A Dweller in Mesopotamia / Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden

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ou go up the Shatt-el-Arab, if not actually the winner according to statistics, comes out top in popular estimation. Its proximity to the scorching desert, its choking dustiness and its depressing isolation, are characteristi

all the land here it is cultivated as long as it borders the river and thickly planted with date groves. Then lies a nonde

of effect every evening, and night rushed down, bringing respite from this heat; for it is happi

Fao, the fort that commanded the entrance to the Shatt-el-Arab, within a few days of the opening of hostilities. They had imagined it such a formidable obstacle to our approach that they were thrown suddenly on their beam ends when we took it. Consequently they could not keep us out of Abadan, but fell back on Beit Naama vainly attempting to block the river by sinking ships. One of the hulks,

RSIA, THE

begin m

looking very much as usual. The smoke was smoking, the pumps were pumping, the works we

ght have belonged to Sinbad the Sailor himself was making slow headway before the failing breeze under a huge sp

works wriggled in long reflection in the water. A spell of enchantment seemed to lie over everything, and the faint

rt again in spite of all the coxswain's efforts. Consequently we were drifting about on the stream and likely to be swept down by the ebb tide. We were unfortunately on the far side of the river

ks of tall i

t our lungs could do. Timing our shouts together, the coxswain and I, we sent up a tremendous hail to th

He took us in tow, carried me off to his bungalow, arranged about the boat being berthed and looked after till the morning,

works, oil, one in number-sketched in triplicate-why, my Lords Commissioners will be awfully bucked. They'

ading w

works while I could distinguish tanks from palm trees. So we went out and had a preliminary look round,

that it is cooked or distilled over furnaces and converted into different grade oils from petrol to heavy fuel oil. As a spectacle, however, I found a journey through this weird region most fascinating and mysterious. At night it appears as

. At first our road ran along the quays by the river side. A camouflaged Admiralty oiler was loading fuel oil by means of three pipes that looked like the tentacles of an octopus

ly just enough to get used to the feel of the ground as a preliminary to what was coming later. It had rained heavily two or three days before, consequently there were lake districts, slimy reaches of mixed oil and mud and dried, hard-loo

s-looking fu

at asset in getting along. The Chief was quite a Blondin. He could walk or run any length of pipe and never swerve. Much practice had m

ecognizable as a human being. All fear of making myself in a worse mess had vanished, and thus, freed from nervousness, I began to get quite daring. The Chief saw in me the making of

emerged from the lake region and were able to find a track along the ground. It skirted a railway line an

evolved by Titans whe

imneys stretching out of sight into the dark sky. The whole thing, weird and eerie, was reflected in pools of water, through which black figures toiled and splashed, pushing some loaded trollies. Then we came out

ing or some such rough material in a sort of tunic. They wore lo

these men?" I a

edes and Persia

t is tha

onds, "that's Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery

association. I think, however, he missed a chance when later on we saw mysterious writing in Arabic charac

NE OF THE MONITO

into the darkness where the sky-line of the palm belt by the waterside was just visible. It is strange to reflect that all this sce

on had shrunk into quite a small buttressed building of brick and Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace dwindled considerably in size. The

theatricals I will tell you how to do it, in case you should find the

Wear long black curly hair to shoulder. Put plenty of grease on. Then knock handle off a round-bottomed saucepa

pattern, yet so strangely unlike modern machinery do they seem that I find myself wondering if I have gone back into some previous age and unearthed strange things of prehistoric antiquity. These solemn-looking turbaned Indians might be tending the first un