep sitting there in the dark room. And one by one
+the company glided out softly into the night until we were left only
+with our own men. There numbered thirteen of us in all, and wrapping
+ourselves each in his blanket we lay on the hard floor until morning.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now on the morrow the son of the Shaykh came to us and said:
+
+"My father sends you word he will be absent until evening, for he rode
+away this morning two hours before the rising of the sun. To-night,
+however, he prepares a feast for you and will return, Inshallah, with
+glad tidings for his people. He bids me meanwhile ask of the ladies
+what their pleasure will be to-day; and I am at their commands."
+
+And we said to the son of the Shaykh:
+
+"Take now thy father's lance and these our horses, and we pray thee
+call out one of your companions and let us see how the men of your
+country fight their enemies."
+
+And the young chief, nothing loth, fetched the long spear which stood
+at the door of his father's house, and he mounted one of our horses;
+and he called another youth from amongst the many that would ride with
+him, and they rode out together into the field, without the city walls.
+And we climbed up upon the high walls of the castle which looked over
+the field that we should have the better view. And the two young men
+set their lances and rode their horses hard at one another, first to
+the one side and then to the other, now wheeling round, now holding the
+spear aloft, shouting with loud cries. And their cries were mingled
+with the cries of all the assembled company, and we also shouted with
+the others. For the space of an hour or more did they fight thus with
+one another until they and their horses were weary, but we were not
+weary with watching them.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now as we were feasting that day at the time of the setting of the sun,
+the Shaykh entered the room where we sat, and greeted us.
+
+And we, speaking through Jacobhan, said to him, "Has your business been
+well?" And he said, "Very well; to-day is a great day for myself and
+for my people."
+
+And we said, "Tell us, we pray thee, how that is?" And he seated
+himself in our midst, and he told us how his tribe, the tribe of the
+Beni-Zeid, had offended the great Kurdish chief, Ibrahim Pasha, head of
+the Hamidieh, who lived not far distant at Viran-shahir. For some
+amongst them had stolen camels and mules belonging to his people. The
+wrath of Ibrahim Pasha was very great, and he caused his men to harass
+their men, and their beasts were no longer safe. Now the Shaykh knew
+not which among his people were the offenders, but after a year had
+gone by there came certain of the tribe to him and said, "Behold these
+camels and mules, are they not those which were stolen from Ibrahim
+Pasha? We pray thee restore them that we may no longer live in fear of
+having ours stolen." Thus it was, that on this same day the Shaykh had
+ridden out with his men, driving these animals, and had delivered them
+back to the Pasha at Viran-shahir. Inshallah, now they would no longer
+live under fear of his displeasure. For those who offended Ibrahim
+Pasha had no mercy at his hands; but those who pleased him had much
+kindness shown them.
+
+And we and the whole company rejoiced together over the good deed that
+had been done that day, and there was much feasting and singing that
+night.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the morrow we mounted our horses once more and rode away through the
+bell-shaped huts and past the ancient ruins, over the rich plains, back
+again into the city of Ur, at the foot of the grey hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA
+
+
+We were encamped in the khan, the native inn, at Severek, a dismal town
+in the dismal wilds of Mesopotamia; the weather and the depth of mud
+made it impossible for us to pitch our tent outside, and the dirty,
+windowless sheds round the courtyard, which afforded the only sleeping
+accommodation, were not inviting, so we had fixed our tent in a covered
+passage by tying the ropes to the pillars supporting the roof. The
+Zaptiehs deputed to guard us for the night hung about the door, plying
+Hassan and Arten with questions as to our sanity. Why should two
+foreign ladies choose the depth of winter to travel between Urfa and
+Diarbekr along the caravan route which had been long deserted owing to
+the raids of the Hamidieh Kurds? I had often asked myself the same
+question during the last few days, but had not yet thought of an
+answer.
+
+A pale, dishevelled young man in semi-European clothes slouched into
+the courtyard and joined the group. The Zaptiehs spoke roughly to him
+and he gave a cringing reply. He forced his way past them up to me.
+
+"Moi parle Francais," he said, with an accent corresponding to his
+grammar.
+
+"So it seems," I answered, in the same language.
+
+"To-morrow I travel with you," he went on.
+
+"Indeed!" I answered, with more of interrogation than cordiality.
+
+"Yes, you and my mother and sisters will go in an araba, and I and my
+brother will ride your horses."
+
+I made a closer inspection of the individual, but could detect no signs
+of insanity to harmonise with his utterances.
+
+"Who are you?" I said.
+
+"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want
+to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an
+opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares
+pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for
+months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do
+thirteen hours to K----."
+
+"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a
+mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the
+regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."
+
+"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so
+long on the road."
+
+I began to get angry.
+
+"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."
+
+"I will have everything ready," he said.
+
+"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you
+wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that
+we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we
+wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."
+
+"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not
+my sister?"
+
+"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit,
+and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please
+understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our
+sisters' arabas."
+
+Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found
+the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A
+covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of
+tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage
+scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there
+were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton
+coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight
+trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats,
+and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck,
+suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The
+whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep
+through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a
+furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was
+bitterly cold.
+
+We rode for hours through a dreary country of broken grey stones with
+no sign of vegetation or life of any kind. At last we arrived at a
+collection of tumble-down deserted huts, built of the stones lying
+round, and hardly distinguishable from the rest of the country until we
+were actually amongst them. We were cold and wet and had hardly come
+half-way to our destination, but as neither of us could stand long
+hours in the saddle without rest or food, we called a halt here to
+recruit. The Zaptiehs forming our escort begged us not to stop. They
+could not understand the strange ways of these mad foreigners, who not
+only travelled in such weather, but sat down to picnic in it instead of
+pushing on to the shelter of the khan at the journey's end. But we were
+inexorable, and they reluctantly fastened the horses on the sheltered
+side of the remaining walls, against which they stood with their backs
+tightly pressed, drawing their ragged coats closely round them. The
+village had been but lately ransacked and destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha,
+the redoubtable Kurdish chief; he was still abroad in the
+neighbourhood, and any detention on the road increased the chances of
+our falling in with him or some of his stray bands. The knowledge of
+this and the discomforts of the journey made the men fretful and
+anxious. We picked out the least dilapidated looking house and
+clambered over fallen stones and half-razed walls until we found a
+roofless room which boasted of three undestroyed angles. In one of
+these the cook tried to make a fire with the last remnants of charcoal;
+we huddled in another to avoid, if we could, the blast which rushed
+across the broken doorways and whistled through the chinks of the rough
+stone walls. The arabas, accompanied by their bedraggled followers,
+rumbled heavily past us; the noise gradually died away as they
+disappeared in the distance; desolation reigned on all sides; the
+howling blast moaned weird echoes of destruction round the ruined
+walls.
+
+We managed to boil enough water to make tea; and then, yielding to the
+men's protests, we mounted and rode on. Hour after hour passed; the
+driving wind hurled the hailstones like a battery of small shot right
+into our faces; the rain collected in small pools in the folds of my
+mackintosh, and I guided their descent outwards and downwards with the
+point of my riding-whip. The drop which fell intermittently from the
+overflowing brim of my hat had been the signal for a downward bob to
+empty the contents; but now the wet had soaked through and I let it run
+down my face unconcernedly. We were a silent and melancholy band. X
+rode in front with her chin buried in her coat collar; her face was
+screwed up in her endeavour to face the elements; the hump in her
+shoulders betokened resigned misery. The soldiers' heads were too
+enveloped to allow any study of their expressions, but the outward
+aspect of their bodies was a sufficient indication of their inward
+feelings; the very outline of their soaked and tattered garments
+bespoke discomfort and dejection.
+
+The pale-faced little officer, straight from the military school at
+Constantinople, urged his horse alongside mine. "Nazil?" he said. It
+was a laconic method, essentially Turkish, of saying "How?" _i.e._,
+"How are you?" "How's everything?" "Hasta" (Ill), I answered. "Aman,"
+he groaned. "Kach Saat daha?" I asked (How many hours more?). "Jarem
+Saat, Inshallah. Bak, khan bourda" (Half an hour, Inshallah. Look, the
+khan is there). I raised my head to follow the direction of his
+pointed whip; the jerk sent a trickle of wet down the back of my neck
+and the rain blinded my eyes. I dropped my head again. It was not
+worth while battling with the elements even to look upon our
+approaching haven of rest. I was too familiar with the aspect of the
+country to be particularly interested in the scenery; it had not
+altered at all for many days. If you looked in front, you saw an
+endless tract of slightly undulating country, the surface of which was
+a mass of stones; there were stones to the right, there were stones to
+the left, there were stones behind; you rode over stones, slippery,
+broken, loose, sliding stones; and now stones, stones of hail, were
+hurled at you from the heavens above. The very bread we had eaten for
+our midday meal seemed to have partaken of the nature of the country.
+I had accidentally dropped my share, and had to hunt for it,
+indistinguishable among the other particles on the ground. We were
+rapidly turning into stones ourselves. One seemed to be riding on a
+huge, dry river-bed, the waters of which had been drawn up into the
+heavens and were now being let down again by degrees.
+
+The officer gave an order to a Zaptieh. The man tightened the folds of
+his cloak round him, wound the ends of his kafiyeh into his collar,
+and, digging his heels into the sides of his white mule, darted
+suddenly ahead. The crick in the back of my neck made it too painful
+for me to turn my head to look, but this must mean that we were near
+the khan and that he had gone on to announce our arrival. Visions of
+being otherwise seated than in a saddle faintly loomed in my brain; I
+hardly dared wander on to thoughts of a fire and something hot to
+drink. We turned at right angles off the track and plunged into a bed
+of mud, which led up to the door of a great, square, barrack-looking
+building with a low, flat roof and a general air of desolation. The
+Zaptieh stood grimly at the door. "Dollu" (Full), he said. Nevertheless
+we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in
+the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole
+enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with
+camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with
+bare legs and feet and dripping, ragged cloaks. The officer laid about
+him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the khanji (the
+innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with
+great English Pashas." The khanji waved his hand over the seething,
+jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is
+impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan. If we made way
+for the Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses.
+But they are welcome to what shelter there is."
+
+We gazed with dismay at the reeking scene.
+
+"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.
+
+"Two hours," was the answer.
+
+"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's
+head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals,
+who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of approaching food
+and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded
+back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast
+and driving rain.
+
+The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the
+uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones.
+One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and
+sure-footed beast who could be trusted to pick its own way. The hired
+Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left
+to himself he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it
+becomes so impossible that he stops and gazes in front of him in stupid
+despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins
+in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire
+not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in
+danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly
+lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the
+others. Weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and
+more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at
+his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.
+
+"We must push on, Hanum" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by
+sunset."
+
+"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my
+broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate
+brute's skin.
+
+He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly
+in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and
+the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows
+behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity
+for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb,
+petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.
+
+Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the
+horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came
+the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was
+rushed away in the driving wind.
+
+Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in
+the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of
+alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or
+was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains
+consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog,
+jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one
+did not care for how long.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but
+the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and
+the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms
+round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I
+thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as
+they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."
+
+"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door
+of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole
+on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round
+me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.
+
+"X?" I muttered interrogatively.
+
+"Hm," came from the corner.
+
+"Hm," I responded.
+
+The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously
+about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles,
+saddle-bags, wet cloaks, and muddy riding-boots.
+
+Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively and
+giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other,
+where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space
+in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried
+camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled
+with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let
+out the fumes; we opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a
+sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the
+smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down
+mercilessly.
+
+Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow
+passage by our open door, on into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing
+bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard, square boxes
+stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their
+owners' yourghans, quilts which form the native bed, damp and muddy in
+spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown
+over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope which also fastened on
+a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to
+the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the
+enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable
+crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of
+their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs;
+mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching
+yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in
+gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the
+piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright
+waistcoats; stern Mahomedans, wrapped in long, severe cloaks, gazed
+with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier
+race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials
+stared at them with open-mouthed, grinning wonder. Our little captain
+sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner, deftly rolling up, with his
+delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes; a
+Zaptieh, with his face to the wall, bowed and murmured over the evening
+prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that
+disregard of his neighbour's presence which is so impressive in any
+crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human
+note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent waiting of
+the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their
+respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant,
+strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all; men and
+animals, side by side, are busy satisfying their bodily needs. It is a
+strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings
+and mode of life, savours of the beast; and the beast, with his outward
+aspect of patient and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements.
+We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and
+publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hind-quarters backed
+into the room, upsetting the pot of water on the fire. We had been
+anxiously waiting for its boiling point with the open teapot ready to
+hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal; and pushed it back;
+they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself
+out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform
+peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses
+require anything?"
+
+Hassan courteously returned his salute. He was now seated cross-legged
+by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up
+together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. With the air of a king on his
+throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddle-bag:
+"Buyourun, Effendi, oturun" (Welcome; sit down). The man sat down,
+carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.
+
+"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his
+inquiry and send many thanks. They have all they require."
+
+The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterances seemed to
+dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as
+to the limitation of our wants and the methods of our Royal progress;
+he merely thought we were mad.
+
+He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative
+members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression.
+
+"What will you have for supper?" he said.
+
+"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long
+experience of limited possibilities.
+
+"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if
+he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in
+these places.
+
+"Get a fowl," I said.
+
+"There is not one left here," he answered.
+
+"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humour of desperation.
+
+"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority.
+
+"Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.
+
+"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.
+
+"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of
+lobster salad and maraschino croustades?"
+
+Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held
+them. Everything was wet and slimy; a few bars of chocolate were soaked
+in Bovril emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains
+of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags
+contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting looking
+pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity.
+Could it be--yes, it had once been, protein flour, "eminently suitable
+for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal
+when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our
+respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly
+thought the matter out.
+
+"X," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the Bovril thrown
+in, or to drink Bovril with the chocolate thrown in?"
+
+"Don't talk about it," said X, "cook everything up together, and let us
+hope individual flavours will be merged beyond recognition."
+
+We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein.
+The chocolate and Bovril were added, after carefully picking out the
+bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which
+he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served
+as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable
+pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in
+triumph.
+
+"Soan?" (Onion) we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable
+greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife
+out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the
+treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling
+pot. The cook sat stirring it all together with a wooden spoon; he kept
+raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled
+slowly back again he murmured complacently:
+
+"Pirinje war, chocolad war, Inghiliz suppe war, soan war, su war"
+(There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is
+onion, there is water).
+
+When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted
+the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Choc ehe, choc" (Very
+good--very), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X
+swallowed a few mouthfuls.
+
+"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology, as
+she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread
+and started chewing it.
+
+"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my
+heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I
+had been following with some interest for several days. It was always
+turning up, and I recognised it by a black, burnt mark resembling a
+figure 8. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had
+been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken legs and dried figs, and with
+wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other
+bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy
+fingers, but being unsatisfied with the consistency they had thrown it,
+along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking
+utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our
+diminishing supply and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away
+Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and
+slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various
+articles not calculated to increase the savouriness of its flavour. I
+was determined to see its end, and when X laid down half--no doubt
+meaning it for my share--I threw it on the fire.
+
+"It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.
+
+The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his
+greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.
+
+"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he
+wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one
+side.
+
+"Jarin" (To-morrow), he said.
+
+And so we sit; a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of
+food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one
+or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the
+fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in or what dirt
+we have been eating.
+
+We roll our rugs round us and lie on the sodden earth floor. Hassan
+turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan,
+men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.
+
+In the middle of the night I wake with a start; something had hit me on
+the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was; a
+piece of plaster had fallen off the walls, and the plaster, like the
+fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS
+
+
+ "The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift
+ current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the
+ world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away,
+ another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AFLOAT
+
+
+We rode into Diarbekr on Christmas Day, arriving just in time to share
+the plum-pudding at the house of Major Anderson, the Vice-Consul.
+
+They say of Diarbekr that its houses are black, that its dogs are
+black, and that the hearts of its people are black--and they say so
+truly. The first moment that one catches sight of it in the distance
+one is impressed by the blackness of its walls, built of a black
+volcanic stone. When one gets inside, the people look dourly at one,
+and the Zaptiehs ride closer together. But this may be because they
+have no other choice, the streets being often only four feet across. It
+is quite easy to cross a street from on high by jumping from one roof
+to another; and it is certainly cleaner, for down below we are ankle
+deep in mud, in which great boulders are embedded--relics, presumably,
+of ancient pavement or fallen houses. If you want to take the air at
+Diarbekr you walk round and round the flat roof of your house and watch
+the life of your neighbours on adjoining roofs; or else, closely
+accompanied by armed cavasses, you ride out into the bleak, stony
+country, and follow up some mud stream in the hopes of getting a shot
+at wild duck and snipe.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A week later we sat on the banks of the Tigris by the Roman bridge
+which spans the river just below the black walls of Diarbekr. The raft
+on which we were about to embark was moored to the shore and the men
+were loading our belongings. A dancing-bear stumped about to the tune
+of a bagpipe made of the skin which answers so many purposes in the
+East. When inflated they can be used either for carrying water for
+people inside, or for carrying people on water outside. We were using
+260 of them in this latter way. They were tied on to two layers of
+poplar poles put crossways, forming a raft about eighteen feet square.
+At one end were two small huts made of felt stretched across upright
+poles; the fore end was weighted down with bags of merchandise laid
+side by side across the poles to form a rough floor.
+
+The two kalekjis (raftsmen) waded in and out with a great seeming sense
+of hurry but without appearing to accomplish anything.
+
+"Can't you hurry the men up?" said X.
+
+"No," I answered, "we are in the East."
+
+"You might try," she said; "you always leave me all the talking to do."
+
+"They do not understand my Turkish," I said apologetically.
+
+"It would not take you long to learn enough for that," went on X.
+
+"I do know the swears," I answered humbly, and I stood up amongst the
+men and delivered myself of them.
+
+"Quick! quick! the Pasha is angry!" said the men.
+
+Our crew had assembled; there were our two personal attendants, Hassan
+and Arten. Hassan was now our interpreter, for, although he could only
+talk Turkish, he could interpret our signs to other Turks until we
+learnt the language. Arten, we found, was more Armenian than cook, and
+sang us Christian hymns in his native language when we felt low after
+meals. Then there were two kalekjis in charge of the raft; they were
+Kurds; we had yet to discover their qualifications. Two Zaptiehs
+forming our escort made up the number. We did not yet look upon them as
+individuals, but as part of an abstract regime in the country with
+which we now felt tolerably familiar; the outward aspect of it was a
+ragged uniform and an antiquated rifle, which served many useful
+purposes but had forgotten how to eject bullets.
+
+"Hazir dir, hazir" (Ready, ready), shouted the kalekjis. The owner of
+the dancing-bear hurriedly thrust his fez under our noses.
+
+"Don't give him anything," I said, "a bear has no business to be
+dancing in this country; he ought to be trying to eat us in a cave."
+
+"The demoralisation of the bear comes from the West," said X, who was
+studying the primitive habits of the natives, "we must pay for it."
+
+"Does this abuse of the hat emanate from the same source?" I inquired,
+as she dropped a coin into the fez.
+
+"That would be an interesting point to inquire into," said X, and she
+made an entry in her notebook.
+
+The worst of X was that you never knew whether she was laughing at you.
+It is a most uncomfortable position, which men as a rule resent. But I
+was another woman, and took it philosophically, especially as X accused
+me of the same failing, and we never see ourselves as others see us.
+
+We boarded the raft: the coil of rope which had fastened it to the
+shore was hauled in, and we drifted slowly out into the centre of the
+muddy stream. We were followed by another raft, laden up with bags of
+merchandise, which was coming with us to share the protection of our
+escort.
+
+We went into the sleeping-hut to ascertain the length of its
+possibilities. Boards had been nailed across the poles to form a floor,
+and on this was spread a thick native felt mat. Dwellers on land little
+know the feeling of luxury recalled to my mind in writing these
+words:--the luxury of being able to drop all the things addicted to
+dropping, especially when dressing, with the knowledge that they would
+not disappear for ever in the depths of the Tigris waters; the luxury
+of being able to walk in the ordinary biped method of placing one foot
+in front of the other.
+
+This was not the case in the open part of the raft, where the floor,
+formed of poles and sacks, exhibited a network of rounded interstices.
+The water gurgled and spluttered below them: one's foot invariably
+slipped into them when cautiously manipulating a journey across the
+raft by hopping from a slippery pole to a sliding sack; and unattached
+articles dropped through them on to the skins below, and were
+occasionally rescued in a dripping condition before they were washed
+away altogether. The water showed spiteful discrimination in its
+washing-away proclivities. I recall certain chinks in the more roughly
+boarded floor of the hut where we had our meals, through which the cook
+had a habit of brushing his cooking refuse, and where, if one was rash
+enough to look, there could be seen an accumulation of tea-leaves and
+bones and bits of decaying delicacies which one associated with meals
+of past ages.
+
+The felt walls of the hut were lined on the inside with white cotton
+tacked on the poles. There were two small glazed windows, one of which
+opened. The door was a single width of felt tied with tape. There was
+just room inside for our two camp-beds--with a space between, which
+would admit of one of us occupying it at a time. At the foot of each
+bed stood our two Eastern sacks, which contained all our worldly goods.
+I feel constrained, on mentioning this form of luggage, to say a word
+of warning concerning it. In one sense it is easy to pack, because you
+need not fold anything up, but can simply stuff it in and give the bag
+a shake; and it is easy to unpack, if you do it in a wholehearted
+manner--standing in the centre of a large room or a vast desert where
+you can turn it upside down and spill everything out on the ground. But
+under ordinary circumstances the bundle of hay with the needle in it is
+nothing to this sack with your clean handkerchief in it. X and I had a
+mutual understanding owing to which we never attacked a sack while the
+other was within hearing; but whenever she appeared in a half-fainting
+condition and asked the cook why on earth tea was so late, I knew what
+she had been doing. She had asked me, as a personal favour (the only
+one I've ever known her ask) not to attack my sack in the morning,
+because it was a pity to have the whole day spoilt, and if I did it in
+the evening to go to bed before she did.
+
+But to return from this digression. Having examined our quarters, I
+arranged a rug on the open part of the raft and sat down to take in the
+surroundings.
+
+Arten was unpacking cooking-pots in the second hut, and the other men
+sat about on the sacks smoking silently. The boatmen sat on a pile of
+sacks in the middle and manipulated the oars which served to steer the
+raft and keep it in the fast part of the current. The oars consisted of
+single young willow-trees, with short strips of split willow bound on
+one end with twigs, forming the blade; they were tied on to rough
+rowlocks made of twisted withies wound round heavily-weighted sacks.
+The Tigris at this point is singularly hideous. There was not a single
+blade of vegetation to be seen anywhere; the country was a stretch of
+mud hills and stony desert, and the mud banks of the river were only
+relieved by the hosts of water-birds that darted in and out or waded in
+the shallows. The high black escarpment, crowned by the massive black
+walls of Diarbekr, and fringed by a swampy tract of willow gardens,
+rose up sharply above the mud flats. As we were carried along the
+winding course of the sluggish river a higher mud bank shut it
+altogether from our view, and I felt we had severed that link with the
+world which one feels so strongly on arriving in any town of a distant
+uncivilised land, where a European mail occasionally arrives and a
+telegraph wire eliminates the isolation of its natural position.
