IN MESOPOTAMIA

BY

MARTIN SWAYNE

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

ILLUSTRATIONS

IN MESOPOTAMIA

I

THE GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN

There is nothing to suggest that you are approaching the gateway of the Garden of Eden when you reach the top of the Persian Gulf, unless the sun be that Flaming Sword which turns every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Of cherubim we could see no signs. We lay motionless awaiting orders by wireless. Of the country before us we knew next to nothing. We did not grasp that the great river at whose mouth we lay was called the Shatt-el-Arab and not the Tigris; and I do not think that a single one of us possessed a copy of the "Arabian Nights." Few of us knew anything about the gun-running troubles in the Persian Gulf of recent years, and of the exploits of the Royal Indian Marine.

The approach to the Shatt-el-Arab is remarkably featureless. After the stark fissured coast hills of Persia and the strip of red Arabian coast that marks Kuweit, the mouth of the river appeared as a yellow line on the horizon intersected by the distant sails of fishing boats. At the bar where the sand has silted, a few steamers were lying. A steam yacht flying the White Ensign, with a pennant that trailed almost down to her decks, showing the length of service she had seen, passed us and dropped her anchor a mile to the south. The silence was only broken by the clacking of the fans in the saloon. One gazed listlessly west wards at the quivering haze that veiled Kuweit. There was a rumour that the ship's launch was going there with a party of nurses and a sharp voice sounded: "Nobody allowed on shore without a helmet." But it was too hot to move. At length a fishing boat emerged from the haze and slowly approached, rowed by four Arabs. It drew alongside, a spot of vivid colour against the dark sea. In it were half a dozen big fish. The Arabs began to harangue the occupants of the lower deck. We watched them curiously, perhaps wondering if they had poisoned the fish. The Tommies stared at them in silence. They were the first inhabitants of the country that we had seen.

The business of transhipping at the bar is a burden to all concerned. A steamer of shallower draught came alongside, and the derricks started to grind and clatter, and the big crates swung up from one hold and plunged down into the other for hour after hour. A squall arose and the ships had to part company and we lay for two days tossing and rolling in a dun-coloured atmosphere. Then once more we joined up, and the unloading continued of the four hundred tons of equipment, which had already been dumped on shore at Alexandria. It is a costly business bringing out a hospital to these parts. About midday we weighed anchor on the new ship, and crept up the channel over the bar. There were no gas buoys to mark its course, and Fao, which lies near the mouth of the river, had no lighthouse, so night traffic was presumably impossible.

The sudden sight of the belts of palm trees, the occasional square mud dwellings, and the steamy, hot-house look of the banks came as a surprise. Those of us who had been to the Dardanelles had half expected that this end of Turkey would be much like the other—broken country and sandy scrub, with hills. But here is only a broad swift river, a strip of vivid green verdure, and beyond the immense plain stretching to the horizon. In the stream was a small tug bearing the letters A.P.O.C. At Abadan we saw the big circular tanks of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company where the oil from Ahwaz, which travels through miles of piping, is refined. Above Abadan, which is just a cluster of circular tanks, slender chimneys and square houses on the arid plain, with a mass of barges lining the numerous wharfs, we passed Mohammerah. On the opposite bank—the west bank is called the right bank—you can see the Turkish trenches where they opposed our first advance among the palms at the battle of Sahil on November 16th, 1914, with a force of five thousand men and twelve guns. The ground is intersected with narrow creeks cut for irrigation purposes; and the trenches form little crescent-shaped depressions almost hidden by the reeds and grasses. From the ship it looks a lush green country here, for there are rice fields dotted about and the river broadens out and surrounds an emerald island. Our 4,000 ton vessel swept up-stream at a speed of ten knots, with a great wash spreading behind her, and her funnels towering high above the palms. Our destination was reached at six in the evening, about sixty miles from the mouth of the river, and the whole way up the scene had been practically unvarying—river and plain, and countless palms. We had passed the vessels sunk by the Turks to bar the progress of the original expedition. Masts and a funnel are visible, standing clear of the main channel.

Basra was like coming on a bit of the London Thames from a distance. Lines of big ships appeared suddenly, round a bend of the river, anchored in mid-stream. There were hospital ships, cargo vessels, transports, war-ships, monitors, tugs, river boats, oil-driven lighters—the ones we made the landing from at Suvla, with a coat of new paint and the letters ML instead of K—barges, launches, native dhows—which travel to Mombasa and Bombay—and innumerable lesser craft. Basra itself lies up a creek, and is invisible from the river. What you see on the shore is properly called Ashar, but the two places merge into one another. Owing to the absolute flatness of the country, a sense of smallness is produced everywhere. There is no background to give perspective, and the great breadth of the sable river dwarfs the shore.

