LOUISA JEBB (MRS. ROLAND WILKINS) (continued 3)

"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. Amān—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.

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?

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.

"Amān, amān. 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.

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."