+
+We were drifting into an unknown world at the mercy of these unknown
+Kurds. We were alone with the birds and the mud banks and the rippling
+waters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HELD UP
+
+
+The snow-capped mountains of Kurdistan were just visible on the horizon
+line; toward them rolled wave after wave of low brown tracts of land,
+utterly destitute of any form or sign of life. Behind, as in front,
+like the coils of a shining serpent, wound the thin white line of the
+Tigris bed, the one response to the light overhead, imparting a sense
+of weary pursuit in its never-ending course. Fresh coils unwound
+themselves ahead as we toiled after new yet familiar spots on a
+never-changing horizon. Now and then the raftsmen dipped their oars
+quietly into the water, and with a few strokes twisted the raft into
+the straightest part of the river; otherwise, we were helpless, in the
+hands of an arbitrary current which made us bide its time as it slunk
+pensively round unsuggesting corners, or sped us faster when it gurgled
+impatiently over a long reach, where grey rock vied momentarily with
+the endless grey mud. We had given ourselves up completely to Time, and
+sat all day contemplating one stretch of bank after another as we
+swirled along. The ripple of the water, the intermittent splash of the
+oars, the crooning songs of the raftsmen all added to the sense of
+drowsy contemplation already established by the surrounding view.
+Everything was in contemplative harmony: isolated herons fished from
+slippery stones, gazing with such intentness into the passing water
+that they hardly deigned to raise their heads towards us, and, if they
+ever deemed it wiser to move out of our way, they would do so by a very
+deliberate walk on to the shore, after fixing a resentful,
+half-wondering stare upon us. Flocks of black ducks, suddenly disturbed
+round a corner, would rise in silent indignation, and with a sharp
+whirr would pass over our heads and drop quietly down on to the waters
+behind, smoothing out their ruffled plumage. Fat, ungainly penguins,
+sitting in white rows, like surpliced choirs, on the shallow shore,
+would scuttle further back along the mud flat, and taking up attitudes
+of doubtful interrogation would stare us out of countenance. One and
+all they condescended to no notes of fright or alarm, and where any
+sound was uttered it impressed us only with a sense of resentful
+indignation or of mocking inquiry. We were intruders in specially
+reserved spots, and could only offer apologies to our unwilling hosts
+by showing our appreciation of their mode of life in a respectful
+silence; indeed, to have uttered any sound in such places would have
+seemed a crime against Nature. So we floated on, casually returning the
+stares of the would-be enemy, while we listened with lazy indifference
+to their taunts and threats. At times, when there was complete absence
+of life on the shore, we confined our attention to more personal
+reflections.
+
+We were a strange assortment of human beings, whom accident had thrown
+together to live the same life for an allotted time in such close
+companionship on a small space. Here sat the Moslem in friendly
+relation with us, Western Christian infidels; the Armenian broke bread
+with the hated oppressor of his race and religion, while the Turk, on
+his side, had to endure the presence of his despised enemy. The Arab
+Zaptiehs and the Kurdish boatmen represented tribes whose traditions
+told of constant deadly feuds and warfare. The whim of one among us had
+gathered us together. What casual observer would realise what we had in
+common? For difference of language, custom, and appearance counts for
+little when all are equally exposed to the chance of circumstance; and
+the bonds that united us all with a common feeling were the hardships
+we endured alike from hunger, cold, and danger. We shivered together in
+wind and rain, and basked in the sun together; we suffered pangs of
+hunger together, and rejoiced together over a meal; we faced the same
+perils with the same chances of escape or annihilation. Whomsoever
+Fortune had chosen for her favourites in the ordinary run of life stood
+here on the same level as their less fortunate companions, to take
+their chance under the same conditions.
+
+We each had our several occupations when we felt that it was possible
+to snatch any time from contemplation. Hassan would retire into the hut
+at one end of the raft, and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, would
+chop up tobacco; whilst one of the Zaptiehs, seated at the door, would
+roll up the cigarettes. Now and then he would reach out one to
+me.--"Will you smoke, Effendi?"--and the other Zaptieh, seated outside,
+would strike me a match.
+
+Arten might easily have worked all day, but he seemed to spend most of
+his time contemplating the brazier on which he occasionally cooked
+something. At intervals he blew up the live charcoal with measured
+puffs; or he would sit perilously near the extreme edge of the raft
+contemplating the sky, with the tails of his dirty black overcoat
+dangling in the water, holding the dishes in the river until most signs
+of the last meal were removed from them. Being an Armenian he was
+endowed with a more restless nature, and the apparent contemplation in
+his demeanour was but the dejection resulting from a broken spirit.
+When not engaged in his own pursuits he would break in on the silence
+by pointing out what he considered objects of interest.
+
+"Look! look! there is a bird," he would say; and the true Easterns
+would gaze on without moving a muscle, neither looking at him nor the
+bird. Arten would look nervously round, knowing from long habit that he
+was being despised, but unable to understand the grating, silencing
+effect of allusions to the obvious at the moment when the obvious is
+being most thoroughly appreciated.
+
+The two raftsmen were obliged to concentrate a certain amount of
+attention on the business of navigation, but they seized every moment
+they could spare from the task of guiding the raft, and, leaning on
+their oars, would devote it to contemplation. They too pointed out
+objects of interest, but only in their capacity as local guides, and in
+a monosyllabic manner in complete harmony with the occasion.
+
+"Christian village," they would say, without looking round, pointing a
+thumb over their shoulders in the direction of a group of mud huts; or
+"Arab" when an encampment of black tents appeared on the bank. Hassan
+and the soldiers would respond by slowly turning their eyes in the
+particular direction; perhaps even going so far as to give vent to a
+sudden, sharp "Ha!" if the occasion was one of particular moment.
+Arten, however, would jump about the raft.
+
+"A Christian village! Look, it is there; do you see, did you hear? A
+Christian village."
+
+No one would answer him.
+
+"Did you hear, Hassan?"
+
+A minute of absolute stillness, and then Hassan's deep, deliberate
+voice, with no suggestion of impatience:
+
+"I heard."
+
+But we did not always drift along in a smooth and idle manner; the
+mud banks gave way at times to steep, rocky sides, between which the
+waters flowed more rapidly, and careful steering with the oars was
+required to avoid rocks and whirlpools. And here there were not
+infrequent signs of life: rock tombs were cut in the walls of the
+rock, and we would have liked to stop and examine them further, but it
+was impossible to land the raft at such places, and the current
+hurried us on almost before we were aware of their existence. There
+was a certain relentlessness about the way we were torn past all
+objects of interest; it was like dealing with Time. We were conscious
+that things passed now were passed for ever, and that we should never
+have another opportunity for realising them. Evidences of ancient
+civilisation, episodes in the everyday life of the present tribes, all
+seemed to sweep past in bewildering, incredible swiftness; we found it
+hard sitting there to believe that it was we who swept past them. Now
+we would catch sight of a wedding procession on the bank;--the bride,
+plastered with feathers and ornaments, being escorted to the
+bridegroom's village amid a din of music and shouting, the sound of
+which would follow us long after they were lost to view. Now it would
+be a group of women washing their clothes at the river's edge, beating
+them on large, flat stones. Now a solitary horseman would stand
+motionless on the cliff above, his coloured cloak flowing over his
+horse's back, barely concealing the brilliant hues of his embroidered
+saddle; he would watch us out of sight and then turn and pursue his
+lonely road. Now a shepherd boy would be driving in the flocks of
+sheep and goats at sundown; and his weird calls, and the answering
+bleat of the animals, would echo and re-echo right away across the
+distant hills. Men and women on the bank hailed us as we passed; we
+could only cast one look at them and wave back a hurried and kindly
+greeting; they knew we must not stop and talk: we came out of a
+different world from theirs, and they paused for a moment to gaze at
+us and then returned, forgetful of the fleeting vision, to their own
+pursuits. Meditative oxen, chewing their cud, surveyed us wonderingly
+from the shore. "Why in such a hurry?" they seemed to say, and we
+answered, "We are not in a hurry, but we have no power to stop." And
+the eagles overhead peered in contemptuous security at us, vaunting
+with arrogant flaps the great wings with which they flew whither they
+listed, while we were being swept along uncertain currents. A hidden
+bird would pour forth his sweet song to cheer us on our way, and the
+owls utter a dismal note of warning as of unknown dangers yet to come.
+
+And there was some possibility of danger, for we were still in the
+land of the Sultan's irregular troops--the Hamidieh. Our friends,
+however, had been decidedly encouraging as we bade them goodbye. "You
+will probably meet with Kurds," they said, "but if they do shoot at
+you it will only be for the fun of sinking the raft; they may rob you
+and strip you, but if you don't resist they won't kill you." We had
+felt distinctly elated. We still clung to ideas of life; our clothes
+and provisions were a convenience, but no doubt sheepskins and rice
+would be always forthcoming if the worst happened. "What would you
+mind losing most?" I said to X, on the third day, as we lay on our
+backs on the raft, the muddy water rippling very close to our ears and
+the muddy banks swinging round as the current changed. "My hot-water
+bottle," answered X reflectively; "and you?" "My camera first," I
+said, after a pause during which I had pictured X alone with the
+hot-water bottle, "and then my stylo." "Yes," said X sympathetically,
+"I really don't see how you could get on without them; but perhaps,"
+she added consolingly, "if you persuaded the men that there was an
+evil spirit inside they would let you keep them." This was a decided
+inspiration. I booked it for possible contingencies; a hot-water
+bottle and a camera were obvious resting places for the evil eye.
+
+We drifted on; the whirls of a slight rapid caught us--the top end of
+the raft where we lay dived suddenly into the water and then rose
+again, the bottom end followed suit, we became bowed for a second,
+then we were flat once more, and loose things which had started
+jumping about, lay still. I shook the water off my sleeve; X stretched
+out a hand, without turning her head, to feel whether the "Oxford Book
+of English Verse" had been washed away. "Mashallah, the Pashas like
+water," volunteered one of the kalekjis, a little, round-faced Kurd in
+a brightly-striped coat. "The Pashas are English," answered Hassan, in
+a tone of dignified rebuke. "The English fear nothing; why should they
+fear water?" The kalekji paused in his work; he was plying the two
+poplar poles, with which he guided the raft past shingles and kept it
+in the open part of the river. He started rolling up a cigarette. "May
+it please Allah to spare us from an attack from Ibrahim Pasha," he
+said devoutly, "or even these Pashas may have cause to fear." Hassan
+looked at him sternly and with some contempt. "The Pashas are
+English," he repeated, "and the Pashas are not afraid of Ibrahim
+Pasha." Reasons are superfluous to the Oriental mind; statements are
+conclusive; the kalekji lit his cigarette and resumed his task. The
+two Zaptiehs, Ali and Achmet, who had been aroused to a slight
+attention during the conversation, became listless as before and
+puffed away in silence after a simultaneous murmuring of "Aha, aha,
+Ibrahim Pasha." The remaining occupant of the raft, Arten, alone
+looked disturbed and uncomfortable. He was continually scouting the
+horizon, and retired behind the door of the hut whenever a black spot
+was visible. He burst into roars of forced merriment, "Ibrahim Pasha!
+who is afraid of Ibrahim Pasha? Let him come, and we shall give him a
+warm welcome!" His companions gazed in front of them in stolid, silent
+contempt.
+
+Silence reigned again--only the splash of the oars was heard and the
+beating of the water against the skins. Nothing broke the monotony;
+the river wound its way slowly in and out round mud banks; the country
+as far as one could see was unbroken, endless mud; the water one drank
+and washed in and floated on was diluted mud; the occasional village
+on the banks was built of mud, the inhabitants were mud colour; the
+very sky gave one a feeling of mud. It was time for a diversion. Away
+in the distance, since early morning, there had been a black smudge on
+the horizon which was slowly taking more definite shape as we followed
+the course of the shiny loops of the river, the one break in this
+endless, monotonous waste. We had lazily fixed our eyes in its
+direction. Almost imperceptibly it had evolved itself into great
+masses of solid, black, limestone rock; a few more turns of the river
+and we shot right under them and were suddenly shut inside a narrow
+black gorge. Bare walls of rock rose straight up on either side, and
+above a narrow stretch of sky-line, with its broken edges formed by
+the turreted ends of rock, and in a row, on every point, silent,
+motionless, awe-inspiring, sat peering down at us, like sentinels on
+guard, great brown vultures of the desert. I fidgeted uneasily; an
+armed brigand flesh and blood could stand, but this penetrating,
+undivulging, inhospitable gaze was too uncanny. To appear unconcerned
+I took out my field-glasses and stared back; with deliberate scorn,
+and of one accord, they slowly spread out their great wings, shook
+them, and soared up in the air, dropped down the other side of the
+rocks, or took up a fresh stand-point a little further removed from
+the intruders.
+
+We floated rapidly through the gorge. Already, on one side, the rocks
+were giving way to mud banks, though on the right bank the sides rose
+steeply in high, jagged cliffs. I lay back with a sense of enjoyment of
+life and peace; my thoughts had strayed to Western scenes. We turned a
+sharp bend in the river, and I vaguely noticed a native woman carrying
+a child in her arms. All of a sudden the atmosphere seemed disquieted,
+the two Zaptiehs had seized their rifles and dropped on one knee as if
+marking prey; even the imperturbable Hassan was handling a dangerous
+and antiquated looking weapon. There were men on the shore hailing us,
+and our boatman was shouting back vociferously. "Pashas," said Hassan
+in a solemn voice, "put on your hats." I slowly woke to the situation
+as I obediently donned the insignia of our nationality. There were men
+each side of the bank; they were armed men, and their arms were pointed
+at us. "Why, X," I exclaimed ecstatically, "we're held up!" X looked at
+me with a pitying expression. "You've been rather a long time taking
+that in," she said. This was not the moment for feeling snubbed; I
+wished to show that I was now acting with cool deliberation. "X," I
+said, "before leaving England we took some trouble with revolver
+practice; with much inconvenience we conscientiously wore our revolvers
+all through the wilds of Mesopotamia and Armenia; for some weeks we
+slept with them, loaded, under our pillows in the Taurus Mountains;
+they are now hanging discarded on the walls of the hut. Do you not
+think the moment has arrived for giving ourselves some little return
+for all the bother they have been?" "They have been a bore," assented
+X; "perhaps it is our duty to have them now." I went and fetched them
+and solemnly handed X hers. "They are loaded," I said, "but they seem
+rather sticky and rusty; I wonder if they will go off." "Please point
+the other way if you are going to try," said X. I could not allow this
+challenge to my want of knowledge in firearms to pass, and replied with
+dignity, "Remember to aim at the middle of the man; then if you miss
+his heart you have a chance either way at his head or his legs." "I do
+not think I shall fire," said X, "because I cannot do it without
+shutting my eyes. I will just point."
+
+The river had become very narrow, though the current was slow; the men
+could keep pace with us at a walk; they were masters of the situation.
+I gathered my wits together and debated our chances. The Kurds did not
+alarm me, but I cast nervous glances at Hassan. "X," I said at last,
+"if Hassan fires that blunderbuss, he cannot fail to hit either you or
+me." X surveyed the situation critically. "I don't think it will fire,"
+she said; "he was trying to shoot with it one day and it would not go
+off." I breathed more freely. "Effendi," said one of the soldiers to
+Hassan, "tell the ladies to go into the hut." "Pasha," said Hassan,
+"you would be more out of the way in the hut." X laughed, Hassan
+laughed, the Zaptiehs laughed, we all laughed, except Arten, he did not
+laugh--yet. Meanwhile, the Zaptiehs and the boatmen had been yelling
+and shouting at the brigands as they kept pace with us on the shore. As
+they spoke Kurdish we were unable to know what negotiations were going
+on, and could only await developments. They were a fine set of men,
+dark, handsome, well set-up, their long, black, curly hair worn down to
+the collar. They were dressed in bright colours, and armed to the teeth
+with long knives and pistols, besides the rifles they were flourishing.
+
+"There do not seem any villages near," said X. "We shall be very cold
+if they take our clothes and we cannot get sheepskins." "Yes," I said,
+"and very hungry if we can get no rice. We have longed for this moment,
+but there do seem to be inconveniences connected with it." My heart
+suddenly warmed within me. "X," I said, "isn't this a splendid piece of
+luck?" "Glorious!" said X; and we gave ourselves up to the full
+enjoyment of the situation.
+
+We had got into a faster bit of current, and the men had to run to keep
+up with us. They seemed to be yielding to the importunities of our
+escort; one by one they dropped behind, and finally, with a few parting
+yells, stood and gazed at us as we floated on. Indignation swelled in
+my veins. "X," I said, in a voice struggling with emotion, "they are
+letting us go!" X's face reflected my disappointment and disgust. "And
+they did not even fire one little shot!" she said bitterly. "Or try to
+burst our skins," I gulped. X tried to take a cheerful view of the
+situation. "Never mind," she said, "cheer up, we may have another
+chance; we are not out of their country yet." But I was not so easily
+comforted; I wanted some outlet for my rage and disappointment, and
+seizing my revolver I fired six shots up into the air and flung the
+weapon across the raft. The reports rang out loud and clear, and the
+echoes slowly died away in the answering rocks. Arten's white face
+peered through a chink in the door. X turned to the Zaptiehs and
+demanded of them a full account of their conversation. "Effendi," said
+the officer, "it is merchandise they want; they dare not touch the
+personal effects of the English; they have had some good lessons."
+"But," I interrupted, "we are loaded with merchandise." "Effendi," said
+the officer, "we swore by Allah that it was all your luggage, and that
+if they took it the English Padishah would send his soldiers and kill
+them all." "Yes," broke in the other Zaptieh, "and we swore that his
+Excellency the English Consul was on board, and that if they fired a
+shot he would come out with his great weapon and blow them all into the
+next world." The little boatman's face beamed with radiant smiles. "Ah!
+the English are a great people," he said; "with you English we are
+safe. I have been down the river scores of times, and always at this
+place I have been robbed. You saw the solitary woman as we turned the
+corner; she was put there to signal when the rafts were coming; if you
+see a woman alone on a bank, you know what you are in for. The river
+here is narrow and the current slow--you have no chance. On the one
+side the banks are low, and they can draw the rafts on shore and unload
+the merchandise while the men on the other side, high up on the cliffs,
+cover you with their guns."
+
+"Why do you not carry arms?" we said. The man smiled sadly. "Pasha,
+what are we against these men? If we float on, they sink the raft by
+shooting at the skins till they burst, and we lose raft and merchandise
+and all; if we submit quietly, they take what they want and let us go
+peaceably. Should we fire back at the men on the low bank within our
+range, we are at the mercy of the men on the cliffs, who have good
+ambush. No, Allah wishes it. Why should we resist?" There was silence
+for a few minutes. The Oriental's first refuge from the ills of the
+world is in his subservience to the will of Allah; his second is in his
+tobacco: our boatman slowly rolled up a cigarette. "It is not you
+English they will harm," he said, "they are afraid of punishment. It is
+we poor ones, who can get no redress. They take our little all, and
+know we must submit and they are safe." "Surely you can appeal to the
+local authorities?" we persisted. The man laughed--a low, quiet laugh.
+"The Governor!" he said; "poor man--he is no better off than the rest
+of us. He has no authority over these Hamidieh. Only last week he was
+set on and robbed himself by a party of them. They stripped him and
+threw him over a bridge; he was picked up half dead by a passing
+caravan next day. Aman--it is the will of Allah," and he took long,
+serene puffs at his cigarette.
+
+During the conversation Arten had emerged from his retreat, and, after
+casting furtive glances in all directions to make sure of the enemy's
+absence, he seated himself amongst us on the raft and started winking
+and giggling. "Ach, Pasha!" he said, "we scared them well. We are under
+the protection of God. Their shots came whizzing round our heads but
+none could hurt us; they fell round us in the water like hailstones and
+the air was black with them, and when we shot back we left them dying
+in hundreds on the bank and they were afraid to follow. Ah, ah, it was
+a great fight, and we shall be heroes in Stambul." "X," I said, "I fear
+this poor creature's head has been turned with fright; do you think a
+little quinine would be of any use? We have only that and the eye
+lotion left in the medicine case." X looked at me reprovingly. "You
+know you only hate him because he is an Armenian," she said; "you will
+not make allowances for his belonging to a down-trodden race. It is
+only natural he should boast when he knows what a coward he has been."
+
+X was putting new ideas in my head; I transferred my thoughts from
+insanity and quinine and looked with fresh interest at Arten. He was a
+typical specimen of his race--sallow complexion, dark hair and eyes,
+and a huge hooked nose. He was closely buttoned up in a long, thin,
+black overcoat, which had evidently descended on his shoulders from
+those of a missionary; on his head he wore a dirty red fez, bound round
+with a still dirtier coloured handkerchief. He sat hunched up,
+shivering with cold or fright, and his eyes wandered about uneasily. I
+looked from him to Hassan, and the contrast was indeed striking. Hassan
+was the embodiment of strength: there was strength in the massive,
+well-balanced proportions of his huge frame; there was strength in the
+poise of his head and in the keen level look of his eyes; there was
+strength in the quiet repose of his mind and body. If these two men
+were to be taken as typical specimens of their respective races, there
+was indeed cause to reflect on the result of one race dominating and
+crushing another through the course of generations. I sat down to
+reflect about it. It was getting dusk; the waters were very still; we
+hardly moved. The sun was setting behind us, and the intense redness of
+the sky made the rocks underneath look absolutely dead black; the moon
+had arisen and cast a silver glimmer over the dark waters--dark from
+reflecting the blackness of the rocks; the kalekjis felt their day's
+work was over and crooned a low song. We drifted to the shore and made
+fast the raft with large stones laid on the ropes. A very unsavoury
+smell of cooking alone kept our thoughts well on the solid earth. Arten
+appeared at the door of the hut. "Supper is ready, Pashas," he said. So
+we ate our supper that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A RECEPTION AND A DANCE
+
+
+Hassan Kaif is the first place of any interest along the banks, and we
+arrived there early on the fourth day, having floated about eighty
+miles in that time.
+
+As we approached the village the banks of the river rose
+perpendicularly in a wall of rock which was simply riddled with tombs.
+Many of them seemed to be quite inaccessible; those which had any sort
+of approach from the land side appeared to be inhabited by Kurds. We
+passed between the ruined buttresses of a Roman bridge of four arches,
+and then had a view of the whole village on the right bank. The
+mountains curve away from the river at this point and leave a
+semicircular level space, which is occupied by the ruins of an ancient
+Christian town. At the back, extending right up the curving side of the
+hill to where the topmost peak, surmounted by a castle, crowns the
+river, is a vast necropolis. The natives live in the tombs and in caves
+cut out of the rocks. We landed here and slowly toiled up the stony
+paths on the face of the rock, which led over the roofs of one
+habitation to the next above it. Near the top we were met by a local
+Zaptieh, who guided us to the house of the Mudir.[5] We were not sorry
+to have this opportunity of examining the interior of the dwellings.