We dropped anchor a little below the town, near Korah creek. It was Sunday and at that time it was still the custom of the inhabitants of Basra to collect on the banks of the creek and hold a kind of social parade from which the suggestion of a slave market was not entirely absent. There was a continual procession of boats and painted belums, the native gondola, long and narrow, with curved ends, and either rowed or poled by two belumchis. In them were fair-skinned, unveiled women with many bangles on their arms, wearing robes of dark brilliant hues. On the shore, under the palms, wandered a crowd of white-robed Arabs, with red or blue turbans. Occasionally one saw a khaki uniform. It was intensely hot and damp. A haze lay over the further reaches of the river, and the sky had a brassy look unlike the intense turquoise clarity of the Egyptian sky. The palm fronds seemed metallic. As far as the eye could see along the right bank lay a confused mass of low white buildings, tents, huts of yellow matting and piles of stores. Gangs of Arabs and Indian coolies were at work at the low wooden landing stage, and over the scene towered the gaunt masts of the wireless station. The left bank was chiefly palm grove, save for a gap where stood a big building taken over by our flying men.

A military authority came on board, wondering whether we were a cargo of wood or mules. A hospital had not been expected, and we passed the next day in idleness. On the third day our four hundred tons of stuff were swung off into mahallas, the native barges, which are wide craft decorated with carving and paint, both stem and stern pointed and high out of the water, and amidships close down to the water-line. The Arabs squatting on the painted poops of these ships seemed sullen. They looked as cut-throat a lot as you could desire. When the boats were loaded up they drifted off, and by means of a tattered bit of sacking for a sail, and a long pole, managed to reach their destination somehow. It was curious to see these primitive craft filled with the black cases of the precious X-ray plant.

The creeks round Ashar branch off at right angles to the Shatt-el-Arab at intervals of a few hundred yards, and extend for two or three miles inland. They are broad and richly bordered with palms and pomegranate. In places a network of vines festoons the trunks. A yellow tinge in the heart of the palms showed the coming crop of dates. Seen in a picture these creeks are idyllic, winding broad, calm and peaceful through the groves. Slim boats glide up and down them, nut-brown children splash in them, and women, veiled in black, come from the little villages to draw water in brass vessels at their margins with graceful movements.

We landed from a roomy barge with a tug fastened alongside. The men were cheery, and a mouth-organ and a mandoline wafted us on. Something dark and indeterminate swept by on the swift current. It was said to be the body of a dead Turk, bound for the Persian Gulf, after its voyage of two hundred odd miles from Kut. We landed, uncomfortably hot. The men fell in and we prepared to march off. A swarthy Arab, in red and white headgear held in position by two thick rings of camel hair, wearing curved slippers and saffron-coloured robes, stood scowling before us, spitting at intervals. A group of sappers near by seemed unaffected by his behaviour. The scowl and the spitting seem merely habits, induced by the country. But it is necessary to orientate oneself very carefully in the East. A long tramp followed up Dusty Lane, between scorching mud walls. We passed dirty booths, naked children with frizzy hair, thin faced women with swaggering hips, and occasional military police in shirt-sleeves carrying thick sticks. The sight of a large cat sitting in a niche, blinking in that excellent manner of inward ecstasy, was cheering. On, beyond the town the march continued, the sweat pouring off us, and tunics becoming stained with dark patches—through the camp area, past Indian troops; past horses, tossing and switching, surrounded by clouds of flies; past bullocks, huge, delicately pastel-tinted beasts, sprawling under the feathery palms; past screaming mules, motor lorries, wayside canteens and squads of men, until Makina Plain came in sight. It was in this neighbourhood that our site lay, alongside a creek where a liquorice factory had been in the days of peace. The first impression was desolating. The place looked like a bricklayer's yard. A glance was sufficient to estimate it would take many long weeks before it was completed for use. Several large iron-roofed sheds stood by the water's edge. Gangs of Arabs were at work; strings of donkeys carrying mud raised the dust in heavy clouds; carpenters in blue trousers hammered and sawed; planks, bricks, barrels of concrete, and piles of matting littered the ground: and upon all the vertical rays of the sun beat down unmercifully. The creek was full of the mahallas that had brought up our equipment, and for the rest of that day our men toiled and sweated over the crates and boxes, and bedsteads and bales of blankets, singing in monotone a rhythmic refrain in imitation of the native coolies when carrying loads. The native chants are simple.