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

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Billy in

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Haroun-al-Raschid. We expect so much when we come to the real Baghdad, and we find so little-so little, that is, of the glamour of the East. Few "costly doors flung open wide," but a great deal of dirt. Few dark eyes of ravishingly beautiful women peering coyly through

at a time, the odd one out meanwhile augmenting the chorus, and sang a few verses of a song to a tune that can only be described as a Gregorian chant with squiggly bits thrown in. Of course I was unable to understand the words, but can bear witness to the fact that the tune did not vary the whole evening, and every gesture and attitude of the singer was exactly the same again and again as she went through the performance, and the dance which concluded each six or eight verses was

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two days. The railway does not run the whole way. The journey from Amara to Kut sounds a mere link across the river, as the full name of Kut is Kut-el-Amara, and most people naturally suppose Amara is part of Kut. This is another Amara, however. The Amara from which we embark for Kut, a day's journey in a fast boat, is a large camp, and quite a town for Mesopotamia, captured from the

t is drawn from the site of the famous liquorice factory, which is now represented by a few mud heaps and one rusted piece of machinery. The long arcade with

KUT FROM THE RUINS OF

empire. It is said that the city grew till it covered some 25 square miles, reaching its high-water mark of splendour and magnificence under

l the Turkish nomadic tribes from Central Asia came on to

century. But Chingiz Khan, the Mongol, appeared on the scene, and his son and successor, Ogotay, overran the Caucasu

he Shiah Mussulmans. Kerbela and Nejef are the great places of burial for the faithful, and among the common sig

ues on domes and minarets, but it is not until you see the golden towers of Khadamain that you get any glimpse of the splendour of the golden prime of good Haroun-al-Raschid. Khadamain is a great place of pilgrimage, and so zealously guarded is the place

flected in the flooded lagoons at the margin of the river, do indeed give us something of the colour