+The house consisted of a single room, into which we stumbled down a
+dark passage; the walls were roughly levelled off inside, the marks of
+the chisel everywhere apparent. A low divan ran down each side of the
+room. In one corner the rock had been hollowed out to form a cupboard,
+inside which, through the chinks of a rough wooden door, we caught
+glimpses of his Excellency's bedding--for the Oriental keeps his bed in
+a cupboard in the daytime and spreads it on the floor at night. With
+all the instincts of a wandering tribe, the Turk, however permanent his
+abode, conducts his household exactly as if it were in the nature of a
+tent. He lives in one room, sleeping, eating, and doing business.
+Should he wish to eat, his meal is carried in on a little low table,
+beside which he squats on the floor; the meal over, the table is
+carried out and the floor swept. Should he wish to write, he discards
+the rickety table occasionally found in an official dwelling, and
+writes upon his hand, balancing the ink-pot upon his knee as he sits
+cross-legged on the floor. When it is time to sleep, his bed is pulled
+out of the cupboard and laid upon the floor; his slumbers over, it is
+rolled up and put away again.
+
+ [5] Local Governor.
+
+The Mudir received us with salaams, and taking X by the hand led her to
+the seat of honour at the top end of the divan; our men ranged
+themselves below in order of rank, and a few ragged soldiers hung about
+the door. A servant appeared with cups of coffee and we were offered
+cigarettes. Then water-melon and sweets were handed round. Conversation
+was limited by our small knowledge of Turkish; but X was by this time
+proficient in the formal modes of greeting.
+
+MUDIR. How do the ladies like Turkey?
+
+X. We think Turkey is a very fine country, and everybody has been very
+kind to us.
+
+MUDIR. How could they be otherwise? are the ladies not the honoured
+guests of the Sultan? Have the ladies a kalek[6] in London?
+
+ [6] Raft.
+
+X. No, we never saw one until we came here. We find it very
+comfortable. We should like to take one back with us.
+
+MUDIR. The ladies are sisters, then?
+
+X. No, we are friends; we were educated at the same college.
+
+MUDIR. The lady's father, is he a great Pasha?
+
+HASSAN. He is a very great Pasha and a friend of the Queen of England.
+
+(_Mutual salaams._)
+
+MUDIR. Your father, the great Pasha, has he many sons?
+
+X. Yes, he has five sons.
+
+MUDIR. Mashallah! God has been good to your father.
+
+(_A pause, during which we were closely scrutinised._)
+
+MUDIR. Have the ladies no husbands, then? Why are they not married?
+
+HASSAN. In England the ladies do not care about husbands. In that
+country they rule the men. If anything were to happen to these ladies,
+the Queen of England would send her soldiers out here to revenge them.
+
+(_The whole room gives vent to murmurs of "Mashallah," and every eye
+is fixed on us._)
+
+MUDIR. The other lady (_nodding at me_), is she a servant that she
+does not speak?
+
+HASSAN. No, she too is a Pasha, but she cannot speak Turkish.
+
+MUDIR (_incredulously_). No Turkish?
+
+HASSAN (_scornfully_). Well, only such words as "hot water," "tea,"
+and "be quick," and "is my horse ready?"
+
+The Mudir then inquired calmly "how many times" we had been held up by
+brigands in his district, a strange satire on Turkish methods of
+government. There was not a doubt in his mind that we had not been
+waylaid and robbed.
+
+He then took us to visit another house which boasted of three rooms,
+all leading out of each other. The first one appeared to be the general
+living- and sleeping-room, absolutely bare save for strips of felt
+ranged down the far end and a pile of native quilts in a corner; the
+second room, which could only be reached through the first, was
+dedicated to the animals; and the third, which was almost pitch dark,
+was a larder and store-house. We were received by several women, who
+held us fast by the hands while they displayed their abode with great
+signs of pride. One of them was a strikingly handsome dark girl,
+dressed in gorgeous coloured native silks and velvet, and literally
+plastered with ornaments from the face and hair downwards.
+
+On returning to the raft we were somewhat puzzled (one is never
+_surprised_ in Turkish dominions) by finding it taken possession
+of by two women, magnificently dressed and closely veiled, accompanied
+by a man and a woman servant. They were sitting in a row on our beds
+examining all our belongings complacently.
+
+"We are very pleased to have a visit from the ladies," said X to the
+local Zaptieh who had accompanied us back to the raft, "but they must
+go on land now, as we are starting at once."
+
+"But they will travel with you," said the Zaptieh.
+
+"That would be very pleasant," said X, who never forgot to be polite,
+"but the raft is so small, I am afraid there will be no room for us all
+and they will not be comfortable."
+
+"Oh, there is plenty of room," said the man reassuringly. "The ladies
+need not trouble themselves."
+
+X turned to one of our Zaptiehs.
+
+"Will you explain," she said, "that the raft is ours, and that we are
+very sorry but we are afraid we cannot take the ladies with us?"
+
+"It is an arrangement of the Mudir's," explained Ali; "he has been
+waiting for an opportunity to send the harem of a great Pasha to a
+neighbouring village, and he ordered them to travel with you. They will
+land before evening."
+
+As there seemed no choice in the matter we expressed our tremendous
+appreciation of the honour, and instructed Hassan to keep an eye on
+their pockets. Hassan, who had looked somewhat perturbed from the
+outset, had resolutely ensconced himself at the farthest corner of the
+raft with his back turned to everything. He refused to change his
+position, and explained to us that the ladies were such very great
+Pashas that it would be "shame" for him to look in their direction.
+
+Towards evening we reached a spot where two armed Kurds, with long
+black curls and magnificent striped coats, stood waiting with saddled
+horses. The servant woman carefully wrapped the great ladies up in
+their gaudy silk cloaks, and the man-servant helped them off the raft
+on to the backs of the horses. The little party rode away up a lonely
+looking mountain pass, and as we floated on we caught occasional
+glimpses of their bright colours in and out of the rocks until they
+disappeared entirely over the crest of a distant hill.
+
+That night we moored the raft at Sheveh, a village backed by high
+hills, the last spurs of a great range of snow mountains, at whose base
+we had been winding in and out. We arrived at sunset, just as the women
+were trooping down, with jars on their heads, to fetch water from the
+river. I went and sat on a rock above them, and one by one, having
+filled their jars, they filed up past me, and, stopping for an instant,
+fingered my garments and gently stroked my hair. Many and various
+questions they asked me, of which I could understand nothing beyond the
+note of interrogation, and they sailed on with that free and graceful
+carriage which is the gift of uncivilised races, balancing the jars at
+an angle on their white-veiled heads.
+
+We had finished supper and had stretched ourselves out on the raft
+under the stars, enjoying the quiet and beauty of the scene. The
+boatmen belonging to the two rafts had joined forces and pitched a tent
+on the shore close by. Most of the village had straggled down to the
+river and were flitting mysteriously about in waving white garments.
+All of a sudden a wild, savage noise of screaming and singing arose.
+
+"The men have bought a piece of meat," said Ali, "and are singing to
+it."
+
+It was a weird sight: a roaring fire blazed in the gloaming; in the
+centre hung a large black pot containing the meat which was the object
+of this adoration. The men had joined hands and were dancing round the
+fire in a circle, dark figures in long white flowing robes which waved
+about in the semi-darkness as their owners flung their feet up or swung
+suddenly round. All at once the men dropped on the ground with a
+prolonged dwindling yell, which finally died off into an expectant
+silence. The head boatman fished out the meat and began to tear it to
+pieces with his hands, distributing it amongst his companions. A
+deathly silence reigned while the carcass was being consumed. This gave
+place, as time went on, to a murmuring ripple of satisfaction, which
+developed a little later into bursts of contented song. Then they
+sprang to their feet and flung themselves once more into a dance.
+
+"Let's join in," said X.
+
+We each seized a Zaptieh by the hand and were included in the circle.
+We sprang and kicked and stamped; we turned and hopped and stamped. One
+man stood in the middle clapping the time with his hands as he led the
+song. It was a war-dance; the circle broke into two lines and we dashed
+against one another. Then the lines receded and the song became a low
+murmur as of gathering hordes, whilst our feet beat slow time. The
+murmur swelled and our feet quickened; louder and louder we shouted,
+quicker and quicker we moved, and finally with a great roar the two
+lines dashed against one another. We gave one great stamp all together
+and stopped dead; another great stamp and a roar, then a hush, and the
+lines receded. Thoroughly exhausted, I fell out of the line while this
+proceeding was repeated. By this time the moon shone out bright and
+strong. On one side a great desert stretched away into the starry
+night; on the other the waters of the Tigris swept darkly past us. The
+wild shrieks flew up into the clear, silent air. X danced furiously on
+between Hassan and Ali. Her face was strangely white, lit up by the
+moon, amongst the dark complexions of her companions. They sprang and
+hopped and stamped, they turned and hopped and stamped; a white robe
+here, a red cloak there, a naked foot and a soldier's boot, hopping and
+turning and stamping.
+
+"X," I said to myself, "you are mad, and I, poor sane fool, can only
+remember that I once did crotchet work in drawing-rooms."
+
+A feeling of wild rebellion took hold of me; I sprang into the circle.
+
+"Make me mad!" I cried out; "I want to be mad too!"
+
+The men seized me and on we went, on and on with the hopping and
+turning and stamping. And soon I too was a savage, a glorious, free
+savage under the white moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN
+
+
+Between Hassan Kaif and Jezireh, a distance of thirty-five miles, the
+scenery is very fine. The river winds through narrow gorges with steep
+walls of limestone rock riddled with rock tombs. Here and there in the
+black gorges the high turreted rocks would be skirted below with bands
+of vegetation; little spurts of glistening water shooting over the
+rocky tops, as they dashed down to join the river, shot between masses
+of ferns or trickled through beds of green moss. It was months since we
+had seen anything green, and we feasted our eyes and senses on the
+unaccustomed luxuriance. All the grim bareness and desolation of the
+stone and mud country through which we had passed seemed to serve a
+purpose now in heightening the intoxication of this scene. Reluctantly
+I had been compelled to admit, on more than one occasion, that Nature
+could be positively revolting in places where absence of life and
+colour were not relieved by any sense of stern ruggedness or the
+freedom of space; where day after day we had journeyed through a
+country of little meaningless hillocks strewn with grey stones, only
+getting round the corner of one to be confronted with another of the
+same appearance; where it seemed as if Nature had chosen a spot, far
+from the eye of man, to dump all the clinkers of life, all the stony
+refuse which even she could not turn to any profitable account--she,
+the great mother, of whom men say she knows no waste. We had discovered
+her ugly secret hidden away in this far corner; and now she was using
+her chief weapon, contrast, to make us feel the true extent of her
+power. She had wearied and revolted us, and now she seemed to make use
+of this very fact to give us an intenser appreciation of her best.
+
+"Pretty view, isn't it?" said a voice in the native tongue at my side.
+Startled from another world, I turned round. Arten was rubbing some
+spoons with a dirty cloth and waved his hands towards the banks.
+
+"Got anything like this in London?" he asked affably.
+
+I looked at him in silence. He dived into the hut with a scared look,
+and complained later on to X that the other Pasha had an uncertain
+temper.
+
+The spell of enchantment was broken; but sentiment was in the air with
+the smell of wet earth and the sound of drinking vegetation; oleander
+bushes with bright red blossoms stood out against the dark rock,
+water-birds darted in and out and vultures hovered overhead. I had a
+sudden desire, awakened by Arten's interruption, to share the emotions
+called up by the surrounding scene. I glanced at X. She looked fairly
+sentimental, I thought, lying motionless in her favourite place at the
+extreme end of the raft, with a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.
+
+"X," I murmured softly, "what does this make you think about?"
+
+X was one of those rare people who always know what they are thinking
+about. She did not fail me on this occasion.
+
+"It reminds me of Scotland," she said without hesitation. "Why, what
+does it make you think about?"
+
+But I had stopped thinking about it, and agreed that I had seen places
+like it in Scotland.
+
+"Pasha," said Hassan, "the boatmen want you not to sit so near the edge
+of the raft."
+
+"Why," laughed X, "do they think I shall roll over?"
+
+"No," replied Hassan, pointing ahead, "but we are going to shoot a
+rapid and they say you will be frightened."
+
+"I would sooner be frightened than go through the awful exertion of
+moving on this raft," said X, and she gazed placidly at the line of
+foaming waters which we were rapidly nearing. There was only just room
+for the raft to rush between hard, sharp-edged boulders of rock, and it
+seemed as if we should inevitably be dashed to pieces or stranded at an
+acute angle on one of them.
+
+The Zaptiehs helped with the oars, they and the boatmen keeping up one
+prolonged yell of "Allah! Allah!" They exerted themselves strenuously,
+a strange thing for Easterns to do; the raft creaked and rocked and
+plunged; there was a very disturbing sense of fuss and unseemly
+exertion on board; the cook was saying his prayers inside; Hassan, with
+an air of total unconcern or even apparent perception of what was going
+on, was laboriously adding up his accounts; and X, with equal
+unconcern, was mending her gloves. On such occasions one thinks of
+one's past sins and the future; I thought of the future. I stood up and
+leaned my back against the wall of the hut to steady myself.
+
+"X," I roared above the din, "I wonder what there is for supper
+to-night."
+
+X looked at me with a bored expression. "The same, I should think," she
+said, "as we had last night and the night before and the night before
+that. Why this sudden interest in your food?"
+
+"Because," I said, "I have an idea I shall enjoy my supper to-night."
+
+"Yes," said X (she was always sympathetic), "this sort of weather does
+make one hungry."
+
+Further conversation was prevented by a sudden leap of water and raft
+right into the air, and with the leap went up a loud cry to Allah, as
+the men threw themselves, with one great determination, on the oars. We
+shot head downwards into the dark waters past the white froth of foam;
+there was a moment of turmoil, then everything became very still; the
+men rested exhausted on their oars, the roaring waters sounded faint in
+the distance. I looked round: Hassan was still at his accounts; X had
+finished her gloves, and was lying back with her eyes closed; the
+cook's prayers had ceased; we were through. The cook came out rubbing
+his hands jocosely.
+
+"Arten," I said, "your prayers have saved us from some inconvenience."
+
+Arten looked conscious. "What danger has there been?" he said; "was the
+Pasha afraid of the waters?"
+
+"No, indeed," I returned; "it was not the Pasha who was afraid of the
+waters, but she was afraid she might not get her supper to-night."
+
+"The Pasha is hungry," said X; "we must have onions as well as potatoes
+to-night."
+
+We arrived at Jezireh, without further adventure, at noon the next day.
+The River Jezeer runs into the Tigris at this point, so that the town
+can only be reached by wading through the water.
+
+We were making preparations to go on shore when we observed a little
+man being carried across the water on the back of a half-naked Arab. He
+had that incongruous look made up of the European overcoat with a fur
+collar, the black trousers, and the brown boots, all surmounted with a
+fez, which we had learnt to associate, curiously enough, both with the
+office of local Governor and with that of the native Christian Man.
+
+In this case our visitor was the Kaimakam. He was spilt off the Arab's
+shoulders on to the raft, and landed in rather an unofficial position.
+We went through the usual pantomime of salaams, and after inquiries
+after the health and rank of our relations he invited us to come on
+shore and visit the town.
+
+Jezireh is a stronghold of the Hamidieh Kurds; the ragged soldiers
+about the streets bore their distinguishing mark, a silver star on the
+forehead. Their chief Mustafa had been murdered but a year ago, after
+devastating and burning the whole country round; and under the rule of
+his weaker son there was a temporary lull in hostilities. But Mustafa's
+name was still only mentioned in whispered words of awe, and this not
+by plundered natives alone, but by Turkish regulars and Turkish
+officials alike.
+
+On returning to the raft we heard that an English Pasha had just ridden
+into the town and that he was coming to visit us. He had met Hassan,
+who had been buying supplies in the bazaars, and the following
+conversation had ensued, which Hassan now repeated for our benefit.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Who are you?
+
+HASSAN. I am a cavasse.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Who is your Pasha?
+
+HASSAN. Victoria Pasha.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Where is he?
+
+HASSAN. She is sitting on the raft.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. What is she doing there?
+
+HASSAN. She is floating to Baghdad.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Where did she come from?
+
+HASSAN. She came out of England.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Is she alone?
+
+HASSAN. No, she has a friend, who is not her sister, neither
+is she her servant.
+
+ENGLISH PASHA. Give the ladies my salaams and say that I will call
+upon them.
+
+X and I looked at one another. The meeting of an Englishman under such
+circumstances is no doubt, in one sense, an excitement; so would it be
+to meet a tiger in an English country lane. In a jungle, now, one
+expects a tiger, and, being prepared for his attack, does not resent
+it. In the same way one is prepared to meet an Englishman on common
+ground in England, but, in an Asiatic wild, one is not prepared for the
+onslaught and one is therefore taken at a disadvantage. It was ten days
+since we had seen ourselves, as the Man would see us, in a glass (and
+then it was only a missionary's glass), and we had lost nearly all our
+hairpins in the crevices of the raft.
+
+"Is my face as red as yours?" said X.
+
+The question was evidently the outcome of the thoughts which assailed
+her mind during the few moments' silence in which we had gazed at each
+other, wondering whether we really looked like that too.
+
+"Your face is all right," I said, "it's only red in patches; but your
+hair is disgraceful. How's mine?"
+
+"It's all right," said X, critically, "it's only coming down in
+patches. But there is no time to do anything; here it is; we must
+brazen it out."
+
+A young Englishman was boarding the raft; he was very spick and span,
+shaved, brushed, a clean collar, and polished boots.
+
+"You must excuse me for calling upon you in this dishevelled manner,"
+he said as we shook hands, "but travellers have to come as they are; I
+daresay you can sympathise," and he glanced round at our _menage_.
+
+X laughed. "Oh, as far as that goes," she said, "we are all in the same
+boat."
+
+"Raft," I corrected in a nervous flutter.
+
+The Young Man looked at me and smiled. I realised that he thought I was
+trying to make a cheap joke, such as one might have been capable of in
+the country lane.
+
+"I must introduce myself," he went on. "I am Captain T---- of V----. I
+am on my way there now. It's strange you should just have arrived
+to-day as I was crossing the river...."
+
+I murmured something about tea and fled into the men's hut, where Arten
+was boiling the kettle.
+
+"Arten," I stammered out in broken Turkish, "the English Pasha will
+have tea with us. You must bring the cups clean. The English never have
+dirty cups."
+
+Arten smiled back very genially; he breathed into a cup and wiped it
+vigorously with one of his dirty cloths, by which I concluded that he
+understood what I had said to him. I had learnt up all the words about
+dirt and the desirability of washing.
+
+It was raining slightly and we had to ask the Young Man under cover. X
+and I sat down on one of the camp-beds and the Young Man sat on the
+opposite bed, sticking his long legs out through the door.
+
+"You speak Turkish, then?" he said to me as I returned.
+
+So he had heard my injunctions! I hastily denied any claim to a
+knowledge of the language. Arten came in with the tea, which he placed
+on the floor between the Young Man's top-boots.
+
+"The Pasha," he said, addressing X, "said you wanted something for tea
+which the English always have, only I did not understand what it was."
+
+"Oh," said X, turning to me, "what was it?"
+
+I kicked X.
+
+"Biscuits," I said.
+
+"No," said Arten, persistently, "it wasn't biscuits; it was something
+which you don't usually have."
+
+I gave Arten the look which he had learnt to associate with the
+advisability of his own retreat. The Young Man smiled again and looked
+the other way.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I don't know where we should be very often without
+biscuits in this country; they are so easy to carry."
+
+I knew then that he had heard.
+
+The Young Man stayed about half an hour and then rose to go. His camp
+had gone on, and it was a two hours' ride to the place where they would
+spend the night.
+
+When he had departed X and I thought it over.
+
+"You bet," I said fretfully, "he will have a five-course dinner
+to-night, on a table with clean plates and knives for each course, and
+probably a camp-chair to sit on."
+
+"Yes," said X, "and a looking-glass hung on the wall of his tent, and
+hot water and a clean towel."
+
+And that's what a man calls roughing it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CREED OF THE KORAN
+
+
+We left Jezireh early next morning. The scenery was now much tamer; the
+banks of the river were low; stretches of conglomerate and red rocks
+were interspersed with grassy slopes. The river was no longer disturbed
+by rocks and rapids, and our two kalekjis had been replaced by a
+bright-faced youth who was going to take us single-handed as far as
+Mosul.
+
+"Am not I a good kalekji?" he kept on saying to us, "see how quick I
+make the raft go. When you get to Mosul you will remember what a good
+kalekji I was," and, standing up on the raft, grasping the two oars, he
+would throw himself right backwards, causing the raft to shoot on
+through the sluggish stream. Then when we had got into a faster bit of
+current he would lean on his oars and roll up a cigarette, talking all
+the time.
+
+"The ladies like me, do they not? They see I am a good kalekji. They
+surely like me better than their other kalekjis?"
+
+Six rafts laden with merchandise had followed us from Jezireh, and one
+with a hut similar to ours, and flying the Turkish crescent, was
+conveying a Turkish Yuzbashi with his harem to Mosul. The women were
+shut inside the hut the whole time, and occasionally, when the rafts
+drifted alongside, we caught glimpses of them peering shyly at us
+through the little glazed window. Did they envy us, sitting boldly
+outside, unveiled, open to the stares of all this crowd? Or, knowing no
+other lot, did they merely regard us with astonished curiosity, these
+so-called women from a strange land, who dressed like women but went
+about like men?
+
+The fat little officer in his smart uniform sat outside most of the
+day, smoking with Oriental listlessness or playing with his little fat
+boy, a miniature counterpart of himself, dressed in uniform with a toy
+sword.
+
+On some of the merchandise rafts the kalekjis were accompanied by their
+families. The sacks were piled up to form a rough shelter, under which
+the women and children crouched all day and cooked their masters' food.
+More rafts joined on to us further down, until we numbered thirteen.
+All day we floated in and out amongst each other, the rafts twisting
+and turning with the vagaries of the current. The kalekjis yelled and
+shouted at one another; they raced for the fast bits of current ahead
+where only one raft could pass at a time; they jostled one another or
+got entangled in shallow places, and the other rafts passed them with
+jeers.
+
+Our little kalekji put forth all his skill.
+
+"See, Pasha," he would say, excitedly, "see how we leave them behind!
+You have the best kalekji; do you see I always have the best of the
+river? Yah, yah, yah," and he roared derisive laughter at his pursuers.
+
+At night we all moored together and the kalekjis would land and sleep
+in the caves under overhanging rocks, or light a fire on the banks and
+stretch themselves out round it, taking turns at the night watch.
+
+No sooner was the raft drawn up along the banks than X and I would land
+to get as much exercise as possible in the remaining hour of daylight.
+The Zaptiehs, who were obliged to accompany us, wrung their hands over
+this display of energy.
+
+"Aman, aman. These English have strange habits. They land all in
+a minute, and before you know what they are doing one has rushed in one
+direction and one in another, and perhaps both are lost in the
+darkness, and we have orders from the Government never to lose sight of
+them. If the Government only knew what they were asking!"
+
+The first evening after leaving Jezireh, Ali and I climbed to the
+highest point near the river, from where I obtained a good view of the
+surrounding country. The top of the hill on which we stood was a mass
+of stones and bulbous plants with withered leaves and tufts of rough
+grass. The country stretched away all round in strong, firm undulations
+to a distant horizon. To the west was the full glory of an Eastern
+sunset, intensifying the reddish hue of the rolling hills until they
+merged into blackness in the shadows. To the east the terminating range
+was snow-clad, and the setting sun, casting a pink glow over the white
+peaks, gave a gradation of colour which caused them to melt
+imperceptibly into the sky and mingle with the pale reflection of the
+sun's setting rays on the opposite horizon. What villages, what life
+lay concealed in the hollows of these rolling hills I do not know. To
+the eye there was nothing visible but the hill-tops in their naked
+immensity and intense desolation; on one side the flaming colours of
+the setting sun, on the other its pale reflection on the snowy peaks,
+and over it all the vast, inscrutable sky. We were alone, Ali and I,
+with "that silence which some call God." I liked Ali's companionship on
+these evening walks; his nature, truly Eastern, was in keeping with the
+country. He had been chatting away merrily all the way up, trying to
+teach me Turkish words; and now we both lapsed of one accord into
+silence and his merry face took on something of the sternness of the
+surroundings. He laid his rifle on the ground, and moving away a little
+distance, went through the evening prayer. Now upright, now bending,
+now on his knees, a misty black form in the dazzling red light, he
+murmured inaudibly the prescribed words, words which at that same hour
+were being uttered alike by so many thousands in the fevered rush of
+busy towns, on the house-tops, and in the crowded chambers. A form, a
+ritual of empty words this prayer may be, but up here, in Nature's
+loneliness, the prayer and the man seemed strangely relevant.
+
+Was it not in such a place as this, alone with the great forces of
+Nature, that Mahomet formed his conception of God as an Irresistible
+Power?
+
+"Has there come to thee the story of the overwhelming?" he cries out at
+one time, and again: "Does there not come in man a portion of time when
+he is nothing worth mentioning?"
+
+The great need of man is for expression; in places such as these his
+own insignificance is forced upon him by the overwhelming might of
+primeval forces. Alone with the great silence which his voice cannot
+fill, with the great space in which he, as a physical being, is lost;
+with the great mountains against which to measure his strength, with
+the stars which he cannot reach, and the floods which he cannot stem,
+his own personality seems so trivial that he doubts its very existence,
+until a strong feeling of participation in the forces themselves, of
+his own share in them, gives a truer sense of his own proportion; and
+the reaction of feeling, from this realization of his own impotence to
+that of his own magnificence in being part of them, produces an
+overwhelming desire for utterance.
+
+Was it under such influences as these that Mahomet's longing,
+awe-struck soul first heard, "Cry, what shall I cry?" and subsequently
+gave forth that long blazonry of Nature's beauty in the Koran? There is
+something in the grand simplicity and childish acceptance of the
+unspoilt Eastern character at its best which seems to be a counterpart
+of the feeling inspired by Nature in this Eastern land itself. That it
+should be so seems natural when we remember how Mahomet was continually
+conjuring his followers to look at Nature and understand great things.
+
+"Look at the heaven how it is reared, and at the mountains how they are
+set up, and at the earth how it is spread out...."
+
+"Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you
+if you would understand...."
+
+"Lift up thine eyes to the heaven; dost thou see any flaw therein? Nay,
+lift up thine eyes again; thy sight returneth dim and dazed...."
+
+The murmuring words of Ali's prayer had stopped; the sun sank behind
+the distant line of hills; a breeze sprang up and stirred the tufts of
+withered grass, whispering in the "still of night."
+
+We retraced our steps to the edge of the hill and dropped into the
+hidden valley, where the Tigris rushed along unheeded and unseen from
+above.
+
+Arten's voice rose with the sound of the waters, singing the well-worn
+words of an Armenian Protestant hymn.
+
+The kalekjis had lit fires at the mouth of the caves, and crouched
+round the black pot which contained the evening meal. From the far
+corner of one cave came the wail of a new-born infant.
+
+Under "the splendour of the Night Star" we too retired to rest.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We were already afloat when I woke next morning. From my bed I could
+see the banks shooting past the little window of the hut. The reader
+must not imagine a continuous view, such as one would get through the
+window of a more civilized vehicle of locomotion. The banks at one
+moment would move straight past the window in the orthodox way; then
+they would be suddenly shooting past in the opposite direction, or we
+had a view of the river behind. It requires in many ways a certain
+amount of practice to live in a state of equilibrium on a raft. One is
+constantly being made aware of the truism that there are two sides to
+everything. First of all there are, as one would expect, two sides to
+the river; and owing to the particular method of our progression we
+were always being reminded, in a most irritating way, of this purely
+geological fact. No sooner had we become aware of the scenery on one
+side, and had decided that it was the right bank, than--swish--round
+went the raft, and the whole length of the right bank would be shot
+before our view like a circular panorama, and before you could take it
+in you were looking at the left bank; moreover, you would be looking at
+it moving past you upwards, though you were perfectly certain the raft
+could only be floating downwards. There was hardly time to reason this
+out when--swish--round you go the reverse way again, the left bank
+swings past you downwards and you are travelling up the right bank,
+although the raft, you are persuaded, is still pursuing its downward
+course. If you stood outside and fixed your eye with strenuous
+determination on some fixed and immutable spot of heaven or earth you
+might be able to keep your bearings with a strong mental effort. But
+when you observed the features of the landscape through the small
+window of your hut you gave it up--and simply gazed at the view as you
+would at a magic-lantern slide being slowly withdrawn through the
+porthole of an undulating steamer.
+
+It was equally difficult to look steadily ahead from a mental point of
+view. Travelling by yourself you might be able to arrange your own
+philosophy, but it is upsetting when the other person sees the side
+which at any particular moment you do not happen to be looking at.
+When, for instance, we were delayed later that morning repairing burst
+skins, X was perfectly happy dwelling on the romance of navigating this
+noble and ancient river in the same way as those heroes whose feats
+were recorded on the tablets of Nineveh, until I unwittingly disturbed
+the harmony of these thoughts by complaining that I was unpleasantly
+reminded of a punctured bicycle on a lonely road of civilisation.
+
+"How delightful this is," I said, in exuberant laziness, when we were
+floating on once more, "to be able to lose all conception of time and
+float on, as it were, to eternity."
+
+"Personally," said X, "I find myself counting the days with a most
+unpleasant conception of the lapse of time, for we have only food
+enough for one day, and owing to this delay there is no possibility of
+renewing our supply for two."
+
+I felt an injury had been inflicted on me by being reminded of absence
+of dinner when I had been inflated with great thoughts. But I had not
+long to wait for my revenge.
+
+"What a picturesque man the kalekji is," X exclaimed suddenly. "I take
+such a delight in watching him shaking out his flowing garments and
+folding himself up in such graceful attitudes."
+
+"Personally," I said, with some malice, "it gives me no pleasure since
+I became aware that he is only engaged in hunting for fleas."
+
+X made no answer; I felt we were quits. She would have to think of the
+presence of fleas while I thought of the absence of dinner.
+
+We floated on very quietly that day. The banks were flatter and the
+patches of grass became more frequent. At long intervals we passed
+villages of mud huts built on the sides of the river where the banks
+rose to a higher point. Towards evening we swung round under a rocky
+prominence, on the top of which stood the village of Hassoni. There was
+no possibility of mooring the raft anywhere near it for the night. The
+banks rose up in a straight wall of rock, of such a height that the
+inhabitants of the village, peering down at us from above, seemed like
+pigmies on the sky-line. We floated on until the hills curved and the
+banks sloped down to a muddy flat. The other rafts were already moored
+along the shore and we drifted alongside of them. Ali and I landed, and
+we set off to walk back to the village in the hope of getting some eggs
+and milk to eke out our supply of provisions. We had some difficulty in
+scrambling up the wet, grassy places between edges of rock where the
+water oozed out and trickled down to the river below; and on reaching
+the top we found ourselves on the edge of an extensive tableland which
+ended abruptly in the escarpment under which we had floated. Below us
+we could see the river winding ahead through a low-lying country to the
+east. We walked for half a mile across the flat table-top towards the
+village; a long procession of black and yellow cattle were sauntering
+along in front of us, lowing quietly in answer to the shrill calls of a
+boy who stood motionless on a little hillock, a weird figure in the
+straight, square-cut sheepskin cloak of the natives.
+
+From all sides flocks of goats and sheep were coming in and filled the
+narrow streets, sharing the homes of their masters as a protection
+against the raids of Hamidieh chiefs. It was a partly Kurdish, partly
+Arab village, and the inhabitants mingled their curiosity at my
+appearance with fright at that of Ali's. Long experience had taught
+them that a visit from a Turkish Zaptieh meant extortion of some sort.
+A child in our path screamed aloud, rooted to the spot with terror.
+Ali's bright, laughing face clouded over.
+
+"That is what the children are taught to think of us," he said, "and I
+have my own little ones at home."
+
+Our demands for milk were received with sullen grimness, until the
+sight of the unwonted coin caused the faces to clear, and a further
+present of tobacco established quite a friendly footing. I sat down
+inside an enclosure of maize stalks at the door of a larger hut, where
+the cows were being milked, and the natives, clustering round, plied
+Ali with questions. One of the villagers offered to walk back with us
+and carry the milk. It was dark before we reached the edge of the
+tableland again, and I shouted down in the hopes of getting an answer
+which would guide us to the encampment below. The village boy held up
+his hand with a scared look: the call was only answered by its own
+echo, and the stones, slipping under our feet, rattled noisily down the
+steep slope.
+
+"Hush!" said Ali, "who knows but what Ibrahim Pasha may hear you," and
+we slid silently down the slippery banks in the darkness, until the
+light of a camp-fire gleamed out a welcome signal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EVIL ONE
+
+
+At noon on the tenth day after leaving Diarbekr and the fourth from
+Jezireh we caught sight of the minarets and cupolas of Mosul, and
+floated for a couple of miles under the chain of limestone cliffs on
+the end of which the town is built. We had hardly got within sight of
+the town itself when a fearful cannonading met our ears, accompanied by
+piercing screams and savage yells. It sounded as if the walls were
+being attacked by battering-rams, and all along the shore line at their
+base we could faintly distinguish a seething line of human beings
+brandishing some form of weapon. We were evidently going to be
+eye-witnesses of a tribal disturbance which would cause diplomatic
+unrest in Europe, and who knows but what our participation in it would
+not brand us with fame for the rest of time. I determined to make full
+use of the opportunity and prepared my camera and notebook.
+
+The Zaptiehs, however, seemed quite unconcerned, and we understood from
+them that there was no cause for alarm, and that this sort of thing was
+of weekly occurrence in Mosul. On floating up to the scene of action we
+realised that it was indeed only Mosul's washing-day. All along the
+shore, as far as we could see, under the walls of the town stretched a
+continuous line of women beating clothes with flat sticks on the stones
+at the water's edge; and the screams resolved themselves into the
+ordinary sounds usually emitted where women congregate in large
+numbers. Truly, the men of the East are wise in their generation. They
+had thus solved the problem of washing-day and all its horrors, and
+were left in peaceful and undisputed possession of their hearths and
+tempers. The women were there in their hundreds, and, as we approached
+the bridge of boats which crossed the river lower down, we floated past
+a small army of them on the opposite shore, where a flat stretch of mud
+was covered with gaudy rags laid out to dry. Mosul, I believe, derives
+its name from the manufacture of muslin carried on there, and the
+guide-book informs us that it is chiefly remarkable for the Assyrian
+mounds found near it. I am bound to confess, however, that it is
+indelibly impressed on my mind solely in its connection with the vulgar
+art of washing.
+
+We had to wait several days at Mosul while a new raft was being
+constructed, on to which our huts were bodily transferred. The skins on
+which we had floated so far were deflated and the kalekjis would return
+with them to Diarbekr by land on donkey back.
+
+We spent the time visiting the historic mounds of Koyunjik and
+Khorsabad, for detailed information on which I must refer the reader to
+the works of Layard and Botha and King. The site of Nineveh to the
+uninitiated eye is represented by the great mound of Koyunjik, which
+rises out of the flat country on the opposite side of the river to
+Mosul; it is surrounded by smaller tumuli representing parts of the
+ancient walls. Here and there are patches of cultivation, and at the
+time of our visit the bare brown earth was beginning to show promise of
+being covered by a scanty vegetation. Of winged bulls, of lettered
+slabs, of cylinders, of all the wondrous contents of the palaces of the
+ancient Assyrian kings, now ensconced in the museums of Western cities,
+the only indication we had on the spot were the subterranean tunnels,
+now choked with fallen debris, from which these evidences had been
+removed; and the broken bits of masonry and pottery which were strewn
+promiscuously about the surface. From the summit we obtained a
+comprehensive view of the country: of Mosul at our feet standing on its
+limestone cliffs at the farther side of the Tigris, and of the distant
+country through which the river wandered southwards; a great plain
+dotted with villages round which patches of cultivated land were
+already green with the rising corn. Long strings of mules laden with
+cabbage and other vegetables came in from the outlying villages and
+swelled the motley coloured crowd at the stalls established on this
+side of the river, or passed on over the rickety wooden bridge to the
+bazaars inside the town.
+
+The exertion of living on land for these few days had seemed so very
+great that we were not sorry when we found ourselves afloat once more
+on the new raft and with a new set of men. Achmet and Ali had bidden us
+a tearful farewell, and we now had one Zaptieh only as escort, an Arab
+also named Ali. He was a Chous,[7] and I will give him his full title
+to distinguish him from our late friend. A picturesque kalekji is
+almost an essential in such close quarters as a raft, and up till now
+we had rejoiced in the brightly-striped Kurdish coats and turbans of
+our first kalekjis, and the clean, flowing, white abba of our Jezireh
+friend. The two men who were to take us from Mosul to Baghdad presented
+a very different appearance. Unlike most Arabs, they were both huge,
+stout men, and were dressed in rough brown camel-hair cloaks over
+unwashed white under-garments. One of them we nicknamed at once the
+Evil One; he had the most excruciatingly wicked face imaginable--and
+the terror of it was considerably heightened when he tried to
+superinduce a conciliating smile on his hideous expression of
+wickedness.
+
+ [7] Sergeant.
+
+The country below Mosul was decidedly tame; the dry brown plain was
+fringed by the already green banks of the river. The river itself was
+now much wider, and here and there its course would be divided by
+islands with low, swampy banks, round which the waters would lose
+themselves in marshy tracts, where herons waded in and out and
+innumerable black ducks dived and spluttered amongst the rushes. The
+jungle round was the haunt of the wild boar, jackal, and hyena. It was
+hard to believe that a few weeks later the first spring sun would call
+forth wild masses of gorgeous flowers and long, rank grasses, and that
+the whole country would be teeming with succulent vegetation.
+
+It was, indeed, a monotonous bit of country. The sun had not yet melted
+the snows of the distant Armenian hills, which later on would cause a
+rapid flood to the river, and we progressed very slowly in the low,
+sluggish waters. Our two kalekjis displayed no desire to hurry matters
+by their own exertions, and leant on their oars all day, disturbing the
+general harmony by constant quarrelling in harsh, grating voices. Now
+and then Ali Chous, who was fat and meek, would address himself to them
+in a soothing, almost pleading tone of voice. The purport of their
+remarks was lost to us, as their conversation was carried on in Arabic,
+and we found it hard to extract any information out of Ali, who could
+communicate with us in Turkish.
+
+"Tell them they must stop talking and row," I said; "we are hardly
+moving at all."
+
+And Ali Chous would answer:
+
+"They will row, Effendi, indeed they will row." And the kalekjis rested
+on their oars as before, and the Evil One would smile at me, distorting
+his evil countenance with a diabolical grin.
+
+Finally, Ali informed us, in his anxious, conciliating tone, that they
+had brought no food with them and that they were hungry. If the Pashas
+would give them bread they could row; now they were faint. This was a
+favourite Eastern dodge with which we were well acquainted by this
+time. The kalekjis were always engaged with the understanding that they
+fed themselves, and knowing the fatal results of giving in on such
+points we hardened our countenances.
+
+"Tell them we cannot help that; they knew they had to bring their own
+food, and if they starve it is not our fault." And the Evil One, on
+hearing this through Ali's no doubt modified interpretation, gave us
+another grin, even more diabolical than before.
+
+When we retired into the hut for our next meal I took the precaution of
+cutting a hole in the felt wall, and peeping through it, saw them
+comfortably ensconced at the furthest end of the raft, eating bread and
+scraps of meat out of a dirty linen bag, which they hastily sat on when
+we reappeared.
+
+Arten was terribly afraid of them, and I knew what that meant.
+
+"Arten," I said to him early in the day, "if you dare to give these men
+any food without my leave we will land you at the next village."
+
+Arten hastily disclaimed any intention of giving them food, but he
+evidently cherished the thought as quite a good idea; after all, he was
+more alarmed of them even than he was of me.
+
+Early on the second day we arrived at a small village, where it seemed
+as if we were expected. There was a crowd on the banks, and one of the
+men was waiting with a large sack. Ali explained to us that it
+contained the kalekjis' bread, and that we must land to take it on
+board.
+
+The Evil One waded on shore with the rope, which he made fast to a
+rock. A little further down the banks were several natives making a
+raft, and I strolled down to have a look at them. One man sat on the
+ground with a pile of skins beside him. The skins had been cut off
+above the hind legs, and the man was engaged in tying up this end, and
+the openings of the fore legs, with string. One end of the string was
+tied round his big toe, and he worked the other end up and down round
+the gathered end of the skin until the tied ends were quite air-tight.
+Then he threw the skin to another man, who blew into the open fore end
+until it was inflated, when he tied it up. A third man stood in the
+water, tying the inflated skins on to the poplar poles with the ends of
+the same strings that had served to tie up the openings.
+
+After watching them a little time I returned to our raft. By this time
+the whole village had turned out, and a great uproar was going on.
+
+"What's up?" I said to X, who had not left the raft.
+
+"I've been trying to find out," said X. "The Evil One has displeased
+them somehow and they will not let him go."
+
+We instructed Ali Chous to insist on our going on. The second kalekji,
+Jedan by name, seemed only too delighted; he kept winking at us and
+pointing derisively at the Evil One. He untied the rope and shoved off.
+A man on the shore promptly seized the rope and held us back.
+
+"Get a stick," said X, "and give him a smack on his head."
+
+X was of a peaceable disposition, and I daresay she was laughing at me.
+She enjoyed seeing me get angry. But it was in our contract that I
+should do all the manual labour connected with keeping order, so I
+obediently seized a long pole, and let it descend gently on the
+offender's shoulder. He turned round and stared, dropping the rope with
+an astonished grin. The crowd burst into joyous shouts and pointed at
+the Evil One, who still stood expostulating angrily in their midst.
+
+"Hit him!" they yelled, "he is the one to hit!" and quite believing
+them I transferred my attentions, along with the end of the pole, to
+his shoulder.
+
+"Come!" I shouted. It sounds tame, but it was the only Arabic word I
+knew. The raft slowly drifted down-stream and the Evil One, dashing in
+up to his waist, clambered on board.
+
+Ali explained to us that he refused to pay enough for his bread, and
+that the crowd would not let him go until he had done so.
+
+The Evil One grinned, and, diving into the bag, offered me a dirty
+piece of native bread in his still dirtier fingers. He would share his
+food with us, though we refused to do so with him; a typical Eastern
+method of putting one in the wrong.
+
+The waters were still sluggish, and the men seemed determined to do no
+work.
+
+"I am beginning to think they are in league with some one on shore,"
+said X. "It cannot be to their advantage to be so long on the way, as
+they are paid a lump sum to get us to Baghdad, and we are not feeding
+them. I quite expect we shall be held up and robbed before evening."
+
+Finding that orders and threats were of no use and learning from Ali
+that Jedan, the second kalekji, was afraid of the Evil One, who would
+not allow him to row, I sat down facing them and produced my revolver.
+
+"Tell the bad kalekji," I said to Ali Chous, "that if he does not row I
+will shoot him."
+
+The Evil One, greatly to my astonishment, appeared to believe in the
+possibility of bloodshed and set to work at the oars. All the rest of
+the day I sat with my revolver at his head. It was a most fatiguing, if
+effectual, process.
+
+"Supposing he does stop rowing," said X, "will you shoot him?"
+
+"I cannot think what I shall do," I said; "the only way will be to fire
+over his head and pretend I've missed him."
+
+"Mind you do miss him," said X languidly.
+
+"Sure to," I answered hopefully.
+
+Some hours before sunset we were held up in a manner which admitted of
+no blame being attached to the Evil One. A strong head-wind arose,
+before which the raft refused to make headway, and we were forced to
+take refuge on a dreary mud bank which sloped down to the water's edge
+under a low line of shaley rocks.
+
+The men sat about cross and disconsolate. It was very unsafe, they
+said, to spend the night so far from a village. We should certainly be
+attacked; the Evil One had arranged this--wind and all. We might be
+there for days, and what should we do for food? Tired of looking at all
+their sulky faces, I clambered up the cliff above to see what I could
+see. The top of the hill was as level as if it had been flattened out
+by a giant with a hot iron. A low line of hills with equally flattened
+tops at a little distance hid the further view. I walked to the top of
+them, led on by the sort of fascination which makes one wish to see
+what is hidden between one and the horizon. Having reached the top
+there was nothing to be seen but repeated lines of naked, flat-topped
+hills. The dreary loneliness of the place, its utter nakedness, in
+which one seemed shut off from all the real things of life, colour,
+sound, space, and growth, descended like a physical weight on one's
+senses. It was all like one great senseless punishment, which from its
+sheer callousness held one, with mingled fascination and terror, rooted
+to the spot. With an effort I turned to retrace my steps, when my eye
+caught sight of a dark object on the same line of hills on which I
+stood, which made my blood turn cold. A wild-looking, half-naked Arab,
+who seemed to have dropped suddenly from the sky, was standing
+motionless gazing at me from a little distance. For one moment I stood
+transfixed with nameless dread; the whole feeling of terror which had
+been established by the mere aspect of the country seemed now to be
+concentrated and personified in this sudden apparition. What hordes of
+like beings might not be concealed behind these mysterious hillocks? He
+moved one step towards me and I turned and fled, down the slope and
+across the level plain to the edge of the cliff under which the raft
+was moored. The apparition pursued me silently. On reaching the edge of
+the cliff I peered over and could see the crew of the raft still
+occupying the disconsolate positions in which I had left them. My
+senses now slowly returned, and I sat down to await the arrival of the
+apparition out of consideration to my own self-respect. He was still
+some distance from me, and, on seeing me sit down, he also sat down and
+we gazed at one another. The comic element in the scene asserted
+itself. A savage and I holding each other at bay like two dogs
+preparing for a fight on the top of the cliff, and down below X sitting
+unconcernedly on the raft reading the "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius."
+I laughed out loud; the savage sprang to his feet with a yell,
+brandished his arms in the air, and darting up a neighbouring slope
+disappeared behind it as suddenly as he had appeared.
+
+I slid down the cliff and joined X.
+
+"Where have you been?" she said. "I was just going to send Ali to look
+for you; he says it is not safe to go out of sight of the raft."
+
+"I was only on the top," I answered, too ashamed to enter into further
+details.
+
+We discussed our general situation in bed that night.
+
+"X," I said, "if you met a savage all alone in a wild piece of country
+what would you do?"
+
+"Why, go up and speak to him, of course," said X; "it would be awfully
+interesting. What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered; "I want to go to sleep now."
+
+The wind dropped in the night, and at the first break of day we were
+off once more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ARAB HOSPITALITY
+
+
+Fifty-three pairs of dark eyes were fixed upon us in unwavering
+scrutiny; it was dark and there was silence. The eyes, as they gleamed
+out of the darkness, might have belonged to a herd of wild beasts
+watching their prey; but we were privileged guests of the Arab Shaykh
+in whose tent we were sitting, and the gaze was but that of friendly
+curiosity. We had been placed on the seat of honour--a rush mat at one
+side of the tent; opposite to us squatted our host, a venerable old man
+with a white beard which flowed over his bare, wrinkled chest; with one
+arm he supported a small boy, who played with the beads round the old
+chief's neck.
+
+Between us, in the centre of the hut, glowed a dying fire, and beside
+it, silently watching the pot on the ashes, sat the coffee-maker. Now
+and then he scraped the ashes together round the pot. A thin veil of
+smoke rose up slowly and dispersed itself under the low roof of the
+tent. The silence was almost religious; the darkness suggested
+witchcraft rather than night; a hobgoblin might have sprung out of the
+coffee-maker's pot and not been out of keeping with the natural
+sequence of events.
+
+All at once, at the back of the tent, a hand was raised and a bundle of
+fine brushwood came down on to the fire; in sudden blaze it momentarily
+lit up the fifty-three dark faces, flared an instant, flickered, then
+as rapidly died away, and we only felt the gaze we had seen before. We
+silently watched the coffee-maker and our host, who, being nearest to
+the fire, were dimly visible in its remaining light; the attention of
+the one was concentrated on his pot; that of the other, in common with
+his companions, was on us. There was no call for speech, for we spoke
+in tongues unintelligible to one another, and the only sound which
+fitfully broke the ghostly silence was that language understood by all
+nations alike, the wail of an infant in its mother's arms.
+
+"Salaam Aleikum," we had been received with as the Shaykh stood up to
+welcome us on our arrival, unexpected and uninvited, in the midst of
+his tribe. We had been guided to his tent by the long spear which stood
+upright at the door, and when he had offered us that token of Arab
+goodwill--the cup of coffee--we knew that we were amongst friends. He
+waved us to our seats, and then, seating himself, pulled the child
+towards him; he patted his own chest, and then pointed to the lad with
+pride.
+
+"His youngest child," interpreted Ali, who accompanied us, and who
+understood a few words of Arabic.
+
+We nodded back our looks of appreciation, and, these preliminary acts
+of courtesy having established the requisite good feeling, all need for
+further converse seemed at an end, and a comfortable silence fell upon
+us all.
+
+The whole village had followed us into their chief's tent as a matter
+of course, and those for whom there was no room inside herded together
+at the door. The Eastern standard of ideas, which allows respectful
+equality with one's superiors, was responsible for the total absence of
+ill-mannered jostling which would have characterised a civilised crowd
+under similar circumstances on the reception of strange foreigners.
+
+The coffee-maker reached out his hand without turning, and one amongst
+the crowd at his back handed him a massive iron spoon on to which was
+chained a copper ladle. The Shaykh's little son, obeying a nod from his
+father, pulled a bag out of a dark recess behind him; another bundle of
+brushwood was thrown upon the fire and by the light of its sudden,
+almost startling blaze, the lad untied the bag and carefully counted
+out the allotted number of coffee-berries. The coffee-maker dropped
+them into the spoon, for which he had raked out a hole in the ashes.
+The slight stir caused by these proceedings subsided, the blaze died
+away, and the attention of all was again riveted on us, save that only
+of the coffee-maker, who, sitting close up to the embers, now scraped
+the white ashes round the pot, now turned the roasting berries over
+with the ladle chained to the spoon. The Shaykh's hand stole on to the
+little boy's head, and the boy, looking up, stroked the old man's
+beard. On we sat in the dark silence, learning from these true masters
+of Time how neither to waste it nor to let it drag, but going step by
+step with it, to lay ourselves open to receive all that it had to give.
+
+The silence was so prolonged and so intense that, silently as time
+flies, we could almost hear its moments ticking away. It has been said
+that we take no note of time except when we count its loss. It might be
+said of all Easterns that they are unconscious of the time they lose,
+because they take no note of it; they live unconsciously up to the fact
+that, the past being beyond recall and the future unfathomable, the
+present only is in our power. And the Eastern is master of Time because
+he spends it absorbing the present.
+
+Meanwhile the berries had blackened, and the man emptied them into a
+copper mortar. As he pounded them he caused the pestle to ring in tune
+against the sides of the bowl. The child laughed gleefully and pointed
+at him; the stern old man smiled and shot a proud glance over at us.
+
+"Fiddle away, old Time," rang out the tones of the metal pestle. It
+seemed to give voice to our joyful derision of Time; here was Time
+trying to weary us with himself, and we only laughed at him.
+
+ "Fiddle away, old Time--
+ Fiddle away, old Fellow!
+ Airs for infancy, youth, and prime,
+ Times both shrill and mellow.
+ Fiddle away,
+ Or grave or gay,
+ For faces pink or yellow--
+ Scrape your song a lifetime long,
+ Fiddle away, old Fellow!"
+
+Not a soul moved. Outside in the dusk a stunted black cow thoughtfully
+chewed the maize stalks of which the enclosure round the tent was
+built, and a kid rubbed his head up and down against a child's bare
+leg. Beyond this the darkness had nothing to conceal. We were in the
+middle of a bare, largely uninhabited, desert land known only to a few
+wandering Arab tribes. Outside, the mysterious open vault of the dark
+sky with its many hundred points of light; inside, the mysterious
+recess of the dark tent with the fifty-three pairs of gleaming eyes,
+every one fixed upon ourselves. Now and then, as a flash of lightning
+in the sky at night will expose the immediate surroundings to view, so
+a sudden spark from the fire revealed the setting of the eyes--the
+solemn, dusky, Arab faces.
+
+A splutter on the fire as the pot boiled over put an end alike to the
+tune and to the meditations called up by it. The man transferred the
+ground berries to a copper jug and, pouring the boiling water on to
+them, placed this second pot on the hot ashes. We had been sitting
+there for an hour watching these preparations, and it seemed as if we
+might now reasonably entertain hopes of tasting the results. Our
+expectations in this direction were also enhanced by the appearance of
+three tiny cups which had been unearthed from a dark corner, and handed
+to one of the men nearest the fire. He proceeded to rinse them out one
+by one with hot water, displaying a care and absorption in the process
+which contrasted strangely with the simplicity of his task.
+
+The coffee on the fire came to the boil, the coffee-maker poured it
+back into the original pot, which he again set on the ashes. He then
+handed the empty jug to the cup-washer, who rinsed each cup out
+carefully with a few drops of the coffee left for this purpose. Very
+quietly, very precisely, he placed each cup on the ground within reach
+of the coffee-maker, and retreated into the background.
+
+The coffee on the fire boiled up; we straightened ourselves in
+expectation as the coffee-maker reached out his hand. But he emptied
+the boiling liquid back again into the original pot and replaced it on
+the ashes.
+
+The fire now burned very dimly. Even the man's form bending over the
+glowing ashes was discernible only as a black shadow. The stillness for
+a few moments was so great, and the concentration of all so centred on
+the bubbling coffee-pot, that one felt as if all the meaning of life,
+the past, the present, and the future, was being distilled in the black
+liquid, and that an incantation was only necessary for the future to
+take shape and, rising out of the pot, become visible to us all in this
+mysterious darkness.
+
+Again the coffee boiled up. Again the man emptied the boiling liquid
+back into the other pot and replaced it on the fire.
+
+The stillness and the concentration became more intense. Outside, a
+lamb's sudden cry and the mother's answering bleat rang out sharply in
+the black night, a distant reminder of a far-off world; it died away,
+and the broken silence was all the more intense.
+
+The coffee boiled up.
+
+By this time one had ceased to associate the drinking of coffee with
+the end of these mysterious rites. The coffee of Cook's hotels, the
+coffee of crowded railway stations, whole coffee, ground coffee, French
+coffee, coffee at 1s. 8d. a pound; the clatter of black saucepans, the
+hot and anxious cook, the bustling waiter, the impatient people of the
+world with only a minute to wait--calling for instantaneous coffee;
+what had coffee and all these associations to do with this? And so it
+was with a certain shock that we looked at this magician pouring the
+result of his black art into the cups, a few carefully measured drops
+only. Two are handed to us and one to the Shaykh. We sipped the oily
+black drink slowly and thoughtfully. A liquid which had been prepared
+with so much deliberation could not be quaffed down with the reckless
+indifference ordinarily displayed in the process. It was thick and
+bitter. We drained the last drop and returned the cups. Another
+spoonful was poured in and they were passed back to us. Etiquette
+required that we should not refuse till the third time of offering;
+then the remainder of the coffee was handed round to the rest of the
+company in order of rank.
+
+There was a stir amongst the crowd round the door, and a woman forced
+her way through with a baby in her arms. She squatted in front of us,
+and held the child down for our closer inspection by the firelight.
+
+"Khasta" (Ill), said Ali Chous; "she wants medicine."
+
+The mother pointed to the sores on the child's face and body, the
+pleading eloquence in her dark eyes rendering unnecessary any
+explanations on the part of our interpreter.
+
+It was a pathetic instance of the suffering induced by man, even when
+living so akin to Nature, when he tries to superimpose his own crude
+ideas of beauty and expediency on to the human frame. The baby, though
+only a few months old, had been pierced in the nose and ears for the
+reception of the ornaments which were to enhance its charms in
+after-life, and of the blue bead which would ensure its safety from the
+one recognised enemy--the Evil Eye. The wounds were healing badly, and
+the irritation set up had caused fever.
+
+"Tell her we can give her medicine," we said to Ali, "but it is not
+medicine to drink, it is to wash the wounds with. If the baby drinks
+it, it will die."
+
+The message was interpreted. "Aha, aha, Mashallah," was murmured all
+through the crowd. The baby became an object of intense interest. Ali
+threw back his head and pretended to swallow, then he pointed
+significantly to heaven and to the unconscious victim at his feet.
+
+"Ha! ha!" murmured the crowd.
+
+Hassan meanwhile had begun to fidget uneasily.
+
+"There are fleas here," he said, "you must not stop any longer."
+
+We rose, and silently salaaming our host, passed out of the tent. It
+was lighter outside; the moon had risen, casting mysterious black
+shadows round the huts, where weird black and white forms flitted
+stealthily in and out.
+
+Owing to the shallowness of the water on the low shelving mud banks we
+had been unable to bring the raft right up to the shore, and it had
+been moored at a little distance out in the water. The kalekjis had
+carried us across on their backs and had returned to cook their evening
+meal on board. We now shouted across the water to them to come and
+carry us back. As we stood waiting, a woman came up to us dragging a
+child by the arm, who hid his head in his mother's dress and refused to
+allow himself to be examined.
+
+"He is ill too," said Ali, "like the other child."
+
+"We will give them some medicine when we get on the raft," we said;
+"tell them each to send a cup."
+
+"And this one says he is ill," the man went on, as a tall,
+sheepish-looking youth touched me on the arm; "they will all say they
+are ill now that they know you have medicine."
+
+"We can only give to those who are really ill," we answered; "what is
+the matter with this one?"
+
+"He has fever, he cannot eat, and his head hurts."
+
+I had some quinine pills in my pocket, and I gave three to the boy.
+
+"Tell him to take two now, and not to keep them in his mouth," I
+explained, "but drink some water and swallow them down; then, when the
+sun has risen one hour to-morrow, let him take the other one."
+
+A dozen interested spectators at once went through the whole process in
+pantomime; a pill was swallowed, and its downward course indicated by
+stroking the chest. "Ha!" was ejaculated all round. Then the second
+pill was swallowed with equally suggestive signs. The rising point of
+the sun was indicated, and one finger held up, and the third pill
+swallowed.
+
+"Mashallah!" went up through the crowd, staring with bated breath.
+
+We boarded the raft, and had scarcely established ourselves in our
+sleeping-hut when Hassan staggered to the door with a huge clay pitcher
+capable of holding several gallons; he deposited it at our feet.
+
+"For the medicine," he said gravely.
+
+"We said that the woman was to send a cup," we said; "the few drops of
+lotion will be lost in that."
+
+"For the medicine," he answered, imperturbably.
+
+"We had better send it in one of our cups," I said, and I measured out
+some lotion. Hassan took it; a few minutes later he returned laden with
+cups, jars, pitchers, and bowls of every size and description.
+
+"For the medicine," he said, as he deposited them beside us.
+
+We looked at one another aghast.
+
+"Say that we have no more," we said.
+
+"I have told them," he said, "but they will not go away."
+
+We went outside, where a tremendous hubbub had arisen. Our men were
+standing round the edge of the raft resolutely pushing would-be
+intruders back into the river. Up to their waists in water, hanging on
+to the raft at every point, shouting out their ailments, pointing to
+their throats, their eyes, their heads, were the whole male population
+of the place. In vain our men strove to keep them off; the raft was
+besieged at every point. In desperation we unmoored and floated out
+into the middle of the river; the most determined swam out after us,
+and holding on to the raft with one hand stroked their chests and
+pointed to the absent sun with the other. Finally, as we drifted
+down-stream, they gave up, and the last sight we had was that of a row
+of disconsolate invalids, suddenly endowed with great evidences of
+health and strength, careering wildly on the mud flats in the starlight
+round a discarded heap of empty bowls and pitchers.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+"It _is_ a 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.
+
+[Illustration: "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.
+
+"Allah, Allah, Allah," 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.'"
+
+
+
+
+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 debris
+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."
+
+ "O Shamash, thou art the judge of the world,
+ Thou directest the decisions thereof...."
+
+Thus prayed the dwellers of the city four thousand years ago. And with
+the same light with which you lit the pomp and splendour of the works
+of their time, you light the decay and ruin and hideous desolation of
+the present.
+
+"Verily there is a God which judgeth the earth," say we, four thousand
+years later.
+
+And as you smiled on those who worshipped you as the supreme God and
+Creator of all things, so you smile on us who look upon you, bound and
+fixed, with no will of your own, following the inevitable laws of
+Nature. Will you, four thousand years hence, light with the same light
+sojourners in this land, and will they wonder at our conception of your
+nature and function, as we wonder at the faith that your ancient
+worshippers had in you? Or will you, before them, have run your
+allotted course and consumed the whole world, whether in the fiery
+furnace of your wrath or in the uncontrolled madness of your broken
+bonds?
+
+The next morning we visited Babel, the mound we had passed the day
+before. We walked for more than a mile through the palm-groves by the
+river. Under the shade of the trees were numerous huts made of mud,
+covered and enclosed with piles of fine brushwood. There were various
+signs of human occupations. Two cows were toiling peacefully up and
+down an entrenchment, drawing water in skins over a rough windlass; the
+skins emptied themselves into a channel, and the water wandered about
+in vaguely directed irrigation. On the bank beside them lolled an Arab
+with a long pole, who prodded the sleepy beasts in the moments when he
+was more awake than they were. A large mass of brushwood was moving in
+front of us; it looked like one of the huts endowed with a pair of very
+thin brown legs. As we overtook it the mass half-turned towards us, and
+a woman's form, doubled in two, looked small in the middle of it.
+
+At the doors of the enclosures naked children sprawled about, all with
+gleaming white teeth and closely shaven heads, save for the one lock of
+hair, with which they are to be pulled up to heaven; women with
+tattooed faces and dangling ornaments pounded barley in primitive stone
+mortars, and baked thin cakes of bread on flat stones.
+
+Leaving the river-side we struck out to the right for half a mile
+across the bare, parched ground, where tufts of rough grass were trying
+to get a footing in the white, barren soil. We climbed up the mound,
+passing bands of workmen tunnelling in the sides and removing the
+bricks which lay about in tumbled heaps or in bits of standing walls.
+
+From the top of Babel we could look right over the tract of land once
+enclosed by the walls of Babylon. The descriptions of Herodotus enable
+the traveller to call up some sort of idea of the scene in his time. We
+learn from him that the city was built in the form of a square,
+surrounded by walls of enormous strength; each side of the square was
+fourteen miles long, each side had twenty-five gates of solid brass and
+was defended by square towers built above the wall; twenty-five streets
+went straight across the city each way from gate to gate. The city was
+thus cut into squares. The houses, three or four stories high, faced
+the street and were built at a little distance apart from each other;
+between them were gardens and plantations. A branch of the river ran
+through the city; its banks were one long quay. The larger buildings
+stood in the centre of a square, each apparently fortified and
+surrounded by walls of its own. It is of these smaller walls only that
+any trace can be detected. From the foot of Babel, where we stood,
+remains of earthen ramparts could be traced for two or three miles
+southwards; they then turned at right angles towards the river and
+extended as far as its eastern bank. The mounds they enclosed were
+presumably the site of the more important buildings. Babel itself is
+supposed to represent the temple of Belus. The Mujelibe, or Kasr, lying
+to the south of us, is identified with the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar and
+the hanging gardens; further south still was a lesser mound, Amram. We
+knew that Birs Nimroud, the great ruin which is looked upon as the
+Tower of Babel, lay beyond this again, although we could not see it
+from where we stood.
+
+The whole gleamed white in the strong sunshine. On our right the
+Euphrates rolled along, as unconcerned in his course as the Sun-god
+overhead. We could trace the direction of the river southwards to the
+horizon, marked by the palms along its banks. They made a thin, dark
+line across a wide, light plain--an alluvial tract which is only
+waiting to yield its hidden gifts on the day when Man joins hands with
+Nature and distributes the waters of the river. But not so the actual
+soil of Babylon; that soil, consisting as it does of building dust and
+debris, is of a nature which destroys vegetation. "The Lord of Hosts
+hath swept it with the besom of destruction," and it is doomed
+perpetually to be a "dry land, a wilderness, a land wherein no man
+dwelleth."
+
+As we looked upon the great plain which stretched away all round until
+it carried the eye on into the sky above, we could almost believe with
+the ancients that the edge of the earth joined the dome of heaven and
+that both were supported by the waters of Apsn--the deep.
+
+A great wave of silence rolled out of the desert and broke over us. It
+seemed natural to be immersed in silence; could anything else be
+expected from a land which had never been alive with the stir of
+humanity even in far-off ages, of which one might now feel the hush
+while listening for the echo? The desert had always been silent and
+would be silent for ever more--a dead, unconscious silence, with no
+significance save of absence of life. But when we looked at the site of
+Babylon stretched just beneath us, we became vividly conscious of a
+real, living silence; we were listening to the "hum of mighty
+workings"; voices of souls long since dead, the dust of whose bodies
+lay at our feet, were "wakening the slumbering ages." Had not
+Nebuchadnezzar entered into the House of the Dead in the great cavern
+Araltu, the Land of No Return? The dead had been stirred up, even the
+chief ones of earth, to greet him as he entered hell: "Art thou also
+become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought
+down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under
+thee, and the worms cover thee, ..." and they looked at him narrowly,
+saying, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?"
+
+And yet still for us "the wind uttered" and "the spirit heard" his
+vainglorious cry: "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built for
+the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honour of
+my majesty?"
+
+The silent answer to it lay at our feet. And, listening, we heard the
+solemn warnings of Daniel, the sorrowful forebodings of Jeremiah, and,
+above all, the ironical voice of Isaiah:--
+
+ "Let them stand up and save thee,
+ Mappers of heavens, Planet observers, Tellers of new moons,
+ From what must befall thee."
+
+As we listened again we heard the noise "like as of a great people; a
+tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together....
+
+"A sound of battle is in the land and of great destruction....
+
+"A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon and great destruction from the
+land of the Chaldeans....
+
+"One post ran to meet another post, and one messenger to meet another
+to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken."
+
+Then we heard a sound of much feasting and revelling; we heard a solemn
+hush when there came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote upon the
+wall. Even as we listened to the hush it seemed to grow into the great
+hush of ages, and we remembered that we stood alone in the living
+silence of these great dead, surrounded by the dead silence of an
+uninhabited land.
+
+Overhead the Sun-god silently vaunted his eternal existence; at our
+feet the Euphrates rolled fresh waters of oblivion from an eternal
+source to an eternal sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SOUND OF THE DESERT
+
+
+The Syrian desert between Baghdad and Damascus; two white tents, a
+prowling jackal, and a starry sky.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There was a sense of stir in camp; a rattle of tins and a neighing of
+animals; a faint odour of lighted charcoal was wafted in at the tent
+door. I opened one eye; X still slumbered peacefully at the opposite
+side of the tent. Arten appeared at the door with a jug of water and a
+light. "One o'clock," he said laconically as he placed them on the
+ground and retired. The stars were still shining, my bed was very warm.
+True, it was one o'clock in Turkish time only, but no Christian ought
+to be roused at that hour. X fell out of bed with a determined thump.
+"It's late," she said. I made no response, but, knowing from experience
+that X was always right, tried to reconstruct my ideas about time and
+reconcile the fact that it was late with its being one o'clock in the
+morning. Besides, if X ordained that it was late, in another half-hour
+the tent ropes would be loosened regardless of the stage our toilet had
+reached, and a falling tent, when one has just got one's back hair into
+shape, is exasperating if not damaging. I got up, and just managed to
+hurl myself through the door, mostly clothed, as the tent collapsed on
+the ground. X was already seated cross-legged on a rug outside, holding
+one blue hand over a few charcoal embers while she munched a piece of
+dry bread held in the other. "You need not think I have eaten all the
+butter," she said, "because there wasn't any." Satisfied with the
+explanation, I munched my bread in silence and swallowed a cup of thick
+tea; we had been carrying water for three days and it was getting
+opaque.
+
+The stillness of the night which reigned outside was being invaded by
+the cries and movements of men; dark forms flitted about as they
+watered the animals and adjusted the nose-bags for the morning's feed.
+A horse, impatient of his tether, had broken loose and was galloping
+defiantly round the camp, inspired to further mischief by the methods
+of his pursuers, whose idea of reassuming their authority over him was
+to rush in his direction flourishing whips and uttering piercing cries.
+He was finally brought to bay entangled in some tent ropes, and a
+sudden lull fell on the disturbed atmosphere. The Oriental can work
+himself into a pitch of excitement which would keep a European in
+hysterics for several hours, and then suddenly drop the matter and
+become instantly silent and unconcerned. There seems no half-way stage
+between excessive noise and an indifferent silence.
+
+Somewhat awakened by this incident, the men set to work to pack up the
+camp; the mules were unloosed and stood about with looks of resignation
+as the loads were adjusted on the creaking pack-saddles and secured
+with ropes. There was a subdued din and confusion without any sense of
+hurry. "Allah! Allah!" the native cries when he exerts himself in
+any way. "Aha, aha!" he cries with equal ardour, mingled with
+satisfaction, when his task is accomplished.
+
+And now the last knot has been tied, the last cloak laid across the
+saddle; the last ember of the dying charcoal fire has been carefully
+raked out to light the cigarette, and we straggle slowly out into the
+gloom, leaving one charred spot and a sardine tin in the sandy waste.
+
+There had been a suggestion of redness in the gathering light for the
+last few moments; streaks of silver and bars of gold lined the dusky
+sky. It is disconcerting to be travelling westwards when one wishes to
+be aware of a rising sun. I twisted myself round in the saddle and,
+leaving my horse to pick his way, advanced backwards. The whole scene
+was soon a vast glow of colour, the yellow sand of the desert holding
+and reflecting the brilliant reds and yellows; and now the sun appeared
+on the horizon line and slowly rose, until the whole disc of fire stood
+out in glowing magnificence and then gradually grew paler as he shared
+his substance with the surrounding sky. The long straggling line of our
+caravan, which had looked like a black serpent twisting through a sea
+of fire, became less black in the growing light, and men and animals
+assumed individual shapes.
+
+In another half-hour the broad light of day showed the surroundings in
+their common aspect. I twisted round again in the saddle, and, having
+turned my back on poetry and romance, became only conscious of the
+temperature of my extremities. The cold was intense; X and the soldiers
+were far ahead; the caravan lagged behind; I was alone with cold hands
+and feet. Poets and philosophers have talked of being alone with the
+sun and the earth: if ever conditions were favourable for enjoying the
+sole companionship of these two elements, it might seem to be under the
+present circumstances. But in the desert one can be more alone even
+than this, for in some frames of mind the sky and the earth give one no
+sense of companionship. Cold and implacable the grim silent desert
+stretched away in front beyond the realms of space; the hard blue sky
+overhead stared into the abyss of Time, offering no link between Nature
+and Man. There was nothing one could take hold of; no cloud in the sky
+of which to ask the question "Whither?"; no shadow on the earth to
+which one could say "Whence?" You were thrown back on yourself, were
+only conscious of your beating heart and a void. The words of a great
+lover of nature rose up in my mind: "There is nothing human in nature.
+The earth, though loved so dearly, would let you perish on the ground
+and neither bring forth food nor water. Burning in the sky the great
+sun, of whose company I have been so fond, would merely burn on and
+make no motion to assist me." You felt keenly alive in the middle of
+this cold dead space, and you knew there was something alive in you
+which demanded something of it: had you no place in the economy of this
+great silent Universe? was there no way of making yourself heard or
+felt? Is it that the soul of man must be there to make things alive,
+and you were now crossing earth where no soul of man had crossed
+before, and all things were dead? From sheer agony I cried out; no
+answering echo followed; the sound fell flat and dead. The cold heavens
+stared placidly on, the surface of the earth was unruffled. I drew rein
+and listened intently: I heard the roar of London streets; the cry of
+the newsboy, the milkman's call, the tramp of a million hurrying feet;
+I heard the rush of trains and the screech of engines; I heard a
+thousand discordant voices in divers tongues where men were struggling
+and rushing after material ends. And dominating all this, infinitely
+louder and more distinct, making itself heard supreme and all powerful,
+filling the great space in which one had seemed eternally lost, I
+heard--the Silence of the desert. Why wish to make one's self
+heard?--better be still and listen to the voice of silence; let its
+words sink into you and become part of you, and so take some of its
+quiet and peace back with you into those crowded cities of men.
+
+If there is a link between anything in you and this grim stretch of
+barren sand and impassive depth of distant sky, it is the response of
+its silence to the silence in you. It is the material aspect of silence
+in its crudest form appealing to and recognising in you the unspeakable
+realms of silence which exist in the region you are dimly conscious of
+beyond your senses. As we pray to the sea for its depth and calm, to
+the wind for its freedom, to the sun for its light, so we pray to the
+desert for its silence. Let your nature expand to the width of this
+horizon, to the height and depth of this sky, and fill it all with the
+eternity of this silence.
+
+Ask of the sun why it shines, and if there is light in you it will
+answer; ask of the wind why it blows, and to fettered and free alike it
+gives its answer; ask of the desert why it is silent, and if there is
+silence in you you need no answer.
+
+Is there any calm for you in the sea until you put it there? Do you
+feel any freedom in the wind until you have created it? But can you, in
+any mood or under any circumstance, evade the silence of the desert?
+Its influence extends alike to those who receive it and those who
+resent it.
+
+The men who have no region of silence in themselves are under the power
+of its physical aspect; to them it is oppressive, wearying, and
+deadening; there is an absence of life, a presence of monotony from
+which there is no escape. But once we recognise its silence as being of
+the nature of what we possess in ourselves, the shadow of monotony and
+oppressiveness is lifted. Can its effect be better described than it is
+in that fundamental doctrine of Islam, where it almost coincides with
+the teachings of Christianity in its endeavour to give expression to
+the truth? "Islam," that is the resignation of our own will to that of
+one great power, the effacement of self, the futility of putting our
+own will or mind against that of the great, silent, all powerful,
+inevitable laws of Nature--the Moslem idea of Fate and Power--the
+Christian's blending of his own will with the Divine will--the
+scientist's recognition of Law--you may put it how you will; are they
+not but different interpretations of the unseen power, which, silent in
+itself and only understood in silence, holds supreme sway in moments of
+silence, and, when expressed in its physical aspect in these barren
+regions of the earth, appeals through our eyes and ears to the regions
+in us, beyond these senses, where it exists in its essential condition?
+
+I rode on; the sun had warmed my left side through and the right was
+beginning to thaw. My shadow, which had been keeping pace with the
+horse on the right, now began to creep in front as the sun rose higher.
+By the time its burning rays poured straight down overhead the
+foreshortened shadow seemed to be leading the way along the desert
+track. In time the heat became almost unbearable, and, suddenly
+awakening to the stern realities of physical discomfort, I brought my
+whip down on the horse's flank; he leaped, startled, in the air, and
+then flew after his shadow in a settled gallop. Air, of which one had
+become unconscious, rushed past one's face, and the muffled thud of his
+hoofs on the sand seemed to measure time and space. I dashed up to X
+and stopped dead beside her. She looked round inquiringly. "Let's eat,"
+I said. She looked at her watch. "We have been riding four hours," she
+said; "we might stop at the next good place." I looked ahead
+significantly. "One place looks much the same as another," I said. "I
+think there is a dip in the ground further on," she answered, "where we
+might get a little shelter." There did seem to be a slight wave in the
+flat expanse and we rode on to it, but, like all dips in this country,
+when we arrived at it, it did not seem to be there. We had had so much
+experience in riding after delusive dips that we decided to stop here,
+and slid off our horses. The cook unpacked the lunch from his
+saddle-bags and placed hard-boiled eggs, biscuits, and dates beside us.
+He carefully filled a cup with a thick, brown liquid from the bottom of
+his waterskin. "Bitdi," he said, by which expression he conveyed that
+the fresh water was now finished. Then he and the men retired a few
+yards and ate their lunch. Nothing was heard but the steady munch of
+human jaws. Then they stretched themselves on the sand and absolute
+silence reigned, broken by occasional snores. We too lay back, each
+concealed from the other under two huge umbrellas, which seemed rather
+to focus the sun's rays than shade them from us.
+
+When one was alone the desert had seemed full of unqualified silence;
+in company with others the silence seemed even greater, for the slight
+sounds which there were made one more conscious of the sound which was
+not. The clank of the horses' bits, the quiet breathing of one's
+companions, the stir of a foot, made one realise the intensity of the
+silence of the whole vast expanse. The far-off tinkling of the mule
+bells in the approaching caravan gave one a sense of distance in a way
+one would hardly experience by simply gazing at an unapproachable
+horizon. The heat and the slight fatigue added a feeling of drowsiness
+which would make even the solid things around one seem shadowy and
+distant. It was a waking sleep; one's senses were numb because of the
+absence of anything to call them into play, though one might "see,
+hear, feel, outside the senses." In the same way that one is alone in a
+London street one can live in a whirl in the desert; the throb of
+humanity---- X's umbrella shut with a bang. "Wake up, the caravan is
+coming." A cloud of dust, a stamping of animals, a shouting of men, and
+we were off once more. It was our habit to keep pace with the camp in
+the latter half of the day, and for the next three hours we dawdled
+along at caravan pace. It was a motley crew. The muleteers trudge along
+behind the laden animals, taking turns on the back of a patient,
+sorrowful donkey, on which they ride sideways with dangling legs,
+pricking its side with a long needle, the secondary object of which is
+the repairing of broken straps. The pack-mules go doggedly on in front,
+jostling one another with their unwieldy loads. Occasionally one gets
+off the track and wanders aside, only to be urged back into line with
+yells and blows. Another stops dead, feeling its load slip round
+sideways. The men rush at it with shouts of "Allah! Allah!" the
+load is shoved up and the ropes tightened. There is a general din of
+shouting and swearing and jangling of bells; and above it all the
+disdainful camel moves deliberately on with measured step and arched
+neck, unmindful of the petty skirmishes so far below it; its owner,
+infected by its spirit, rocking on the top, surveys the whole scene
+with a dejected, uninterested air. Bringing up the rear, motionless and
+erect on small donkeys, ride one or two older Arabs, wrapped in long
+sheepskin cloaks, their faces entirely concealed in the folds of a
+keffiyeh, save where two stern and solemn eyes gaze unceasingly at you
+with expressionless imperturbability. Wild sons of the desert, product
+of this eternal silence, are you so much a part of it that you are
+unconscious of its power?
+
+The only gay and careless element is introduced by the Turkish
+soldiers. Mounted on splendid Arab mares they ride in front, sometimes
+dashing ahead at a wild gallop, holding out their rifles at arm's
+length, wheeling suddenly round and coming to a dead stop in front of
+an imaginary enemy, upright in their stirrups; in their more subdued
+moments breaking into song with the mournful Eastern refrains.
+
+And so, forming one small world of our own, we "follow and follow the
+journeying sun," and as it sinks lower on the horizon and its fierce
+rays cease to beat pitilessly down on the parched ground and thirsty
+animals, a silence falls on the moving band. The spirit of the desert
+again holds sway. The men cease quarrelling, the animals' heads sink
+lower, the donkey looks more resigned, the mule more dogged, the camel
+more superior, the silent Arab more stern and forbidding; the soldier
+hums where he sang before. Then at last the walls of a solitary
+guard-house heave in sight. The men hail it with joyful cries, the
+soldiers dash ahead, the pack-animals prick their ears and quicken
+their steps to an amble. There is a general rush and tumble,
+culminating in a dead halt on the ground which has formed the place for
+caravans since caravans crossed the desert. All is noise and confusion.
+The loads are unloosed and fall in promiscuous heaps amongst the medley
+of animals, who, released of their burdens, roll over on their backs
+kicking up the dust. A line of men draw water from the well, pulling at
+a squeaky chain and invoking the aid of Allah in chorus as they pull. A
+fight is going on in one corner; men are knocking one another down,
+encouraged by a circle of yelling spectators. The din of excited
+quarrelling voices, the hammering of tent pegs, dominates everything,
+broken at times by the sudden neigh of a horse bitten by its neighbour
+or the harsh, imperious cry of the camel for its supper. And in the
+middle of it all the Turkish soldier spreads his cloak upon the ground,
+turns his face to Mecca, and offers up his murmured prayer to Allah,
+the one restful form in this scene of chaos.
+
+"Allah Akbar" (God is great), prays this son of Islam, and with his
+hands upon his knees, he bows his head; "Subhana 'llah" (I praise God),
+and he falls upon his knees; "Allah Akbar" (God is great), and he bows
+his head to touch the earth; "Subhana 'llah, subhana 'llah, subhana
+'llah," and he sits upon his heels; "Allah Akbar," and he again
+prostrates himself; "Allah Akbar, subhana 'llah."
+
+And on this scene the sun casts his final rays of gold and red. As the
+shades of night draw in, quiet reigns once more; the men collect round
+the blazing camp-fire, and in its light we see the outline of their
+dark forms seated cross-legged, as they eat out of the common bowl or
+take turns at the bubbling narghile; to one side the mules are tethered
+in two lines forming a half square; a muleteer is grooming them, and
+one hears the rattle of his scraper and the ever tinkling bell. The
+cook is stirring our evening meal in a pot on the fire outside our
+tent. Hassan fetches our rugs and spreads them on the ground; we lie
+down and he covers us over with his sheepskin cloak. "Rahat" (Rest),
+he says, and lifts his hands over us as if pronouncing a blessing. Then
+he sits down beside us and lights a cigarette. "Bourda ehe," he goes
+on, describing the universe with a sweep of his hand. "Kimse yok" (It
+is well here--there is no one). "Is Allah here?" asks X. "Allah is
+here," he answers with simple reverence, "Allah is everywhere"; and we
+all lie motionless under the stars, unwilling to probe the silence by
+the sound of uttered thoughts. The murmur of the men's voices gradually
+dies away as, one by one, they doze off; a jackal cries in the
+distance; a star falls down to earth. The day is over, and in this land
+of the Oriental there is no thought of the morrow.
+
+The passive silence of sleep; the active silence of communing souls;
+the silence of night--all fitful expressions of the one great Silence
+brooding over all, be one asleep or awake, by night and by day, in
+desert places and in busy haunts of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PALMYRA
+
+
+It burst upon us all at once, Palmyra, in the desert--a chaos of golden
+pillars in the glow of the setting sun. We had been riding all day
+towards an indefinite shape on the horizon; slowly it had resolved
+itself into a barrier of yellow rock with dark lines becoming
+distinguishable against it. We had passed through the patches of rising
+corn, making green holes in the brown desert; we had wound through the
+gardens of pomegranate and plantations of palm trees and turned the
+corner of the ugly konak which barred the ruins from our view; and
+there it lay, the desert-girt city, in the unutterable lonely
+magnificence of its reckless confusion.
+
+We drew rein under the Triumphal Arch; from here the eye is led on down
+the great colonnade from column to column, now upright, now fallen, to
+where a mile away a castle crowns a peak of the range under which
+Palmyra crouches--an old time harbour for the sand sea beyond.
+
+[Illustration: PALMYRA. TRIUMPHAL ARCH.]
+
+Behind us the present village of Tadmor was concealed inside the walls
+of the great Temple of the Sun; its mud hovels lie rotting behind the
+gigantic columns of the inner court in the dirt which chokes the
+massive archways. Here it is that the present life of Palmyra, such as
+it is, is slowly obliterating the remaining evidences of her past;
+while on the opposite side of the ruins, where the hills cleave to form
+a lonely valley, the dead of Palmyra, buried in a line of square
+tomb-towers, still keep alive the memory of her ancient greatness.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Was it the sun only, with its light on the yellow columns, that made
+one think of Palmyra purely as a city of gold? Or were one's thoughts
+unconsciously influenced by the fact that its traditions all rest on
+the getting of gold; its power was built up on trade; its great men
+were the successful traffickers of the desert; its statues and columns
+were raised to the memory of those who brought the caravans of goods
+from India and Persia unharmed through the dangers of the desert; its
+temples were dedicated to the Sun-god by those whose lives were spared
+in their getting of great wealth, or to the memory of those who
+perished in the attempt.
+
+Those were the days when it was a man's boast that the blood of a
+merchant ran in his veins--when a youth could aspire to no higher goal
+than that of being a merchant prince of his proud city.
+
+Her prosperity had been her ruin; the gold had led to her undoing; and
+now the Sun, to whom the temples had been raised at the time of her
+pride, mocked her ruins by giving them the semblance of scattered gold.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+This is the best way to realise Palmyra--to make it the culmination of
+a long and tedious journey through the desert. The first sight of it
+under any conditions must indeed be wonderful, but coming in from
+Damascus, which is the natural approach for visitors to the ruins, one
+could never feel about it in quite the same way. Civilisation is only
+five days behind you; the country you pass through, moreover, although
+desert enough in a way, does not give you the same sense of being
+utterly cut off from everything in limitless space; there are chains of
+mountains to be seen in the distance, and cultivated patches stretching
+round villages are more frequent. Then when you arrive at Palmyra you
+ride first through the valley of tombs--it is the dead that give you
+the first greeting; you get glimpses through the opening ahead of the
+highest columns, and are slowly prepared for what is coming, until,
+emerging finally through the gap, the whole scene is laid out before
+you, with the gleaming desert beyond.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But approach it from the desert side, and all the meaning and force of
+its one time existence is borne in upon you with an overwhelming
+realisation. For three weeks you have been following the old trade
+route from the Persian Gulf. You have made one of a caravan amongst the
+doggedly jogging mules and the slow stepping camels, both heavily laden
+with the clumsy pack-saddles holding bales of merchandise; the sound of
+their jangling bells is the only sound you hear through the long,
+monotonous ride under the blazing sun; you have spent night after night
+in the circle round the camp-fire, with the men crouched under the
+bales of goods piled up on the ground to form a rude shelter; the
+places where you stop have been the regular halting places for caravans
+for all time--now they are oases big enough to support a village, now
+it is merely a well and a guard-house. As you ride through the
+immeasurable expanse every dark object on the horizon line forms a
+subject for speculation. Its appearance is a signal for the hasty
+consolidation of the straggling line of men and animals, arms are
+looked to, you all close up and ride on, apparently unconcerned, but
+equally prepared for a sudden onslaught or a friendly greeting. For it
+is not only the difficulties and dangers due to Nature's barrenness
+that have to be guarded against. What must it have been in the days
+when the countless hordes of wealth of a huge caravan were at stake,
+and when the whole desert was beset with marauding tribes specially on
+the look-out for such prey? What must have been the feelings of those
+responsible for its safe conduct when they once more saw the first dim
+outline of the Palmyra hills in the distance? The goal would be reached
+that day; the troubles, the anxieties, the sleeplessness of the
+watching nights would be over; proud and triumphant they would ride
+down the long colonnade, the pack animals jostling one another in the
+unaccustomed crush of the bounded way, and the noise of shouting
+drivers and jangling bells sounding strangely loud and near in the
+confining space. Down on them from the columns above would look the
+statues put up to honour those who had achieved the same feat which
+they themselves had just accomplished. Their names too would now be
+written up and handed down from generation to generation in remembrance
+of the service they had rendered their State. For such deeds as these
+had built up the great city, and their fellow-citizens honoured them in
+this way.
+
+[Illustration: HASSAN.]
+
+At first it would seem that Tadmor was merely an Arab encampment, a
+stopping place amongst others for the passing caravans. The abundance
+of its water and its position on the meeting point of two great trade
+routes would gradually cause it to become an important centre. Dues
+were levied on all goods passing in and out, and even the privilege of
+using the wells was heavily taxed. Slowly it became the market-place of
+the East and the West; its inhabitants were the carriers between the
+Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. As the foundations of the city
+were built up on trade, so commerce was a pursuit for its aristocracy,
+involved as it was with all the elements of warfare and danger. Its
+merchants would be pure Arabs of good blood, welcomed as equals by the
+shaykhs of the desert tribes through whose territory their goods had to
+pass. Palmyra had thus gradually built up her own existence as an
+independent State. Political events then added to her power. The wars
+of Rome with Persia made her an important military post; recognised by
+Rome more as a partner State than a dependency, she was able to pursue
+her own policy with such effect that she tried to assert her entire
+independence and cut herself adrift from the Western power. Taking
+advantage of the temporary ascendance of Persia over the Roman arms,
+the desert Queen, Zenobia, fulfilled her ambition as sole Queen of the
+East. After her defeat by Aurelian the town was partially destroyed; a
+change in the political factors which had contributed to her importance
+now hastened her downfall by lessening the significance of her
+geographical position; safer trade routes further south led to the
+decay of her commercial prosperity. Bit by bit she loses her place in
+historical records, and at the present day Palmyra stands a lonely ruin
+on a deserted trade route, inhabited by a score of Arab families.
+
+In one sense Time has dealt gently with her; there is no decay from the
+growth of vegetation in this dry climate. Neither moss nor ivy has
+softened the aspect of destruction; the overturned columns show as true
+and sharp a face now as the day they were set up, and the ornate
+carving stands out in the same relief. One thinks of the place as built
+entirely of columns; they lie in rank profusion everywhere, like a
+great forest of trunks overturned by a gale. The great central avenue
+runs from the Temple of the Sun in a north-westerly direction to the
+castle on the range of hills which bounds the city to the north. It has
+been calculated that it alone contains 1,500 columns. Much of this
+still remains standing, but the gaps become more frequent, until at the
+castle end the whole thing has collapsed, forming a perfect sea of
+broken columns and fragments of carved pilasters. It is evident that
+the minor streets also were lined with pillars in the same way; short
+rows of them stand up here and there in various directions. Groups of
+twos and threes suggest also their attachment to some public building
+or temple. The statues were placed on brackets projecting from the
+upper part of the pillars, and the inscriptions below, which have
+escaped destruction, give the names and dates of those whom they were
+intended to honour.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As we had entered Palmyra with a vivid conception of its life, so we
+left it with an equally vivid conception of its death.
+
+Standing guard like a row of sentinels at the base of the hills are the
+square tomb-towers in which Palmyra buried its dead. The proud
+merchants seem to have been imbued with two main ideas: the erection of
+columns in their lifetime and of resting places for their families in
+death. Many of the towers are over a hundred feet high and consist of
+five and six stories. The bodies were arranged in tiers in the recesses
+on either side of a central chamber. Some of these buildings are still
+nearly perfect, others are practically heaps of ruins. The bones of the
+proud merchants are mingled with the bones of the wild beasts who have
+sought refuge there through the long ages.
+
+We turn our backs on the city and ride away through the gap in the
+hills. The city is hidden from view, but the tomb-towers still stand in
+silent rows down the valley on either side.
+
+We forget the golden pillars and all the ruined magnificence; we can
+think of nothing but these ghostly towers seeing us out, as it were,
+from this city of the dead.
+
+High up on the hill above, in the still morning air, a shepherd boy
+pipes merrily at them, and flocks of goats and sheep browse
+unconcernedly at their feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK
+
+
+I. ARTEN.
+
+Arten was an Armenian; he was quick, thin, methodical, dirty,
+intelligent, and untruthful; he was also the cook. I say _the_ cook
+advisedly, for _a_ cook he was not. No doubt he would have made an
+excellent cook if he had known anything about the art; but it was not
+till after we had engaged him in this capacity that we discovered that
+he had not thought this qualification necessary. At any rate, he knew,
+being a hungry man himself, that we were in need of food of some sort
+at stated intervals. In this he was a decided improvement on the Greek
+cook we had just dismissed; this man had a habit of coming to us,
+after we had been waiting hours in momentary expectation of a meal,
+and saying with a languid air, "Do you wish to eat?" He was a good
+cook, but always seemed overcome with astonishment when we expected
+him to cook.
+
+Arten was a dirty man, and he looked dirtier than he was owing to his
+dark complexion and hairy hands; besides this, his unbrushed and greasy
+black European clothes showed off to disadvantage amongst the simpler
+Eastern garments of his companions.
+
+"Arten is not a clean cook," Hassan would say, and Arten would smile
+sadly. He must have been slightly conscious of this defect, for he
+never handed me a plate or a spoon without saying "Temiz" (clean) as a
+forestalling measure before I had even looked at it. He spent a good
+deal of time rubbing smeary plates with a blackish cloth, murmuring
+"Temiz, temiz."
+
+He had a sincere desire to please us; but he always imagined this
+object was attained by the vigorous assertion of any fact that seemed
+necessary for our pleasure. "Taze" (fresh) he would say every time he
+handed me an egg; and, when I cut off the top and an explosion
+followed, "Taze" he would say again.
+
+"Eat it yourself then," I would suggest, handing it back to him; after
+putting his great nose right into it, "Taze," he would say. But he
+never ate it; he kept it for omelettes.
+
+His nose was his chief feature. One saw the nose first and then the man
+behind it. On cold days, when we all wrapped our heads and faces
+entirely in keffiyehs, Arten would be always distinguishable from the
+others by this protrusion. He had a jet black drooping moustache which
+he was always wiping furtively with a jet black pocket-handkerchief,
+for Arten was a greedy man and the only person who loved the taste of
+his own cookery.
+
+"I like to see him getting fat," X would say; "he looked half starved
+when he came to us."
+
+But Hassan and I were not so charitable.
+
+"Look," Hassan would say, "the door of the tent is shut; that pig Arten
+is stealing the food," and he would go and kick at the tent until Arten
+looked out, guiltily wiping his moustache.
+
+"You are cold, I suppose," says Hassan with lofty sarcasm. Arten mops
+his perspiring brow--he was always perspiring.
+
+"How cold?" he answers with well feigned surprise.
+
+"Because you shut the tent door," answers Hassan.
+
+"Aman," rejoins Arten, "what am I to do? if the muleteers see me
+cooking they come and ask for food; they are such greedy men, the
+muleteers."
+
+Hassan returns to us snorting.
+
+"Arten says the muleteers are greedy men. Mashallah! greedy men! We
+know who is the greedy man!" And he slaps his thigh vehemently.
+
+Arten's notions of cookery were, as I have said, limited. His staple
+dish was a mixture of mutton, potatoes, onions, and rice, which were
+all cooked up together in the same pot, each ingredient being thrown in
+according to the length of time it took to cook. It certainly tasted
+very good, and I would suggest the method to those in England who
+dislike washing many saucepans. His other idea of cooking mutton was
+less satisfactory in results, though simpler in method, and I have no
+hesitation in not recommending it to English housewives, though I
+append the recipe as a matter of interest from its originality.
+
+Take a piece of sheep, and with an axe cut it into chunks, regardless
+of bones or gristle; take a chunk and throw it on to red-hot charcoal
+in a brazier; when there is a distinct smell of burning and the hissing
+has nearly ceased, turn it over on the other side. When it resembles a
+piece of burnt charcoal, remove it and serve at once; swallow whole, as
+if you try to bite it your teeth will remind you of it for a
+considerable time, and in any case you will be conscious of its
+resting-place for the remainder of the day.
+
+When staying at a consulate in the middle of our tour, the consul's
+wife, horrified at our fare, offered to let her cook teach Arten a few
+simple dishes which would considerably add to our comfort. Arten
+acquiesced with very good grace, and was inducted, amongst other
+things, in the art of making cutlets. On our departure our kind
+hostess, moreover, provided us with a piece of meat suitable for
+cutlets. The first evening there was an undercurrent of excitement in
+the air; there were to be cutlets for dinner. Arten had an important,
+self-conscious bustle about him and looked mysterious; the Zaptiehs
+seemed awed and asked questions under their breath; the greedy
+muleteers were distinctly interested; we pretended to be unmoved.
+Finally, with a modest air, through which bumptiousness glared
+furiously, Arten announced that supper was ready. There was a covered
+dish keeping warm under the brazier; Arten very deliberately placed it
+before us and with a dramatic flourish removed the cover. We were only
+conscious of a yellow-looking crumby paste.
+
+"Where are the cutlets?" we asked, keeping up our courage nobly.
+
+"That is cutlets, Pasha."
+
+We tasted it; it appeared to consist of fried eggs and breadcrumbs. We
+felt justified in contradicting him, but he still persisted that it was
+cutlets.
+
+"But we want the cutlets, like those the Effendi's cook showed you how
+to make."
+
+"Yes, that is it, Pasha; that is what the Effendi's cook showed me."
+
+"But cutlets are meat," we persisted.
+
+"Yes, Pasha; but that is cutlets without the meat."
+
+This reasoning was incontrovertible. We tried to fill up with dates and
+rice and went to bed crestfallen and hungry. The next day we returned
+to the charge. I undertook to show Arten how to cook cutlets, though I
+had not the smallest idea myself how it ought to be done. I had an
+inkling, however, that egg and breadcrumbs were in it somehow.
+
+"Arten," I said, "cut the meat as the Effendi's cook did for cutlets."
+Arten obeyed.
+
+"Make egg and breadcrumb," I said. He did this also.
+
+"Now do with it what the Effendi's cook did," I said. Arten smeared the
+meat with it. I began to see light and breathed more freely, but I had
+still one venture to make.
+
+"Now cook the meat as the Effendi's cook did," I said.
+
+I held my breath; for all I knew they might now have to be boiled in a
+saucepan or toasted on a fork. But Arten appeared to know what he was
+doing. He took a frying-pan and fried them in fat. A glow of
+satisfaction crept all over me as I watched them beginning to resemble
+the finished appearance I was acquainted with. When they were actually
+on a dish, I said loftily:--
+
+"Please remember for the future that when we say we want cutlets, this
+is what we mean."
+
+"As you please," he answered affably; "I call them frisolen. I knew how
+to cook them before the Effendi's cook showed me," he went on.
+
+"Why did you never let us have them, then?" I said severely.
+
+"How could I know you would like them?" he answered with injured
+innocence.
+
+"How did you know we liked tough chunks burnt on a brazier?" was my icy
+retort.
+
+Arten shrugged his shoulders; there never has been any accounting for
+the whims of women.
+
+Small differences of opinion such as these were continually cropping up
+between us; and I would tell him in calm and measured tones, though in
+forcible English, what I thought of him. As the language was
+unintelligible to him, this method had the advantage of relieving my
+feelings without hurting his. But there were secret bonds of sympathy
+between us. We both suffered intensely from the cold, and Arten would
+carefully wrap things round me so that the apertures and crevices were
+not on the windward side. There is a good deal of art in this, and he
+did it very scientifically.
+
+"Little things feel the cold," he would say compassionately, and in
+such a kindly spirit that, for the moment, I forgave him his greed and
+forgot to feel undignified.
+
+We were also on common ground when I tried to cook dishes which I did
+not know how to cook. Currents of great sympathy ran between us when
+things did not seem to be turning out right and Arten would tentatively
+suggest various ways and means. But he never did what a foolish or
+disagreeable person would have done: he never expressed in his looks
+that I was no better than himself, which obviously would not have been
+true, since I did not pretend to be a cook, while Arten did.
+
+And then when the critical moments of our existence arrived and we
+placed the dish before X, we both watched with the same intensity for
+the expression of her face after the first mouthful. X was singularly
+appreciative, and, when she kept assuring us how excellent it was,
+Arten would glance at me encouragingly and appear to share the delight
+I experienced at my own prowess. X thought Arten's cookery good, too,
+but then she never knew what she was eating, and, if you do not know
+the name of the dish, how can you judge whether or not it is cooked as
+it ought to be?
+
+"What is this?" X would ask one day.
+
+"Mutton," Arten would answer.
+
+"What is this?" she would say the next day, when the identical
+substance was handed to her.
+
+"Chicken," Arten would answer. And X was perfectly satisfied.
+
+The next day it would be "tinned meat," and it was all the same to
+her--and to me; but then I knew what a liar Arten was.
+
+His kindness of heart and his desire to please us made it all the more
+difficult not to be irritated with him when circumstances did not draw
+out the better side of his nature. It is uncomfortable to despise
+people in a qualified manner, and I found it impossible to despise
+Arten unreservedly and therefore happily. There was no doubt that he
+was a horrible coward. If he had said, "I am a coward--I am afraid," he
+would have enlisted my sympathy for what it was worth, because I was a
+coward myself and admired sincerity. If he had even preserved a decent
+silence on the subject I should have been unable altogether to despise
+him, for that was the course I pursued myself. But when any real or
+imaginary danger was past he would come out with assumed and aggressive
+hilarity, and make tales about it and his prowess, which latter he had
+already made conspicuous enough by its absence. Yet his position was no
+doubt complicated: he knew that the Turks in our train despised not
+only him but his race; there was no one to suggest his courage if he
+did not do it himself, and, as he was unable to exhibit it in deeds, I
+have no doubt he saw no other course to pursue but that of publishing
+it by word of mouth. Moreover, he had suffered personally from bad
+treatment; the tale was a piteous one. Near his native town of Adana he
+had a small mill where he ground corn through the season. On one
+occasion he had done well and was on his way back to his wife and
+children in the town, carrying his earnings, which were to keep them
+through the winter. Half way home he was attacked by a band of robbers,
+who relieved him not only of his gold but of all his clothes. He had to
+remain in hiding by the roadside until some one passed from whom he
+could borrow a garment in which to return starved and penniless to his
+expectant family. Small wonder that the poor man shuddered at the word
+"Khursus" (brigand) which we laughingly joked about.
+
+"What is it to you?" he said one day; "you have rich relations, kind
+friends, and a just Government. If you are robbed, justice is done to
+you. But what can I expect but more abuse and ill-treatment?--and I
+have a wife and small children into the bargain!"
+
+When he was not posing as a hero, he was posing as a feature in the
+landscape. This was particularly exasperating, for no amount of pity
+for his condition would turn him into a picturesque martyr, even in the
+foreground of ancient ruins. No sooner was my camera produced than
+Arten produced himself. The only occasion on which I knew him keep out
+of sight was when I was trying to get a snap-shot of the band of Kurds
+who held us up on the Tigris. He seemed to have no desire to show
+himself, although I was considerate enough to invite him to occupy a
+prominent position for once. His appearance was not calculated to
+enhance the effect of any picture. He was like a starved black
+scarecrow dressed up in tight and clerical garments, with a fez on the
+top--and then there was the nose. He would have made any warm desert
+scene look cold, as it would not be obvious that he was perspiring, and
+in any group of picturesque natives he would look ludicrous.
+
+I recall, as I write, isolated moments of exasperation--when, for
+instance, he sat, singing a hymn, kicking up the dust with his heels,
+when we were trying to inflate ourselves with worthy feelings on the
+contemplation of Babylon, awed by the silence and desolation of the
+scene around us. Or again, how in a fit of nervousness he hurled the
+whole of our dinner in agitation on the floor, while we, after an
+unusually long fast, could have cried for food.
+
+But reviewing him calmly at a distance, one remembers a man that one
+alternately laughed at and pitied; who annoyed one by his transparent
+faults, but who commanded one's sympathy by his tragic condition, and
+one's admiration by his cheerful willingness in trying circumstances. A
+man who was meant by nature to be light-hearted and happy, kind to his
+fellows, energetic and interested in his work, ambitious for his
+children; but who fate dictated was to have his spirit quenched, his
+nature hardened, and mean and cowardly qualities developed owing to the
+fear, injustice, and poverty in which, like the rest of his countrymen,
+he was condemned to live.
+
+
+II. HASSAN.
+
+Hassan was an Albanian Turk; he belonged to one of the old Turkish
+families and looked every inch the gentleman that he was. Introduced to
+us by a common friend, he accompanied us during our seven months'
+wandering through Asiatic Turkey in a semi-professional capacity, but
+what that capacity was it would be difficult to define by any
+particular name. A dragoman he was not, though he called himself our
+"tergeman." "Tergeman," literally translated, being "interpreter," he
+could claim nothing entitling him to this function, for he spoke no
+European language, and it was not till we learnt Turkish that we could
+hold any spoken communication with him. Briefly, he acted as a sort of
+amateur dragoman without any of the qualifications usually expected of
+these gentlemen--and possessing a great many of the virtues in which,
+as a rule, they are sadly lacking. Essentially he was our Figure-head,
+and a splendid one he made, six foot six in stature and broad in
+proportion, as straight as a die and as supple as a willow, with a
+handsome head set well back on strong shoulders, and keen, kindly eyes
+which looked out very straight from under shaggy eyebrows. When he
+walked he put into his great stride a grace and dignity which soon
+earned for him the nickname of "the Prince." His chief characteristics
+were that gentleness which comes of great strength under perfect
+command; the courtesy which arises from a sense of other people's worth
+measured by a sense of his own; and an imperturbability which could be
+as irritating as it was admirable. "Ne faidet?" (what is the use?), was
+a favourite expression of his, and "ne faidet," he looked all over. In
+scenes of human quarrel, excitement, or danger, one was chiefly
+conscious of his calm indifference of mind and manner as he silently
+surveyed his companions in fear of brigands or in joy over a piece of
+meat. Yet he was a man full of the passions of his race, capable of an
+iron self-control when he thought fit to make use of it, but
+occasionally roused into a state of temper bordering on madness. On
+these occasions he would afterwards say his "jan" had had him by the
+throat, and he did not know what he was doing.
+
+A great man with a great imprisoned soul, as free and light-hearted as
+a careless boy when roaming in the great forests or on the bare
+mountain-side of his native home, fettered and fretful when the bonds
+of artificial civilisation held him.
+
+"What a Kallabalak! what is the use of this Kallabalak?" he would say
+with a wave of disgust when he got into the middle of a noisy crowd.
+"This is good, this is keyf," was his comment, with great gasps of
+enjoyment, when we three sat on the ground together in some lonely spot
+of a lonely desert. One felt he was breathing freely again. A silent
+man by nature, he could not bear loquacious people. "Burra, burra,
+burra," he would say, pointing his thumb at them; "burra, burra, burra,
+what is the use of all this talking?" If the remarks were addressed to
+him, they were always answered with stern courtesy. A talkative young
+Armenian rode with us one day and tried to draw him into conversation.
+"Is not that mirage in front of us? What a wonderful sight--trees and
+water and mountains! Do you not think it must be mirage, Effendi?"
+
+"With the eyes that Allah has given me, it does seem to be so, young
+man," was Hassan's grim answer, and he rode on without turning his head
+to right or left.
+
+Yet on occasion he enjoyed a refined "Kallabalak." One night in Cairo,
+when we had done for the time with camping and were seated in
+cleanliness and finery in the hotel garden, a confetti feast was going
+on. Serious young men and maidens, larky old men and festive matrons,
+were diverting themselves in the essentially hilarious proceeding of
+scattering confetti on one another. The garden was hung with Chinese
+lanterns; fireworks hissed and spluttered, shooting flames of colour.
+Hassan sat in convulsed enjoyment of the gay scene. It was a revelation
+to him of the lighter side of life. And when a charming young lady,
+bolder than the many who cast coy and curious glances at the handsome
+Turk, came and administered a dose of confetti down the back of his
+neck, he was overcome with glee and merriment. Afterwards, on
+subsequent wanderings in wilds and deserts, he would turn to us after
+hours of silence, and, bursting into a deep roar of laughter, would
+say, "Do you remember the paper and the foolish men and women?"
+
+His function, as I have said, was first and foremost that of
+Figure-head; he escorted us on our visits to Turkish officials and
+dignitaries, and, with grave dignity and courtly manner, unembarrassed
+by his own unshaven chin or the stains and dust of travel on our
+weather-worn and unwashed garments, he would make the most of anything
+entitling us to belong to "the great ones of England." He cast a
+general air of respectability over us, and we always felt it was
+largely due to him that we were shown so much consideration in a land
+where all travellers are treated with suspicion, and where women are
+not regarded in a particularly chivalrous light.
+
+But beside this, he was general caretaker of our personal comforts: he
+put up our camp-beds and arranged our tent; he always sat beside us at
+meals, which we took seated cross-legged on the ground, either outside
+by the camp-fire, or in bad weather on the floor of the tent. His first
+self-constituted duty was to peel the oranges with which we generally
+finished a meal; he removed the peel to form two cups, in which he
+neatly piled the sections and placed them beside us, carefully counting
+the pieces to make sure that he had treated us alike. "Shimdi" (now) he
+would say when we had finished the first course and we would ask for
+dates. "Shimdi" he would say again when the last of these were
+demolished. "Shimdi Kahiveh," and coffee would come in its turn.
+"Shimdi." "Nothing more." "Nothing," he would exclaim; "nothing?" "We
+will smoke now." "Tuetuen (tobacco), aha, Shimdi tuetuen," and he would
+light us each a cigarette. Then, when this too was finished,
+"Shimdi"--"Shimdi Rahat" (now rest), we answer--and he makes pillows
+for us with our saddle-bags and covers us over with rugs. This process
+was repeated every day until it became a stock joke. His jokes were all
+of this kind; there were certain standing ones which had to be gone
+through periodically. My Turkish was limited to about fifty words, so
+that conversation between us did not flow, but X, who had learned to
+speak more fluently, would ride with him for hours together, holding
+endless conversations on Turkish religion, habits, and ideas. When X
+and he fell out he would come and joke with me: one day I teazed him
+about being a better friend to her than to me.
+
+"How can that be?" he said gravely.
+
+"Because," I answered, "you quarrel with the Vali Pasha" (X was the
+Vali Pasha and I was the Padishah), "and then you make it up and are
+great friends again. But you are never cross with me. If I were your
+friend you would quarrel with me, too. But I am glad I am not your
+friend, or you would get angry with me." This idea seemed to tickle him
+immensely, and every day after this conversation there would be a
+moment when he would ride alongside of me, and, feigning an air of
+great disgust, would shrug his shoulders and say, "Istemen, istemen" (I
+do not want you). It was his singularly primitive way of acting a
+quarrel with me, and thereby showing that he and I were also friends. X
+would also attack him on the subject.
+
+"Why don't you go and scold the Padishah?" she said on one occasion;
+"she thinks the same as I do about these things, only she cannot talk
+Turkish, so she does not say them."
+
+"The Padishah is but a child," he answered; "it would hurt her. It
+would be a shame to hurt a child."
+
+As a matter of fact I was older than X in months, but her bodily
+proportions were larger than mine, and everything goes by size in the
+East.
+
+As time went on, however, we too had our little rubs, and his methods
+of making friends again were what one would expect from his schoolboy
+nature. If I was in the tent, he would throw stones at it until I
+looked out smiling; this was taken as a sign that the quarrel was over;
+he would roll up an extra large cigarette for me, and we would sit on
+the ground and have a smoke of peace together. Our friendship was of a
+silent nature. I made my fifty words express everything I had to say,
+and to simplify matters only used the verbs in the infinitive and nouns
+in the nominative. Long custom had established a certain meaning to
+various sentences between us which would have been unintelligible to
+any other Turk.
+
+"What Turkish, aman, what Turkish she speaks!" he used to say to X,
+holding up his hands in amused dismay.
+
+We taught him a few English sentences, of which he was very proud.
+
+"Pull it up," he invariably said when he held out his hand to help us
+off the ground.
+
+"Pull it down," was his formula when he arranged our habit skirts after
+mounting us.
+
+"Pull it off," when he helped us off with our oats.
+
+When he was in a temper I made him say, "I am a silly man," which he
+pronounced:
+
+"I am----
+
+"A Silliman."
+
+Although he did not know the meaning of the words, he connected them
+with his own misdemeanours.
+
+"Silliman yok (not), silliman yok," he used to say fiercely when he was
+beginning to repent and get ashamed of himself. He always said
+"Good-bight" for "Goodbye," confusing it with "Good-night."
+
+Great was his pleasure whenever in the course of our travels we came
+across a European, or any one who could speak a language which I
+understood.
+
+"See now," he would exclaim at the unwonted sight of me talking with
+any one, "she has found a friend!" And then, when we parted and I
+relapsed into silence: "See now, how sad she looks! She is thinking of
+her friend."
+
+And he would ride up to me compassionately.
+
+"Where is your friend now, Padishah?"
+
+"Where, indeed?" I answer. "I have no friend; you must buy me one in
+the bazaars next time we get to a town."
+
+"And how much money must I give for him, Padishah?"
+
+"You must not give much, because I am poor, but you must get a very
+good one."
+
+"Aman, ama, see now what she says: I must get a good one, and
+yet not give much money. Do you hear, Vali Pasha?"
+
+And when he came back from the bazaars:
+
+"I have bought the friend, Padishah."
+
+"Where is he? I don't see him."
+
+"He is here, in my bag."
+
+"How much did you give for him?"
+
+"Ten piastres."
+
+"He cannot be a good one if he is as cheap as that, and so small that
+he will go in your bag."
+
+"Oh yes, he is a good friend," and he produces a roll of tobacco; "a
+good friend and little money. That was what you said, wasn't it,
+Padishah?"
+
+And I reflect that there is many a true word spoken in jest.
+
+"Has she no friend in England," he asked X one day, "or does she never
+speak in England either?"
+
+"Yes," said X, "she has a friend in England, and she does not speak
+because she is thinking of him."
+
+"And you, Vali Pasha, have you also a friend in England?"
+
+"Yes," I answered for X; "she has twenty-nine friends in England, and
+you are only the thirtieth."
+
+And Hassan would ride on in silence, pondering over the strange ways of
+English ladies.
+
+Amongst his other duties he had to purchase the food, pay the muleteers
+and soldiers, and give tips; and it fell to my lot to do up the
+accounts with him periodically. The unusual mental exertion required by
+this he found very trying. His imperturbability would forsake him
+completely. On the first occasion he broke down altogether. "What can I
+do with figures?" he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks; "let me
+go back to my hills and forests; I am only a poor hunter. She brings
+out her little book and I shall not know how the piastres have gone,
+and she will think I have taken her piastres," and he laid his head on
+his knees and groaned aloud.
+
+When we became better acquainted, however, "hisab" (accounts) became a
+joke, though they always caused him to perspire profusely.
+
+At first my entire ignorance of the language made our intercourse over
+the account-book somewhat difficult. We would sit on the ground
+opposite one another, and Hassan would fumble in the folds of his belt
+until he had found his spectacles and his account-book.
+
+"Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki (very good), Effendim; yimurta (eggs), 2 piastres." I would write
+it down.
+
+"Yasdin me?"
+
+"Ne yasdin me?" (what is "yasdin me?").
+
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?"
+
+I have not the smallest idea what "yasdin me" means, but I pretend to
+write it down and then say:
+
+"How many piastres was it?"
+
+Hassan makes a gesture of despair.
+
+"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?" he repeats again.
+
+"X," I shout across the tent, "what does 'yasdin me' mean? I suppose
+it's some sort of food, only he won't tell me how many piastres it
+costs."
+
+"It means 'Have you written it?'" said X calmly.
+
+"Yasdin me?" repeats Hassan again.
+
+"Yes," I answer meekly.
+
+"Aha, now she know," says Hassan, and he mops his forehead vigorously.
+"I say 'Yasdin me' and she says, 'How many piastres?' Aman, aman!"
+
+"Peki, Effendim" (very good), he goes on. "Etmek (bread), 3 piastres.
+Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim. Et (meat), 12 piastres. Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim. Pilij (chicken), 3 piastres."
+
+"Ne Pilij?" (what is pilij?).
+
+"Pilij, _pilij_, PILIJ."
+
+"Yes, but what is it?"
+
+"Pilij, pilij--she doesn't know pilij, and she learns it every day."
+
+He begins to crow like a cock.
+
+"Oh yes, I know."
+
+"Ah, ah, now she knows! Peki; pilij 3 piastres. Have you written it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Peki, Effendim."
+
+And so we go on through all the items, and finally add up the total in
+our respective languages. By means of holding up our ten fingers a
+large number of times, we ascertain whether the results tally, for in
+those early days I could only count in Turkish up to twenty-nine, and
+knew the words for a hundred and a thousand. Then Hassan would give a
+great sigh, close his book, fold his spectacles, take off his fez, and
+wipe his head all over, and finally forget his troubles under the
+soothing influence of tobacco.
+
+[Illustration: ERECH. SYRIAN DESERT.]
+
+And so the days slipped away. At the end of six months we landed out of
+the Syrian desert into Damascus. An immense change came over Hassan
+when he was released from the anxieties of piloting us through
+impossible places and rumoured dangers. He became more boyish and
+cheerful and amused at everything. His first care on arriving at the
+end of our journey was, after spending several hours in a public bath,
+to go a clean and happy man to the Mosque, to return thanks to Allah
+for having brought us safely through.
+
+We had been to call at the consulate, and, as we drove up to the hotel
+on our return, I caught sight of Hassan in the street with a crowd
+round him; he was strutting up and down in his shirt-sleeves, with his
+head even more thrown back than usual and a wild look in his eye.
+
+"Good heavens," I said to X, "the Prince must have got into one of his
+tempers and killed a few people in the street," and I anxiously looked
+round for signs of gore. The Prince took no notice of us, but stalked
+up and down, the crowd making way before him with looks of awe.
+
+"What are we to do?" I said; "he looks as if he had gone off his head
+and would knock down any one who comes near him."
+
+"He does look like a prize-fighter," said X; "I have never seen him
+look like that before."
+
+Our cook was standing on the steps.
+
+"What is the matter with Hassan?" I said to him.
+
+The man stared.
+
+"Nothing," he said, "it's only his new shirt."
+
+We went inside, telling him to fetch Hassan to us.
+
+The Prince stalked into the room with the same air with which he had
+been stalking the streets, and stood in front of us with an excited and
+expectant expression.
+
+"The cook is right," said X; "it is his new shirt. He is overcome with
+pride and conceit; he is on parade, that's all."
+
+He certainly had something to be conceited about. The shirt was of fine
+silk in gorgeous yellow and red stripes; round his waist was a wide,
+bright-coloured kammerband, round his head a new keffiyeh flashed all
+the colours of the rainbow. Clean and shaven, his tight-fitting shirt
+showing up the strong outline of his muscular frame, he exhibited, to
+say the least of it, a striking spectacle.
+
+We were evidently expected to be overcome at the magnificence of his
+appearance, and certainly we did not disappoint him in this respect.
+
+"You are grand," said X to him in his own language; "you quite surprise
+us."
+
+Hassan put his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted up and down
+the room, speechless with delight.
+
+"Who would have thought you could be such a turkey-cock, you old
+gander!" I said in English.
+
+"What is she saying?" said Hassan to X.
+
+"She says you are just like a very magnificent bird we have in
+England," answered X.
+
+Hassan beamed triumphantly.
+
+"You have fine clothes," he said; "I must not disgrace you."
+
+"Is he always going about in his shirt-sleeves, I wonder?" I inquired.
+X asked him.
+
+"It is quite usual in my country not to wear a coat in hot weather," he
+said; "my coat is old and dirty, and my shirt is new and clean: why
+should I wear my coat?"
+
+And he rarely put it on again.
+
+He loved to see us in nice clothes, and took great delight in wandering
+about the bazaars with us buying presents for the "twenty-nine friends"
+in England. But we used to sigh over the good old camping days.
+
+"Hebsi bitdi" (all is over), he would say dolefully, when anything
+particularly brought them back to our thoughts.
+
+We rode down Palestine and took him over to Egypt with us. Evading with
+difficulty the importunities of Cook, and the rush of tourists on the
+beaten track, we tried to steal days which brought back a sense of our
+old free-and-easy times.
+
+But there came a day when there was an end to it all, an end to the
+long silent rides, an end to the quiet smokes in desert places, an end
+to the little daily jokes, an end to the serious talks and the foolish
+quarrels, an end to the Kallabalaks and the Keyfs.
+
+We stood on the steamer which was to take Hassan back to his old life
+in the forests of the Turkmendagh.
+
+"You will soon be going a long journey with some one else," said X
+cheeringly.
+
+Hassan shook his head.
+
+"No, indeed," he said; "I should take care not to go with two ladies
+again, and I shall not go with a man, for no man would be so much of a
+fool as to wish to go such a mad journey."
+
+The steamer gave vent to its first hideous whistle. We put our fingers
+to our ears.
+
+"Good-bight, little Padishah," he said, as we clasped hands for the
+last time; "good-bight. Go home to your friend in England; he will be
+glad to see you looking so fat."
+
+"Silly man," I said with a lump in my throat.
+
+"Silliman yok," he answered.
+
+The whistle blew again, we turned and went our different ways. If there
+had been a stone he would have thrown it after me; as it was, when I
+turned he made a face and shouted, "Istemen, istemen!"
+
+And now, looking back on those days, there rises invariably before us
+the memory of this companion in our many adventures--the memory of a
+simple-minded, honourable man, a trusted friend, a pleasant companion,
+and a devoted servant, who, whether he was sharing the discomforts and
+dangers of winter travel in a wild and lawless country, or experiencing
+the joyous freedom of the roaming desert life we loved so well, or
+enduring the terrors of critical and carping civilisation, invariably
+put us in the foremost place, and, without swerving an inch from the
+traditions of his race, never offended the susceptibilities of ours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+RETROSPECTIVE
+
+
+Last night we were dirty, isolated, and free; to-night we are clean,
+sociable, and trammelled. Last night the setting sun's final message
+written in flaming signs of gold was burnt into us, and the starry
+heights carried our thoughts heavenward and made them free as
+themselves. To-night the sunset passed all unheeded and we gaze, as we
+retire from the busy rush of the trivial day, at a never-ending,
+twisting, twirling pattern on the four walls that imprison us,
+oppressed by the confining ceiling of our room in the Damascus Palace
+Hotel.
+
+We are no longer princesses whose hands and feet are kissed, whose word
+is law, sharing the simple hospitality of proud and dignified wayfarers
+in desert kingdoms. Our word is law according to the depth of our
+purses, our hands and feet are kissed according to the height of our
+floor in the hotel. We are no longer in a land where men and women are
+judged by their capacities for being men and women: the cost of our
+raiment apportions our rank.
+
+We are now no longer amongst people to whom we say what we mean and are
+silent when we have nothing to say. We are in surroundings where to say
+what you mean is an offence, where silence is not understood and looked
+upon askance as an uncanny visitor. The less we have to say, the more
+we make an effort to say it; and the more we have to say, the greater
+the effort to suppress it.
+
+Everything seems unreal or unnecessary, everything is dressed up.
+
+All these people moving about, sitting still, in a hurry, catching
+trains, eating long dinners, dressing themselves, looking at each other
+dressed--what does it all mean? Was all this going on when we were in
+that other world which we have just left, that great silent world where
+everything was itself and big, and not confused by accessories? Was all
+this din and bustle going on? It is strange that we should have had no
+inkling of it, for it seems of so much importance to all these people,
+idle with a great restlessness; it seems essential to them.
+
+It is hard, too, to realise that that other world still exists out
+there in the distance, and that it would be quite possible to reach it
+by merely riding out on a camel. Can it indeed be true that the same
+sun which lights all these moving streets, these buyers and sellers,
+these catchers of trains, is lighting the desert out there as
+imperturbably as it lit us, journeying on after it day after day in the
+silent places; did it see all these people from its inaccessible
+height, and, sharing its gifts equally with them and with us, give us
+no hint of what it was looking down upon? It showed then no more favour
+to us than to these dwellers in towns, and yet was it not more to us?
+Were we not more conscious of its innumerable gifts; and did we not
+receive more from it as a result of our greater appreciation? No bars
+of windows, no roofy outlines, no sleepy oblivion hid the glory of its
+first appearance for us. As far as its rays could range, so far, and
+further, could we see. Not a pale silver thread or wiry line of gold,
+or faint reflection of its glowing colours on the opposite horizon, was
+lost to our vision; and, as we rode through the chilly morning air,
+were we not conscious of every separate ray of warmth as it grew and
+grew until we were bathed in its delicious heat, and all day it served
+as our sole guide, indicating direction in boundless space and hour in
+limitless time. No finger-posts, no winding up of clocks; only this sun
+with its fixed and unalterable decrees.
+
+The sun, then, we share, although apparently in divers degrees. But was
+not the moon more for us alone? For they can shut it out from their
+lives altogether. It, too, looked down upon this city, but not on the
+noise and chaos of it. As far as it was concerned all the bustlers were
+dead, buried away in their roofed houses behind their shuttered
+windows. The silence of night is the moon's heritage, and it exercises
+its autocratic sway to the full; it admits no disturbing rush or
+unseemly hurry beneath its gaze. What do they know of you who pull down
+blinds and light up the gas and dwell in curtained rooms? Accident may
+cause a benighted traveller to look at you with a passing sense of
+rest, a casual tossing sleeper may be half conscious of your charm, the
+weary toiler at the end of a long day may momentarily bless your
+soothing light, and in so far as they take hold of you they make
+themselves akin with us out there. But you are not a part of them, as
+you are a part of us; you do not enter into the very heart of their
+existence and carry their minds up, night after night, to the realms
+where you live serene and calm, making us forget the saddle rubs, the
+parching thirst, the driven sand, the fire that would not light, the
+kettle that would not boil--all the little near things, the things
+which matter so much in the day, and which you remind us do not matter
+at night. But here they matter so much more at night, all shut up with
+us inside these confining walls--inside these muslin curtains. The
+darkness and the enclosed space make them assume exaggerated
+dimensions; all the little trivialities in the room accentuate their
+importance. We see them cropping up again and again in that blue flower
+on the wall paper, or running round and round the red coils on the
+dado. We raise our eyes to heaven and encounter the fixed, inane smile
+of a painted lady with a wand, seated in a wreath of flowers. We shut
+our eyes, determined to forget her, but a terrible fascination makes us
+peep again and again, and always that same inane smile; and when at
+last the kindly shades of night hide it altogether in darkness, we are
+still conscious of her only, smiling away there, looking at us while we
+cannot see her. And all the time outside the steadfast moon and the
+stars eternally twinkling are telling the same tale that they told out
+in that other world, but we have shut them out and will not listen to
+their silent teaching.
+
+In vain the Prophet of the Desert has said:
+
+"And we have adorned the lower heaven with lamps and set them to pelt
+the devils with ... we touched the heavens, and found them filled with
+a mighty guard and shooting stars, and we did sit in certain seats
+thereof to listen; but whoso of us listens now finds a shooting star
+for him on guard."
+
+Emblems of all the great abiding truths have been set up on high,
+where, one would have thought, every poor, striving mortal could not
+fail to see them; vastness and distance is displayed as a rest to those
+wearied with the smallness and nearness of things; solidity and
+eternity are there to comfort the grievers over passing men and
+disappointed hopes; the kindly darkness which hides us intermittently
+from our fellows is pierced with points of guiding light. And yet we do
+not habitually, and as a matter of course, accept these gifts for which
+no price is asked; we go blundering on, intensifying the grim blackness
+of night by shutting ourselves up with it, surrounded with all the
+small things of earth, and this when we might forget them by reason of
+their very smallness in the vast distances of the vaulted heavens. It
+almost seems as though we would deliberately wish to hide from
+ourselves and each other the few simple sufficient laws of existence,
+for in this as in other things we not only avoid the truth but appear
+ashamed of it, and dress it up in every possible accessory of human
+invention.
+
+We dress everything up--our bodies, our minds, our food. I look down
+this long _table d'hote_, and what do I see? I see a crowd of people
+dressed up, exchanging dressed-up commonplaces, eating dressed-up
+food.
+
+I feel that nothing is real.
+
+But this unreality is so real that I ask:
+
+"Have, then, the unrealities, the non-essentials of existence become
+the realities, and have we, emerging from a world where only the
+essentials of existence concerned us, given them an undue importance?
+Coming out of a state of primitive civilisation, are we unable to
+appreciate the true meaning of our surroundings? These people wear the
+burdens of fashion so lightly, they talk these complicated nothings so
+simply, they toil so contentedly discontented through these endless
+disguised dishes: what is it behind it all that our minds cannot
+grasp?" I look again: I talk to them and they answer me; I eat another
+dressed-up dish. Here I feel a weary heart, there I touch a bored mind;
+now one gets a flash of intellect, now a gleam of soul, all alike so
+carefully wrapped up, and yet with a longing to be out. Why this
+unnatural dread of truth and simplicity? I am getting positively
+affected by it. I sit here amongst these smart people in my travelling
+clothes, and I confess to a new strange sense of discomfort in
+consequence. I feel ashamed of my old clothes. Opposite to me is a lady
+with a kindly face and a comfortable look about her; her mauve dress
+gives a pleasing sense of colour, but as she moves two beaded flaps
+keep jumping about, which detracts from the sense of repose suggested
+by her comfortable look; when she leans back an array of stitched beads
+catches on the carved projection of the chair, and she has to be
+disengaged by the waiter. Her sleeves drooping gracefully from the
+elbow require elaborate gymnastics to prevent them dipping into her
+plate as she eats, and twice they caught in the pepper-pot and
+overturned its contents on the floor. But she bore it all with a
+pleasant apologetic smile which called out my admiration for such a
+display of schooled temper under these trying circumstances. Then, with
+an unconscious transition of thought, I found myself comparing her to
+the Arab woman who brought the bowl of youart off which we supped last
+night. I recalled how I envied her the dignified carriage of her free
+unfettered form, the natural grace of her untrammelled manners. I
+recalled the simple graceful folds of her clinging single garment, so
+much a part of herself that she was quite unconscious of it, and I
+compare this lady trying to adapt herself to the elaborate creation in
+which she is enthralled. Long custom prevents her from realising how
+her form and movements are rendered artificial and ungraceful. As the
+Chinese lady, unconscious of her deformity in feet, would resent or
+wonder at our pity for her enslaved by the idea of a barbarous custom,
+so would my neighbour resent or wonder should I feel pity for her at
+this moment, equally a slave to a Western idea.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I glanced at my battered old coat and was pervaded with a sense of
+remorse at having been ashamed of it.
+
+Here, in the middle of this bewildering appearance of unreality, it
+was telling me of so many solid facts. How often had it not covered
+the aching pangs of hunger, and the satisfied sense of that hunger
+appeased; it had felt the thumping of my heart stirred by danger, or
+hastened by exhilarating motion; it had known the long-drawn breaths of
+quiet enjoyment at a peaceful scene. That tear was made on the rocks
+the day we climbed to the "written stone" at the top of the Boulghar
+Mountains, and I mended it one long quiet evening by the Euphrates. I
+lost this button the night we scrambled up to the castle at Palmyra, my
+little friend Maydi pulled me up a rock by it and it broke. That burnt
+mark was made by Mahmet, who dropped the live charcoal with which I was
+lighting my cigarette in the shaykh's hut at Harran. All this and more
+is what my coat says to me.... I am no longer ashamed of it. I feel
+sure if the kind lady opposite realised all this she would not regard
+me as an outcast, for there is something very honest about the coat.
+
+But I had got no further away from the feeling of unreality. I tried to
+recall what it had felt like to live in civilisation, but all I could
+remember was how difficult it had been to disentangle ourselves from
+it. While we were still in it, we had not known what we should want
+outside it. But, once outside, all these difficulties had disappeared:
+everything at once seemed to happen naturally; we missed nothing of the
+things we had left behind. And as it had been difficult while we were
+still in it to get disentangled from it, so now we experienced a
+difficulty in entering it again--a difficulty in once more taking up
+and using the things we had discarded for a time. It was as if we had
+never used them, so strange did they seem, and so little did we
+understand their meaning. Entering it differed, moreover, in this way
+from our entrance into the new life outside it; once in it nothing
+seemed to happen naturally. This was the more disconcerting since
+civilisation was not altogether a new world to us, in the sense that
+the other had been. We had spent many long years in it, and yet on
+returning we found it all strange and incomprehensible.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We rose and left the table. Hassan joined us at the door, and we all
+sat down on a red plush settee. Waiters hurried past us with trays of
+coffee and stronger drinks; ladies in bright colours rustled about the
+passage; and in the corners men in evening dress lounged and smoked.
+Hassan stroked the settee gingerly. "It is very soft," he said, "but
+the sand was better." Then he looked round and paused. "What are all
+these people doing?" he asked irritably; "why can't they sit down and
+be quiet. There is no quiet here; the sand was better." Earlier in the
+day he had been pleased with the bright colours and the sense of
+movement, but now they seemed to vex him.
+
+"Why do they keep on looking at us?" he went on; "is it because you are
+great Pashas?"
+
+"No," I answered, "they have no idea that we are great Pashas."
+
+"My countrymen in the desert looked at you because you were strangers
+from another country and they had not seen women like you before; but
+these are your own countrymen: why do they stare at you?"
+
+"It is because we are not dressed like them," I said; "we have not got
+our beautiful clothes yet; when these come they will no longer look at
+us."
+
+"But can they not see that you are travelling?" he said. "The people of
+my country, the Valis and the Kaimakams who prepared feasts for us,
+knew that you also had beautiful clothes in your own country."
+
+"Yes, but our travelling clothes are not quite the same as those worn
+by our countrymen here," I explained, "so they do not understand us."
+
+"But why," persisted Hassan, "should that cause them not to understand
+you?"
+
+"We all do alike in our country," I explained; "if one person wears no
+pockets and big sleeves, then we all do the same."
+
+"Who is this person then?" said Hassan; "he must be a very great
+Pasha."
+
+"We none of us know who he is," I said; "in fact, he is not any one
+particular person; it is more like a sort of jinn who spreads about an
+unwritten law."
+
+Hassan looked perplexed.
+
+"And are there no written words," he said, "to tell you the meaning of
+this law?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "the people in our land who have the most money write
+out the meaning of the law."
+
+"And if you do not follow the law, what then?"
+
+"Your fellow-creatures are rather afraid of you; they do not ask you to
+their feasts, neither do they give you places of command, however
+capable you may be."
+
+"Is it this jinn that makes your men wear the hard black hats and the
+tight black clothes?"
+
+I nodded assent.
+
+"And it is not only our clothes," I added; "the jinn says we may not
+think differently from other people, or if we do, we must hide it."
+
+"Is it a sin that your country has committed that it is thus
+condemned," he went on, "or is the jinn an evil spirit under whose
+curse it lies?"
+
+"We do not know," I said. "There are some of the younger men who are
+trying to discover; they do not do as the jinn says, and so they do not
+live happily amongst others; many of them live apart, and we call them
+cranks and are afraid of them."
+
+"Are they wicked men, then?"
+
+"No, they are good men as a rule, but in our country we do not
+understand the people who do not do what others do."
+
+"But if you all do the same," said Hassan, "how can you progress? We in
+the East have not changed our customs, so we do not progress. Do you
+never change then either, you in the West?"
+
+"We change very slowly," I answered, "because we tend to the thought
+that if a thing has always been, then it is good."
+
+"Aman, aman," said Hassan.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+ITINERARY OF JOURNEY
+
+
+ KONIA TO TARSUS.
+
+ Chumra.
+ Kisilkeui.
+ Karaman.
+ Adeteppe.
+ Buadjik.
+ Eregli.
+ Tchaym.
+ Ulu Kishla.
+ Boulghar Maden.
+ Chiftekhan.
+ Ak Kupru.
+ Gulek Boghaz.
+ A Khan.
+ Tarsus.
+
+(These stages are from 5 to 8 hours.)
+
+
+ ADANA TO DIARBEKR. (18 stages.)
+
+ Hours.
+ Missis 4 Small village with khan.
+ Hamidieh 4-1/2 Cotton-mills and town.
+ Kalakeui 5 Small Kurdish village.
+ Osmanieh 1-1/2 Town.
+ Bagtsche 6 Village.
+ Shekasskeui 5 Village with khan.
+ Avjilar 5 Small Kurdish village. No khan.
+ Aintab 5 Town.
+ Urral 5 Village with khan.
+ Birejik 5 Town. Ferry across Euphrates.
+ Abermor 6 Kurdish huts.
+ Karekeui 6 Kurdish huts.
+ Urfa 3-1/2 Town.
+ Sheksheligher 7 Khan.
+ Mismischen 7 Large khan.
+ Severek 6 Town.
+ Kaimach 7 Large khan.
+ Gergeli 6 Small Kurdish village.
+ Diarbekr 3-1/2
+
+
+ BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS. (27 stages.)
+
+ Hours.
+ Menasseyeh No village.
+ Fellujah 6 Village on Euphrates.
+ Rumadeyeh 6 Village on Euphrates.
+ _Hit_ 10 Town on Euphrates.
+ Bagdadi 8 Ruined water-mill on Euphrates.
+ Hadittah 8 Village on Euphrates.
+ Fukaymeh 6-1/2 Large khan on Euphrates.
+ _Ana_ 7 Town on Euphrates.
+ Niteyah 8 Guard-house on Euphrates.
+ Gayyim 9-1/2 Guard-house on Euphrates.
+ Abu Kamal 5 Village on Euphrates.
+ Salihiyyeh 7 Khan with a few Arab huts.
+ Micardin 9-1/2 Village.
+ Deir-el-Zor 7 Town.
+ Pools of
+ brackish water 2-1/2
+ Guard-house 8 Well of bad water.
+ Bir Jeddid 8 Well of bad water.
+ Suknak 9 Village with hot sulphur springs.
+ Erek 8-1/2 Village.
+ Tadmor 6 Palmyra.
+ Baytha 6 Khan with bad water.
+ Gusayr 16 (Camping-place half-way, where water
+ is found early in the year).
+ Karietein 7 Village.
+ Nasariyeh 12 Village.
+ Kutayfah 5 Village.
+ Guard-house 2
+ Damascus 4
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's By Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb
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